“Digital Employee Experience Management Deals With the Quality of the Experience That End Users Have When They Interact With Applications, Websites, and Other Online Services.”
Hi, Yoni, please tell us about your role and the team / technology you handle at ControlUp. How did you reach here?
As Chief Operating Officer at ControlUp, I manage all customer-facing teams: professional services, customer support, sales, and customer success. I am also responsible for our products’ compliance with security regulations. I started my career as a Citrix reseller and as an implementer of complex projects where I experienced, first-hand, the pain points of system administrators. Our customers complained about a lack of real-time visibility across the technology stack, so we developed a tool that closed the gap, and in no time, our customers became addicted.
How did your role evolve through the pandemic months? How did your previous experiences with technology management help you scale your efforts and meet unprecedented challenges?
In February and March, everyone was in panic mode. We thought we would have to trim back, but by the end of March, we saw companies expand overnight and shift from having just 20% to their entire workforces working remotely.
The number of sessions our customers monitor with ControlUp doubled. It wasn’t just a matter of more licenses and professional services; the digital employee experience also became critical to business success. The increased importance of visibility into the home network resulted in us adding this functionality to our latest product release.
Tell us more about your remote working technology stack and how has it evolved in the last 2-3 years?
Earlier this month, we announced that we now provide real-time user experience monitoring for all modern workloads, including virtual desktops (VDI) and applications, SaaS apps, web apps, as well as physical endpoints running Windows, macOS, Linux or IGEL OS, all in a unified platform, ensuring that employees have a superior digital experience wherever they work. Â We added visibility into home network Wi-Fi signal strength and speed, as well as user device ISP connectivity measurements. The platform also provides synthetic testing to proactively assign system resources to prevent performance degradation and in-depth virtualization of all the layers of connectivity, with access to one year of historical data for quicker diagnosis and remediation.
What is the most contemporary definition of ‘Digital Employee Experience (DEX) management in 2021? How are these standards different for the various components in the IT landscape?
Digital Employee Experience (DEX) management deals with the quality of the experience that end users have when they interact with applications, websites, and other online services. As the employee endpoint becomes a critical asset and networks become more complex, distributed, and hybrid in nature, more assets need to be tracked. Metrics to create a digital experience score include CPU usage, Wi-Fi strength and speed, login durations, and so on. The graphic below captures the key touchpoints.
Tell us more about your recent Work from Anywhere promise. How did you strategically forge partnerships with the leading players in the industry?
Tell us more about your recent Work from Anywhere promise. How did you strategically forge partnerships with the leading players in the industry? Our close relationship with the Citrix and the CTP (Citrix technology professionals) community, and our participation in conferences gave us inroads into the Citrix community, where we grew our customer base. After one year of diligent testing—which is unprecedented in the industry—in spring 2020, we entered into a partnership with VMware where ControlUp would become the recommended solution for VMware Horizon users. In the case of IGEL, the business followed the endpoints, where we became a preferred partner based on our success monitoring their devices.
How do you leverage Cloud Computing, AI and Machine Learning to improve your analytics and customer experience?
From Day One, ControlUp was a hybrid cloud solution, hosting the backup servers that store data about how companies troubleshoot and remediate performance issues. We analyze these inputs, using machine learning, to filter out the noise and then make recommendations for all our customers to promote best practices.
Tell us more about the hiring trends in the tech industry. What kind of talent / skills do you hire for in your company to lead Product and Marketing goals?
Turnover was lower during the pandemic, but as the virus recedes, we are seeing more people willing to make a move. We look for candidates who have a positive attitude, present a good vibe, and who are open and honest. Because our product is technical, we also look for people who have a passion for technology and are eager to learn.
Tag a person from the industry whose answers you would like to see here:
Simon Townsend, CMO at IGEL Technology
Thank you, Yoni! That was fun and we hope to see you back on itechnologyseries.com soon.
[To participate in our interview series, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries.com]
Yoni Avital is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at ControlUp, a Digital Employee Experience management platform, that delivers real-time performance metrics, as well as deep, focused analytics for virtual desktops, applications, and physical endpoints. He manages all of the company’s customer-facing teams: professional services, customer support, sales, and customer success. Avital is also responsible for ControlUp’s compliance with security protocols. He has close to twenty years of experience creating innovative solutions that provide real-time visibility into technology stacks, as well as forging partnerships with industry leaders such as Citrix, VMware and IGEL. Prior to forming ControlUp, Yoni served as an SBC expert at Commart Technologies, and was a project manager at A.N.C, the first Citrix distributor in Israel.
ControlUp’s Digital Employee Experience management platform gives IT increased visibility and control over employees’ digital experience, no matter where they work—in the office, from home or on the road—or the type of workspace they use: virtual, physical or cloud. ControlUp analytics harnesses anonymous operational metadata from thousands of organizations to help IT and help desk teams make informative, data-driven decisions. Headquartered in Silicon Valley with R&D in Israel, ControlUp is backed by JVP and K1 Investment Management.
