< Previous| tribalnetonline.com40PROJECT PLANNING | UPGRADESBYRICHARD RADER CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER,UMPQUA INDIAN DEVELOPMENT CORP.Richard Rader’s organization provides all IT support to the businesses inside the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Indians. In 2012, the IT organization was restructured from just the casino and some businesses to overseeing all IT operations for the tribe. Richard has a staff of 20 Technologists over two different geographical locations supporting over 1,200 employees in the various businesses and government along with a tribal membership of over 1,300. The tribal history of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians is quite impressive and shows the resilience of the people and their culture moving forward. The story is located on the website at: http://www.cowcreek.com/tribalgovernment/tribal-story. This resource shows how the tribe was forced to disband and collectively were able to reinstate their rights and work as a cooperative partner with the community.ABOUT THE AUTHORLeading the technology of a casino and resort can have many difficult challenges. One of the most significant of those is when it’s time to upgrade your main gaming system. Recently, our operation chose to upgrade to the latest from International Game Technology (IGT). Successfully coordinating the resources, business units, feature enhancements, staffing, and the partner can be daunting but our recent upgrade resulted in less than 10 minutes of floor-wide outage for all services. This was a GREAT SUCCESS STORY!Let’s back up. Before upgrade time, it took us nearly 24 months to first evaluate the different systems available. We visited all the major partners and then traveled to their selected customers to see first-hand the operations and systems at work. We visited customers in California, New Mexico, and Nevada to see what was available and what the operations experience was with the process and product. At last we stayed with IGT and selected to upgrade our existing system from a version released in 2008 to the latest version released in October 2017. Once the decision was made, it really was the partnership with IGT that made the upgrade such a success. I say “partnership” and not reliance on the vendor because in the end, this is our product and our system. We needed to be engaged at every step of the process. FIRST in our path for a successful upgrade was to fully understand the product. The partner configured a remote lab for our team members to test their daily functions against in order to verify all the product features they rely on daily would work as expected. When a feature didn’t seem to exist, the partner supported our site by providing guidance on how to perform the function. The business units had a specified date to sign off on the functionality. SECOND was to perform the upgrade analysis with the partner. We did require the partner perform the upgrade on our site for our evaluations as well as doing the upgrade in their own labs. Once the upgrade was performed we evaluated the results and took any and all actions as needed pre-upgrade. During the upgrade process, all the timings were recorded so we could have a baseline for the project upgrade. The documentation at this point in time became the single most valuable item to determine the go-live schedule as well giving us a critical path and potential mitigation strategies. UPGRADEPLANNING IS THE KEY TO SUCCESSFULLY UPGRADING YOUR MAIN GAMING SYSTEMSTHIRD was to use the upgrade performed on site with our data for our team members to spend time using the system. This included having a similar SAS Protocol game in the lab which would be representative of the gaming floor. This allowed the entire staff to use the functions including the game activities to verify and train on. Each business unit was then required to sign off on the product prior to go-live. FOURTH was to confirm the schedule with the partner as we well as the business units. Once the schedule was agreed to, the project plan was developed and communicated. At this point in the upgrade process, there were roadblocks and hiccups with understandings and commitments. Because of our collaborative approach in pre-planning, we were able to align as a team with our partner as well as our own business operations to develop a successful strategy.FINALLY came the go-live day. During this phase, we had already worked out communication plans, coordination, onsite resources from the partner as well as our own onsite resources. The actual go-live looked more like a fine orchestra with many moving parts all working together to the final note. When it was all over we only used 10 of the 30 minutes we had arranged as anticipated floor outage. The business celebrated the success by taking the entire IT organization out to dinner including their significant others as a way to recognize the excellent effort! Our partner in this endeavor did a great job even at times when we were not completely aligned. Through the diligent work of the team, alignment was ultimately achieved. The upgrade was extremely smooth and all parties including our partner were ecstatic about the outcome. The process was so successful for our business that we were allowed to continue with the onsite lab for support and training of all new staff members. Our business definitely sees the value in our IT organization to accomplish a large undertaking with a minimal disruption to operations. Post go-live became the real work for the IT Team. The new products and systems required knowledge base articles to be written and system definition documents to be updated. We will never be finished with our documentation as it is a living organism and is constantly being tested and information captured to make the entire IT organization successful. But for now, we celebrate!tribalnetonline.com |41All CXOs, SVPs, VPs, Department Heads are Welcome to Join Us!Contact jeannie@mygamingandleisure.comto reserve your seat and learn more at www.mygamingandleisure.com.October 7th& 8th, 2018Property Executives•A vast majority of gaming & hospitality technology spend in North America in attendance•Hosts the most gaming CIOs in one private forum in North America•Unique peer forum•Share best practices•Leverage knowledge•Solidify relationships •Maintain connections throughout the yearFEATURE | TRIBALNETONLINE.COM| tribalnetonline.com42Q+A with Gaming Industry TitansWe asked four GAMING INDUSTRY TITANS the questions that are on the minds of decision makers in gaming — hear what these four providers had to say. Tell us something cool that your company showcased this year Aristocrat says: Aristocrat’s Oasis 360 system was recognized in Casino Journal’s Top 20 Most Innovative Gaming Technology Awards 2017 for the F&B mobile solution Drinks on Tap. It utilizes the nCompass player tracking module, a server mobile app, and a bartender mobile app all tied to the operator’s Oasis 360 and POS systems to streamline drink orders placed at the EGM. This improves customer service to players and increases efficiencies across the casino floor. Enterprises can now allow patrons to redeem and earn at any venue on property including F&B outlets, hotels, spa, etc. Oasis Loyalty allows any enterprises to manage all aspects of loyalty in a single location including events, transportation, earning rules, and enrollment.Scientific Games says: This year our gaming systems department joined forces with our lottery side of the business to create “Player Boutique”. This unique, one of a kind system that will allow operators to use the Bally Promotional Kiosk to engage customers to take part of gift programs with our lottery division completing the gift fulfillment. Player Boutique allows players to participate in a promotion at the kiosk; for example, a gift of the week or holiday gift shop style promotion during a strategic period to drive visits. Eligible player will receive a message at the kiosk that informs them they have been selected to participate, and they can then either select from an array of gifts, or just one gift. The system will auto-populate the address of the player (or players have the option to edit their address or enter the address of a friend). Each night, a fulfillment report is run and the gift list is sent to the SG lottery division for fulfillment- to be shipped to the home of the player! For properties that have the Bally Promotional Kiosk on Display Manager, players will be able to shop at the point of play!IGT says: IGT is very passionate about our TRUE 4D product family, as it represents the important evolution of the gaming floor, and is an example of how IGT leveraged technology to propel the player experience. We introduced the SPHINX 4D game at many casinos throughout the U.S. and in several casinos in Europe, and will spotlight the next game in our TRUE 4D portfolio at NIGA - Ghostbusters 4D.Konami says: A key component of Konami’s SYNKROS® casino management system is True-Time Windowing™, which empowers casinos to deploy an array of incentives, bonuses, notifications, streaming video, marketing promotions, custom branding, and more, directly onto video slot screens without interrupting game play. Improving upon its documented success, we recently launched enhancements including HD/portrait screen compatibility, service requests, and web services that allow operators to deliver any HTML site/program to slot screens.What do you see as the most exciting technology or innovation (new or future) that will energize our industry and excite customers?Aristocrat says: Aristocrat and our Oasis 360 system team believe as gaming evolves so too will guest interaction. We believe mobile devices will be incredibly important for BILL.BACHMANBill.Bachman@scientificgames.com702-403-2053GENERAL INQUIRIESInfo@IGT.com702-669-8177THOMAS.CASTLEBERRYThomas.Castleberry@aristocrat.com 702-599-6796JAY BERTSCHsales@konamigaming.com1-866-KGI-INFOREVENUE DRIVING TECHnew and coolinnovationtribalnetonline.com |43TRIBALNET MAGAZINE | SPRING 2018players club, offers, bonusing, interactive gaming, rewarding and mobile wallets.Scientific Games says: Player Boutique is going to allow one of the most integral parts of player incentive programs- the gift program, (weekly, monthly or seasonally) to live at the point of play or at the kiosk, and will add a new layer of automation, fun, and excitement. Gone are the days where players will have to wait in lines for their gifts, with operators having to find “spare rooms” to store mounting piles of gifts and hire on last minute help to help direct foot traffic at the casino and manually check guests into gift events. Player Boutique is the solution that will allow for end-to-end gift fulfillment, increase time on device, and reduce the time spent in queues.IGT says: Our partners at Station Casinos have demonstrated a healthy appetite for innovation with their deployment of a variety of IGT solutions. Station implemented Cardless Connect, which enabled players to utilize their mobile devices to card into the Station loyalty program. This important partner is also in the midst of a highly successful player promotion that leverages IGT Advantage, Service Window and our bonusing app Carded Lucky Coin to advance the Wheel of Fortune brand and gameplay through a comprehensive marketing promotion.Konami says: SYNKROS’ latest innovations is a hybrid card reader/NFC authentication method that offers several ways for players to connect to their account at the machine, including personal mobile device, room key, fob, and traditional players card. This multi-channel solution allows casinos to reach more players using the technology conveniences already interlaced through their daily life and the guest experience.Share with us something that is unique about your system that makes it superior and the best choice for any casino property?Aristocrat says: Aristocrat’s Oasis 360 system is unique because it is a true end-to-end solution for operators looking for a casino management system. Oasis 360 provides operators with solutions for loyalty, mobile, kiosk, table management, media management, progressive management, extensive bonusing, and all core functions needed for accounting and operations.Scientific Games says: With Scientific Games having a diverse offering of divisions- from the systems to lottery side, we have the unique positioning to offer a fully customized solution to fit what every operator is looking for in a gift program. The Promotional Kiosk Gift Module allows players to select gifts and have them shipped (either from the standalone kiosk or kiosk on the Display Manager at the gaming machine) which eliminates the need to keep inventory on site. When it comes to smart value sourcing, our lottery division fulfills gifts for state lotteries nationally and has the relationships needed for the best competitive pricing. Finally, the time of the player is maximized on site as they no longer have to wait in line for their gifts, and can have them shipped where they please using the kiosk program.IGT says: IGT Advantage is our flagship casino management system (CMS). The product’s scalability and modular design enable our customers to deploy a suite of IGT systems solutions that are custom-tailored to their individual business needs. We continue to introduce new bonusing apps and mobile functions to IGT Advantage that assist our customers in creating extremely personalized player promotions, driving efficiencies and expanding their casino-to-player communication channels.Konami says: As one of the industry’s leading casino management systems, SYNKROS is best known for its 99.9% high availability, player tracking at the game-level, innovative marketing tool kit, and robust tracking of gaming and non-gaming data. Casino properties of all varieties select SYNKROS to power their business because it has the agility and core strength to power leading-edge solutions across diverse competitive markets.We all want to monetize technology to drive new revenue. How are you helping your customers achieve this? Aristocrat says: Aristocrat’s Oasis Loyalty solution helps customers achieve new revenue using technology by connecting the entire enterprise to provide a 360 degree view of each patron. Enterprises can now allow patrons to redeem and earn at any venue on property including F&B outlets, hotels, spa, etc. Oasis Loyalty allows any enterprises to manage all aspects of loyalty in a single location including events, transportation, earning rules, and enrollment.Scientific Games says: Player Boutique eliminates the manual work from the traditional gift program. Especially when used at the Display Manager at the gaming device, Player Boutique will drive player loyalty through enforcing the value of the casino loyalty club brand, create a seamless experience for the player (base game play is not interrupted when completing gift selection at the game) and players will have the choice of where their gift will be shipped. Gift programs can be set up based on earning and custom gift lists can be uploaded, which make Player Boutique a great way to incentivize play.IGT says: IGT’s systems business is an area where technology and revenue have proved to have a direct correlation. We have customers around the world who can vouch for IGT Advantage’s capabilities in helping them achieve significant business KPIs.Konami says: Konami continues to enhance and expand its development lifecycle to give SYNKROS properties a competitive edge and ensure a unique gaming experience for their patrons. Whether it’s a floor-wide progressive bonus, on-demand slot tournament, or individually customized player incentives, SYNKROS helps deliver the right reward at the right time to achieve greater results and patron satisfaction. SYNKROS helps properties to differentiate the gaming experience on their floor. Attend this year’s TribalNet conference to meet with representatives from companies like these in the tribal gaming industry! Hear about new & cool technologies, future industry trends, innovation in gaming and what revenue generating technologies are out there so you aren’t leaving money on the table. Collect information that can help you solidify why you have made the best choice for your major gaming system and be able to evaluate what else is available. It’s not too early to register at tribalnetonline.com!FEATURE | TRIBALNETONLINE.COM| tribalnetonline.com44TECHNOLOGY | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEAITHE NEXT FRONTIERFrom Siri and Alexa to robots delivering the USB cable that you ordered on Amazon, artificial intelligence is all around us and has inundated our daily lives. As AI technology continues to advance at a rapid pace, it will progressively permeate our society and culture. There are many benefits to the use of AI, but there are also many pitfalls. The current governance structures are primitive to non-existent even as the technology is growing by leaps and bounds. It is vital that we take time to address the ethics of AI innovation and implementation in our world. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) — USES, FUNCTIONS AND TYPESIntelligence can be defined as having the following: the capacity to perceive contexts for action, the capacity to act, and the capacity to associate contexts to actions. Things that exhibit any of these properties are examples of AI. At a very high level, artificial intelligence can be split into two broad types: narrow AI and general AI. Narrow AI is very prevalent today and includes intelligent systems that have been taught how to carry out specific tasks without being explicitly programmed. This type of machine intelligence is evident in the speech and language recognition of the Siri virtual assistant on the Apple iPhone, in the vision-recognition systems on self-driving cars, and in the recommendation engines that suggest products you might like based on what you bought in the past. Unlike humans, these systems can only learn or be taught how to do specific tasks, which is why they are called narrow AI. There are a vast number of emerging applications for narrow AI. Narrow AI can carry out tasks like organizing personal and business calendars, detecting wear and tear in elevators based on data gathered by IoT devices, and interpreting video feeds from drones carrying out visual inspections of infrastructure such as oil pipelines. The list goes on and on.Contrastingly, Artificial General Intelligence or General AI is the type of adaptable intellect found in humans. It is a flexible form BYRAM PATRACHARICIO/VP OF IT, VIEJAS CASINO & RESORTABOUT THE AUTHORRam Patrachari is a leader in the field of IT, with over 25 years of experience in managing highly-scalable systems. Ram holds an MBA, a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology. He is credentialed from the CIO Institute at UC Berkeley and Kellogg business school. He is a certified PMP, CISSP and a Certified ScrumMaster.CASINO OPERATORS HAVEN’T FOCUSED ON AI AS AN IMMEDIATE THREAT — BUT MANY THREATS ARE LOOMING ON THE HORIZON. TRIBALNET MAGAZINE | SPRING 2018TRIBALNET MAGAZINE | SPRING 2018easy availability of data, and an explosion in parallel computing power. Not only do these clusters offer vastly more powerful systems for machine learning training models, but they are now widely available as cloud services over the internet. Over time, the major tech firms such as Google and Microsoft have moved to using specialized chips tailored to both running and training machine learning models.ETHICS AND ETHICAL BOUNDARIESThe possibility of creating thinking machines raises a host of ethical issues. These issues relate to ensuring that such machines do not harm humans and other relevant beings in the future. There are challenges in guaranteeing that AI operates safely as it approaches and shortly thereafter surpasses humans in intelligence and ability. The advancement of AI toward more human-like thought processes portends serious complications. As this technology evolves, advanced general AI algorithms many no longer execute in predictable contexts, which will require new kinds of safety precautions. The technological singularity is the hypothesis that the invention of AI super intelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization. According to this hypothesis, an upgradable intelligent agent would enter a loop of self-improvement cycles, with each new generation causing an exponential increase in intelligence and resulting in a powerful “super intelligence” that would far surpass the capability of humans. The consequences of artificial intelligence singularity is a hotly debated topic in scientific and An AI experiment called Libratus from Carnegie Mellon University was able to beat four of the world’s top poker players in a 20-day marathon. Computers don’t get fatigued and can quickly learn from each hand played. intellectual circles. Many notable personalities consider the uncontrolled rise of AI as a matter of alarm and great concern, as we can’t predict how it will affect humanity’s future. CONCLUSIONBringing the AI discussion home, U.S. casino operators haven’t focused on AI as an immediate threat to their businesses or lives, but many threats are looming on the horizon. A Chinese woman took away $20 million in winnings from several casinos in Macau using an AI backend. An AI experiment called Libratus from Carnegie Mellon University was able to beat four of the world’s top poker players in a 20-day marathon. Computers don’t get fatigued and can quickly learn from each hand played. Casinos can ban Google Glass and other devices that are visible, but how do we stop the Samsung’s smart contact lens when it becomes available in the next five years or sooner? I believe that there are gains to be made by leveraging AI, but retaining a good dose of skepticism is the key to success. Time to go and watch Bladerunner!of intelligence capable of learning how to carry out vastly different tasks — anything from lawn mowing, to building spreadsheets, to reasoning about a wide variety of topics based on accumulated experience. This sort of AI doesn’t exist today and AI experts are fiercely divided over how soon it will become a reality.MACHINE LEARNING AND NEURAL NETWORKSMachine learning occurs when a computer system is fed large amounts of data, which it then uses to “learn” how to carry out a specific task, such as understanding speech or identifying a photograph. Key to the process of machine learning are neural networks. These are brain-inspired networks of interconnected layers of algorithms, called neurons, which feed data into each other. By modifying the importance attributed to input data as it passes between the layers, these networks can be trained to carry out specific tasks. During the training of these neural networks, the weights attached to different inputs will continue to be varied until the output from the neural network is very close to what is desired, at which point the network will have “learned” how to carry out a particular task.Another promising area of AI research is evolutionary computation, which borrows from Darwin’s famous theory of natural selection. Evolutionary computation is a process in which genetic algorithms undergo random mutations and combinations in an attempt to evolve the optimal solution to a given problem. Finally, there are expert systems, in which computers are programmed with rules that allow them to make a series of decisions based on a large number of inputs, causing that machine to mimic the behavior of a human expert in a specific domain. An example of these knowledge-based systems might be an autopilot program flying an airplane.THE RESURGENCE IN AIThe biggest breakthroughs for AI research in recent years have been in the field of machine learning. This has been driven in part by the tribalnetonline.com |45| tribalnetonline.com46LET’S START BY CONSIDERING; WHAT ARE THE MISSIONS OF THE IT ORGANIZATION AND WHAT QUESTIONS SHOULD TRIBAL EXECUTIVES BE ASKING?An IT organization has two fundamental missions: (1) to support ongoing tribal operations at the best possible balance between price and performance — aka to “run the business” and (2) to support the achievement of strategic goals that represent significant changes in enterprise performance and the culmination of the tribe’s plans for growth and transformation — aka to “grow/transform the business.” As a result of these missions, tribal leaders want answers to two fundamental questions related to IT’s two basic missions: (1) Are we spending the right amount on IT? and (2) Are we spending that money on the right IT? Executives want to know that precious resources are being spent wisely to operate the tribe in an efficient and effective manner and that IT is providing the tribe significant leverage in achieving strategic goals to that end. MISSION 1 — RUNNING TRIBAL OPERATIONSGlobally, an average of 71% of total IT spend was devoted to “running the business” in 2017. While essential to enterprise performance, this portion of the budget is primarily about managing essential pay-as-you-go expenses. Evaluation of IT’s performance of the first mission is the domain of traditional IT benchmarking, which was discussed in detail by Amos Auringer in the Fall 2017 TribalNet Magazine. MISSION 2 — SUPPORTING STRATEGIC BENEFITS REALIZATIONIT is one of the most important enterprise mechanisms for coherent execution of strategy, and Strategic Benefits Realization (SBR) is the process of recognizing and acting on that fact. There are only a few key BYROBERT BRESE VP AND EXECUTIVE PARTNER, GARTNER, INC.Is IT Helping Your TribeRealize its Strategic Goals?THIS ARTICLE PROVIDES A STRATEGIC BENEFITS REALIZATION FRAMEWORK FOR MAXIMIZING IT’s STRATEGIC CONTRIBUTION executive decision points in each phase of the process when identifying IT investments, selecting investments for implementation and executing those initiative that have the greatest influence on outcomes. HOW DO TOP-PERFORMING ENTERPRISES APPROACH SBR?The investment process for IT-supported initiatives like IT governance is simple to understand but requires discipline to implement effectively. Demand for new capabilities always exceeds supply, and mechanisms for matching supply to demand are necessarily imperfect.SBR focuses on practices that are common to high-performing organizations, including:• Clarifying the goals that are associated with enterprise strategy• Active management of the demand for technology support (including the demand that does not go through IT)• Quantitative assessment of the potential impact of initiatives on strategic goals during the proposal and approval stages• Explicit incorporation of strategy into initiative comparisons and selection• Mandatory full resourcing of change initiatives, including non-IT portions of initiatives WHY DOES SBR WORK?Organizations that deliver a high percentage of IT-supported initiatives on time, on budget and with value added put heavy effort into pre-project decision-making. They approve strategic outcomes first. They then determine appropriate funding for those outcomes and load up IT and non-IT initiatives to fulfill them. This is in stark contrast to the more common practice of first determining what will be spent on IT in a given budget year and then subtracting “run the business” expenses, finally STRATEGY | FINANCIAL & OPERATIONAL ALIGNMENTBYROBERT BRESE VP AND EXECUTIVE PARTNER, GARTNER, INC.ABOUT THE AUTHORRobert (Bob) Brese is a VP and Executive Partner with Gartner, Inc., the world’s largest research and advisory company and advises CIOs and senior executives on leveraging technology to meet organizational strategic goals. He is the former CIO for the U.S. Department of Energy, served in a variety of other senior government executive roles and is also a retired U.S. Naval Officer.tribalnetonline.com |47TRIBALNET MAGAZINE | SPRING 2018IT resources to help Tribes save time, control costs, reduce risk and grow. To support your Tribe’s business objectives and strategic goals, you need to align digital initiatives and effectively communicate the value of IT. Gartner’s SITE: Strategic IT for Tribal Enterprises offers access to free research, tools and webinars specifically tailored to help Tribal Nations and enterprises achieve digital success.SITE provides TribalNet members:• Selected research for IT leaders, executives and their teams• Access to webinars across a broad range of IT and leadership topics• Vendor evaluation tools within a moderated community• The ability to participate in Tribal IT benchmarking effortsPlease visit gartner.com/SITE to access these free resources and become a member of the tribal network community. © 2018 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. For more information, email info@gartner.com or visit gartner.com. RM_398650Welcome toallocating the remaining funds to change initiatives in a basis that bears a haphazard relationship to enterprise strategic goals. WILL SBR SOLVE ALL OUR IT INVESTMENT CHALLENGES?SBR does not define enterprise strategy nor confirm whether the organization’s strategy is the right strategy. SBR supports coherent execution of strategy via investment decision-making and implementation. In doing so, SBR can help to expose a weak strategy or conflicting strategies within the enterprise. SBR also won’t fix incompetent project execution. In particular, SBR should not be considered a methodology for running projects. However, adopting SBR will reduce or eliminate many of the pre-project circumstances and practices that consistently result in failed projects. Addressing these issues before project execution begins is a successful approach to significantly reducing project failure and delay in most enterprises. HOW SHOULD WE MEASURE OUTCOMES?In short, it’s not practical to measure outcomes without an upfront description of where and how those outcomes will be manifested. The implementation of technologies, functions or features is not a meaningful outcome, nor is the support of an activity such as collaboration. Meaningful outcomes are demonstrated in changed mission and business performance. Too many project proposals specify technologies, functions, features and new activities without clearly describing how operational or financial performance will be affected. SBR solves this problem by demanding descriptions of project outcomes in mission and business performance terms. In simple language, SBR insists that projects that don’t specify meaningful outcomes that directly support strategic goals in business performance terms don’t get funded. SBR does not guarantee that the desired outcomes will be produced, but it does ensure that the organization knows where to look for them. As a result, the measurement of outcomes is generally straightforward and does not involve significant changes in organizational structures or roles, the adoption of heavy methodologies, or resource-intensive processes because outcomes are described clearly at the outset. WHAT SHOULD EXECUTIVES EXPECT AS A RESULT OF EFFECTIVELY LEVERAGING THE CONCEPT OF SBR?Mastery of SBR’s leverage points produces several important outcomes for tribal enterprises:• Reduction of demand whose support for tribal strategic goals is vague or absent• Increased executive focus on selected investments and elimination of behaviors that correlate closely to initiative failure, resulting in reduced waste on poor investments involving IT• The ability for tribal executives to produce a much more accurate answer to the two fundamental questions regarding IT spend• The ability to use the IT portfolio as a forecasting system for achieving strategic goals SBR works, and it works well. If tribal enterprises put executive effort into leveraging SBR concepts, the quality and timeliness of realizing strategic goals will certainly improve over time. For more information on Gartner Inc. Tribal business or IT Financial Management, contact: Jannine Salo, Jannine.Salo@gartner.com, or 860-389-5454.FEATURE | TRIBALNETONLINE.COM| tribalnetonline.com48FEATURE | TRIBALNETONLINE.COMQ: Can you tell us the background of how this project came to life? MIKE: It’s a story similar to that of many organizations that continue to grow over several years. For us, 20 years ago when we started building TribalNet and our network, the choices for database platforms and “out-of-the-box” solutions were limited or non-existent. Like many organizations, we chose to build our own custom platform and database and add functionality to it. This worked well for us until our needs for a database and communication platform exceeded our own capabilities, and we knew it was time for a change. We were limited in our ability to quickly make changes to the platform we had built, and the years of customization to our system had made it nearly impossible to integrate our platform with third-party applications. Although we had a good relationship with our developers, it was becoming increasingly obvious that our growing operations could not continue to be managed by one or two application and database contractors who held the keys to 20 years of our system build and custom work! Data security was also becoming a great concern as hacking attacks and data breaches became more and more common in the industry. We needed a solution that would allow us to leverage a cloud environment with out-of-the-box capabilities. In addition, affordably meeting or exceeding the power of what we already had developed was critical. Q: What are some of the details of what TribalNet was looking to accomplish and what Arctic IT delivered?DAVE: TribalNet was looking for an easy-to-navigate and cost-effective membership management solution, which could bridge the gap between their existing website and membership data and enhance communication with their current members. Arctic IT worked with the TribalNet team to understand their business needs and developed a solution built on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform. Arctic IT implemented a cloud-based Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). The cost to own the new program is managed through monthly subscription fees, delivering an affordable solution to TribalNet’s technology needs. TribalNet is now free from the responsibility of maintaining an expensive infrastructure, which enables them to embrace the flexibility of the application in order to enhance their productivity.Q: Once you knew it was time for a change, how did you decide who to choose as a partner?MIKE: Our team spent eight weeks looking at different products and solutions that we believed would be able to meet our needs. We needed a solution that was centered around QUESTION + ANSWER | TRIBALHUB PARTNERS WITH ARCTIC IT ON CRM PROJECTTribalHub Partners with Arctic IT on CRM ProjectTHIS PAST YEAR TRIBALHUB ENGAGED ARCTIC IT TO ASSIST WITH A TRANSITION FROM A LEGACY DATABASE AND COMMUNICATION PLATFORM TO A CLOUD-BASED CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) SYSTEM. DAVE BAILEY CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER & VP, ARCTIC ITMIKE DAY FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE OFFICER, TRIBALHUBtribalnetonline.com |49TRIBALNET MAGAZINE | SPRING 2018managing customer information, and that allowed easy segmenting, list creation, and communication with customers. We also needed a platform that could effortlessly integrate with third-party applications. After weeks of demos and product reviews, we decided that the Microsoft Dynamics 365 product and platform made the most sense for us. Given the Arctic IT team’s experience with Dynamics 365 and their strong resume as a resource to the Native American community, choosing them to work on this project was easy.Q: What did Arctic IT have to offer to TribalNet that made for a successful partnership?DAVE: Arctic IT and TribalNet have similar missions that focus on bringing tribes and technology together. Arctic IT has been working with tribes for more than 14 years, empowering them to TRIBALNET MAGAZINE | SPRING 2018844.461.9500 | arcticit.comFor more information about the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform contact Arctic IT today!centralize processes and data, secure access to confidential records, and use technology to improve operational efficiencies. It was a perfect match for us to work together to enhance TribalNet’s membership and contact management platform in order to help the tribal community that we both serve.Q: What was the benefit of partnering with a company who also serves your market? MIKE: Working with Arctic IT on this project turned out to be a solid choice. With any large system transition, there are always complications and unforeseen hurdles, but the Arctic IT team had the experience and capability to work through all of those issues with us in order to make the project and transition run smoothly. We now have a system that we will be able to manage and grow in the future. Another reason that we chose Arctic IT for this work is that TribalHub believes in supporting and collaborating with organizations that specialize in working with Native American organizations. In addition, Arctic IT had a thorough understanding of our own organizational mission and we were able to negotiate a fair price for the work on this project. We are confident that in Arctic IT we have a partner that has the desire and ability to grow with us. “The Arctic IT/TribalNet partnership is strong at every level of our organizations. The key to this success is collaboration and continued engagement after deployment. Our goal is to anticipate their support needs and to build features to make day-to- day tasks more efficient, which in the end benefit our shared service to Indian Country.” DAVE BAILEYNext >