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TE Connectivity

TE Connectivity: The ‘Not So’ Popular Global Industrial Leader in the World of Connectivity

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Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are the names that are well known to us and have become an inseparable part of our lives. We all use their products and know well about them. But there are a few companies that are continuously providing us with their services, but still, we don’t know much or anything about them. These companies are not very popular but are touching our lives, and in some cases, we can’t even manage without their products. One such company is TE Connectivity, which has been there for more than a decade providing its services to us without caring about if its customers know about it or not.

About the Company TE Connectivity

TE Connectivity is an IT and electronics company that manufactures sensors and connectivity equipment that are capable of working in a harsh environment. From the internet to the cloud structure, from drones to space rockets, and from the vehicles on the roads to aeroplanes in the sky, TE Connectivity has its part in every other field that exists in the world.

The company works in three main fields, i.e. Communications Solutions, Transportation Solutions, and Industrial Solutions. So as the names suggest, TE connectivity provides its connectivity solutions in the field of communication, transportation, and in various industries.

The communication solutions include the manufacturing of electronic equipment that is used in home appliances like dishwashers, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditions, etc. The transport solutions by TE Connectivity are focused on automotive, industrial, and commercial transportation, and these products are used in high-speed metros, light rail vehicles, locomotives, etc.

This segment of the company also works on building sensors for various industries like medical, aerospace, commercial transportation, and defense, etc. With the Industrial solutions, TE Connectivity manufactures equipment that provides connectivity, power, and signal to automate the operations in various fields, including transportation, industries, medical, defense, and others.

The Foundational Story of TE Connectivity

TE Connectivity is a spin-off of Tyco International Ltd., a company with a history that dates back to 1960. Arthur J. Rosenberg founded Tyco International in Ireland with its operational headquarter in Princeton, New Jersey. It was a security system company and was mainly focused on semiconductor manufacturing for the government and did research work for the military.

TE Connectivity
Image Source: commons.wikimedia.org

In 1964, the company went public, and in 1970, it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. By the year 1980, Tyco International had acquired companies like Simplex Technology, Grinnell Fire Protection Systems, Armin Plastics and was spreading its services. The company then divided its operations into three categories, i.e., fire protection, electronics, and packaging. Tyco continued to work in the three fields until 2007, when the current CEO of Tyco International, Ed Breen, spun off the company into three companies. TE Connectivity was one of the three resultant companies.

The CEO of the Company

Terrence Curtin is the current CEO at TE Connectivity. He was born and brought up in Mount Penn, a city in Pennsylvania, USA. According to one of the interviews of Curtin, he wasn’t good at academics but was one of the star players of the gridiron and the baseball team of his school. He wanted to do better at academics, so he used his talent of gridiron and baseball to get into a good college to get an environment where he could improve at his studies. Eventually, he got admission into the Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania. He graduated with a degree in accounts in 1990 and immediately joined one of the biggest accounts firms of that time, Arthur Andersen.

After working for a few years with Arthur Andersen, Curtin joined TE Connectivity as its Chief Financial Officer and later, held the position of the corporate controller of the company. In a few years, he was appointed as the president of the company. In 2016, he got elected to the Board of Directors of the company. After a year, in March 2017, Curtin was appointed as the CEO of TE Connectivity.

TE Connectivity Today

TE Connectivity is one of the biggest technology companies that are into connectivity and sensor products manufacturing. The company has got 150 branches in 40 countries, and over 7000 engineers working for TE are connecting to its customers every day to solve their problems. Other than that, the employee count for the company as of 2020 is 80000, and the total revenue for the same year was recorded to be USD 12 billion.

Unisys

Unisys: A Journey from the Typewriters Makers to the Biggest IT Service Providers

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Unisys is an American global IT company founded in 1986, having a history with firearms, typewriters, and calculation machines. The company deals in IT consulting, software, and outsourcing services. Unisys headquarter is based in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. As an IT company, Unisys specializes in system integration, high-end server technology, cloud management software, maintenance, and support as well as cybersecurity. Unisys is a result of the merger of three different companies, E.Remington, Sperry Gyroscope Company, and the American Airthmometer Company, all three specializing in distinct domains.

The Long Back History of Unisys

The history of Unisys dates back to 1816 when a company named E. Remington was founded by Eliphalet Remington. The company was a manufacturer of firearms. But later, when Remington’s three sons joined the company, they thought of expanding its operations. In 1873, the company tried their hands-on building typewriters and introduced the first commercially viable typewriter, named the Remington Model 1, having the QWERTY layout. Later the company built a new typewriter model in which the typist could use the Shift key to make a letter capital.

During the same time, the American Airthmometer Company (Later renamed to Burroughs Adding Machine) had also got the patent for an adding machine that would only record the final result of a calculation. On the other hand, the Sperry Gyroscope Company was in the business of manufacturing navigation equipment for ships and aircraft.

Unisys
Image Source: unisys.co.in

By 1925 Burroughs had introduced a calculating machine that can also subtract and a billing machine that could perform direct multiplication. The Remington’s, on the other hand, had already introduced a noise-less typewriter as well as America’s first electrical typewriter.

In 1927, the Remington Typewriter Company partnered with the Rand Kardex Corporation, and the merger resulted in the Remington Rand company. This partnership led to the acquisition of many other companies, including the Dalton Adding Machine Company, the Powers Accounting Machine Company, the Baker-Vawter Company, etc., making their way into the computation world. With the acquisition of Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, and the founding of the Engineering Research Associates (ERA), the journey of Remington Rand started as one of the biggest computer manufacturers in the US. In June 1951, Remington Rand manufactured its first computer named Univac I (Universal Automatic Computer), first used by the US census bureau.

In 1955, the Remington Rand and Sperry Gyroscope had a merger, forming the company Sperry Rand. The company in a decade delivered over 100 computers to the military and for commercial use. Some of these computers were also used for weather forecasting by the US government. The Remington Rand in 1955 also introduced the Univac 1103, which was the first computer to use RAM. Finally, in 1986, Burroughs also merged with Sperry Rand, and hence Unisys was formed.

Journey as Unisys

Unisys was a result of a $4.8 billion worth acquisition of the Sperry Rand by Burroughs, one of the largest of its time. The name, Unisys, was selected through a competition with 31000 entries. Unisys is a combination of words united, information and systems. With this merger, the company became the second-biggest computer manufacturing company, having over 120000 employees working for it.

Though the company continued to deliver products to the US government, it saw a steep decline in the number of its customer base for commercial computers. The company was facing a lot of competition and had to cut its employees count too. In fact, the company had replaced three CEOs in seven years.

From Manufacturing to Service Providers

Later, the company decided to shift the business from manufacturing computers to providing IT services and high-end servers. Along with that, the company also started dealing with outsourcing its services, systems integration, and consulting services, etc. In the year 2000, Unisys introduced the UNISYS ES7000 servers.

Along with computers, Unisys was also holding ownership of a medical and healthcare insurance wing, i.e., a company named Medicare. Unisys sold the company in 2010, for a sum of $135 million.

Unisys has always been a big player in the field of IT, and its clients include the various departments of the US government and major names like Dell, Lloyd Banks, Nextel, Swift, and Telefonica, etc. Currently, Peter Altabef is serving Unisys as the CEO as well as the President. Around 22,000 employees are working for the company, and as of 2018, Unisys has $2.83 billion in total annual revenue.

Touch Surgery

Touch Surgery: Digital Innovation Empowering Medical Sciences

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Edtech is one of the booming industries today, and would you believe it if we tell you that you can also learn the complete procedure of a surgery simulated in an operating room on your smartphones? Believable enough, but most of us would have not thought of it yet, right? Medical studies are the most expensive of all and getting to see and learn the procedure for all types of surgeries is not even possible for those studying medical sciences. The same thought came into the minds of two medical residents at the Imperial College London, Jean Nehme, and Andre Chow, and they end up developing Touch Surgery.

Touch Surgery

Touch Surgery has played a vital role in transforming the medical world with the help of digital technology. It is a training app for medical students that simulate surgical procedures, validated by 19 independent peer-reviewed publications. The company Digital Surgery LTD is the parent company of Touch Surgery, having its headquarters in three major cities, i.e. London, New York City, Auckland, and Sydney. In the beginning, the company name was Kinosis and later was changed to Digital Surgery, to reflect the border scope and mission of the company.

Digital Surgery is a healthcare technology company that is using digital technology to help in making all the surgeries even safer. The app includes a near to reality simulator and AI-powered surgical video management platform, offering accurate surgical content for the doctors to enhance their skills and for the medical students to practice in the operating room.

The interactive simulator of Touch Surgery helps the medical trainees to learn the step-by-step surgical procedure and test their knowledge and skills related to medical operations, through the simulator. Most importantly, it helps in enhancing their skills of decision-making in a real-time environment. The app has also proved to be useful for patients who are about to go under surgery. They use this app to know more about their surgical procedure.

Digital Surgery tied up with Microsoft in 2018 to use Microsoft’s under development Microsoft Hololens (mixed reality smartglasses for surgery) to accomplish the company’s mission of safe surgery for all. The app includes around two hundred surgery training in seventeen different specialties and is used by many medical institutions to provide the ‘to-be doctors’ with a great learning experience. Currently, the app has got over 2 million users registered to it. The Dublin-based Irish company Medtronic, a Medtech conglomerate, acquired Touch Surgery for an amount of $500 million in 2020.

The Idea Behind Touch Surgery

Jean Nehme and Andre Chow the co-founders of Touch Surgery was still working as medical residents at the Imperial College London when they thought of the idea. Since the two were residents, they did not have the access to the resources that could help them enhance their skills as a surgeon. They realized that most of the medical students do not get to try their hands on all types of surgical procedures lacking additional experience. The only source to help them to enhance their skills was surgical simulators, but these too were too expensive to get.

This led the two to think of a cheaper and more accessible simulator for all, i.e. Touch Surgery. They discussed the idea of Touch Surgery in 2010 and founded the app in 2012. The idea was innovative and useful so, they easily got connected to many investors for their research and development work too. Today, Touch Surgery has partnered with numerous surgeons, combining their expertise and digital technology to empower the surgical community.

The Founders Touch Surgery

Jean Nehme has got an MBBS BSc MRCS MSc (Hons) and specializes in plastic surgery. Nehme is an awardee of multiple awards for his research work in innovation and his contribution to digitizing medical education. He has been named as one of the most influential 500 people in the UK by Debrett. On the other hand, Andre Chow is a general surgeon.

Touch Surgery Founders
Touch Surgery Founders: Andre Chow and Jean Nehme
Image Source: balderton.com

Both the co-founders graduated from the Imperial College School of Medicine in London. During the time, the two thought of developing Touch Surgery, Chow was pursuing a Ph.D. in Stem Cells and Biotechnology. Currently, Jean Nehme is working as the CEO, and Andre Chow is working as the COO of Touch Surgery.

BenevolentAI

BenevolentAI: Bringing Innovation in the Field of Bioscience

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Artificial Intelligence is a wonder that people would have laughed about two decades ago, but today, this technology is attracting almost every other type of field. In the past, futuristic sci-fi movies did give us a glimpse of AI in the form of flying cars and automated homes, etc. But we did not know that this technology will be here so soon, making a mark in every category in the world. After bringing a revolution in the field of technology, automobile, and more, medicine and pharmaceutical companies are also up for investing in AI and machine learning to make their research and drug discovery even better and faster. One such drug discovery startup is BenevolentAI.

BenevolentAI

BenevolentAI is a London-based drug discovery startup, that has adopted Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to speed up medicinal research and reduce the overall cost to half. The company was founded by Ken Mulvany on 13 November 2013, in London with co-founders Michael Brennan and Ivan Griffin. It uses AI technology such as pattern recognition to find a match for existing genetic, metabolic, and clinical information in order to develop new drugs. According to the founder, the drug discovery industry has a vast amount of information, that is impossible to handle by humans alone, so using AI, this information can not only stored but also be used to target different diseases.

Most of the clinical trials are focused on hypotheses for a particular disease, but with the AI technology at BenevolentAI, the existing research is used for finding a new disease to target and for which the existing hypothesis fits the best. This way there is no waste of time in discovering a new compound from scratch, but the drugmakers can jump straight to the clinical trials to find new drug candidates from existing information. The company uses AI combined with the expertise of qualified scientists to make sure that the end result is effective.

Ken Mulvany founded the company with a target to find a cure for ALS and Alzheimer’s using AI, and in 2021, the company will also be starting clinical trials for excessive daytime sleepiness in Parkinson’s disease in the US. The company currently has got 90 people working for it in the UK and US. In September 2016, only after four years of its founding, it raised $1.4 billion, becoming a unicorn. In 2018, the company raised another $115 million and valued at $2 billion. Benevolent AI has also acquired the UK operations of Proximagen for an undisclosed sum.

Idea Behind BenevolentAI

BenevolentAI is a machine intelligence company with an aim to develop drugs for every existing disease in the world with the help of artificial intelligence. The company is focusing on using AI to mine and analyze the already existing biochemical information to develop new drugs for the diseases. According to Jackie Hunter, the Board director at BenevolentAI, every 30 seconds a research paper is published, and 95% of them fail. There is vast information about discovery and research for drugs that are going in vain. It takes about ten years and over $2.5 billion to develop, test, and get ‘the drug’ for a particular disease, but with AI and machine learning the time and the cost of producing a drug can be reduced by 30% to 50%.

BenevolentAI collects the already existing drug research data that was for a particular condition but could not yield the desired results. Though the research might have failed for a certain disease, BenevolentAI uses the same research and clinical trials data to test for other diseases, such that the deep research will not go waste, and the existing information is used to find new drug candidate for other diseases.

The Founder

Ken Mulvany has got more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and investor. Currently, he sits as the Chairman of BenevolentAI. Before Benevolent AI, Mulvany also founded another biotech company named Proximagen and served as the CEO of the company. Proximagen was into developing the drugs for central nervous system disorders.  Mulvany sold Proximagen in 2012 to Upsher-Smith Laboratories for $553million.

BenevolentAI Founder
Image Source: miro.medium.com

Today, Mulvany is a member of various advisory boards of different organizations, including the UK Government on Artificial Intelligence and the Oxford Sciences Innovations advisory boards. Apart from that, he chaired the Trustees of the Cure Parkinson’s Trust and is also a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence.

Glassdoor

Glassdoor: The Story Behind the Biggest Online Review Portal for Job Seekers

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Years ago, people were practicing the traditional approach to finding jobs, i.e., through the newspaper classified section, local ads, brokers, or a reference from a friend or relative. But as the internet evolved with time, people started using online job portals, which became the most convenient method for all sorts of job seekers. Today millions of users, both employers and job seekers, can easily connect through such portals. In the same league, when one is looking for a job and gets an offer, they now can look for the company reviews on similar review-based websites, and easily make their mind on taking or not taking the offer. One such leading review-based online portal is Glassdoor.

Glassdoor is a review-based website that lets its users anonymously submit their reviews about a company, their experience, satisfaction with the company, salary, other workplace-related data, etc. This information is publicly available to job seekers, who want to know about the work environment of a certain company. The website also includes the feature to post or search for a job.

The Founders of Glassdoor

The co-founders of Glassdoor include Tim Besse, Robert Hohman, and Rich Barton. Both Robert Hohman and Rich Barton were working for Microsoft. Barton founded Expedia (a Microsoft spun-off company) in 1996, where Hohman was one of the team members. Later, after the spin-off, Barton became the chairman and Hohman the CEO of Expedia.

Glassdoor Founders
Glassdoor Founders: Robert Hohman, Tim Besse, and Rich Barton
Image Source: geekwire.com

On the other hand, Tim Besse met his future partners Hohman and Barton at Expedia only. He joined the company as his first job immediately after graduating from the Case Western Reserve University. Besse worked as the director of the Product Management and Online Marketing for the Asia Pacific division at Expedia.

The Story Behind

Rich Barton had been in the online business industry from before and had co-founded companies like Expedia and Zillow. He had a mind that would ask questions and try to answer them, even if he had to opt for an unconventional path. Going off track, with Expedia, he was providing airline ticket prices to the public and, with Zillow, he was revealing the exact real estate prices for the people. With Glassdoor too, he took an unconventional step.

During a brainstorming session for a new business idea in 2007, Barton and Hohman remembered an incident when Barton had left some employee survey data on the printer. This survey had information about employee satisfaction, their salaries, and reviews of their workplace. Though Barton’s assistant had grabbed that file safely, the two discussed the bad and the good aspects of that information going public. It was the trigger point for their new business idea. The two thought that even if that data had got revealed, it would have not caused any harm to anyone. In fact, if there was such a public platform, where people could submit such reviews of their companies, it would have been helpful for the job seekers to make better career choices.

The Working of Glassdoor

Tim Besse was impressed by the idea and left Expedia to join Hohman and Barton for their new business.  Finally, in June 2008, with an investment of around $10 million, they founded Glassdoor. The concept behind the platform was the anonymous rating of companies by the people who have worked with them. People now had a platform, where they could put their reviews on their experience with a company, how much they got paid, and how satisfied they were while working in it. Glassdoor also enabled the users to post any company-related media on the platform, to make their reviews more authentic.

The Platform uses smart technology and a team of people to filter the original reviews from original people so that the reviews are always trustworthy. With time, the platform started posting their rating for the companies, by averaging the reviews, salaries of employees, rating for the management, culture, etc. Later, based on the rating, Glassdoor started offering the ‘Best Places to Work Awards’ to the top listed companies.

The Journey of the Company in the Past Decade

In 2010, the company added a new feature to the website, i.e. Enhanced Employer Profiles. This new feature allows the users to add content other than reviews on the website. This feature is paid and offers the users to add content like social media links, interview questions, classified, etc. to their account. This paid content became useful for the people who wanted to prepare for a certain company interview. Glassdoor also provided features to submit a job opening for companies.

From 2012 to 2015, the company had raised around $160 million through venture capital. By 2015, Glassdoor had registered over 20 million users, and in the following two years, there were 41 million unique users at the platform. Glassdoor became a unicorn company within ten years of its founding. More than one-third of the biggest companies in the world have partnered with Glassdoor as its corporate clients. It has become the most trustworthy platform for job seekers. Glassdoor has been a winner of the Red Herring North America Award for Social Media Innovation 2013.

In June 2018, Recruit Holdings acquired Glassdoor for $1.2 billion in cash. Currently, Christian Sutherland-Wong is working as the CEO of Glassdoor.

Kronos

Kronos – Transformation from rising as foremost publicly held software firm to the private firm as Ultimate Kronos Group

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Every industry whether it is manufacturing, healthcare, banking, entertainment, or any other demands skilled personnel. Why not so? To grow the business, it is necessary to have a capable workforce. Else, hiring unqualified people can cause a huge loss in terms of business and ultimately to the economy of the country. The solution to this problem is a better workforce and human capital management. Workforce Management helps to get the right workers in the right workplace at a right time. Thus, improvising the efficiency of the workforce as well, lower the cost of the unnecessary workforce. While in this modern world, the modern solution is needed to deal with this as Kronos does.

Kronos Incorporated headquartered in Lowell was known for providing cloud-based workforce management services. It has done excellent work in this field as well; it has developed several other innovative products. However, it has merged with Ultimate software in April 2020. Since then, it is known as Ultimate Kronos Group. At the time when it was an individual firm, Kronos employed 6000+ job seekers all across the world.

Backstory of Kronos

Best known as an American multinational company, it primarily offers cloud-based workforce management and human capital management. Kronos Incorporated was established in 1977. It was founded by Mark S. Ain, who was MIT and Simon Business School’s student. He served as a CEO for a long time, thereafter, his brother Aron Ain stepped up a CEO in 2005.

Just after two years of establishment, the firm has designed the world’s first-ever time clock using a microprocessor. Apart from that, it has created a Pc-based attendance product in 1985. As a matter of fact, Kronos set the record to earn profit and sustainable growth for long period, in spite of being publicly held firm in the history of the software industry. In 1992, it has offered a public listing on NASDAQ. 

Kronos Journey from being Public to Private firm

Started as a private firm, Kronos started public offering in 1992. Since then, it has operated as a public listed firm. However, in the middle of 2007, Kronos got investment from Hellman & Friedman, and JMI Equity. Thus, helped it to become a private firm. Again in 2014, GIC and Blackstone, well-known private equities also offered investment in the firm. From that time, it has started to generate over 1-billion-dollar annual revenue.

Apart from the public to private changes, Kronos also prefer to shift the headquarters to Cross Point Town in Massachusetts. The purpose behind the location change was to combine multiple offices under a single roof. Recently, the firm has merged with Ultimate Software causing the name change to Ultimate Kronos Group. Though the whole company will be directed by Aron Ain.

Product and services

The firm entered the market by manufacturing Time Clocks using a microprocessor. But presently, it is mostly focused on software development and offers related services. This software is design for the human workforce and capital management. Apart from that, it offers cloud applications in a similar field.  As well, Kronos offers other support services, consulting, and training to its clients.

Aron Ain- CEO

Kronos CEO
Image Source: thriveglobal.com

He is presently leading the Ultimate Kronos Group, born out of the merger of Ultimate software and Kronos. Apart from being a well-known software technology executive, Aron is a well-known American Author. In 2005, he became CEO at Kronos after his brother’s retirement. Since then, he guided the policies of the firm and explored the business all across continents. Throughout his career, he has been awarded many times. Aron was honored with the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the year award. Moreover, he was included in the list of Top 100 CEO in the U.S. in 2019 (Glassdoor).

Bottom Line

Under both Ain brothers’ policies, Kronos has used an acquisition strategy to explore the business. Acquisition of Principal Decision system international, Stromberg, SaaShr.com is some of the major acquisitions in the company’s history. As well, The Workforce Solution Software division of SimplexGrinnell, Optilink, empower software solution are few noticeable acquisitions made by Kronos.

Recently, the firm was the topic of discussion for its automated report-generating tool. It turned out useful to analyze attendance and work record of Covid-19 positive workers. Thus, it gets easy to detect potentially affected co-workers amid the pandemic.