Today we have selected Riccardo Badalone to take his interview. He is the CEO of C2RO.
First of all, how are you and your team doing in these COVID-19 times?
Like many other technology companies, we started ‘work-from-home’ very early in the cycle and full credit for the team for adapting to things quickly and staying productive during such a stressful time. We had our share of challenges, but it really feels like we’ve turned the corner now, and morale and productivity are high. I would say the pandemic has ultimately made us faster, stronger, and more focused than ever. During COVID, we deployed some of our largest projects and quickly introduced new features to meet our customers’ evolving needs. We found new ways to approach team communication and problem-solving, which helped us deal with the pressures of a very demanding year.
Tell us about you, your career, how you founded or joined this company?
I have been a technology start-up entrepreneur for over 20 years. I co-founded my first start-up two decades ago, and I was lucky to embark on what became a 15-year journey with two partners that I consider family. We built an amazing team, wonderful products and delivered a tremendous amount of value to customers and investors. As you can imagine, there were many ups and downs over the years, but I was fortunate to learn so much and gain such valuable first-hand experience. After my first company was sold, I joined C2RO as CEO in the early days of its formation. We’ve been steadily growing the business and building such a great team over the last few years, and it has been an extremely rewarding journey so far. Even though we’re still relatively early in the journey, I count myself lucky to be forming such strong bonds with new and amazing people, and of course, also reaching back into history to call on some close friends to help with the execution plan.
How does your company innovate?
We try to drive innovation in the context of customer needs and real-world deployments. An aggressive and ambitious start-up is almost always building products and technology that doesn’t exist in the market. So you are constantly faced with unknowns, risks, and aggressive schedules. It is somehow thrilling to face and solve those problems, and the team sees it as a challenge to bring customers unique and valuable solutions. Out-of-the-box thinking, teamwork, and hard work are the core of C2RO’s innovative culture.
How the Coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?
C2RO has been helping so many businesses meet COVID-19 safety regulations throughout the pandemic, and we’ll continue to do that for as long as it takes for things to return to normal.
We knew that in these difficult times, innovation would continue to be the key to our success. Our team rapidly developed and deployed COVID-19 solutions like real-time automated occupancy management, social distance regulation adherence, automated mask detection, and facility sanitation rate. We could go so quickly and without significant risk because our systems seamlessly use the existing CCTV infrastructure.
Most importantly, we remained true to our promise to comply with data privacy regulations. There were no excuses and no shortcuts.
Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?
Any management team that faced uncertainty and difficult market conditions has an obligation to the business and stakeholders to make sure you have the resources to weather the storm. We, unfortunately, had to limit internships and asked members of the team to do more with less. Communication with the customers was key, and we were fortunate that many of them came to rely on us even more during the early phases of COVID and closing/re-opening cycles. I’m proud to say the team rose to the challenge, and we didn’t let our customers down. There’s nothing that teaches you the value of ‘focus’ like a pandemic. 😊
What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?
Like most, we’ve been heavily reliant on video communications platforms, but the most important element was maintaining a sense of unity and ensuring that everyone in the company still felt like they were part of the family. Special attention to scheduling social team gatherings regularly really kept people in touch and gave them a break from the daily tasks and loneliness.
Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
The video analytics field is very broad, and several smaller start-ups are looking to stand out in the crowd. C2RO is unique in that we are the only company that has focused on a Privacy-Aware AI stack. As a result, we have started breaking new ground with large businesses that previously were not comfortable using video analytics because the solutions were not high enough integrity and compliant with data privacy regulations. We’ve not only created a new and important segment in the market, but we’re emerging now as best-in-class for data accuracy and enterprise-class scale and reliability. The key to staying ahead is to continue deepening our analysis capabilities and fusion of our services with Tier1 technology partners.
Your final thoughts
Our goal as a business is to transform the physical world into actionable data and do this to respect and protect the data privacy rights of individuals and the public. This remarkable technology is transforming the retail industry at an unprecedented speed. COVID has accelerated its adoption as new needs and applications are surging. With Tier1 technology partners like Telefonica and SAP, we’re able to fuse our capabilities with those of our partners for an impact that is truly greater than just the sum of the individual parts.
- Spokesperson: Riccardo Badalone
- Company: C2RO
- Website link: www.c2ro.com