The Meaning of Leadership: TOA Technologies named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management, 2012
October 22, 2012 by Yuval BriskerBy focusing on invention and innovation and uncompromisingly pursuing the most advanced technology available today, the way of the future, our great company has always pulled and pulled ahead with this market in its wake for the last seven or eight years, like a big ship at sea.
Leaders never push. They pull others along, always staying out in front of the pack, confident in their sense of direction and their vision of the future. That’s one of the many reasons why I read Gartner’s newly released Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management with a combination of pride, of satisfaction and of gratitude.
Pride, because Gartner’s independent analysts have recognized TOA Technologies as a leader in this market and that just feels great. Let’s face it – it’s a momentous day for any company to be named a leader by the most respected and leading global technology analyst. It feels like winning an Oscar!
Since 2007 when TOA Technologies was first evaluated in the annual Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management report, Gartner has always commended our vision in the market; and this is still the case this year, as evidenced by our position as the most visionary vendor in the report. But now, by naming TOA Technologies a Leader, Gartner has affirmed that we have used and continue to use that vision to create a deeply impactful and long-lasting value for our customers, executing, realizing and delivering on the promise of leadership that our visionary status pointed towards throughout these years.
From day one – Irad Carmi, my co-founder, and I and our people have led by focusing on invention and innovation. Why? Because we just love technology. And we love the business of technology. Plain and simple. The “new” does not scare us or inhibit us. In fact, it excites us with the possibilities and we are attracted to it with a deep curiosity and profound existential sense of glee. From the moment we met we were pulled by the latest, the newest, the riskiest and the fascinating - hungry to explore it, understand it, use it, exploit it in the most positive sense of the word.
This passion for the new and the business of the new has clearly paid off. Together with our great Technology Center team headed by Alexey Turchyn, we invented time-based, predictive, self-learning tools for managing mobile businesses and we’ve continually added new innovations to enhance the functionality and user-friendliness of our solutions. We embraced the mobile Internet and smart devices when there was almost no bandwidth, we championed the browser and HTML5 as THE platform when others were developing Windows mobile applications and no one dared to go there, and this year we became the first in our market to provide truly device-agnostic mobility, location-based services and context-aware collaboration bringing mobile, social and cloud together, democratizing connections and the flow of information for everyone in an organization.
I don’t believe that a new product is innovative just because it’s new. To me, innovation is about continuous exploration – a continuous quest for invention – and breathing in the world of technology deeply and taking it to new heights. Gartner calls the wave that we are witnessing today “the Nexus of Forces” – the convergence of mobile, social and cloud-based technologies. I agree. It’s clearly driving a huge secular shift in the way the world does business and it’s touching everyone. TOA Technologies has embraced these ideas early and totally, delivering solutions that build on those notions and heralding a future of fully mobile, truly collaborative and totally automated, optimized mobile business processes.
I feel a sense of satisfaction, and that satisfaction comes from the fact that Gartner affirms our ability to execute our vision and more importantly execute on our promise to customers. Because it’s one thing to have a vision…and it’s a whole other dimension to make that vision consistently come to life – to convince executives around the world in a multitude of countries and languages to buy into the vision and the technology wholly, and then execute the plan and make that vision real. This goes to the very heart of our commitment to our customers. They trust us to deliver exactly what we promise – and the technology is NOTHING without the delivery. And we have delivered 100 percent of the time. With our position as a leader in the Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management, the world now knows what our customers know and have known all along – that we have smart, dedicated people and processes that diligently focus on delivering on our promises to each and every business partner that chooses to work with us. Without compromises.
But above all at this moment, I feel gratitude – gratitude to the people of TOA Technologies. A company is like a person – it has deep and indelible character. It reflects a collective soul and a collective effort, and it succeeds only with the talent, the mindfulness, the heart and the hard work of everyone working there. TOA Technologies has great character – it is the work of many, many people – a worldwide team. And this recognition by Gartner affirms our good character and the great global partnership – a partnership that goes beyond borders, beyond the myriad languages that we speak at TOA and the cultures we were born into, a partnership that embraces a shared vision, a shared passion for creativity and a perseverance with one goal in mind – creating something great.
It is our people’s imagination, their focus, their dedication and their hard work that has made this real, and Irad and I have the great good fortune to share our vision with these – the most talented, mindful, hearty and hard-working people I have known.
Even though we are celebrating today, much more hard work lies ahead. The tech industry is a continuous, intense race. And, as anyone who has ever been in a race knows, the leaders always have to expend the most effort if they want to stay ahead. Followers slipstream along in the wake of the frontrunner, avoiding risks and allowing someone else to set the pace. Leaders don’t have that luxury. As a mentor of mine once said to me:
“In the tech world, first you run fast, then you run faster and then you run even faster still.”
So it goes…
To our employees, customers, partners, board members and investors who have supported and collaborated with us every step of the way – I say thank you! I promise that we are determined to keep running and keep leading.
NOTE: The above is my personal view of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management, 2012, focusing on what it means to me to be a company leader in this market. While my commentary is well informed it is solely my opinion and though it based on an ongoing dialogue with Gartner’s analysts and my understanding of the market, the only definitive opinions on the report are those of the authors of the report, who researched and published it. My opinion is not a substitute for speaking to Gartner’s analysts directly.
