MARK MIRCHANDANI: There's a lot the Cloud can
offer on top of traditional public sector solutions.
Join us in historic downtown Austin, Texas,
as we talk to SADA Systems about how the Cloud enables building
solutions like Atom.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
What does Atom do?
JOHN BIESAK: So Atom is a lot more robust.
So in almost the opposite of how dot maps is very niche
and kind of has its need and things that it can address.
Atom is going to support a lot broader, I guess,
use case within the DOT.
You've got things like asset management and maintenance
management, work order distribution, mobile data
collection.
These are going to be the core use cases
that Atom kind of supports.
Some of our main use cases that we'll tackle
are like bridge and infrastructure management.
So a lot of the states and counties in the United States
they have a budget every year.
They need to essentially upkeep the bridges and the roads
and the signs and signals in inefficient way.
They have an X amount of money that they need to spend,
and they want to track that kind of whole dollar
amount against the work that they're sending out there.
And obviously, when you're getting into the management
and upkeep of infrastructure, especially
at the bridge and highway level, safety is a huge concern here.
MARK MIRCHANDANI: Right.
So streamlining these workflows so people
don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops
to do what they need to do on an everyday basis.
JOHN BIESAK: Correct.
Yeah, it's all about-- and again, this
is kind of piggybacking on that bringing material
design and that ease of use, but we
want to make sure we cater to all ends
of the spectrum within the DOT.
In the DOT you've got folks that are very day-to-day users that
are going to be just querying for very simple things, project
details, project managers on a specific project.
MARK MIRCHANDANI: So from a technical perspective,
what does Atom look like?
JOHN BIESAK: Atom essentially is a cloud-based solution,
and we're obviously leveraging Google Cloud for that.
It allows us to do some things feature
and functionality wise that I don't think
has been quite possible within the DOT space
up to this point, things like offline access,
full native offline access for our mobile users in the field.
Atom has a fully native iOS and Android application.
And when you're working with states that are just
more rural use cases and assets in more rural areas,
you tend to have a problem where they can't access their asset
information that they need, forms, directions, all
those types of things.
And having the ability to cache that data locally on the device
and push it to the Cloud after they complete what they need
to do has been something that we've received
a lot of positive feedback on.
Again, some of these states have very rural areas
where users are going out there in the field
and they need to have access to asset information,
they need to have access to the important information
that they need to do their job out in the field.
So I think that's a crucial part in leveraging Google Cloud.
And really taking that burden of infrastructure management
away from the DOT, I think is massive.
For them to have to pay to do server manage
upkeep and things like that, I think
those days are behind them.
And I think, because of Google Cloud's capabilities
and the security requirements that they're getting up to,
the DOT has no reason not to go on Google Cloud or a cloud
provider.
MARK MIRCHANDANI: So for a group that wants to adopt Atom,
what does that look like in comparison
to their existing workflows?
JOHN BIESAK: Yeah, so that's a great point.
I think a lot of vendors make a mistake where
they want to come in and totally reinvent what cities are doing
and states are doing from a workflow perspective.
In reality, the states have been ironing out these processes
for 20, 30 years.
You've got folks within the government that have been there
for 20, 30 years.
So if you try to come in there and totally change
what they're doing, fundamentally, you're
going to get pushback.
I mean, you're just going to.
There's folks within the government that
have been there a long time and are
used to a certain workflow and a certain process.
And I think it's really crucial that you get those adoption
rates high quickly to make sure that you have success
within the government with your product.
MARK MIRCHANDANI: And all of this
is possible because of the Cloud?
JOHN BIESAK: Yeah, 100%.
I think that the Cloud allows for really high level
collaboration between these groups.
Again, once you can get that data to a point
where it's all sanitized across these groups,
you can really start sharing and doing that cross-asset analysis
that I think all states want to get to.
It's a process for them, but the Cloud
is for sure a way that that's going
to enable them to be successful and to actually start sharing
that data across departments.
MARK MIRCHANDANI: Well, John, thank
you so much for coming in and getting us
more about public sector in the Cloud.
JOHN BIESAK: Yeah, appreciate your time.
Thanks so much.
MARK MIRCHANDANI: Thanks for watching,
and stay tuned for the next episode, where
we dive into the technical side of dot maps.