CTO
For this startup, AI isn’t new: In fact, they’ve been leveraging AI for years for quality management. Its clients span a wide range of industries, from pharmaceuticals to food, to semiconductor manufacturers. Its software leverages the power of AI to conduct visual inspections of products and provide root-cause analysis for any production issues their clients may be experiencing.
For this startup, trust is everything: Their clients are some of the leading players in their respective industries, and those customers entrust their organization with sensitive business information related to their intellectual property, their products, and their production methods. They depend on this startup’s software to help bolster product quality and provide insights that guide their business decisions.
With Virtru Secure Share and Virtru Encryption for Google Workspace, this startup:
“We deal with a lot of very sensitive data for our customers,” said the startup’s CTO. “It’s quite a missing feature in all these big cloud providers, in my opinion, to have a nice and easy way to share data and encrypted emails.” This is where Virtru’s integration with Google Workspace comes into play.
”Since we're using Google Workspace internally, I really liked Virtru. As a startup, we always like to collaborate with dynamic young companies. We also found that the application really suits our needs the most.” When asked what feature was the selling point for Virtru, the CTO replied, “It's a low barrier to send and receive data. For us, that’s the main argument for the solution.”
For this CTO, Virtru Secure Share is part of his routine with prospects and customers. He sends two important links in his first email: His Virtru Secure Share link for encrypted file sharing, and his Calendly link for scheduling meetings. “You send the client an email. It's like, ‘Here's my calendar, you can book an invite. If you want to send me some data, here's my Virtru link’... Everyone so far has found it quite easy to use.”
He also likes that Virtru protects data beyond files and emails: “There's potential to go even further, like encrypted Drive, customer-hosted keys, these kinds of things. I don't think we have a big need for it right now,” he said, since the startup is about 1 year old at the time of writing, “but it's also nice to see that if we ever need it, we are already with a provider who has the capacity to do that and to integrate with Google Drive.”
Like any other successful startup, this organization is motivated to turn prospects into customers quickly, and that means creating an efficient, easy sales process.
“With every extra click in sales, you lose leads,” he emphasized. “So when we say, ‘Hey, can you please send us some data?’ And there is a manual of, ‘You need to download and install this and that software to be able to send your data,’ then it won't happen. It needs to be simple and intuitive: ‘OK, I click here, then I upload data, press send, and it's out.’”
The organization depends on Virtru to secure the sensitive information that’s always flowing in and out of the business, building trust before the customer even buys.
This business has a broad impact: Its customers span from highly regulated electronics manufacturers to producers of food products. While some customers’ data might be more sensitive than others, the startup treats them exactly the same: With security and respect.
“Our customers are leading companies in each of their verticals,” the CTO explained. “For visual quality inspection, we receive hundreds of images from the customer, and for root cause analysis, it's CSV files of recorded measurements, data that is recorded from the entire manufacturing process, or existing quality data that is more tabular like pass/fail.”
“Sometimes, you take pictures of a product that ends up on a supermarket shelf afterwards, so the sensitivity there is not so high. And, sometimes, you work with people who produce some specialized products for the airline industry, and that information is highly sensitive,” he said. “In the end, it doesn't really matter, because we want to treat the safety of our customers’ data as one of our highest priorities. We want the customers to feel safe. So, it doesn't matter if the product ends up on a supermarket shelf or in a highly classified environment. It's very important for us that we're giving them a professional way to share data, and we're not just attaching it to an email.”
