Mobile Security in 2021: How ADT Helps Instacart and Lyft Reach New Horizons through Innovation and Agility

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In today’s episode we’ll cover:

• Leah talks about the innovation and agility her team brings to the larger ADT brand under the umbrella of the emerging markets group - and what innovation and agility means to ADT too.
• Innovation - and digital - in a Covid world
• Surprises & pivots the team has had to make because of Covid
• How Leah's team is reimaging mobile security
• Insights into the Lyft and Instacart partnerships with ADT
• Leah's experience with Nagarro and how partnerships with outside firms like ours help to assist with product strategy and innovation.
• Leah's favorite parts of working with our team
• If Leah had a magic wand what would you like to see from Nagarro in 2021?

2 Wrap ups:

• What’s your number one leadership lesson the audience can takeaway?
• What’s the nicest thing someone has done for you?

Transcript:

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Leah Page (00:00):

I come from a product development background, so I have a passion for products. I have a passion for that voice of customer and understanding how things can work

And I've worked with various teams in my career, and they are definitely top of class.

Joe Toste (00:12):

Welcome to TechTables, conversations with top technology leaders, taking a closer look at the world of IT and digital through the lens of agility and innovation. I'm your host, Joe Toste.

Very excited today, as we shift our focus to all things ADT and the emerging markets group with Leah Page. Leah is the VP of Mobile Security and Strategic Projects at ADT. Huge thank you for Leah for taking time to come on the show and meet with me today. In today's episode, we'll cover what innovation and agility mean to ADT, a 150 year old-plus security company, the Lyft and Instacart mobile security partnership with ADT, how Leah's team is re-imagining mobile security.

Leah talks about her experience with Nagarro and how partnerships with outside firms like ours help to accelerate and assist with product strategy and innovation, what Leah's favorite parts of working with our team are, and if Leah had a magic wand, what she would like to see from Nagarro in 2021. But that's quite enough from me. Without further ado, I'm thrilled to welcome Leah Page, VP of Mobile Security and Strategic Projects at ADT. 

Welcome to TechTables, Leah. Super excited to have you on this morning.‍

Leah Page (01:05):

Hey, thanks for having me, Joe.

Joe Toste (01:07):

Love it. Let's kick off today. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background at ADT.

Leah Page (01:11):

Yeah, sure. I've been at ADT about four years. In that time, I've worked on all of our emerging markets projects, so new and innovative ways to bring and extend our business. ADT, we've been in the marketplace for 150 years almost, but it's always really been wrapped around the physical walls of the home. And what we really strived to do in the last few years is think about different types of use cases and different ways to extend our monitoring and service capability beyond the home, into that mobile environment, launching partners like Lyft and Instacart, and things that we can do there, and trying to extend and drive the business out into new verticals.

Joe Toste (01:44):

I love that. So let's talk about innovation and agility that your team brings to the larger ADT brand under the umbrella of the emerging markets group. What does innovation and agility mean to ADT?

Leah Page (01:56):

Yeah. So from an innovation standpoint, we've created an internal absorption for all of these new technologies that are out there. We're best known for that security in the home, but as we extend and as we do more, it's very relevant for us to be understanding new technologies that are out there, how we should be evolving into that, and how quickly we can get there. We've done a lot of work with tech startups. We've done a lot in really, truly understanding that marketplace and trying to bring in that next generation technology to both what we do and what we represent.

I think that's probably the most exciting and funnest part of what I do at ADT, is being able to reach out, talk to innovative new startups, and really understand how it can help to extend our portfolio and challenge us. As a large organization, the biggest challenges you can face is that agility, that fastness, that pace that you need to keep up with to be truly competitive in the marketplace.

And being able to work with innovation, new technology, new partners, smaller companies helps us to really challenge us to continue to work in that way.

Joe Toste (02:53):

Yeah. I really like that, especially because ADT is such a huge company, and I think it's been around, what, 150 years. And when you think about that, you could think legacy, but that mindset in the emerging technology group, the emerging markets group of, "We've got to move fast and we've got to test stuff. We've got to shift," is really great. So how has innovation in digital more important now in this, I was going with post-COVID world earlier, but it's just lingering around, so I'm going to call it... We're maybe almost at post with the vaccine, but in this COVID world, how has innovation in digital more important?

Leah Page (03:26):

Yeah, there's two key areas and responsibilities I have at ADT. I look at really the mobile side of things, how we interact with partners. We work with Instacart, so they're a key partner of ours. And when you think about how much that business has taken off in this year, just the types of services that are required in the marketplace now, we are able to extend our security monitoring onto Instacart shoppers.

And so, that business has grown, I think two or three X's. And there's some public information available about their growth, but to be able to help to protect those new shoppers that are coming on board, you have a person at the beginning of the year who maybe didn't have that intentful career journey, and now is there. And to help and maintain that peace of mind, that sense of security, and really just help them through everyday situations and scenarios that they get themselves into that maybe they just need a little bit of help and guidance through. And so that's been really exciting.

The other piece of the business is the health side, and we've seen tremendous amount of growth in that because people are now somewhat very lonely. They're having this lack of togetherness, and that's particularly sensitive to our senior population. And so, we have some products in that space that help us through that. Also, less visitation to our seniors and our loved ones, and so having technology that can help if there is an incident, accident, or emergency, that ADT can be there and get them the help they need.

Joe Toste (04:46):

Any surprises or pivots that your team has had to make because of COVID? And I know that's a loaded... That's a loaded question by the way, because every team has had to make a-

Leah Page (04:55):

Yeah. That's a loaded question. I can answer it in a couple trajectories. So in my team alone, I am lucky enough to have teams of software developers, which COVID has affected maybe a little bit less from that work from home environment, all the way through sales people, and I think they're much more affected, because all of a sudden, they couldn't do the job in the way they were so used to doing it. And so I think, earlier today, we're actually on a team holiday celebration, and I was so appreciative of everybody, how much they'd given, creating your home into school house, an office, a restaurant, everything has just become all encompassing, and I think that everybody has given a lot to make that happen.

And the other major thing, and this is really more from an overall business standpoint, we have moved so many of our monitoring agents, our customer care agents that typically sat in very large centers together to a work from home environment. And that was a very large initiative brought from our overall business to be able to now have that. We've had great success with it. We've seen tremendous amount of benefit in actually having that work from home environment.

I know lots of businesses talk about that, having to make that move because of COVID, and we started to sit around and collectively say, it's something that was always on the table, but maybe there wouldn't have been that spark to do it. And I think that's going to be a really interesting trend and thing to watch in the future, as you think about all the types of service related businesses and how now those agents and people are working from home, and what are the tools, technology, what sort of needs to be unlocked in that space? So, really interesting.

Joe Toste (06:24):

And so, from a high level, can you tell the audience about Lyft and the Instacart partnerships with ADT? You mentioned Instacart a little bit, but if you could maybe talk about Lyft too.

Leah Page (06:32):

Yeah, sure. My team has created a platform called the Safe by ADT platform, and essentially what it does is takes in signals and makes those signals into something that we can determine, and allows us to be able to help that person in a time of need. So what we've done is integrated that platform into customer interfacing mobile application. So Lyft is a great example. It could be either rider or driver, anywhere in the nation. Once you get into a Lyft ride, if you are experiencing any sort of issue, you're uncomfortable, you need peace of mind, you just want someone to maybe be there for you, you can go into a tool set that allows you to interface with one of our monitoring agents, and they'll help you through that situation.

Some of the things that we've seen, like really interesting use cases about medical types of things. So we had a driver that actually contacted us because a rider was having a seizure in the backseat. We've had incidents where outside of the vehicle, car accidents, other things that are happening peripherally to these drivers and to these riders, they're alerting us, letting us know, and we're able to send help. Both for Instacart and for Lyft, we do know the location, so we have access to that GPS, and so we can get the emergency services directly to the site, to the actual location the person needs help.

Joe Toste (07:42):

Yeah. That's really great. And I'm a huge fan of the security piece. Lyft wasn't available in the Philippines when I went before, so I had to use Uber and I was more than willing to pay for the international data streaming, because I had no idea where I was and where I was going in Manila.

Leah Page (08:01):

Interesting use cases when you think about the mobility factor people. And we even have our own application called SOSecure, and it enables some of this security on the go for you. And when you think about just the types of situations, whether it's out for a run, on a date, in a ride share, maybe you're a driver or you're the actual person in the gig economy, you're a realtor, there's just infinite numbers of situations sparked by the gig economy, where people are meeting for the first time, exchanging goods, exchanging services in a way that wasn't dreamt of five years ago. And so, it creates this whole new demand in this whole new segment of security that we've really created the platform in a way to help solve some of that for our partners. So really cool.

Joe Toste (08:39):

I love that. So on our podcast intro call, you mentioned that new group that ADT had formed was the mobile business unit. How is your team re-imagining mobile security? I know you hinted on it a little bit, but how is that being re-imagined right now?

Leah Page (08:53):

Yeah, look, I think it's taking from the strengths that we have as a business, as a brand, what we've learned over the decades and decades of being a brand, and translating that into what it means to be mobile first today. And so, whether that's some of the instances I referred to before, some of the situations you can be in, all of that is relevant.

Look, security is not a new concept. There's been the need for security since sheriffs are roaming in the Wild West, so it's not that. It's all about how to make it convenient, easy to access, and make it right for me at the time. Make it something that I can consume, that I can touch, that is there for me when I need it and where I need it. And that's really what we're trying to strive to hit up against.

Joe Toste (09:33):

I love that. And mobile, too, it's really evolved in the last decade. Which I think people thought mobile was going to be just an app and it died, but it's constantly being re-evolved, which I think just goes really well and blends with the security, and it's just only going to continue to innovate and get better. So I want to brag a little bit. Talk about your experience with Nagarro and how partnerships with companies like ours, Nagarro sponsors our podcast, to help assist with product strategy and innovation.

Leah Page (10:04):

They have been a great partner for us, a tremendous partner. We have worked with Nagarro, gosh, probably, I think in my entire tenure at ADT, if not the majority of it, and they have helped us in a lot of different key areas. My personal background, I come from a product development background, so I have a passion for products. I have a passion for that voice of customer and understanding how things can work. And I've worked with various teams in my career, and they are definitely top of class.

They are people that actually care. They are people that think about it. They're thoughtful, they're imaginative, and they also will do the competitive set. They truly understand, will bring concepts to the table when we talk about it. And sometimes, we'll say, "Hey, we need to talk about this next week," and they'll already come in with such a great database of knowledge, of understanding of other players, what are they doing, how can we differentiate, that it's almost like they've been doing it for months.

So I really just can't say enough great things about the team there and what we've done, what they've done for us. They do a lot of our product concepting. They've done UX/UI. They've done product workshops. We've actually, a lot of times, had them work hand in hand with our development team. So, SOSecure is a great example. For our application, they've done a ton of the UI and UX work for that application. But it doesn't just end at the design what's happening. They are a full end-to-end design shop, and they will help us through even the user testing, take that feedback, use it, recreate. It really goes through the whole life cycle of development.

Joe Toste (11:33):

I love that. If you had a magic wand, what would you like to see from Nagarro in 2021?

Leah Page (11:38):

Yeah, that's probably the toughest question. A magic wand. What would I want to see? I think that it would be something, I would love to see for them to actually go and potentially work with some of these new, more technology forward thinking startups and things like that, and be able to almost embed some of those concepts into the design work and other work that they do for us.

Right now, we treat that as almost two different things. We have a team that does a lot of proof of concepting, that's out there thinking about innovation and bringing that into the ecosystem. If that was something that actually came to us with some of the design concepting, I think that would be an even bigger win than we have today.

Joe Toste (12:20):

So let's wrap up. What's your number one leadership lesson the audience can take away from you?

Leah Page (12:24):

When I look back to my fundamentals, my principles, what I look for and what's important to me, I think it really comes down to being accountable. 

I lead my team in a way that I allow them to be the ones that come up with the ideas, are accountable for them, and then deliver them. And I think when you provide that sort of expectation of accountability from other people, it in some ways really allows them to not only grow into it, but to really present themselves and think about things in a different way.

If I'm constantly doing that thinking for you or that doing for you, I'm not teaching you and encouraging you to get to that next level. I try to be there just to remove obstacles, to build on great ideas, and to get everything out of the way so that my people can be really, truly successful in what they want to do. And I think that accountability and delivering on what you say you're going to do is a big part of that. And if I could teach them anything or give them that lesson, that's what it would be. It's just, if you say you're going to do it, make sure you deliver on it, and whatever you need along the way, let your leader or your manager know.

Joe Toste (13:28):

Ooh, I love that. That's really good. What's the nicest thing that someone has done for you?

Leah Page (13:32):

The nicest thing someone has done for me? We were joking about this. I'm like, "There's so many different ways to take this question." But the nice thing... I got to tell you, I'm a mom, I have kids, and so I'm going to have to always bring it back to that. But I think all the hugs, and the kisses, and the support that my family gives me, they're great. Having little kids is amazing. You learn a lot. I thought I knew things until I had kids, and basically, now they're the boss. They're the ones that are teaching me about life and about what things are important and what should be. And so I would have to say the hugs and support I get from them are probably the nicest gift I get.

Joe Toste (14:09):

I love it. And what are the ages of the kids?

Leah Page (14:11):

Well, I have five, three stepdaughters and two daughters, so all girls, and they range all the way from a senior in high school all the way down to a four year old. So I have my own focus group at home, if you will, of a variety of different ages of beautiful young ladies.

Joe Toste (14:28):

Oh, I love that. I have a two and a half year old son, and then my wife has a daughter from her previous marriage and she lives with us, Annabel. She's 11. It's a spectrum. I always laugh. With Jack, we watch these baby videos, and then with her, we're playing video games or whatever, hanging out. I love that.

Leah Page (14:48):

I was watching the older ones as they teach technology to the younger ones, like tablets, phones. We have a ton of TikTokers in our house, so you can see literally my four year old going around doing the TikTok dances that her sisters in middle school do, and it's just so heartwarming and adorable. But it shows you, right? That technology, what they're going to grow up with, how they understand and consume is really quite interesting.

Joe Toste (15:10):

So, I'm going to put you on the spot. Who else would you nominate, it could be from ADT, doesn't have to be from ADT, to come on the TechTables podcast. And it can be Maria, because she's already got to come on next.

Leah Page (15:19):

Yeah. Who else would I nominate? I think, really, there's a really special person from my team. He's a good friend of mine, somebody that I have known for many years, but truly one of the most innovative people and forward thinking people that I know, I'm Steve Zaccardi. He leads up our development effort for this mobile platform, but in his past and what he's accomplished has done so much more. But he's also just truly, really curious about innovation, how things work, technology, and I think that he would be a great person to have on the show to give perspective from a more technical standpoint of innovation and technology.

Joe Toste (15:55):

Steve, I'm coming for you. Yeah. So Leah, where can people find you? Do you hang out on LinkedIn, Twitter? What's the platform?

Leah Page (16:01):

Yeah. LinkedIn, you can find me there, for sure.

Joe Toste (16:04):

Thank you for coming on TechTables. Really appreciate the time.‍

Leah Page (16:05):

Yeah. Thanks so much. This was really fun.

VoiceOver (16:07):

If you're interested in seeing what Nagarro, a digital product engineering company that excels at solving complex business challenges through agility and innovation, can do for your company. You can email Joe at joe.toste, that's T-O-S-T-E, @nagarro.com, or message Joe on LinkedIn. For all information on Nagarro, check out nagarro.com. That's N-A-G-A-R-R-O.com.

You've been listening to the TechTables podcast. To make sure you never miss an episode. Subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player. If you have an iPhone, we'd love for you to open the Apple Podcasts app and leave a quick rating for the show. Just tap the number of stars you think the podcast deserves. To catch more TechTables episodes, you can go to techtablespodcast.com. And to learn more about our sponsor, please visit nagarro.com. That's N-A-G-A-R-R-O.com. And of course, you can find Joe Toste, your podcast host, on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Joe's last name is T-O-S-T-E. Thanks for listening.