On June 1, 2019, Sphera will celebrate its third anniversary.
There is just something magical about the number three; it’s powerful, it’s provocative and it’s perpetually found and used in so many interesting ways.
Ever heard the saying “Third time’s the charm”? It means to never give up. There’s also “Good things happen in threes,” which means there’s just something inherently satisfying in, as the Beatles once sang, “One and one and one is three.” Want to make a wish with a genie? Chances are you’ll get three—and if you’ve seen “Aladdin” you know there’s no wishing for more wishes. Want to design a building? Triangles offer strength and stability. Ever heard the term “Three-peat?” It’s a term trademarked by NBA executive Pat Riley during the 1980s when the Los Angeles Lakers were on the verge of winning three championships.
Sphera even has three main areas of focus: Environmental Performance, Operational Risk and Product Stewardship.
While the name “Sphera” is only a few years old, the company actually traces its history back more than three decades to the 1980s, a decade when the hair, sweaters and leg warmers were big, the My Little Pony craze began to take off soon after “Little House on the Prairie” was taken off the air, and the Lakers, as we mentioned, were not just big time but they were Showtime, too.
To celebrate Sphera’s third anniversary, we look back at three great milestones and innovations from each of our first three years.
Year One
Riveting Rivo Deal
Shortly after the second quarter began in 2017, Sphera was off and running. We announced our first acquisition since Sphera was formed in mid-2016. The deal for Rivo Software was completed with the future in mind. Sphera truly had its head in the clouds, which is a good thing in this case, and wanted to bring a Software as a Service (cloud) solution that offered the same performance and functionality as our on-premise solutions. With the Rivo deal, that goal rocketed its way to the cloud and beyond. As Paul Marushka, Sphera’s president and CEO, said: “We believe it is critical to continue innovating and expanding our world-class products and services. With Rivo’s technology, Sphera now has the unique ability to offer customers the optimal flexibility—with both on-premise and cloud-based software options for managing risk and compliance.” Read the news release.
Say It Loud, ‘SpheraCloud’
Making news and innovating is just what we do here at Sphera. Some of our clients wanted the mobile functionality that comes along with cloud-based solutions, and we listened. Featuring a responsive, configurable and intuitive cloud-based user interface, the SpheraCloud platform is designed to help businesses improve decision-making and performance with an integrated view of their risk and compliance portfolio at all levels. And the previously mentioned Rivo deal had a lot to do with getting us to where we wanted to be. Neat, huh? “Featuring a responsive, configurable and intuitive cloud-based user interface,” Marushka said, “the SpheraCloud platform is designed to help businesses improve decision-making and performance with an integrated view of their risk and compliance portfolio at all levels.” At the inspire 2019 conference, which recently took place in San Antonio, we even announced that SpheraCloud will be getting a new user interface and we will be offering SaaS-based capabilities for even more of our software solutions. Read the news release.
You’re the Inspiration
As we mentioned, SpheraCloud was launched at the first Sphera inspire user conference in 2017. Hundreds of people ventured to Austin, Texas, and Brussels, Belgium, to learn about innovations in both our cloud- and on-premise solutions. The 2017 event in Austin in particular also featured a lot of “meat”—both the eatin’ kind and the learnin’ kind. With dozens of Spherions on site to help clients learn more about our solutions and a keynote address from Christine Todd Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey, there was also a whole lot of thought leadership in the house. Mike Zamis, Sphera’s chief product officer, was there to announce our product roadmap, which he recently updated at our most recent inspire conference. (Psst … not to get too sidetracked, but the Barcelona, Spain, inspire event is a few days away. If you haven’t yet, get registered, get ready, get set and get going to España; pronto. You’ll learn a lot and have a lot of fun, too.) We also had The Ink Factory on hand in Austin to create a living mural of our Embracing Excellence award winners (shown above). How inspiring is that?
To read Part Two of this series, please click here.