Signed

Nobody in the building owns the cloud bill. Not IT, not finance, not engineering — and when a CEO finally gets desperate enough to set a hard ceiling, like getting spend below 9% of revenue or the business isn't viable, that's when everyone finds out the EDP they already signed made the target structurally impossible before the conversation even started. The problem wasn't technical. It was in the...

You're making infrastructure decisions on a system you can't see. It's fast, stable, and invisible. That's the problem. Underneath it, global capacity is planned years in advance, routes are shaped by geopolitics, and resilience depends on infrastructure you don't control. Max Clark sits down with TS Narayanan, CTIO of EXA Infrastructure, to explain the layer most enterprise buyers never see — and...

SOC 2 certification has become shorthand for security. It isn't. Max Clark breaks down what SOC 2 actually demonstrates — and the costly mistake most buyers make when building their controls: anchoring them to a specific vendor's tool. When you replace that tool, the control breaks. And you won't find out until your auditor does. 

You’re paying for your network in ways you don’t see. Most teams don’t catch it until the bill shows up. Traffic leaves the cloud for inspection, then gets sent back in. Every step adds cost. Most teams never map the full path, so it goes unnoticed. Max Clark sits down with Doug Houghton from Alkira to break down how double egress happens, why costs can spike by 300x, and how these decisions quiet...

Most enterprise networks weren’t designed for what they’re carrying today. The problem isn’t traffic—it’s the decisions underneath it. Those decisions weren’t made for today’s reality. They were made years ago—then inherited, layered on, and never fully revisited. Over time, that turns into performance issues, rising costs, and risk that only shows up when something breaks.  In this episode of Sig...

The IT market is built for sellers. After 200+ episodes of Tech Deep Dive, one pattern kept showing up. The technology wasn't the hard part. The decision was. What got approved. What finance pushed back on. What vendors didn't say. What broke after the contract was signed. This is where the focus shifts — from the technology itself to the decisions behind it and what actually happens once you sign...

Max Clark is joined by Ed Bailey, Field CISO at Cribl, to discuss why many companies invest heavily in collecting data but struggle to turn it into meaningful outcomes. They explore common mistakes in data strategy, the gap between tools and skills, and what organizations should consider before collecting more data. What you’ll learn: Why companies are spending millions collecting data without cle...

What happens when your contact center hits peak demand… and the queue explodes? In this episode, Max sits down with Michael Cibelli (PolyAI) to break down how one major brand went from 400+ callers waiting in queue to zero hold time—without wrecking customer experience. You’ll learn why traditional IVR trees (“Press 1 for…”) fail, what replaces them, and how modern Voice AI can contain calls end-t...

The demo was perfect. Then deployment happened.  If your contact center AI “worked” in a pilot but fell apart in production - this episode explains why. Max Clark sits down with Jim K. Tennant (VP, Channel Sales at Observe. AI) to unpack the real reasons contact center AI projects fail after approval: weak data foundations, missing guardrails, messy knowledge sources, agent adoption breakdowns, an...

What if the real problem isn’t Azure… it’s putting the wrong workloads there? In this episode, Max Clark sits down with William Sellers, Solutions Architect at DartPoints, to dissect a real-world migration from the energy sector: an internal research app that went into Azure “to move fast,” scaled to nearly $30K/month, and finally forced leadership to draw a line. You’ll hear how technical debt, p...

If you’re betting on “the cloud is secure” and a few DLP rules to save you, you’re exposed. Most breaches aren’t a tool failure, they’re a visibility failure. You can’t protect data you can’t see. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Sirena Ong from Secuvvy to break down Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) : what it is, how it differs from DLP, and why every CISO is suddenly waking up to...

You know that moment when the alerts start flooding in, and your entire network goes dark? Systems down. Phones silent. Operations frozen. Now imagine that happening inside a prison. Six hundred of them. One outage away from chaos. In this conversation, Max Clark sits down with Oliver Maxwell from APX Net, Inc who had to build a network that literally keeps the peace. They get into what happens wh...

Ever feel trapped in the endless cycle of network refreshes, license renewals, and “surprise” upgrade costs? You’re not alone. One school faced the same uphill battle and decided to break free. The result? A $250K turnaround and a totally new way of thinking about IT infrastructure. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Francisco Tello, Senior Sales Engineer at Meter, to unpack how a forward-t...

You know the risks. The board knows the budget. So how do you bridge the gap? For most IT and security leaders, convincing executives to prioritize security is the toughest job they face. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Alejandro Ziegenhirt, Sr. Manager of InfoSec & DevOps at OfferUp, to unpack the real-world struggle of funding security. From cloud myths to phishing to why ROI argum...

Every minute you wait to respond, another lead dies. Missed calls, ignored forms, slow follow-ups, your IT system might be the silent killer behind your pipeline collapse. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Kaitlynn Crossno, Sales Engineering Manager at Capacity, to uncover the hidden IT gaps that kill pipeline in minutes. From speed-to-lead failures to dealer bottlenecks and weekend covera...

Imagine signing the lease, hiring the staff, setting the date and then realizing you can’t even open your doors. That’s exactly what happened to a fast-growing healthcare provider. In this episode, Max Clark and Darcy Guidry, Regional Channel Director at Epic iO, expose the hidden IT gap that can shut a business down: months-long fiber delays, shocking $1,000 copper POTS lines, and overlooked conn...

Imagine your call volume doubles overnight, but your hiring budget is stuck at zero. Most contact centers would collapse. Heritage Federal Credit Union didn’t. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Brent Wilford and Patrick Russell from Glia to unpack how Heritage: Navigated a messy merger without adding agents Reimagined customer engagement with true omnichannel done right Used AI to empower...

They had backups. The storm didn’t care. When a major client demanded proof of uptime and recovery, a Florida-based marketing company realized their DR plan was just a plan, not a solution. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Keith Lukes from UbiStor to break down how backup confidence can quickly turn into recovery chaos. From untested runbooks to budget-busting HA demands, they dive into w...

How many moving lawsuits are driving around with your logo on them right now? Fleet liability is no longer just a risk—it’s a ticking time bomb for your business. Accidents, claims, inflated insurance premiums, distracted drivers… the dangers are real, and they’re hiding in plain sight. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Chris Johnson, VP of Business Development at Azuga, to break down how...

What if you had no cyber insurance… and still walked away with the money? Most companies wouldn’t be so lucky. But one small manufacturer found themselves in the middle of a cybercrime event—and somehow, a loophole in the system worked in their favor. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Joseph Cook of Arizona Group to unpack a real-world breach that started with a spoofed invoice and ended i...

It’s every parent’s worst nightmare—your child dials 911... and nothing happens. Most of us assume emergency services will be there when we need them. But what if your office phone, your cloud system, or your campus setup silently fails in a moment that counts? In this episode, Max Clark is joined by Mark “Fletch” Fletcher, ENP at 911 and a leading voice in public safety technology. They unpack sh...

Microsoft doesn’t just allow you to leave Calling Plans—they’ve built tools to help you do it. That’s not a glitch in the strategy. It is the strategy. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Steve Forcum, Director of Marketing at SIPPIO, to explore the future of voice inside Microsoft Teams—and why legacy models like Cisco UC and Microsoft Calling Plans no longer fit. From the Operator Connect...

Could one missed alert put lives at risk? Hospitals were once worried about downtime. Now they're facing something far worse: real-world consequences when cybersecurity fails. One ransomware attack shut down a hospital—and a patient died. It was a moment that changed how healthcare leaders view risk forever. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Eric Fromm of Trustwave to unpack the silent vul...

What if the company you just bought came with a hidden cyber landmine? M&A is risky enough. But when cybersecurity gaps go unchecked during a merger, the consequences aren't just technical — they’re financial, operational, and reputational. And most leaders don’t see the breach coming until it’s too late. In this episode, Max Clark sits down with Kevin Thomsen, CRO of Maxxsure to unpack what r...

A 20-year-old server. A forgotten backup plan. A single system crash. In healthcare, these aren’t just IT oversights — they’re threats to patient lives. From delayed treatments to data breaches, outdated tech can trigger a cascade of consequences no provider can afford.  In this episode, Max Clark is joined by Dustin Young, EVP of Enzu and an expert in healthcare IT infrastructure, to explore the...