Trinidad’s Republic Bank has been serving customers via its branches for over 185 yearsand now serves 16 different countries across the Caribbean and beyond. It’s “a regional bank with a growing global reach,” explains Group Chief Information & Digital Transformation Officer, Houston Ross. His team is building a digital bank during a Year of Delivery and Accountability (YODA). “It’s easy to be overwhelmed with the ideas of what’s possible so it’s up to our team to channel its work in the right direction for the bank. We’ve been aiming to facilitate a shift from project to product – the traditional project mindset is stop/start. But when we talk about digitalisation it’s a journey that never ends. And product is the vehicle to make sure we’re continuously improving.
“We’ve had success with initiatives like our Endcash digital wallet – which now features more than 1,000 merchants and over 10,000 customers successfully onboarded. This is our digital pathway and we have to change minds in terms of going beyond the challenges to achieve what’s possible with the right frameworks, tools and processes for our people to serve our customers.”
Carrefour: Bridging the linguistic divide with technology
Zoe Bordelon, Global L&D Lead at Carrefour, digs deep into the company’s desire to bring better communication to its staff and customers through the magic of language-learning.
“We needed to give our team a way to learn languages and improve their communication…We work closely with the different countries to make sure we’re all aligned for the group roadmap, while also supporting them in delivering our initiatives to employees.”
Glovo: Cybersecurity as a business enabler
We speak with Glovo’s Head of Security, Rafael Di Bari, on managing a global business-wide transformation to make Cybersecurity a business enabler at the leading Spanish tech platform connecting users across 23 countries with a range of on-demand services.
“At Glovo aim to create a robust security framework that adapts to emerging threats and aligns with our strategic business objectives.”
Meet, greet, and learn from fellow IT professionals at VISIONS CIO + CISO Leadership Summit on the 28th to the 30th of April 2025. At the Allianz Stadium in London, you’ll discover the newest solutions and strategies on the market, while making meaningful connections with your peers.
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Over the course of the VISIONS event, attendees will have access to over 30 presentations and eight different sessions, as well as panels involving numerous expert speakers, and peer-to-peer roundtables.
Interface Magazine is thrilled to announce that our magazine is a media partner of VISIONS UK! For the CIO + CISO Leadership Summit, VISIONS is offering a VIP code for our readership. Secure your free pass here and use the code INTF-VIP for the full VIP experience!
Taking the challenge out of change
The pressure to modernise is at an all-time high, but the VISIONS CIO + CISO Leadership Summit provides a welcoming and informative atmosphere for you to learn about updating your systems, tackling cybersecurity threats, and building AI strategies.
The event is reserved for executives, and aims to support your professional and departmental goals across the board. The programme is tailored to enlighten, educate, and support CIOs and CISOs in their technology journeys.
Agenda
Eight sessions
30+ presentations
30+ speakers across panels, fireside chats and peer-to-peer roundtables
Alongside your free pass, use the VIP code INTF-VIP to also gain access to the following:
Complimentary accommodation for one night
On-site food and drinks provided
Multiple networking receptions with open bar
Travel reimbursement
Designed to address your challenges
This event aims to put an end to the usual wandering around the exhibition hall in order to find the information you want. During registration, you’ll have the chance to explain the current challenges you’re facing in business, and Visions will do the hard work in arranging meetings with a tailored set of solutions providers. You’ll be connected directly with the people who can help, in a bespoke, no-pressure environment.
Register today! Click here to book, and use our unique media partner code for VIP treatment: INTF-VIP
“Turning transformation into a non-event is our North Star,” explains Thorsten Spihlmann, Head of Business Development for Transformation in the Cloud Lifecycle Management department at SAP. The evolution of SAP’s Business Transformation Centre (BTC) is future proofing customer experience. “The BTC is a comprehensive solution that helps users streamline the process of migration to S/4HANA,” says Spihlmann. “In the end, it’s one central platform – one central orchestration layer – which guides you through all phases of the project. The BTC enables users to access source systems, profile data for insights, enhance and transform data, provision it to target systems, and validate data integrity… Our customers’ interests are always top of mind.”
Nestlé: A CIO Leading by Example
Nestlé‘s Oceania’s CIO, Rosalie Adriano, dives deep into how her breadth of experience in transformational change led to her becoming one of 2024’s top 50 CIOs in Australia. “I want ideas to be freely shared. Innovation is encouraged. This approach breaks down silos and creates a sense of unity and purpose.”
Poundland & Dealz: The Value of Digital
Dean Underwood, IT Director at Poundland & Dealz, talks challenges, cultural shift and the company’s digitally transformation… “We must prove that spending on technology is as impactful as investing in product pricing,” he says. “For example, my request to fund a new data warehouse competes with the Commercial Director’s goal to maintain affordable prices. The customer always comes first, but investing in supply chain efficiencies lowers operating costs, helping us keep prices down. It’s our responsibility to demonstrate the value of every investment.”
Schenectady County Government: Delivering Critical and Secure Infrastructure
Schenectady County’s CIO Gabriel A. Benitez discusses the role of IT as a steward for citizens, leadership and the power of teams, and why security is crucial to the organisation… “We support and serve to keep Schenectady County running. That covers a broad remit, but some of the key departments we work with include Finance, Law Enforcement, Emergency Management, Public Health, Glendale Nursing Home, County Clerk, District Attorneys, Public Defender, Conflict Defender, Probation, Social Services, Veteran’s Affairs, Engineering & Public Works, and Department of Motor Vehicles.”
We chat with the CIO of Urenco, Sarah Leteney, about the ways this unique business leverages technology, and the big difference a small team can make.
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Urenco does things a little differently. It has to. It supplies uranium enrichment services and fuel cycle products for the nuclear industry – a niche that requires a lot of specialist care and attention. Urenco has a clear vision for the net zero world. A world in which carbon-free energy is the norm. And for its CIO, Sarah Leteney, this means approaching the world of technology in different and interesting ways.
Leteney speaks exclusively to Interface Magazine about what it means to operate IT in a high-risk environment that requires an enormous amount of consistency. She also discusses the types of systems that are vital to Urenco, how the business leverages suppliers, bringing in the most talented possible people, and how Urenco balances a small team with a high pressure environment.
How does the role of CIO within the nuclear industry differ from one for a consumer goods company?
Most CIOs spend their time thinking about how to talk to customers through the rapid exchanges that are needed to maintain the flow of high volumes of traffic. They need to know how to keep up with their competitors in terms of customer experience and how to quickly bring new products to market.
At Urenco, we are quite literally the polar opposite of this. We are concerned with the consistency and timeliness of highly individualised communications with our customers, how internal control software can enable the accurate flow of information to our regulators, and how to support our teams to keep track of every gram of raw material, and product in our organisation. Our systems are vital to keep our operations safe and reliable. It is not fast-paced – rather a very careful and considered environment where accuracy is everything.
What is it like to enable and provision services in such an environment? Can you keep in touch with market trends? Is there much recognition of what you do?
I work in a high threat environment and there are many special considerations to understand. There is a certain cadence and rhythm to what we do and we have to work at a pace which suits the organisation, rather than keep up with the latest trends in the IT industry. Although, we do keep abreast of developments through networks such as Gartner and Aurora and introduce them where appropriate and relevant.
In relation to the recognition of this role, like every other CIO out there, you are noticed more when something is not working properly. That said, Urenco is very good at making you feel as if you are part of something that matters. People readily ask you questions and understand when something is a minor glitch compared to something more significant. And we actively encourage people to report issues because that is how you get continuous improvement. Overall, the organisation takes care of my team, we’re not under siege when things go wrong and what we do is widely appreciated.
What sorts of systems are you looking after and what are the challenges around these?
We have all the same systems that you see in many other large organisations, plus a few really niche products used only in our industry.
Like lots of businesses, we are on a SAP journey, moving existing systems into S4. This programme impacts all parts of the organisation and we have to drive the changes forward from a business point of view. We consider the IT team an enabler for this work as it’s ultimately the transformation of our business processes which we are trying to facilitate.
We also look after the information assets of the organisation – both the structured and unstructured data. Like many organisations, it’s an on-going process to work out how to extract genuine business insights from vast amounts of historical data which has been stored in multiple places and not always in the most logical manner. We have a significant amount of historical information which still remains important (think plant designs and maintenance records, etc.) so effective archiving and retention policies are very much at the forefront of our minds. It’s so easy to over store or over classify information in an effort to be ‘safe rather than sorry’, but in reality, as well as increasing on-going costs, this sort of behaviour tends to make it harder to find what you need. We are investigating new technologies to help us search through our data faster and more effectively than ever before.
We’re also currently extending into the Operational Technology sphere, sharing our experience and tools with our OT colleagues and directly addressing operational security challenges, investing significantly in our cyber defences to further strengthen our plant security services.
What is it like to work in a company with a large turnover but a relatively small number of employees? How does that affect the service you provide?
We try to think through what every employee needs from IT and provide them with the level of service their role requires, regardless of their position in the business. We are in the fortunate position where having fewer employees means individual changes to software, hardware, or SAAS costs tend to have a less significant impact on our profitability than in many organisations with higher staff complements. Many organisations have tiers of users which determine the level of service received. However, in our organisation, every minute of everyone’s time is important, as we don’t have many employees driving our engine forward. We are investing in our employee experience as one of the key organisational imperatives working alongside our colleagues in the People and Culture team, and this is going to be an on-going focus for us for the next few years.
Whilst the company turnover is important, it is less of a driving factor for us in IT. We benchmark ourselves against what proportion of operational expenditure we are investing in IT and IS to ensure we invest an appropriate amount in IT for an organisation of this size.
How do you work with your team to ensure they can provide the most effective service to the business?
We are organised primarily around our production sites, with a centralised team to provide shared services like architecture and finance. The organisation is only two layers deep in most teams, so information flow is mainly managed by direct cascade. The senior team is made up of heads of shared functions and site IT managers, and opinions flow freely between them.
Our IT Leadership team has a monthly two-day meeting where we come together in person. We sit together without our PCs and the constant pinging of information. This helps us to realign, to reprioritise matters, and include coaching and learning techniques. We all have daily pressures in our lives, and these meetings are about supporting each other and working effectively together.
Once a quarter we also visit one of our sites as a group, hosted by our IT site managers. This is critical to us because we cannot do our jobs without thoroughly understanding the experience of IT services on the ground. These visits also allow us to meet up with our business colleagues as part of their site leadership teams so we can exchange experiences and strategic thinking quite freely in person.
We also run monthly townhall meetings for all members of the IT team, and invite our colleagues from Information Security to join us. We have found this to be a really valuable information exchange point. IS can hear exactly what we are saying to the wider team on the ground, so they can gain real insight into our issues first hand. Our key suppliers are also invited to these sessions on a quarterly basis, again to foster free exchange of information.
How about diversity and inclusion – what are you doing within that area and what have you achieved?
This is one of the biggest areas I would like to tackle further. Within our company, like the whole of the nuclear sector, the age of our employees is increasing year on year as we have a very low employee turnover. So we have a small number of vacancies on an annual basis and we are working hard to get a better talent pool for when these opportunities arise, reaching out to people with a wider range of backgrounds.
Our strategy includes blind sifting, engaging with people who have had periods of time out of the workplace and may need to work certain hours, and being open to job-sharing. It is possible for us to be very flexible and we are trying to ensure this is known out in the world of recruitment.
One area we are doing really well in right now is neurodiversity. We have a significant proportion of our team who identify as neurodivergent and a new staff network focussing on the specific issues of importance to this community was actually started by a member of our team.
I’d love to see an ethnicity and gender mix in the future which is closer to the population norms in each of our operating countries and I’m pleased to say that our talent acquisition partners are working hard to promote our roles in new talent pools with a much more diverse population.
How do you work with your suppliers to maintain a good relationship with them?
We’re currently in the process of diversifying our IT supply base. We have had a couple of really strong suppliers for a long period of time who work very closely with us, but what we are aiming to do now is widen our group of key suppliers to create a supplier ecosystem consisting of four different types of partner – Advisory, Development, Configuration, and Support. A key part of this initiative will be about embedding the behaviours we would like suppliers to demonstrate when working with us to create an inclusive and transparent relationship, which we are progressing through setting up a Urenco Academy to provide initial onboarding and on-going behavioural reinforcement of Urenco’s core values across our partnerships.
You recently won a CIO 100 award. How did that come about and what reaction did you get from people who know you?
The CIO 100 award came about through my external mentor asking me why I wasn’t looking at it! He encouraged me to put myself forward for consideration. Sometimes you need a bit of a push from a critical friend to remind you that whilst you see how much remains to be done, it’s good to acknowledge the great results you have already achieved.
The most gratifying thing about the whole experience for me was that you are judged by really experienced CIOs, so they fully understand the complexity of what you do. I’m incredibly grateful and humbled to be included in such an inspiring group of people, who are all wrestling with organisational struggles and trying to keep up in a fast-paced world, solving problems all day, every day.
My colleagues were delighted for me and sent lots of congratulatory messages. I think my team were slightly surprised because they also don’t always see what a good job they are all doing. One of them was even inspired to send an AI-created poem in celebration!
Urenco gave me the opportunity to take on a challenging and exciting role initially as an interim CIO. They chose to promote from within despite having strong external candidates, and not only that, but they asked if I would like to have a mentor in my first year to help me to cement the skills I wanted to strengthen for my own peace of mind. I’m not sure what else I could have asked for from this organisation. When I look at the award all I really think, looking back over the last three years, is ‘how amazing is that’!
Xerox has been a household name for decades. For many, it’s associated with photocopiers and printers. After all, it’s the…
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Xerox has been a household name for decades. For many, it’s associated with photocopiers and printers. After all, it’s the largest print company in the world. But it’s also a technology powerhouse that’s been at the forefront of a great deal of innovation. It has undergone a journey of evolution and reinvention into an IT and digital services provider. That’s what led to the business acquiring a large managed service provider, Altodigital, in 2020.
Derek Gunton has spent nearly 20 years in the technology sphere. He came to Xerox as part of the Altodigital acquisition. Altodigital also started out as a management print organisation and evolved into the IT services side, so its journey mirrors Xerox’s in many ways. “Now, as we move into the next technological age powered by AI and automation, we’ve put ourselves in a good position,” says Gunton.
“Xerox continues to evolve as a company. It recently announced the acquisition of another large managed services IT business called Savvy, which will double the size of the IT services business. That gives us a lot of speciality, a lot of scale, and prepares us for that leap into the technologies of the future.”
Supporting Lanes Group’s technology
Xerox has been supporting Lanes Group in its own growth journey for a few years now. It doesn’t provide print services, but the IT and digital services Xerox is gradually becoming known for. The relationship began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the working environment was very different. Businesses were trying to figure out how to continue to operate as normally as possible and provide certainty for staff.
“There were just two of us from Xerox working with them, and we were talking about room planning software,” says Gunton. “How do you manage how many people are in the building? How do they book spaces, or manage people in line with the COVID legislation that was in place? The conversation started there. Then, we were asked what we could do around providing some managed service desk support just to assist the internal team at the time – and it’s grown from there. Four years later, we have over 30 members of staff dedicated to the Lanes account, supporting more than 4,000 users across over 50 states.
“We’re very much an operation that compliments Lanes Group. The thing that has always worked well is that we have the ability to respond and scale. Lanes have been on their own journey over the last few years to the point that they’re truly industry-leading, and we’ve managed to keep up whilst always looking to innovate, make suggestions, and bring new solutions to the table.”
An integrated technology partnership
Lanes Group supports key utilities including water and gas. What it does is absolutely critical. If there are problems in those areas, millions of people can be affected. So while Lanes has a huge responsibility to always be ready to support those utilities at all times, Xerox has just as much of a responsibility to be in a position to support Lanes.
“It’s massively important, and everybody in our business is briefed on what Lanes does to ensure we understand that responsibility,” says Gunton. “In my career, I’ve seen lots of different structures in terms of how we work with clients. Sometimes it can be very much a supplier-client relationship where it’s very siloed and formal. What sets our relationship with Lanes Group apart is that it’s a very integrated partnership. There are several meetings every week. There are dedicated program managers, and every product area has its owner. We have very strict SLAs to adhere to and the only way to deliver what Lanes needs is through communication and mutual support.”
Streamlining inconsistencies
A perfect example of the collaborative relationship between Xerox and Lanes Group is the secure network solution Xerox put in place. Effectively, Xerox mapped out and replaced the network infrastructure of all Lanes Group sites, giving better visibility, better control, and a better user experience.
“When we first reviewed the sites, there were over 50 of them running independently. That was difficult for the IT team to manage,” says Gunton. “It led to a lot of inconsistencies. We had mixed feedback from end users. Our aim was to introduce a technology system that would give the users the ability to have a consistent experience across all sites. We worked with our partners at HPE to identify the latest Ariba access solutions available, and deployment across all sites has been very successful. It’s also improved security, giving users the ability to skip length authentication processes. The user experience is really smooth now, which is what we were after.”
Creating agility
Working as partners, not in a supplier-client capacity, has made all the difference for the two businesses. From robot process automation to take manual tasks away from humans, to the increased use of AI-driven tools, Xerox is providing Lanes with what it needs to be agile. It’s a relationship based on trust and a shared goal.
“I do appreciate the help from the stakeholders at Lanes, because they embrace the same kind of culture,” Gunton says. “Often we’ll do joint meetings where we all address the same problem or desire to innovate together. We trust each others’ skill sets and openness to really come up with a solution. Ultimately, it’s all people-driven. It’s based on having really clever people in the right places, and we’ve built up a really solid team over the years.”
The evolution Lanes Group is going through isn’t going to slow down any time soon. That means Xerox’s work won’t either. Gunton states: “Our broad priorities with Lanes also reflect the current UK landscape. Data integration and automation are the areas we’re continuing to focus on. We have to think about how we deliver that. In terms of data, there needs to be one true source. You have to be really confident in the information you have, being as accurate as possible.”
What’s key for Xerox is ensuring that Lanes Group is able to shift from being reactive to more proactive. That is its focus. “We’re already delivering technology solutions to better equip Lanes to respond in that manner. I think the next year is going to be really exciting as we continue to develop that. We believe that we will continue to put Lanes at the forefront of their industry with the solutions that we supply.”
This month’s cover story throws the spotlight on the ground-up technology transformation journey at Lanes Group – a leading water…
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This month’s cover story throws the spotlight on the ground-up technology transformation journey at Lanes Group – aleading water and wastewater solutions and services provider in the UK.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
In a world driven by transformation, it’s rare a leader gets the opportunity to deliver organisational change in its purest form… Lanes Group – the leading water and wastewater solutions services provider – has started again from the ground up with IT Director Mo Dawood at the helm.
“I’ve always focused on transformation,” he reflects. “Particularly around how we make things better, more efficient, or more effective for the business and its people. The end-user journey is crucial. So many times you see organisations thinking they can buy the best tech and systems, plug them in, and they’ve solved the problem. You have to understand the business, the technology side, and the people in equal measure. It’s core to any transformation.”
Mo’s roadmap for transformation centred on four key areas: HR and payroll, management of the group’s vehicle fleet, migrating to a new ERP system, and health and safety. “People were first,” he comments. “Getting everyone on the same HR and payroll system would enable the HR department to transition, helping us have a greater understanding of where we were as a business and providing a single point of information for who we employ and how we need to grow.”
Schneider Electric provides energy and digital automation and industrial IoT solutions for customers in homes, buildings, industries, and critical infrastructure. The company serves 16 critical sectors. It has a vast digital footprint spanning the globe, presenting a complex and ever-evolving risk landscape and attack surface. Cybersecurity, product security and data protection, and a robust and protected end-to-end supply chain for software, hardware, and firmware are fundamental to its business.
“From a critical infrastructure perspective, one of the big challenges is that the defence posture of the base can vary,” says Cassie Crossley, VP, Supply Chain Security, Cybersecurity & Product Security Office.
“We believe in something called ‘secure by operations’, which is similar to a cloud shared responsibility model. Nation state and malicious actors are looking for open and available devices on networks. Operational technology and systems that are not built with defence at the core and not normally intended to be internet facing. The fact these products are out there and not behind a DMZ network to add an extra layer of security presents a big risk. It essentially means companies are accidentally exposing their networks. To mitigate this we work with the Department of Energy, CISA, other global agencies, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Through our initiative we identify customers inadvertently doing this we inform them and provide information on the risk.”
Persimmon Homes: Digital Innovation in Construction
As an experienced FTSE100 Group CIO who has enabled transformation some of the UK’s largest organisations, Persimmon Homes‘ Paul Coby knows a thing or two about what it takes to be a successful CIO. Fifty things, to be precise. Like the importance of bridging the gap between technology and business priorities, and how all IT projects must be business projects. That IT is a team sport, that communication is essential to deliver meaningful change – and that people matter more than technology. And that if you’re not scared sometimes, you’re not really understanding what being the CIO is.
“There’s no such thing as an IT strategy; instead, IT is an integral part of the business strategy”
WCDSB: Empowering learning through technology innovation
‘Tech for good’, or ‘tech with purpose’. Both liberally used phrases across numerous industries and sectors today. But few purposes are greater than providing the tools, technology, and innovations essential for guiding children on their educational journey. Meanwhile, also supporting the many people who play a crucial role in helping learners along the way. Chris Demers and his IT Services Department team at the Waterloo Catholic District School Board (WCDSB) have the privilege of delivering on this kind of purpose day in, day out. A mission they neatly summarise as ‘empower, innovate, and foster success’.
“The Strategic Plan projects out five years across four areas,” Demers explains. “It addresses endpoint devices, connectivity and security as dictated by business and academic needs. We focus on infrastructure, bandwidth, backbone networks, wifi, security, network segmentation, firewall infrastructure, and cloud services. Process improvement includes areas like records retention, automated workflows, student data systems, parent portals, and administrative systems. We’re fully focused on staff development and support.”
It’s impossible not to be inspired by the energy at a DPW event. DPW Amsterdam 2024 was buzzing with that…
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It’s impossible not to be inspired by the energy at a DPW event. DPW Amsterdam 2024 was buzzing with that same energy, its attendees soaking in information and inspiration from speakers, peers, other experts. We caught up with Rujul Zaparde, Co-Founder and CEO of Zip, at the event to dive into the procurement landscape and chat about the specific qualities DPW brings to the sector.
Zaparde is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zip. At the beginning of Zip’s journey, Zaparde and his fellow founder, Lu Cheng, based the company around their own experiences as end-users of the procurement process. They took their lived confusion around having multiple intakes for a contract, for the purchase request, and all the different complicated components of the process, and created a solution.
“And so, we started Zip and created the category of intake and procurement orchestration. We’re very grateful to have been named the leader in the category,” says Zaparde, in reference to having just been named a category leader in IDC’s first ever Marketscape for Spend Orchestration.
So, as is often the case, procurement is something Zaparde fell into. In this case, he got involved with procurement specifically to solve pain points. Prior to Zip, he was a Product Manager and Cheng was an Engineering Leader, both at Airbnb; they knew very little about procurement. “We were just end-users,” he explains. The upside of this was that they were able to come into the industry fresh, without the baggage and legacy issues that can come with being in a sector for a long time.
UX first
“At Zip, we really try to take a user experience first approach,” Zaparde continues. “What we found is the highest leverage change you can make in any procurement organisation is to make it easier for your employees to actually adopt and follow whatever the right process is. If you do that, then all of finance, procurement, accounting, and even IT find that they’re suddenly swimming with the current, not against it. And you can’t do any of that unless you solve for user experience.”
Taking away problems, the way Zip does, also takes away a barrier to ambition. The theme of DPW Amsterdam 2024 was 10X, a term on the lips of many across all sectors. Once immediate issues and pain points are addressed, 10X is something businesses can aspire to, with many talks and workshops during DPW Amsterdam focusing on how to approach this.
Getting the mindset right
For Zaparde, 10X thinking is a necessity for growth. “You have to aim for 10X to even end up at something X,” he explains. “That requires ambition. I also think that when you think in terms of 10X, and your mindset is angled towards incremental change, you’re much more open to thinking of solutions that are perhaps a little more risky. It changes your perspective.”
A mindset shift needs to happen before anything else. This involves considering the needs of procurement and the wider company, having a north star in mind, and then breaking changes down to an incremental level.
“Then you can start to think about the steps you need to take to get there,” Zaparde explains. “A big component of this is bringing along your peers and stakeholders across every function that’s tangential and critical to the core procurement workflow and path.”
Innovating for good
The work Zip does is indicative of the shift towards continuous improvement and advanced technology that procurement has been going through in recent years. There are things that are possible now that weren’t possible even a year ago, thanks to the vast innovations being made. One of the hot topics right now is generative AI, something that’s opening up a world of possibilities.
“It’s the elephant in the room right now,” says Zaparde. “With the capabilities that gen AI unlocks, you can automate a lot more. That allows you to cut down a lot of the transactional and operational work that procurement and sourcing organisations are doing. Procurement is tired of the status quo. It’s been an underserved function for over 20 years, and I’m glad that’s finally changing. I feel privileged for myself and Zip to be part of the conversation, and that we’re seeing all these amazing changes happening.”
Zaparde believes we’re already seeing the benefits of the major changes that have occurred over the last couple of years in procurement. In fact, he knows this, because Zip has helped its customers save around $4.5bn of spend over the last two years, which is an astonishing statistic.
“One customer of ours, Snowflake, achieved over $300m in savings alone,” Zaparde continues. “We’ve seen tangible benefits already. The way procurement is evolving isn’t a hypothetical thing – it’s really happening.”
Fragmentation on fragmentation
The key, again, is overcoming base level issues for the sake of evolution. This is precisely what Zip provides, after all. But sometimes, the issue is at a data level. Unclean data is something that technology leaders are talking about a great deal right now, with some feeling that it holds them back from implementing new technology. Zaparde believes that businesses should be questioning why their data isn’t clean from the start, rather than worrying about trying to cleanse existing data.
“You don’t just clean your data – the real question is why is your data not clean in the first place?” he muses. “You have to have a clean entry point for it. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to a Fortune 500 CPO that said they had clean data. I think it’s because of the upstream processes in intake and orchestration. If all the cross-functional teams – the IT review, the legal review, the finance – are being manually shepherded by the procurement operations organisation, then how can you possibly end up with clean data?
“People are keying the same information into multiple systems, which might mean they answer in similar – but different – ways. So you end up with fragmentation on fragmentation. But if you have one single door to that data, you’ll be able to drive only clean data, because it’s a funnel. If you let everyone have different swim lanes that never intersect, you won’t have clean data.”
As 2025 approaches, Zip has multiple product capabilities and features coming up that Zaparde and his team are very excited about. This includes leveraging gen AI, something we’re seeing incredible utilisation of across the sector.
For Zaparde, attending events like DPW Amsterdam to talk about what Zip does and interact with peers and clients alike is a joyous part of his job. “DPW is really accelerating the rate of change in the procurement industry. That’s very much needed, and it’s energising to see so many incredible people from the procurement world in one place. I love spending time with these forward-thinking procurement leaders at this event.”
When we’re talking about technology in procurement, the importance of partnership is a major component for success. No business is…
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When we’re talking about technology in procurement, the importance of partnership is a major component for success. No business is an island, and joining forces with experts is, increasingly, the direction many move in for the sake of growth.
At DPW Amsterdam 2024, we met many businesses who were looking around at the procurement sector in search of either what direction to move in next, or who they can help. The event is one that brings people together to learn, to teach, to discover the cutting edge of procurement, and be inspired by it. So when we sat down with the CEO of Fairmarkit, Kevin Frechette, it wasn’t surprising that he brought Nick Wright, who leads bp’s Procurement Digital Garage, into the conversation.
For Frechette, one of the best things about working in the advanced procurement technology sphere is joining forces with other businesses to help them keep improving, and vice versa. “Having the chance to work with people like Nick, who are pushing the envelope when it comes to autonomous sourcing, is amazing,” he explains. “We’re fired up to be at DPW, absorbing this atmosphere.”
While it’s something of a running joke in the procurement world that most professionals in the sector don’t deliberately choose it, Wright actually did. “I went to university and thought ‘wow, I fancy a career in procurement or vendor management’. I know a lot of people don’t have that story, but I’ve been doing something I’m passionate about from the beginning. I love making deals, whether I’m buying a car, a house, or something for BP.” The Procurement Digital Garage he leads exists to look at problems being faced across procurement, and figuring out possible solutions.
For Frechette, the intention wasn’t to start a company in the procurement space, but his team quickly saw the opportunities within it. “We had this ‘aha’ moment,” he says. “It was a tough pivot. There was a lot of debate, a lot of late nights. I’m super glad we made it because we got to be in a space where people can be forgotten about, and we’re able to give them centre stage.”
The realistic approach to 10X
DPW itself exists to put procurement under the limelight. Each event is themed in a way that gets conversations flowing around the next big thing in procurement. For Amsterdam 2024, this theme was 10X – something Frechette believes isn’t achievable right off the bat.
“It’s something to strive towards,” he says. “It’s something where you work on getting a little better every single month, every quarter. You keep getting those small wins, and you build credibility. There’s no silver bullet. You just have to start the journey and learn as you go.”
For Wright, it’s about not getting caught up in the hype, but figuring out what’s realistic. “There’s a lot of hype out there, and the beauty of something like my team at the Procurement Digital Garage is to weed out that hype, because what’s right for us might not be right for someone else. Having a team that’s out there in the market, testing and figuring out what’s real, will put you in good stead.”
“There’s a leap of faith element that can be challenging to achieve, before you can really strive for 10X,” Frechette adds. “It’s like Amara’s Law: humans typically overestimate the value of technology in the short term, but underestimate it in the long term. So the hype is needed. We have to help people on that journey and sometimes, a leap of faith is needed. For the people that risk it, it’s exciting, and they’re then well positioned for the future.”
However, again, managing expectations is important. “People might be on the sidelines expecting a 10X solution,” says Wright. “But the reality is, you’re going to get 5% here, 10% – smaller pockets of improvement.”
The benefits of advanced technology are absolutely being seen at this stage, but being realistic about the future outcomes is important. “The benefits are there – not at the scale of 10X – but if you just make a start, you’ll achieve wins,” says Frechette. “You broadcast those wins across the organisation. That generates excitement, and then you can work on the next thing because you have ground swell.”
How ‘the future’ has changed
What’s interesting is that this 10X focus, this drive towards incremental wins, has reframed the way businesses plan for the road ahead. ‘The future’ used to mean having a three or five-year plan. Now, the future is only 12 months away.
“The thought process right now is ‘what can we do that’s super optimistic in just 12 months’?” says Frechette. “Then you can put in realistic time frames and set off on a sprint to get there. You have to be able to move fast. We have launches every two weeks now, and we have to be flexible with our roadmap along the way. But we always know where we’re going – we have a north star.”
“To me, that’s the only way to do it,” Wright adds. “I don’t have a crystal ball. Nobody knows what’s going to happen in two or three years. So what’s the point of creating a plan that’s going to get you to a certain point in those two or three years? You have to work on small iterations, make adjustments, change direction as necessary.”
It’s part of what makes Fairmarkit and BP an active partnership – the ability to be flexible and open up discussions at every point. It’s all about real-time feedback and trust-building, to the extent that both parties feel like they’re on the same team.
The right people in the right places
Because ultimately, it’s the human element that makes transformation happen. Having the right people in place is one of the elements that’s key to making sure implementing advanced tech for the sake of business strategy works at all. “It’s about access to talent and making sure you’ve got a capable user group that can make the most of that technology,” says Wright. “You don’t need to be a data scientist, but you do need to have the right mindset to take advantage of the tools you’ve got.”
“I agree – you have to get the right people on the bus,” adds Frechette. “You all have to be committed to going on the journey together. Prioritise where you start and where you’re going to have the most value with the lowest risk, and have people on your side who can give suggestions and ideas.”
While the much-discussed talent shortage can create challenges there, DPW as an entity proves that not only does procurement keep becoming more appealing and exciting, but where there are gaps, there are digital tools. “I’ve noticed a lot of folks under 30 who are here at DPW Amsterdam, and they’re genuinely interested in procurement,” says Wright. “We’re at a tipping point that makes me really excited about the profession I’m in.”
‘Digitalisation is just the beginning’ according to Crowdfox, a business which aims to improve procurement by bettering the ordering process…
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‘Digitalisation is just the beginning’ according to Crowdfox, a business which aims to improve procurement by bettering the ordering process while lowering costs. That tagline speaks to Crowdfox’s dedication to advancing procurement using the exciting tools the sector now has at its disposal, and this push to innovate is being driven, in part, by Martin Rademacher, Crowdfox’s CSO. We sat down with Rademacher at DPW Amsterdam 2024, the exciting vibe of the event spreading far and wide around us.
Rademacher is responsible for everything to do with Crowdfox’s customers. From sales, to marketing, to customer onboarding and success, and everything in between – that’s Rademacher’s wheelhouse. His background is in management consulting, with a focus on procurement and supply chain. So, while he started out in sales, he soon decided that procurement was the direction to move in.
“During my time as a consultant, I found procurement very interesting because it’s so versatile,” explains Rademacher. “Of course, it’s about the transactional phase with suppliers – but also you’re so connected with R&D, production, logistics, and so on. You have so many fields of application.”
10X thinking
At DPW Amsterdam, the overall theme of the two-day event was 10X. The concept of the 10X rule is around taking a goal you’ve set for yourself and multiplying it by 10. It’s an aspirational tool, coaxing all of us to aim higher. In procurement, that means innovating.
“In the last two years we’ve seen tools like ChatGPT trigger some big adaptations in the procurement world,” says Rademacher. “I think there is the opportunity now to achieve 10X in terms of efficiency gains. Especially when it comes to making better decisions, more quickly, in order to analyse data. We’re now finding out what AI can really do, and focusing on how that can help with strategy.”
For Rademacher, he believes people have the right tools to achieve 10X – it’s now about implementing those tools properly, and having the right culture.
“In the last couple of years, implementing tools has become much easier than it was a decade ago,” Rademacher continues. “They’re so well designed that they fit into large procurement systems, and can connect with other best-of-breed tools. I’d say implementation should be the focus, but it’s not that complicated anymore. AI tools especially are really intuitive. As a result, you don’t need much in the way of change management. People just intuitively cooperate with AI.”
The question of security
The big challenge, Rademacher believes, is data protection. When it comes to barriers preventing a 10X approach, concerns around data privacy are among the biggest issues. As a result, organisations have to take the necessary precautions before plunging into making major technological changes, or risk falling at the first hurdle.
“In the EU, it’s all about data protection,” says Rademacher. These concerns led to the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) coming into force in the EU in August 2024. It was created in response to the rise in generative AI systems, and ensures that there’s a common regulatory framework for AI within the European Union. “Companies are very concerned about their data, but I wouldn’t call this an obstacle – more like a challenge.
“The key is making sure you have a protected environment. Start with a pilot in a limited space, for instance, and then make sure you can find a solution you can control in a safe environment that suits your operations.”
Shooting for the stars
With these measures in mind, it’s never been easier to implement new technologies and aim for that ambitious 10X goal. Certainly, advanced tools have never been more accessible, or more straightforward for businesses to educate themselves about. Even as recently as two years ago, integrating multiple elements of advanced tech – like genAI – wasn’t really possible.
“It definitely wasn’t easy to combine sources the way we can now,” says Rademacher. “Now, you can provide a much better user experience experience not only for procurement professionals, but for anyone who takes advantage of what procurement introduces to the company. Finding the supply to fulfil your demand is so much easier now. You no longer have to have difficult conversations starting with an email to your procurement professional to identify whether you’re allowed to purchase from a certain vendor, and whether they’re vetted or not. Streamlining processes like that makes that information quick and easy to identify.”
Additionally, we’re at a point with advanced technology where the tools we have access to are capable of handling more and more volumes of data at an extremely fast pace. “In consulting, for example, every project started with an analysis of the status quo of a firm,” says Rademacher. “We’d figure out who the vendors are, the categories, and the spend. Depending on the workforce, this could take one or two weeks. Now, with the tools we have access to, you can gather this information in 24 hours.”
The evolution continues
While we’re seeing many of the benefits that come with genAI and other advanced technologies already, it’s only the beginning of what we can achieve using these tools. GenAI is at a peak right now, but according to Rademacher, it might take another five years to achieve its full productivity level. “There’s also this ambitious idea going around of fully autonomous procurement, and it’ll likely take a good 10 years to reach that level of productivity,” he adds. “On the other hand, nobody is talking about robotic process automation anymore because we’re almost there with that already.”
Another challenge is data quality. The cleanliness of an organisation’s data can make or break its use of advanced technology, which is where making the right connections with service providers comes in. “It’s a good example of when to find the right partner,” says Rademacher. “Find someone from the innovative tech space who you think you can rely on. Don’t try to do it all on your own – that’ll just hold you back more and more. Be bold; find the right partner to make the most of your data and that helps you constantly improve. There’s a lot of talent out there, a lot of solutions that are really helpful for organisations of all sizes. You’ll improve step by step.”
There’s no doubt that it’s an exciting time for procurement. The atmosphere at DPW Amsterdam 2024 was electric for that exact reason. The event, in Rademacher’s words, has “a really strong influence on the sector and enables attendees to learn about how the landscape is developing in real time”.
“The AI-driven future is already a reality for us,” he states. “We’re beyond the pilot phase with our AI tool, ChatCFX, and now we really want to drive market share. 2024 going into 2025 sees us in a good position with high user visibility, and now we’re adding ChatCFX to the game, pushing it into the European market. We’re at DPW Amsterdam to meet the players who are looking for a solution exactly like ours, making it an invaluable place to be.”
Certain procurement pain points can prove debilitating for a business, freezing it in its tracks when it’s trying to grow…
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Certain procurement pain points can prove debilitating for a business, freezing it in its tracks when it’s trying to grow and improve. This is where companies like Candex are able to step in and turn a headache into something so simple, it requires no further thought.
Danielle McQuiston is the Chief Customer Officer at Candex. She’s been with the fintech startup for five years, spending two decades prior to that working in procurement at Sanofi. Candex is a technology-based master vendor that allows customers to engage with and pay one-off or small suppliers without setting them up in their system. This means that the system doesn’t get clogged up with suppliers that are rarely or never going to be used again.
“We’re primarily used for what companies consider tail spend, and we typically deliver it as a punchout catalogue for a really simple user experience,” McQuiston explains. That ability to support lots of customers was what drew her to the role. “Coming to Candex, I was very excited about what they were doing and wanted to help as many companies as possible.”
Addressing tail spend
That ability to address tail spend in a unique way is the main thing that differentiates Candex. It’s an enormous problem for procurement professionals. The way Candex delivers it is through a digital plug-and-play solution, removing the need to be dependent on human intervention. “It’s a horizontal solution for any good or service, and it’s available in over 45 countries now,” says McQuiston. “It becomes part of the customer’s ecosystems and leverages the P2P process. It’s super compliant, and allows a lot of control.”
With this tool in place, Candex’s customers are able to gain much better control over their smaller purchases, defining what is allowed to be purchased. For many, this tool allows them to put tighter restrictions on purchases than their e-procurement systems are able to do. Additionally, Candex runs suppliers through screenings every day, which generally doesn’t happen for small, rarely-used suppliers.
“We run really detailed compliance and sanction screening against all those vendors, taking away a really daunting task from customers,” McQuiston states. “Customers probably check those suppliers once when they’re being set up, but then they never look at them again. Every day, we’re checking them, and keeping an eye on them when our customers can’t.”
Candex’s reporting is extremely detailed, and provides customers with the kind of real-time visibility they wouldn’t normally get – even in their own systems. Reports are generated weekly or monthly, including the diversity status of suppliers. This is data that a lot of clients then feed directly into their Power BI tools and data lakes, meaning they’re able to integrate it seamlessly into their other data.
Cleaning up the data
The whole purpose and aim of Candex’s tool is to make life easier for its customers, streamline its processes, and improve efficiencies. To that end, standardisation is key when it comes to business improvements, and that includes preparing data prior to implementing new technologies and processes. When it comes to ensuring a business’s data is healthy – before launching into major tech changes – accepting the necessity of making foundational change is key.
“Data cleansing processes are ugly, cumbersome, and long – and everyone has to do them,” McQuiston comments. “But you have to accept that you’re going to have to do something, if you want to get a handle on your spend. First and foremost, you need to standardise the way you name things, the way you put data in the system, and you need a really strict discipline around that. All of those things will make backend processes a lot easier.”
It’s just one of many considerations CPOs need to bear in mind when seeking out technology solutions and implementation. Modern procurement departments have a seat at the wider business table now, and what they do impacts the entire business. So when it comes to utilising solutions for the sake of the business at large, there are many factors to think about.
“As with any data or technology, it’s all about garbage in and garbage out,” says McQuiston. “Any advanced technology should be used with caution and viewed with a critical eye. You have to start with knowing what you want out of it.
“A lot of times, people put technology in place because it looks interesting, but you need to start with the problem and work backwards. If the issue is user experience, you need to make sure that whatever you’re implementing focuses on a positive UX. If the problem is unclean data, you need to make sure you’re putting in place all the foundational elements you need to make that better. Always start from the perspective of implementing a technology based on a problem, rather than the other way around.”
Improving UX in 2025
It’s a seriously dynamic time to be involved in procurement right now, as evidenced by the intense buzz around us at DPW Amsterdam as we sit with McQuiston. As we look ahead, she envisions that procurement will have an increasingly powerful impact on user experience. This is particularly important at a time when tasks are becoming increasingly automated, with less and less direct human interaction.
“We’re also seeing a pretty big leap forward in terms of best practice sharing amongst our clients,” says McQuiston, something that events like DPW also encourage. “For Candex, a big theme of 2024 has been getting our clients together to share best practices and information, helping them to develop further expertise in the field. 2025 will have more of the same, but there’s now a higher level of maturity out there in the way customers are considering tail spend. As people continue to onboard solutions, it will be interesting to see how that impacts the UX in relation to Candex. We’re always looking for ways to make our tool more user-friendly and add better functionality.”
All of this is why Candex’s customers love the company. On a base level, Candex takes a complex pain point and makes it simple. In a broader sense, the reason Candex is becoming so popular is the way it works with people. “The most common feedback we get from customers and suppliers is that we’re great to work with because we’re so flexible,” says McQuiston. “We hired a team of procurement experts, so our team is made up of people who really understand the pain of our clients, and can anticipate their fears, their needs, and cater to those.”
The buzz of DPW Amsterdam draws in the most innovative minds across the industry. They’re there to have riveting conversations…
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The buzz of DPW Amsterdam draws in the most innovative minds across the industry. They’re there to have riveting conversations with their peers, to inspire, to teach and learn in kind. And they’re there to keep an eye on an industry that doesn’t stop changing for the better.
This is a big part of the appeal for Fraser Woodhouse. Woodhouse leads the digital procurement team within Deloitte in the UK. His team historically focused on large-scale transformations, providing a backbone for suite implementation. Increasingly, however, it’s turning its attention to helping clients navigate a plethora of technology solutions. The goal is to help them build and scale, and take advantage of some of the more niche functionalities available. These are things that can be highly daunting for many customers, which is why Deloitte is there for support.
“We’re helping clients ask the big questions,” Woodhouse explains as he sits down with us at DPW Amsterdam 2024. “How do you connect the technology in a way that allows data to flow from one system to another? How do you deal with processes that are connected to solutions which all have their own release cycles? How do you approach change management? That underpins so much of where the value is going to be achieved, and a lot of the providers will be focusing on it. They just might not have the same capability that Deloitte can provide.”
For Woodhouse, getting involved with procurement was a total accident. He even left the sector at one point, but his strong foundational knowledge – and the exciting landscape procurement is enjoying right now – lured him back in. “It changes faster than I can get bored with it, that’s for sure,” he explains. “Procurement is fascinating.”
Aspiring to greatness
Especially now, with constant conversations around genAI, 10X, and beyond. Procurement is only becoming more interesting, more enticing, drawing young professionals in to fill gaps in the talent pool. 10X was actually the theme of DPW Amsterdam this year, a notion that’s on everyone’s lips. And for Woodhouse, it’s absolutely something to aspire to.
“Aiming for 10X is sensible. You just have to consider your timescale. I’d caution against running before you can walk, but a culture of experimentation is important. Running small-scale pilots can help you hone in on where you really want to see value, or where value is likely to be generated. Starting with requirements is a fundamental thing at the moment, but you shouldn’t underestimate how long that will take. And it’s a continuous consideration, because requirements change. Just keep trying to refine your solution in order to take advantage of everything that’s out there right now.”
Fotograaf: MichielTon.com
Having the wrong mindset is one of the major barriers to adopting 10X thinking. It all starts with the company’s culture, and whether that’s one of growth or not. “I imagine most of the people here at DPW Amsterdam have already made that mental shift,” says Woodhouse. “Last year, people were still trying to understand how they, as big companies, could utilise startups. That’s changed now, and it’s amazing to see companies that were startups three years ago working with all these big enterprise customers.
“They have scaled and grown in partnership with those customers. Mindset is so important, and having the wrong one will only create barriers and missed opportunities.”
Always improving, never slowing down
When it comes to the advantages that technology has brought to procurement in the last few years, the list is endless. Procurement has gone from an overlooked segment of any given organisation, to having a seat at the table and helping make major business decisions. 10X thinking – whether it goes by that name or not – has been spreading across the segment and fuelling businesses to aim higher.
“The layers of automation have really improved,” says Woodhouse. “A year or so back, there were a handful of use cases that you could truly automate, but now you can do it at a much larger scale. Another big change is around security concerns. There are more tried and tested case studies to draw upon now, and solutions are more readily available. You don’t necessarily have to be a pioneer, because someone else has already taken that first step.”
The question of data
Something else that holds businesses back, despite the innovation at their disposal, is an element that can be harder to change: poor quality data. When trying to implement advanced technology solutions, bad data can make or break their success.
“It’s always useful to focus on that and have a dedicated work stream,” Woodhouse advises. “You need someone who really understands data. I think there’s a tendency to try to boil the ocean before you even get going in your transformation, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Cleaning up your data before you start, and having a fresh foundation will help you make decisions on what to implement on top of that good data.
“Doing all of that is obviously hugely beneficial, but it’s going to slow you down, in many cases. There are ways around that, like embedding the cleanup of data within the new processes. Data is important – we shouldn’t underestimate that – but there are different approaches to solving the issue of poor quality data, like buying it or using genAI to restructure your data into something more powerful. Either way, you need a strategy.”
Novel thinking 101
Some businesses fall into the trap of thinking that they can’t achieve specific things because their data isn’t in the right position, but novel thinking around data can allow them to still drive forward. “You’ve just got to focus on it. You can’t assume the data’s going to fix itself,” Woodhouse adds.
Novel thinking is certainly something that can be seen at DPW events, and DPW Amsterdam 2024 was no exception. People congregated there to learn, to share stories, to inspire. For Woodhouse, the magic of the digital procurement sector right now is that everybody recognises that their journey has no end. While that may be daunting, it’s a positive thing and keeps procurement professionals striving for more.
“It’s a continuous improvement journey, and I think the best-performing organisations will recognise that, and invest in the business capability to continue that journey,” Woodhouse concludes. “That’s how you get proper value. I love hearing about how people frame problems differently, and how they approach the solutions.”
Making procurement slicker, more streamlined, is the name of the game right now – and this is precisely why Globality…
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Making procurement slicker, more streamlined, is the name of the game right now – and this is precisely why Globality exists. It’s an organisation which leverages advanced, native-built AI to make sourcing more autonomous for Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, meaning it has a finger on a pulse of the technology tools procurement now has access to as the industry shifts and evolves.
Keith Hausmann is the Chief Customer Officer at Globality. He has been working in procurement since the early 90s, both in industry as a service provider, and now, at a technology company. He came to Globality from Accenture, where he ran the operations business. During his first real job after college, Hausmann was also part of a training program at a major Fortune 500 company, working closely with a COO. At some point they got into a conversation about salespeople seemingly having an advantage over procurement people due to their access to information, knowledge, and training. The COO suggested that they launch a company to help support procurement. For Hausmann, it was a serendipitous entry to the industry.
“I came to Globality because I saw the business was struggling with how to scale, automate, and deliver a differentiated user experience. Ultimately, I found it really compelling, and joined about five years ago.”
Achieving 10X thinking
Hausmann admits that the concept of what procurement is has only been defined relatively recently, and he’s been in the industry long enough to have seen the shift happen and suddenly accelerate over the last few years. Now, procurement professionals are in a position where they’re able to think big, and they have the tools to support that way of thinking. One of the most-discussed topics right now is 10X, whereby businesses are setting targets for themselves that are 10 times greater than what they can realistically achieve.
“There continues to be, and always has been, so many mind-numbing manual activities that go on in procurement spaces,” says Hausmann. “We’ve built small armies of teams to handle those things. I think 10X has prompted us to take a step back and ask if there’s now technology that can uplift the role of people in the function and take on some of those automatable tasks. Whether that’s writing RFPs, discovering suppliers, or analysing proposals – these are all things that can be automated in today’s technological world. With 10X thinking, you can imagine the many, many, many things that can be automated and just go after them.
“There are barriers, of course. The biggest one is not being able to convey a compelling vision of what we want people to do in the new world. It’s not necessarily about making them go away – it’s about making their daily jobs, lives, and work more valuable. There are so many things around category thinking and strategy that don’t get done because people are spending so much time on tasks that could be automated. So I think the barrier is creating that vision and that plan to shift the operating models, roles, and the skill sets to something new and different.”
People power
Hausmann believes that if roles are reshaped and honed in response to automation, it’s less likely that there will be resistance to change because employees will know exactly what they’re doing, rather than being concerned about their future. “They have to know what they’re doing before they jump on board. It just requires a mindset change and good change management.”
Hausmann believes it’s down to the CPO to drive that change management by conveying the activities, impacts, roles, and operating model they envision. If they can paint a picture of how humans can impact things in a new way, alongside the new technology rather than against it, suddenly it’s an exciting prospect and people are keen to make a bigger impact.
CFOs and CPOs joining forces
While CPOs now have a long-deserved seat at the table to help push change business-wide, CFOs’ roles are also expanding and having an increased impact on procurement. “I think they’ve always influenced what’s going on in procurement,” says Hausmann. “CFOs are the champions of many things, but certainly improving the bottom line of the company. They’re also champions of using technology to make the organisation more resilient, more scalable, and more efficient. There was a time when people thought that the CTO or CIO would be doing that, but more often than not, the CFO is the ultimate owner of improving business impacts. More and more, we’re seeing our customers leaning on the CFO to help them make decisions about investments that have a big impact through technology and AI.
“These days, the relationship between the CFO and CPO is wildly different to what it once was, and CFOs are showing more interest in procurement as a function than ever, making a difference to the bottom line. It makes sense because, in theory, procurement controls one of the biggest cost line items in a company, besides raw headcount.”
Matching the pace of technology
The fact that we still need to focus on change management and relationships confirms that the way procurement is changing isn’t just about the technology. Far from it. However, technology is moving at an incredible pace and needs to be taken seriously. There are things that are possible now which couldn’t be done even one or two years ago.
“A few years ago, technology couldn’t write an RFX document for you,” Hausmann says. “Technology could not instantaneously bring to light the most relevant suppliers from within a customer’s supply base, or in the broader market. It couldn’t write a contract, or an SOW, or a work order. It can now. Those are things that are near and dear to my heart that were impossible 3-5 years ago.”
With these tools in mind, procurement professionals are able to think about the future in short-term stints. Five-year plans are no longer good enough when it comes to the way procurement is shifting – a year is now the maximum for putting plans in place.
“I’ve always thought that procurement, from the perspective of technological advancement and investment perspective, should sit under a broader business umbrella,” says Hausmann. “I’d guess that probably 50% of companies in the world right now have some kind of program in place to save money or improve agility by investing in technology. And speed to market is more important than ever, so sourcing can’t be a bottleneck.”
Looking ahead, Hausmann expects to see many of the unique, differentiated technology providers becoming interoperable together, because big enterprises want services that operate and scale well in combination with others.
“We’re seeing that a lot, and working with our customers on how we improve interoperability and integration,” he says. “Tools will become more seamless, more easy-to-use, more scalable. Another big thing is, and will continue to be, analytics. It’s a hot topic in procurement, and I think there are profound opportunities to be deployed. For Globality, we’ll continue to endlessly innovate on user experience, ease of use, and beyond.”
“I’m overwhelmed,” are Matthias Gutzmann’s first words when asked about DPW Amsterdam 2024. At the end of the bustling two-day…
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“I’m overwhelmed,” are Matthias Gutzmann’s first words when asked about DPW Amsterdam 2024. At the end of the bustling two-day event, we sat down with Gutzmann, the company’s founder, and Herman Knevel, DPW’s CEO, for a debrief. Gutzmann also quite rightly pointed out that the final word on summarising those 48 hours is in the hands of the sponsors and attendees, but if the countless conversations we had with said sponsors and attendees are anything to go by, it was the best DPW event yet. And Gutzmann and Knevel agree.
“I really think that’s the case,” says Gutzmann. “We almost doubled the number of exhibiting startups, we had over 120 sponsors, more startup pitches than ever, and all the feedback I’ve heard so far has been amazing. There are always things you can do better, but I’m absolutely happy.”
Across the 9th and 10th of October, DPW Amsterdam welcomed over 1,300 attendees through its doors at Beurs van Berlage, Amsterdam. Those attendees arrived from 44 countries across 32 industries, and the event itself featured 72 sessions with 140 speakers across five stages. It’s abundantly clear that people are deeply passionate about DPW.
“On day one, it was already packed at 8:30 in the morning,” Knevel states. “The energy in the room was contagious, and the numbers speak for themselves. The startups, the innovators, the corporates, the mid-market – everybody who’s here has a genuine interest in what these guys are bringing to the procurement space.”
Reconnecting with the vision
Gutzmann describes that intangible energy as “bringing a little bit of joy back to procurement”. For many years, procurement was a very ill-defined concept – almost as ill-defined as the role of CPO. The shift has been a quick one, accelerated further by the COVID-19 pandemic, and events like DPW Amsterdam are part of the reason why. CPOs having somewhere to go, to meet, to learn about the procurement landscape is vital, hence that inspiring energy that permeates every DPW event.
“A lot of people are missing that vibe,” Gutzmann continues. “It’s why I founded DPW. I was inspired by Mark Perera [Chairman of DPW], who I worked with at Vizibl, and had great technology while also being so inspiring. I realised we needed to connect founders with CPOs. I think every CPO should talk to one startup founder per week, at least. It’s important that we listen to their vision.”
Striving for 10X
The core of those visions for the 2024 event revolves around the concept of 10X, the idea being that you set targets for your business that are 10 times greater than what you think you can realistically achieve. It keeps people ambitious, always striving for greatness, and it’s especially prevalent in startup culture – hence Gutzmann’s belief that CPOs should be connecting with them more.
“Deciding on 10X for this year’s theme was serendipity,” says Knevel. “The term came along and Matthias said, ‘this is it – this is what we need in procurement’. This is what the industry needs, and we’re exploring it, diving deeper.”
“Last year’s theme was ‘Make Tech Work’, which was all about getting the basics right in order to scale,” Gutzmann continues. “This year we said, ‘how can we take it further?’ We are entering the biggest wave of AI yet. That technology is giving us the opportunity and the possibility to scale outcomes. The world around us is changing so fast, so we need to be more agile, scalable, and faster in procurement. It’s a very ambitious, maybe lofty theme, but it’s a mindset more than anything else.”
“It’s the mindset that drives innovation and speed,” Knevel adds. “That’s really important in this age of procuretech and supply chain tech.”
When it comes to honing that 10X mindset, it’s all about having a purpose in mind. A lot of the procurement professionals we spoke to at DPW Amsterdam called this a ‘north star’, which is the phase Gutzmann uses too. “That’s where it starts. There’s so much procurement can do. There are so many problems in the world, and I believe procurement can be the solution to many of those. So I think it starts with the CPO and their leadership, their vision. You also have to embrace startup innovation, be more experimental in the way you work, instigate new ways of working, and be bold in your thinking. You also have to remember it’s okay to fail.”
Growing DPW
Something that’s particularly impressive about DPW Amsterdam 2024 is that it’s actually the second of the year. Back in June, DPW ventured into the North American market with an intimate summit held in New York City, which CPOstrategy was fortunate enough to be invited to. Planning one wildly popular event a year is one thing, but venturing into a whole new part of the world with an additional one is incredibly dedicated.
“I’m a bit more conservative when planning ahead, so there probably wouldn’t be a New York event without Herman encouraging me,” says Gutzmann. “I’m glad he said ‘let’s go for it’. It was a short-term plan, but it was ultimately very successful and the right decision.”
Knevel adds: “The feedback we got from sponsors and delegates was quite impressive. They were asking for more. And it’s not just Matthias and myself – we have a great team here. This is a massive production, but we made the jump and it’s paid off.”
Inspiration for 2025
When it comes to the lessons Gutzmann and Knevel have learned in response to this event, it’s more about narrowing down the influx of ideas DPW gives them. By the time we spoke with them at the end of the Amsterdam 2024 event, their heads were spinning with inspiration.
“I have so many ideas,” says Gutzmann. “Every year we reinvent the show, so we never rest. We’re always asking what we can do better. How can we improve? I think this year we maxed out the number of sponsor stands that are possible to have. We doubled the number of under-30 attendees. There’s the potential to go a little deeper on the talent side, connecting students with the corporates and building a proper program around that.”
There was also the Tech Safari this year. The idea was to make the expo hall easier to navigate, since it was more crowded than ever this year. Members of the DPW team acted as ‘super connectors’ to help attendees find the right solutions and help startups find new customers. The aim was to simply make it easier for everyone involved to find what they’re looking for in small groups,enabling them to find who they wanted, talk to them, and ask questions. It turned out to be an amazing interactive experience for people, making sure they felt thoroughly looked after and valued.
“Plus there’s an opportunity to cater more to the corporates coming in,” Gutzmann continues. “Perhaps we will build a custom program for them around the event. Some of them are already coming in with teams and doing annual leadership meetings outside of the venue, but I think there’s scope to show them solutions and do some workshops within the event. We can also do more with day zero, where we have site events. There’s much more we can do.”
Giving CPOs what they want
As for the broader future of the event, DPW’s heart lies in Amsterdam and will continue to do so. The organisation is building its team even further and putting strategies in place for future events, allowing it to move forward. “We follow the demand of what our customers want,” Knevel says. That’s what really drives DPW and how the event is themed and set up. The organisation listens to CPOs so it can give them exactly what they need, and what will help the industry level up further and further.
“There are things we’re still developing,” says Gutzmann. “For example, the podcast studio [something introduced in its current form for 2024] is something Herman is very passionate about, so it was great to test it out here. There’s more we can do with that. We have so many ideas and it’s important to engage our amazing team on these ideas and see what they think along the way.”
“We’re ideating a lot,” Knevel adds. “And we’re asking our ecosystem what we should do more of.”
“Ultimately, we’re bringing in the voice of the customer to make sure we’re giving them what they want and need,” Gutzmann concludes. “That’s the whole purpose of DPW.”
Combining advanced technology with a people-led focus is the name of the game for Bravo Consulting Group. Bravo was founded…
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Combining advanced technology with a people-led focus is the name of the game for Bravo Consulting Group. Bravo was founded in 2007 by President and CEO Gino Degregori. He had his sights squarely set on leveraging Microsoft technologies to deliver cloud services, application modernization, and cybersecurity compliance. Bravo’s aim is to simplify how organisations create, share, and secure their intelligent information. In nearly 17 years of its existence, the business has grown into a premier Microsoft solutions provider serving the federal government, the Department of Defense, the Intelligence Community, and multiple Fortune 500 organisations.
Human-centric leadership and core values
Degregori began his career in software engineering and entrepreneurship. However, he quickly realised that his true calling was beyond just developing software and implementing Microsoft technologies. “I saw an opportunity to build an amazing organisation that provides real value to our customers through our people and innovative solutions,” Degregori explains. “While the cloud didn’t exist in 2007, development, automation, and security were already crucial.”
Degregori founded Bravo on core values that remain the cornerstone of the company today. “Our vision is to attract and create kind leaders who make an impact on our customers, partners, and communities,” he explains. “We lead with empathy, embracing kind leadership. This means prioritising the growth and wellbeing of our team members and clients. We view every interaction from a win-win perspective with a strong sense of accountability.
“It’s not just about implementing technology in your organisation; it’s about truly advancing the mission. Collaborating with great people enables us to deliver outstanding results,” he emphasises. Degregori also hosts The Kind Leader Podcast where he discusses empathetic leadership with industry leaders, embodying the values Bravo champions.
By fostering a culture of empathy and innovation, Bravohas established itself as a leader in cloud services, application modernization, and cybersecurity. Degregori’s commitment to building a people-centric organisation ensures that Bravo not only meets but exceeds the expectations of its clients, driving meaningful and impactful results.
Strategic partnership with AvePoint
Bravo’s commitment to collaborating with exceptional partners has been the cornerstone of its longstanding relationship with AvePoint. For 15 out of its nearly 17 years of existence, Bravo has partnered with AvePoint—a testament to the enduring strength and value of this collaboration. When Bravo first started, the Microsoft ecosystem was rapidly evolving, with many businesses transitioning away from legacy systems. AvePoint’s advanced SharePoint migration and administration tools played a pivotal role in this transition, enabling Bravo to assist over 100,000 users across various verticals in successfully migrating and managing their content and data.
“Our partnership with AvePoint allowed us not only to migrate vast amounts of content and data efficiently but also to reduce costs, which we passed on to our customers,” says Degregori. “It was a phenomenal opportunity to leverage AvePoint’s tools for seamless content and data migration. We recognized early on that AvePoint was poised for significant success, and from then on, our collaboration deepened, enabling us to develop even better solutions.”
This partnership is a key reason customers choose Bravo. By integrating Bravo’s expertise in the Microsoft ecosystem with AvePoint’s suite of tools, Bravo delivers a unique value proposition centred on data management, compliance, and AI-driven solutions. Customers benefit from a holistic approach that not only prepares them for new technologies but also ensures regulatory compliance, cost efficiency, and superior results.
Together, Bravo and AvePoint empower organisations to confidently navigate their digital transformation. Leveraging Microsoft’s advancements in AI and AvePoint’s robust data management tools, they offer cutting-edge solutions that address the evolving needs of modern businesses. This collaboration enables organisations to optimise their data, maintain stringent compliance standards, and harness the power of AI to drive innovation and efficiency.
Expanding horizons through collaboration
For the first decade, Bravo focused exclusively on the federal sector. Recently, Degregori made the strategic decision to expand Bravo’s services into the commercial sphere. “Our strong partnership with AvePoint was instrumental in this successful expansion,” he says. “AvePoint is a global organisation, and through our collaboration, we developed a strategy to penetrate the commercial market. We leveraged our combined services, expertise, and certified professionals at Bravo to build trust and confidence with the AvePoint commercial folks.”
The unique relationship between Bravo and AvePoint has facilitated this long-standing and successful collaboration. Degregori attributes their success to three key factors: communication, clarity, and trust.
“First, strong communication ensures continuous understanding. Second, clarity about our collective goals – focusing not just on our objectives but also on AvePoint’s – allows us to align our efforts effectively. Lastly, trust is paramount. We need to rely on each other through both successful projects and challenging ones. This mutual trust ensures we can support each other through thick and thin,” Degregori explains.
“We are always learning. When things don’t go as planned, we sit down, discuss the lessons learned, and find ways to improve. This continuous learning and mutual support strengthen our partnership and drive our shared success.”
Future growth
The future of Bravo and AvePoint is exceptionally promising as technology evolves at an unprecedented pace. Both organisations are at the forefront, leveraging the Microsoft ecosystem. With Microsoft’s substantial investments in generative AI, their reach is set to expand even further into the Fortune 500 globally.
“This momentum allows us to continuously leverage advanced tools, integrating them to deliver unparalleled value to our customers,” says Degregori. This focus on the human element—the customer—ensures that Bravo remains true to its core values.
“I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to lead an incredible organisation like Bravo and to maintain a long-term partnership with AvePoint. Ultimately, while we discuss technology and solutions, it’s all about people. We’re constantly seeking ways to connect better as partners and employers. This human-centric approach is what drives us to deliver superior solutions.”
This vision and commitment to both technological excellence and human connection make Bravo and AvePoint’s partnership not only resilient but also highly impactful for their clients. Together, they are poised to lead the way in digital transformation, ensuring that organisations are not only equipped with the latest innovations but also supported by a team that values their success.
Our cover story reveals the digital transformation journey at global insurance services company Innovation Group using InsurTech advances to disrupt…
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Our cover story reveals the digital transformation journey at global insurance services company Innovation Group using InsurTech advances to disrupt the industry.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
We’re excited to be publishing the biggest ever issue of Interface this month. It’s packed with insights from the cutting edge of digital technologies across a diverse range of sectors; from InsurTech to Travel via eCommerce, Banking, Manufacturing and Public Services.
Innovation Group: Enabling the Future of Insurance
“What we’ve achieved at Innovation Group is truly disruptive,” reflects Group Chief Technology Officer James Coggin.
“Our acquisition by one of the world’s largest insurance companies validated the strategy we pursued with our Gateway platform. We put the platform at the heart of an ecosystem of insurers, service providers and their customers. It has proved to be a powerful approach.”
Leeds Building Society: Tech Transformation Driven by Data
Carole Roberts, Director of Data at Leeds Building Society, on a digital transformation program driven by the mutual power of people and culture.
“We’ve made the decision to move to a composable architecture. It’s going to give us much more flexibility in the future to be able to swap in and out components rather than one big monolithic environment.”
AvePoint: Securing the Digital Future
Kevin Briggs, Vice President of Public Sector at AvePoint, discusses pioneering data security and management transformation in the global public sector.
“We ensure the security, accessibility and integrity of data for customers with missions from everything from finance and health services, through to national security, innovation, and science.”
Saudia: Taking off on a Digital Journey
Abdulgader Attiah, Chief Data & Technology Officer at Saudia, on the digital transformation program towards becoming an ‘offer and order’ airline.
“By the end of this year we will have established the maturity level for data technology, and our digital and back-office transformations. In 2025 we will begin implementing our retailing concept and the AI features that will drive it. The building blocks will be in place for next year’s initiatives where hyper personalisation for retailing is a must.”
Publicis Sapient: Global Banking Benchmark Study
Dave Murphy, Financial Services Lead, International – gives Interface the lowdown on the third annual Global Banking Benchmark Study and the key findings Publicis Sapient revealed around core modernisation, GenAI, data analytics transformation and payments.
“AI, machine learning and GenAI are both the focus and the fuel of banks’ digital transformation efforts. The biggest question for executives isn’t about the potential of these technologies. It’s how best to move from experimenting with use cases in pockets of the business to implementing at scale across the enterprise. The right data is key. It’s what powers the models.”
Habi: Unleashing liquidity in the LATAM market
Employees at Habi discuss its mission to help customers buy and sell their homes more effectively.
“At Habi, you can talk with the AI agent and you can provide information that streamlines the whole process.”
USDA FPAC: Achieving customer experience balance
Abena Apau and Kimberly Iczkowski, from USDA FPAC on the incredible work the organisation is doing to support farmers across America.
“We’ve created a new structure for ourselves, based on the fact that the digital experience is not the be all and end all, and we have to balance it with the human touch.”
Adecco Group: Digital Transformation driven by business outcomes
Geert Halsberghe, Head of IT, Benelux, at Adecco Group, talks transformation management, cultural consensus, and ensuring digital transformation starts (and stays) focused on solving business problems.
“It’s very crucial to make sure that we aren’t spending money on IT transformation for the sake of IT transformation.”
La Vie en Rose: Outcome-focused Digital Transformation
Éric Champagne, CIO of La Vie en Rose, on ensuring digital transformations are defined by communication, vision, and cultural buy-in.
“I don’t chase after the latest technology just because it seems cool… My focus is on aligning technology with the business strategy and real needs.”
Breitling: Digital Transformation and the omnichannel experience
Rajesh Shanmugasundaram, CTO at Breitling, talks changing customer expectations, data, AI, and digitally transforming to deliver the omnichannel experience.
“The CRM, the marketing, our e-commerce channels — they’ve all matured so much… we’re meeting our customers wherever they are or want to be.”
Our cover star, EY’s Global Chief Data Officer Marco Vernocchi, tells Interface why data is a “team sport” and reveals…
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Our cover star, EY’s Global Chief Data Officer Marco Vernocchi, tells Interface why data is a “team sport” and reveals the transformation journey towards realising its potential for one of the world’s largest professional services organisations.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Global Chief Data Officer, Marco Vernocchi, reflects on the data transformation journey at one of the world’s largest professional services networks.
“Data is pervasive, it’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It’s not a physical asset, but it’s a part of every business activity every day. I joined EY in 2019 as the first Global Chief Data Officer. Our vision was to recognise data as a strategic competitive asset for the organisation. Through the efforts of leadership and the Data Office team, we’ve elevated data from a commodity utility to an asset. Our formal data strategy defined with clarity the purpose, scope, goals and timeline of how we manage data across EY. Bringing data to the centre of what we do has created a competitive asset that is transforming the way we work.”
PivotalEdge Capital
Sid Ghatak, Founder & CEO of asset management firm PivotalEdge Capital, spoked to us about the pioneering use of “data-centric AI” for trading models capable of solving the problems of trust and cost.
“I’ve always advocated data-driven decision-making throughout my career,” says Ghatak. “I knew when I started an asset management firm that it needed to be data-centric AI from the very beginning. A few early missteps in my career taught me the importance of having a stable and reliable flow of data in production systems and that became a criterion.”
LSC Communications
Piotr Topor, Director of Information Security & Governance at LSC Communications, discusses tackling the cyber skills shortage, AI, and bringing together the business and IT to create a cyber-conscious culture at a global leader in print and digital media solutions.
Topor tells Interface: “The main challenge we’re dealing with is overcoming the disconnect between cybersecurity and business goals.”
América Televisión
Interface meets again with Jose Hernandez, Chief Digital Officer at América Televisión, who reveals how the company is embracing new business models, and maintaining market leadership in Peru.
“Launching our FAST channel represents a pivotal step in diversifying our content delivery and monetisation strategies. Furthermore, aligning us with global trends while catering to the changing viewing habits of our audience,” says Hernandez.
Also in this issue of Interface, we hear from eflow about new approaches to Regtech; get the lowdown on bridging the AI skills gap from CI&T; and GCX on the best ways to navigate changing cybersecurity regulations.
We caught up with Shachi Rai Gupta from ORO Labs to discuss the importance of orchestration in procurement.
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Simplifying procurement in smart ways is the ultimate goal for ORO Labs. Utilising the best of AI, ORO Labs aims to implement procurement orchestration across sectors, creating an experience that is simultaneously automated, augmented, and humanised.
Shachi Rai Gupta is VP Strategy at ORO Labs, with a wealth of transformation and technology experience behind her. Rai Gupta’s sharp eye on procurement has allowed her to witness the rise and fall of various trends, and understand what the sector needs as it – along with technology – evolves.
We caught up with Rai Gupta at the DPW NYC Summit back in June, a special North American version of the event. Procurement trends, especially AI and orchestration, were very much the theme of the day, prompting lively conversations amongst some of the world’s most influential procurement leaders.
Procurement as a net positive experience generator
For Rai Gupta, the trends right now are guided by the fact that procurement has more of a strategic and evolved role than ever, giving the function the opportunity to have a great impact on the enterprise bottom-line and the environment and community at large
“Procurement is morphing into a function where one of its biggest responsibilities is to be a net positive experience generator,” she explains.
“Procurement really is a service function for the whole business stakeholders. We, as procurement professionals, need to see things through the lens of the business. This includes what issues the business is trying to solve, and meeting the business where it’s at for good collaboration.
“It’s also important to make this experience as easy as possible, rather than cumbersome and time intensive. That needs to be catered and customised to the individual business segments.”
Prioritising the planet
Another area Rai Gupta is seeing talked about a lot is sustainability. This topic has, for some, been sidelined a little in favour of advanced technology. But it’s just as important as it’s always been, and it’s vital to keep the discussion alive – especially in procurement.
“More and more, companies are realising the impact they’re having on the environment,” Rai Gupta explains. “It’s an increasing priority on all our agendas. The technology is still nascent in that space, in the sense that there aren’t good ways to do benchmarking or tracking. That’s going to be an interesting space to watch out for.”
The next generation
Another hot topic of the DPW NYC Summit was the talent shortage. We at CPOstrategy discuss this topic a lot with procurement professionals, and there’s no one answer for fixing the issue.
“There’s a dearth of good digital talent,” Rai Gupta states. “The skillset you need today in procurement is very different from what we’ve had before. To be able to leverage that, to really make use of the procurement teams you have and the operational model you want, it’s a different challenge. The structure of your team is more important than ever.
“While that shortage is there, when you do have the right people in place in procurement, that’s where the department shines,” Rai Gupta adds. “That’s where procurement becomes a group of trusted advisors for the business, providing proactive opportunities. We wear a lot of hats in procurement, and we’re stepping up to a new level of evolution.”
Advanced tech for good
And, of course, AI and orchestration are terms on everyone’s lips right now – procurement included. AI is, in Rai Gupta’s words, “a solver”. Many of the blockages and challenges procurement is experiencing as it evolves can be solved, or at least aided, by AI and orchestration. “There’s so much tech out there,” Rai Gupta states. “AI is one such possibility. Every segment of procurement comes with its own risks and requires its own expertise and tool sets.
“To manage that whole ecosystem is where that orchestration comes in. There’s a real beauty in this because it’s collaborative. It makes the whole bigger than its parts.”
Our cover story this month focuses on the work of Chief Information Officer Simon Birch and Chief Customer & Transformation…
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Our cover story this month focuses on the work of Chief Information Officer Simon Birch and Chief Customer & Transformation Officer Danielle Handley leading Bupa’s digital transformation journey across APAC and delivering a positive impact with its Connected Care strategy.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
“ConnectedCare is our primary mission and we’ve been spearheading time, investment and creativity to reinvent and reinvigorate customer experiences,” says APAC CIO Simon Birch. “Delivering that ConnectedCare proposition to our customers is made possible by the collegiate focus of the organisation. Ultimately, what we’re able to achieve is supporting our most important colleagues, our healthcare practitioners working across our facilities.”
Reflecting on that transformation goal, Chief Customer & Transformation Officer Danielle Handley believes that stakeholder engagement and alignment, while building relationships across the enterprise, have been key to their early success. “We’ve found the champions within the enterprise who are going to form part of the coalition of the willing to start to lead transformation here at Bupa.”
Vodafone: Personalising Embedded Insurance
Halil Teksal, Global Head of Fintech at Vodafone, discusses disruption in insurance, personalisation, and giving customers exactly what they need at the right time. “The main thing we’re aiming for is simplicity. How can we have really easy-to-use personalised solutions? At the end of the day, that’s what customers want. When they buy a smart device, they want to buy the insurance quickly from a reliable provider. It’s important that we satisfy all of those needs.”
Young businessman writing on adhesive notes on glass partition in modern office, ideas, innovation, planning, strategy
Walden Group: Advanced technology for a healthier tomorrow
Denis Connolly, CIO of Walden Group and CEO of Walden Digital, talks about the incredible work the organisation is doing to leverage data and technology for the overall improvement of the world’s health. “We’ve created all these new initiatives just in the last year or so, moving from technology being a cost centre to being an R&D and development-focused organisation.”
Also in this issue, Samer Fouani, Head of Cyber Transformation & Identity Access Management at TAL discusses the cyber journey for colleagues and customers at one of Australia’s leading insurers; Mark Turner, Chief Commercial Officer at Pulsant, explores how medium-sized businesses can best leverage new developments in AI; Martin Hartley, Group Chief Commercial Officer of emagine, examined the role of artificial intelligence in personalising the customer experience for financial services and Marius Stäcker, CEO of ToolTime, shares his four top tips for successfully implementing new software and driving digital transformation.
This month’s cover story sees our sister brand Fintech Strategy reporting from Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam – a pivotal event…
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This month’s cover story sees our sister brand Fintech Strategy reporting from Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam – a pivotal event in the fintech calendar, drawing over 8,000 participants from 2,300 companies worldwide.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
The RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre was the location for the world’s leading fintech conference. Money20/20 Europe offered a unique blend of insightful keynotes, panel discussions, and networking opportunities that underscored the transformative power of emerging technologies in financial services. We met with SC Ventures, Lloyds Banking Group, OSB Group, AirWallex, Plaid, Paymentology, Episode Six, Mettle (Nat West Group) and more to take the pulse of the latest trends across the fintech landscape.
Under the theme of ‘Human X Machine’, Money20/20 Europe explored the relationship between humans and intelligent machines, focusing on how the partnership between artificial and human intelligence will forge a new era in finance…
Publicis Sapient: Global Banking Benchmark Study
Interface was also proud to partner with Publicis Sapient at Money20/20 Europe for the launch of its third annual Global Banking Benchmark Survey. The survey draws on the insight of over 1000 senior executives in financial services across various global markets and focuses on the goals, obstacles, and drivers of digital transformation.
We spoke with Head of Financial Services Dave Murphy about its findings. “The survey focuses on how to think about solving problems end-to-end. Banks are dealing with legacy issues and taking a customer first view into solving the challenges. The practical application of AI across the banks is a significant theme as they look to automate decision-making and deliver better credit risk models.”
At the launch event for the study, Eoghan Sheehy, Associate MD, and Grace Ge, Senior Principal, highlighted that banks are primarily focused on improving existing processes rather than introducing new ones. Data Analytics and AI are identified as key priorities for digital transformation, with a focus on internal use cases and efficiency.
Eoghan and Grace also discussed the challenges faced by banks, including regulation, competition from companies like Amazon, and the need to attract talent. They emphasised the importance for financial institutions of modernising core infrastructure and building cloud infrastructure to support ongoing digital transformation. The study also notes the prevalence of the development of custom-made tools and the prioritising of internal use cases for AI implementation. Eoghan and Grace also provided examples of repeatable use cases and discussed the success factors for Data Analytics and AI.
STO Building Group: Enabling and Empowering People
Claudia Healey, Chief Human Resources Officer at STO Building Group, spoke to Interface about the HR platform empowering its people in pursuit of a strategic vision… “Culture is the number one priority in a people business like STO Building Group (STOBG). If you’re not nurturing and inspiring your folks, well, they can just vote with their feet. They don’t have to stay. Or they could do worse, they could quit and stay. And that’s something we would never want. Meeting your people where they’re at, understanding their goals and aspirations, and how you can help them reach their potential is vital. Realising how you can really see your people and truly understand what matters to them, is an incredible priority.”
Also in this issue, AI hype has previously been followed by an AI winter, we hear from Scott Zoldi, Chief Analytics Officer at FICO who asks, ‘Is the AI bubble set to burst?’ Elsewhere, we round up the top events in tech and learn how businesses can ensure their cloud storage is more sustainable in an age of rising demand for data and AI. Cloud storage without the climate cost is possible explains Fasthosts CEO Simon Yeoman.
Kelvin Moore, CISO & Acting Deputy CIO, on a successful cyber transformation journey at the US Small Business Administration driven by federal agency collaboration
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This month’s cover story celebratesa successful cyber transformation journey driven by federal agency collaboration.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
US Small Business Administration: Evolving with Technology
Kelvin Moore, CISO & Acting Deputy CIO, reveals a successful cyber transformation journey at the US Small Business Administration driven by federal agency collaboration. Moore is tasked with securing a platform that offers support for small businesses and entrepreneurs. “It’s my team’s mission to ensure cybersecurity across the agency from an operational perspective and in turn guarantee the security of the programs that support our constituents.”
NAB Private Wealth: Comprehensive, integrated, and relationship-led
NAB (National Australia Bank) Private Wealth’s Michael Saadie and Mike Allen share a vision for comprehensive, integrated wealth management enabled by technology but driven by people. We learn more… “To achieve efficiency and simplification, we’ve consolidated all wealth operations under one channel,” Saadie explains. “Previously, JBWere, nabtrade, and our investment advisors operated independently. Now, we’ve brought these teams together and integrated them end-to-end. This means our operations team provides core capabilities serving all distribution channels.”
The AA: Driving growth with a powerful legacy
Nick Edwards, Group CDO at The AA, talks about the organisation’s incredible technology transformation and how these changes directly benefit its customers. “2024 has been a milestone year for the business, marking the completion of the first phase of the future growth strategy we’ve been focused on since the appointment of our new CEO, Jakob Pfaudler,” he explains. Revenues have grown by over 20%, allowing The AA to drive customer growth. “All of this has been delivered by our refreshed management team,” Edwards continues. “It reflects the strength of our people across the business and the broader cultural transformation of The AA in the last three years.”
Piedmont Healthcare: Data-driven progress
We first spoke with Piedmont Healthcare’s Mark Jackson in the winter of 2022. Since then, the scope of his role at the healthcare provider has expanded considerably. Now its Chief Data Officer (CDO), Jackson has overseen a reorg of his 45-strong team. “I take a lot of pride in efficiency,” he reveals. “I think it’s the key component of our success. Everybody experiences failure. What I want us to do is have the ability to fail quickly and get to working solutions faster because I believe in this way, we can deliver a lot of value with a small and nimble team.”
Nuffield Health: Agile digital transformation
When we talk about incredible digital transformations in Interface Magazine, it’s really only a snapshot of an organisation. In reality, this kind of digital transformation is an ongoing process with no end. When we spoke to Jacqs Harper and Dave Ankers from Nuffield Health in 2022, they had a few things in mind to keep them busy as the charity’s big change evolved.
However, as this transformation evolved, an explosion of change happened in so many directions. Far more than the organisation’s technology team intended. Harper (who leads Technology at Nuffield Health), Ankers (IT Strategy & Delivery Director), and Mark Howard (Head of Technology Engineering) have followed up over 18 months after the initial interview to really dig into all the exciting things that have changed since then, and expand on all of Nuffield Health’s ambitious plans.
Also in this issue, we round up the top events in tech; get advice from Bayezian on how to avoid the risks associated with jailbreaking LLMs and speak with iGTB CEO Manish Maakan about leadership in the FinTech space. And to keep up to date with the latest insights and developments in this space check out our new launch, FinTech Strategy.
We’re excited to celebrate the 50th issue of Interface magazine with our readers. During a half century of monthly magazines,…
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We’re excited to celebrate the 50th issue of Interface magazine with our readers. During a half century of monthly magazines, we’ve delivered insights from technology leaders representing an array of industries from banking and healthcare to IT and construction. We’re proud to feature a diverse range of companies – from Amazon to Zoom – at the cutting edge of tech and keep lifting the lid on the latest developments in everything from AI and Cybersecurity to CX and Fintech. We’re keen to see what the next 50 issues will bring and hope you’ll join us on that journey…
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
David Cornwell, Director – Small to Medium Enterprise, talks about the unfolding telco integration journey at Virgin Media O2 Business delivering benefits for Business customers. “There’s been a huge process of rationalisation and requalifying what we need to unlock efficiencies. It’s a technology journey our customers are on too. We understand the challenges inherent in that so, as a customer-first organisation, we’re well placed to support them bringing mobile and fixed connectivity services together in one place.”
Abzena:
CIO David Williamsondescribes the work Abzena is doing with transformative technology, its use of data, and what the future of health tech looks like… “We’re always trying to use data to help our client achieve more with it. And Abzena is very innovative on the scientific front… Having the opportunity to see things that weren’t possible to see when looked at traditionally is having a dramatic impact on how we’re able to treat diseases.”
York County:
Director of IT Tim Wyatt discusses technology in local government, cybersecurity outreach, and why community is at the heart of his team’s work at York County. “We’ll continue to make smart investments for cybersecurity, work to stay ahead of the new threats to our citizen’s data, and ensure we’re entrusted with and reliably provide services that our citizens and our County can depend on.”
Klamath Health:
Klamath Health Partnership’s CTOJessica Chastain describes the work she’s done to upgrade the organisation, the challenges that come with rural healthcare, and how she’s using data for good. “Data can show you a lot about the health of your organisation, including how to grow or shrink it to make it the best environment for your clientele.”
Also in this issue, we hear from Global & UK CEO Carlos Jaureguizar about the digital transformation journey helping Bupa become the world’s most customer-centric healthcare company, Mizaic CEO Jon Pickering explains how harnessing data-driven insights at the point of care can be achieved with a new EDMS (electronic document management system) and we re-visit our chat with Lloyds Banking Group’s CIO for Consumer Relationships & Mass Affluent, Martyn Atkinson, to learn how an ambitious FinTech journey, combined with a people-centred culture, is driving change for customers and colleagues across the Group.
Publicic Sapient CEO Nigel Vaz reflects on the leadership strategies required for successful digital business transformations
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The hardest part of being a business leader and CEO – especially leading through change – are the choices we make every day to move toward that will drive our future success. Often, this will mean letting go of things that made us successful in the past. We must make room for new skills, relationships, ways of working, and opportunities.
The average CEO has 30 years of business experience and makes decisions based on that accumulated experience. But think how much the world has changed in the space of five years, let alone 30. The same thinking and approach are not going to stand the test of time. The modern CEO needs to find and maintain the ability to turn preconceived ideas on their head. As a leader, I’ve always felt it’s important that I adopt the behaviours I advise for our clients. Leaders must be willing to learn, adapt and act with speed.
The Modern CEO
The modern CEO has a complicated, bordering on paradoxical, relationship with change. We dislike uncertainty and volatility, and yet we have an intense distaste for stasis. We would rather avoid geopolitical instability and macroeconomic challenges. However, changes to customer needs, shifting industry landscapes and rapid technological innovation bring opportunities to transform our companies. We must identify paths to value creation and growth, and build better, more efficient businesses. And, the reality is for today’s CEOs, you don’t get to pick one or the other. You have to be ready to lead your organisation in the context of both simultaneously. Leading through either type of change is not for the faint of heart.
In my role as CEO of Publicis Sapient – a digital business transformation company that partners with organisations globally to help them create and sustain competitive advantage – my relationship with change is amplified. I am responsible for driving growth and ensuring our business capabilities are optimised for the digital age. At the same time I’m leading a business that empowers our clients to embrace change by putting digital at the core of how they think, organise and operate. On the Executive Committee of our parent company, Publicis Groupe, I am also weighing in on how to lead on the digital business transformation of the Groupe. This has been accelerated this past year with the pace of AI.
Change Management
The nexus of these different aspects of my CEO role is not uncommon to many of the CEO clients we work with. Like myself, they are leading their organisations and people through a period of tremendous change. Furthermore, they are tasked with making decisions daily on choices that will impact the direction and outcomes for their company.
One of the most critical choices they will make is determining the purpose of their organisation. When there is so much change and challenge surrounding you, the easy path is to react and say, ‘How do I overcome each of these challenges?’ But first you have to be clear on who you are as an organisation and the impact you want to have. Without that sense of direction, you can very easily fall into the mistake of making disconnected, reactive decisions.
Welcome to the latest issue of CEOstrategy where we highlight the challenges and opportunities that come with ‘the’ leadership role
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Our cover story focuses on the work of Nigel Vaz, the CEO of Publicis Sapient – a digital business transformation company that partners with organisations globally to help them create and sustain competitive advantage – and his approach to change management.
Welcome to the latest issue of CEOstrategy!
Tasked with accelerating business growth, while building the synergies across an organisation that can drive innovation to meet diverse customer needs and keep revenues on track, the modern CEO must be mentor, marshall and motivator on the journey to success.
“I lead Publicis Sapient with a set of principles to keep me on track, and which I offer to fellow CEOs as a guide,” says CEO Nigel Vaz. “Embrace change, and view challenges as opportunities for growth and innovation; Foster a culture of continuous learning within yourself and your organisation; Advance the organisational capabilities that will enable your company to deliver on your brand promise; Adopt a data-driven approach to decision-making, utilising analytics and advanced technologies and Stay rooted in purpose to realise your competitive advantage.”
EMCS: Leading a small fish making a big impact
“If you look after your people and you have the right people in place, the customer experience takes care of itself,” explains EMCS Industries CEO Trevor Tasker. “A lot of entrepreneurs say the same, but you don’t always see it in action. If I have to micromanage somebody, I’ve made a hiring mistake. When I’ve found the right person, all I have to do is support them and trust them. If I can’t trust them, I can’t lead them. And being trusted makes my employees so much better at their jobs. It makes choosing the customers you deal with very important as well…”
Moneypenny: People at the heart
We are consistently listed in the best places to work rankings and have created a happy and fun working environment,” says Moneypenny CEO Joanna Swash. “We strive to be authentic, and that starts at the top. If the leadership team walks the walk and talks the talk, then trust is built. Trust fosters a culture where employees are motivated, engaged and empowered with a culture of transparency and honesty…”
Bupa: Choice, care and compassion driving digital transformation
“In a fast-changing world, it’s essential that we harness the power of technology to keep improving health outcomes for our customers,” says Global & UK CEO Carlos Jaureguizar of the digital transformation journey helping Bupa become the world’s most customer-centric healthcare company. “We give our people the tools to give customers the best care, streamline the customer experience and drive innovation.”
Also in this issue, we hear from Rachel Youngman, Deputy CEO at the Institute of Physics, on how organisations can leverage ESG targets to meet the Net Zero challenge; we get the lowdown on a fintech success story from RTGS.global CEO Jarrad Hubble; discover the importance of Strategic Thinking with Institute for Management Development Professor Michael Watkins and count down ten reasons why integrity is key to business success with Serenity In Leadership CEO Thom Dennis.
Global cloud services point-of-sale provider, GK Software, was founded over 30 years ago in Germany. For most of its existence,…
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Global cloud services point-of-sale provider, GK Software, was founded over 30 years ago in Germany. For most of its existence, its focus was on expanding across Europe. However, in 2015, GK broke into the US when its partnership with SAP helped it drive into that vital market. The business has been thriving stateside ever since. Its core business is a point-of-sale software platform – CLOUD4RETAIL – which features the OmniPOS solution. Today, GK is ranked highly in global POS installations and has been among the top three for the last five years.
GK is an organisation committed to continuous improvement and customer engagement. It is evolving, getting into newer technologies like AI in a big way. It’s leveraging its expertise to improve insights into what its retail customers and their shoppers need. This includes everything from price optimisation to loyalty to self-service technologies.
Its ability to provide these services, through its expertise, is what attracted Virginia ABC to GK Software. Virginia ABC was a previous user of SAP’s point-of-sale (POS) solution, but as the authority evolved, it required an updated POS.
GK Software meets Virginia ABC
Enter: GK Software. “As a result of our relationship with SAP and with Paul Williams at Virginia ABC, we were shortlisted in their new point-of-sale solution selection,” explains Max Francescangeli, Regional Sales Director at GK Software.
“With Virginia ABC, we went through quite an extensive selection process. It’s a government agency, so the rules are very strict,” says Francescangeli. “But we were able to prove that we could use our expertise to address and solve all of their problems in spite of the unique environment they operate in. They needed a flexible solution that would interact well with their legacy platforms during implementation. We were certainly able to provide that. So, we were eventually awarded the business and the project has been extremely successful.”
The approach GK takes with its customers during these projects highlights just how much out-of-the-box capability its solution has. GK’s team spent a lot of time with Virginia ABC. The organisation examined its business requirements and using a consultative approach to show how its software could be configured. This was so it could meet the end-state business requirements and take advantage of best-of-breed capabilities that exist within GK’s platform.
“Rather than going there and trying to do a lot of customisation, we wanted to help them take advantage of the software as it exists,” Francescangeli adds. There were also other areas where GK was able to provide a lot of value and expertise to Virginia ABC. These include payment processing and its partner ecosystem. Virginia ABC was previously using a payment provider with limited capabilities, but GK was able to step in and expand the technology set. “We gave them more hardware choices, expanding what they could do with their in-store devices.”
Virginia ABC also needed more advanced reporting and analytics within its environment. So, GK introduced a solution called Advanced Central Electronic Journal and Reporting. Francescangeli continues: “It saved them a tremendous amount of effort, and gave them a lot of flexibility. We implemented that very quickly and they gained business value from it immediately.”
An evolving partnership
GK Software and Virginia ABC worked on initial deployment for the first 12 months of the project, and GK has continued to supply its services ever since. Each year after the first, Virginia ABC has expressed interest in something else GK offers. As a result, the relationship has remained close and Virginia ABC continues to expand the partnership.
“Paul and his team have been champions of ours and we’re champions of theirs as well,” Francescangeli states. “Due to the relationship we have with Virginia ABC, we have been able to secure business from other retailers in the same space because they have confidence that we know how to handle the market.”
“GK checks a lot of boxes retailers are looking for,” Bill Miller, North American VP of Sales at GK adds. “We’re in this inflection point where we offer modern technology that also has a lot of functionality out of the box, and that’s what people want. That’s what Virginia ABC wanted, and that’s what we supplied.”
Our cover story this month focuses on the work of Gregg Aldana and his team. The Global Area Vice President,…
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Our cover story this month focuses on the work of Gregg Aldana and his team. The Global Area Vice President, Creator Workflows Specialist Solution Consulting at ServiceNow, reveals how a disruptive approach to technology can drive innovation. “We were inspired by our customers – they were the ones who started tapping into our underlying platform to build their own custom applications and workflows.”
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Welcome to a world of possibilities where technology meets business at the interface of change…
Gregg Aldana, Global Area Vice President, Creator Workflows Specialist Solution Consulting at ServiceNow, on how a disruptive approach to technology can drive innovation. “We were inspired by our customers – they were the ones who started tapping into our underlying platform to build their own custom applications and workflows.”
Harry Reid International Airport: A technology transformation journey
Chief Information Technology Officer Rishma M. Khimji on the digital transformation journey delivering seamless passenger experiences to millions of travellers at one of America’s busiest airports. “We have multiple large projects planned to build that next baseline for Harry Reid International Airport. We’re moving up our levels of service, our redundancy, our recovery and our protective services to truly be a technology focused forward-looking airport.”
CBA: A new dawn of digital adoption for business banking
At the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Michael Vacy-Lyle, Group Executive for Business, is driving the renaissance for business banking with a wave of digital development at Australia’s largest bank. “Our goal is utilising our data assets to differentiate CBA and completely change the way our business customers see their bank.”
Telia: Scaling for tomorrow
Telia‘s Cloud & IT Infrastructure leader Kai Viljanen on scaling and future-proofing a tech transformation. “IT businesses in recent years are starting to move even faster with customer demands. It’s extremely important to keep improving time-to-market. There’s increasing demand for IT organisations to offer more services with reduced costs. Telia’s top management released our new strategy and IT transformation initiative around four years ago. We’ve been working on it ever since.”
Peavey Industries: Adapting ecommerce to customer needs
Peavey Technology & Ecommerce leader Shaun Guthrie on keeping the customer at the heart of business transformation. “If you’re going to bury your head in the sand with old technology, you won’t survive the up cycles.”
CNA: A cultural revolution empowering transformation
Rizwan Jan, CIO of CNA Corporation, on prioritising the significance of fostering cultural shifts while navigating business transformation and addressing cyber risk. “We’re promoting a culture with a security-first mindset where every employee understands their role in safeguarding our data and our systems.”
Virginia ABC: IT freedom through strategic partnership
CIO Paul Williams on Virginia ABC‘s transformation, the process of becoming independent, and how businesses can avoid IT obsolescence. “We believe that if we can keep our customers happy with our service and delivery, we are more likely to be able to continue modernising the last few legacy systems.”
Also in this issue, we hear from Emergn CEO Alex Adamopulos on the need for a dual mindset approach in the adoption of advanced technology, round up the must attend tech events and speak with Sanofi‘s Landry Giardina, Global Head of Clinical Supply Chain Operations Innovation & Technology talks data-driven performance, resilience, and operational excellence.
Reaping the rewards of digital transformation means avoiding the risks by embodying three key steps from strategy to execution.
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Digital transformation is no longer an optional source of competitive advantage. It’s how you survive being disrupted out of the market.
Organisations in multiple sectors are face an increasingly complex and unforgiving economic environment. New technologies, climate-related disruption, a shifting regulatory landscape, and the third once-in-a-lifetime recession in as many decades, are all driving digital transformation. However, the difficulty lies not in deciding to embark on a digital transformation, but in determining if your digital transformation was a failure or a success.
When critically examining a digital transformation, researchers at Deloitte identified three common threads in successful transformations. Among over 4,600 US companies that engaged in DX initiatives, those that saw positive RoI shared these key characteristics.
Three characteristics of a successful digital transformation
First, each successful project started with the articulation of a clear digital strategy. Companies that effectively outline their DX strategy were more likely end up with a positive result. Understanding the goal of a technology in business terms is likely to reduce the odds of waste and overspend, as well as ensure that the project receives the necessary support from outside the IT department to succeed.
Next, the DX project leadership align their technology investments with the digital strategy articulated in the first step. Initiatives that acomplish this are twice as likely to experience a successful transformation.
Deloitte’s researchers note that: “This likely gives stakeholders a more tangible sense of strategies employed, and a way to keep closer tabs on where the enterprise is placing its capital bets—which, for many, can be massive.”
The implementation of digital change programs is the third, most pivotal step. In a report released in February 2024 titled “Digital change capabilities can make or break a digital transformation”, Deloitte researchers note that “Many organisations view “digital change” as part of the value equation, but often think it’s just about change management. Building a true digital change capability is about so much more.”
When digital transformation leaders fail to clearly conceptualise and communicate their technological change initiatives or establish clear ties to the overarching strategy, they risk derailing the entire effort. Digital change encompasses strategies for redistributing responsibilities, rearchitecting roles, and cultivating new approaches to digital-first work in the organisation (and the wider ecosystem).
Our cover story this month focuses on the work of Arianne Gallagher-Welcher. As the Executive Director for the USDA Digital…
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Our cover story this month focuses on the work of Arianne Gallagher-Welcher. As the Executive Director for the USDA Digital Service, in the Office of the OCIO, her team’s mission is to drive a tech transformation at the USDA. The goal is to better serve the American people across all of its 50 states.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Welcome to a new year of possibility where technology meets business at the interface of change…
“We knew that in order for us to deliver what we needed for our stakeholders, we needed to be flexible – and that has trickled down from our senior leaders.” Arianne Gallagher-Welcher, Executive Director for the USDA Digital Service reveals the strategic plan’s first goal. Above all, the aim is to deliver customer-centric IT so farmers, producers, and families can find dealing with USDA as easy as using an ATM.
BCX: Delivering insights & intelligence across the Data & AI value chain
We also sat down with Stefan Steffen,Executive Leader for Data Insights & Intelligence at BCX. He revealed how BCX is leveraging AI to strategically transform businesses and drive their growth. “Our commitment to leveraging data and AI to drive innovation harnesses the power of technology to unlock new opportunities, drive efficiency, and enhance competitiveness for our clients.”
Momentum Multiply: A culture-driven digital transformation for wellness
Multiply Inspire & Engage is a new offering from leading South African insurance provider Momentum Health Solutions. Furthermore, it is the first digital wellness rewards program in South Africa to balance mental health and physical health in pursuing holistic wellness. CIO, Ndibulele Mqoboli, discusses re-platforming, cloud migrations, and building a culture of ownership, responsibility, and continuous improvement.
Clark County: Creating collaboration for the benefit of residents
Navigating the world of local government can be a minefield of red tape, both for citizens and those working within it. Al Pitts, Deputy CIO of Clark County, talks to us about the organisation’s IT transformation. He explains why collaboration is key to support residents. “We have found our new Clark County – ‘Together for Better’ – is a great way to collaborate on new solutions.”
Also in this issue, we hear from Alibaba’s European GM Jijay Shen on why digitalisation can be a driving force for SMEs. We learn how businesses can get cybersecurity right with KnowBe4 and analyse the rise of ‘The Mobility Society’.
For our first cover story of 2024 we meet with Lloyds Banking Group’s CIO for Consumer Relationships & Mass Affluent,…
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For our first cover story of 2024 we meet with Lloyds Banking Group’s CIO for Consumer Relationships & Mass Affluent, Martyn Atkinson, to learn how an ambitious growth agenda, combined with a people-centred culture, is driving change for customers and colleagues across the Group.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Welcome to a new year of possibility where technology meets business at the interface of change…
Lloyds Banking Group: A technology & business strategy
“We’ve made significant strides in transforming our business for the future,” explains Martyn Atkinson, CIO for Consumer Relationships & Mass Affluent at Lloyds Banking Group. “I’m really proud of what the team have achieved. There’s loads more to go after. It’s a really exciting time as we become a modern, progressive, tech-enabled business. We’ve aimed to maintain pace and an agile mindset. We want to get products and services out to our customers and colleagues. We’ll test and learn to see if what we’re doing is actually making a meaningful difference.”
AFRICOM: Organisational resilience through cybersecurity
We also speak with U.S. Africa Command’s (AFRICOM) CISO Ryan Larsen on developing the right culture to build cyber awareness. He is committed to driving secure and continued success for the Department of Defence. “I often think of every day working in cyberspace a lot like counterinsurgency warfare and my time in Afghanistan. You had to be on top of your game every minute of every day. The adversary only needs to get lucky one time to find you with that IED.”
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ALIC: Creating synergy to scale at speed with Lolli
Since 2009 the Australian Lending & Investment Centre (ALIC) has been matching Australians with loans that help build their wealth. It has delivered over $8.3bn in loans to more than 22,000 leading Australian investors and businesses. Managing Director Damian Brander talks ethical lending and the challenges of a shifting financial landscape. ALIC has also built Lolli – a broker enhancement platform built by brokers, for brokers.
Sime Darby Motors: Driving digital, cultural, and business transformation together
Sime Darby Berhad is one of the oldest and most successful multinational companies in Malaysia. It has a twin focus on the Industrial and Motors sectors. The company employs more than 24,000 people, operating across 17 countries and territories. Sime Darby Motors’ Chief Digital & Information Officer Tuan Jean Tee shares how he makes sure digital, cultural, and process transformation go hand in hand throughout one of APAC’s largest automotive multinationals.
Also in this issue, we hear from Microsoft on the art of sustainable supply chain transformation, Tecnotree map the key trends set to impact the telecoms industry in 2024 and our panel of experts chart the big Fintech predictions for the year ahead.
This month’s exclusive cover story features a fascinating discussion with Dhaval Desai, Principal Group Engineering Manager at Microsoft, regarding a massive and sustainable supply chain transformation at the tech giant…
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This month’s exclusive cover story features a fascinating discussion with Dhaval Desai, Principal Group Engineering Manager at Microsoft, regarding a massive and sustainable supply chain transformation at the tech giant…
In the past four years, Microsoft has gained more than 80,000 productivity hours and avoided hundreds of millions in costs. Did you miss that? That’s probably because these massive improvements took place behind the scenes as the technology giant moved to turn SC management into a major force driving efficiencies, enabling growth, and bringing the company closer to its sustainability goals.
Expect changes and outcomes to continue as Dhaval Desai continues to apply the learnings from the Devices Supply Chain transformation – think Xbox, Surface, VR and PC accessories and cross-industry experiences and another to the fast-growing Cloud supply chain where demand for Azure is surging. As the Principal Group Software Engineering Manager, Desai is part of the Supply Chain Engineering organisation, the global team of architects, managers, and engineers in the US, Europe, and India tasked with developing a platform and capabilities to power supply chains across Microsoft. It’s an exciting time. Desai’s staff has already quadrupled since he joined Microsoft in 2021, and it’s still growing. Within the company, he’s on the cutting edge of technology innovation testing generative AI solutions. “We are actively learning how to improve it and move forward,” he tells us.
We also have some inspiring and informative content from supply chain leaders and experts at Schneider Electric, Smart Cube, Protokol, Red Helix and Astrocast. Plus, expert predictions for 2024 from leading supply chain leaders, as well as a round-up of the best events this year has to offer!
Our final cover story for 2023 explores how Deputy CIO May Cheng is accelerating a digital customer and product-centric approach…
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Our final cover story for 2023 explores how Deputy CIO May Cheng is accelerating a digital customer and product-centric approach to IT management for the International Trade Administration (ITA).
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
Interface showcases leaders at the forefront of innovation with digital technologies transforming myriad industries.
We connect once more with the tech trailblazers at the International Trade Administration. Deputy CIO May Cheng and her team areaccelerating adoption of ITA’s customer and product-centric approach to IT management. In addition, their focus is on Agile, DevSecOps, Value Proposition, and Human Centred Design. “In 2023, we launched 13 products, three MVPs and saw enhancements operationalised. Moreover, the digital model has enabled a partnership between business and IT. The result is clearer lines of shared responsibility, transparency in resources, and a continuous learning culture across the agency.”
Businessman touching data analytics process system with KPI financial charts, dashboard of stock and marketing on virtual interface. With American flag in background.
Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Trust: Digitally transforming patient care
The Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trustis centred on bringing tomorrow’s treatments to today’s patients with a clear mission to provide excellent, specialist care to patients suffering from heart and lung disease. We hear from Andrew Raynes who took up his role as CIO in 2017. He is overseeing a digital transformation program bringing value to staff and patients. “Using the global language of interoperability… we’ll see greater efficiency in terms of use of technology and sweating our assets. Furthermore, exploiting the benefits to support seamless care by allowing standards to do the heavy lifting.”
Toronto Community Housing: Supporting tenants with tech
Toronto Community Housing houses tenants in 106 of Toronto’s 158 neighbourhoods. It ensures over 43,000 low and moderate-income families are supported in their continuously managed homes. Luisa Andrews, VP Information Technology Services tells us it’s the best role she’s had in her career. “It’s the most challenging, and where I’ve seen the most progress in a short amount of time. I’m proud of my team and what we’ve accomplished in five years. We, and our partners, have enabled the corporation, through technology, to do what it needs to do for our tenants.”
Marshfield Clinic Health System:
Marshfield Clinic Health System provides care at over 50 locations across the US state of Wisconsin. Chief Data & Analytics Officer Mitchell Kwiatkowski explains its tech mantra to us: “We’re trying to toe that line while examining new technologies as they come out. We’re aiming to understand what they are, how they can help, and implementing things that are mature enough and show promise. I don’t think healthcare is necessarily risk-averse; it’s a highly regulated area that doesn’t always have deep pockets for investment. However, it’s people’s health at stake, so we have to be careful…”
Also in this issue, we get the lowdown on the tech trends for 2024 from Hitachi Vantara innovation guru Bjorn Andersson. We also hear from the WatchGuard Threat Lab research team with their cybersecurity predictions for the year ahead.
A passionate advocate for diversity, inclusion and equity of opportunity, Executive GM Ana Marinkovic leadsa team of 1,600+ small business experts. They lend over $1.2bn a month to Australian small businesses. National Australia Bank (NAB) plays a major role in propelling entrepreneurship across the country. Delivering better outcomes for small business owners sits at the very heart of NAB’s strategy. “Our scale and connectivity help us to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our business and the communities we operate in,” says Ana.
TUI: Making travel plans mobile
The mobile side of TUI has never been more vital. TUI’s mobile apps were officially launched in 2013 and began as something of a proof of concept. For the entire international industry, moving from web to mobile devices was a huge shift. The initial set of apps were very skeletal and only integrated for UK and Nordic customers.
One of this year’s goals is to accelerate the native journey to make all the customer journeys native. This will further improving the customer experience. After a recent UI refresh, the app look and feel is fresh and sleek, and has plenty of exciting features for customers to enjoy. “Just in the last couple of months we’ve introduced an integration with OpenAI for a travel planner that helps you choose excursions,” Donia adds. “Seeing it grow over the years is so exciting.”
TARA Energy Services: tech fuelling growth
“Continuous improvement is woven into the fabric of the culture at TARA Energy Services,” says its proud Director of IT, Paul Parzen. “Every day, we face new challenges, both operationally in the field and strategically in the boardroom. We must make sure the organisation’s IT strategy for data management, core infrastructure, network architecture, and security is ready to meet them.”
Link Group: Shaking up UK’s pension market via digitalisation
“Some people might say, ‘wow, a pension. That sounds a little boring.’ But at the end of the day, what we do is help people retire in the best way possible and that’s a pretty good place to be.”
Those are the words of Dee McGrath, CEO of Link Group’s Retirement Solutions since May 2019. The company is a global, digitally-enabled business connecting millions of people with their pension assets – safely, securely and responsibly.
Evara Health: Technology delivering care for all
Evara Health’s mission statement is to help people become healthy and live healthy lives, and that means all people. A lot of health organisations don’t serve everybody and their treatments aren’t available under many types of insurance. However, Evara Heath doesn’t turn anybody away. It supports the underserved and the uninsured, and patients are treated regardless of whether they can afford it. Around 25% of patients have no insurance at all, and over half are covered by Medicaid, which isn’t accepted by everyone.
Nigel Greatorex, Global Industry Manager at ABB, on how digital technologies can support decarbonisation and net zero goals
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Nigel Greatorex is the Global Industry Manager for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) at ABB Energy Industries. He explains how digital technologies can play a critical role in the transition to a low carbon world by enabling global emissions reductions. Furthermore, he highlights the role of CCS and how challenges can be overcome through digitalisation.
Meeting our global decarbonisation goals is arguably the most pressing challenge facing humanity. Moreover, solving this requires concerted global action. However, there is no silver bullet to the global warming crisis. The solution requires a mix of investment, legislation and, importantly, innovative digital technologies.
Decarbonisation digital technologies
It’s widely recognised decarbonisation is essential to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Decarbonisation technology is becoming an increasingly important, rapidly growing market. It is especially relevant for heavy industries – such as chemicals, cement and steel. These account for 70 percent of industrial CO2 emissions; equal to approximately six billion tons annually.
CCS digital technologies are increasingly seen as key to helping industries decarbonise their operations. Reaching our net zero targets requires industry uptake of CCS to grow 120-fold by 2050, according to analysis from McKinsey & Company. Indeed, if successful, it could be responsible for reducing CO2 emissions from the industrial sector by 45 percent.
A Digital Twin solution
ABB and Pace CCS joined forces to deliver a digital twin solution. It reduces the cost of integrating CCS into new and existing industrial operations. Simulating the design stage and test scenarios to deliver proof of concept gives customers peace of mind. Indeed, system designs need to be fit for purpose. Also, it demonstrates the smooth transition into CCS operations. Additionally, the digital twin models the full value chain of a CCS system.
Cybersecurity leader Shinesa Cambric on Microsoft’s innovation journey to identify, detect, protect, and respond to emerging threats against identity and access
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This month’s cover story highlights a cybersecurity program protecting billions of users.
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
Interface showcases leaders at the forefront of innovation with digital technologies transforming myriad industries.
Shinesa Cambric is on a mission to drive innovation for cybersecurity at Microsoft. Moreover, by embracing diversity and opening all channels towards collaboration her team tackles anti-abuse and delivers fraud-defence. Continuous Improvement doesn’t just play into her role, it defines it…
“In the fraud and abuse space, attackers are constantly trying to identify ways to look like a legitimate user,” warns Shinesa. “And this means my team, and our partners, have to continuously adapt. We identify new patterns and behaviours to detect fraudsters. At the same time, we must do it in such a way we don’t impact our truly ‘good’ and legitimate users. Microsoft is a global consumer business and any time you add friction or an unpleasant experience for a consumer, you risk losing them, their business and potentially their trust. My team’s work sits on the very edge of the account sign up and sign in process. We are essentially the first touch within the customer funnel for Microsoft – a multi-billion dollar company.”
ABB: Digital Technolgies contributing towards Net Zero
Nigel Greatorex, Global Industry Manager for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) at ABB Energy Industries, explains how digital technologies can play a critical role in the transition to a low carbon world. He highlights the role of CCS in enabling global emissions reductions and how challenges can be overcome through digitalisation…
“It is widely recognised decarbonisation is essential to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Therefore, it’s not surprising that emerging decarbonisation technology is becoming an increasingly important, and rapidly growing market.”
CSI: How can your IT estate improve its sustainability?
Andy Dunn, Chief Revenue Officer at IT solutions specialist CSI, reveals how digital technologies can contribute to ESG obligations: “Sustainability is a now seen as a strategic business imperative, so much so that 74% of companies consider Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors to be very important to the value of their company. Additionally, we know almost three in four organisations have set a net zero goal. With an average target date of 2044, 50% of organisations are seeking more energy efficient products and services.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsDaZiSO1ho
“Optimising energy use and consolidating servers and storage infrastructure form a strong basis for shaping a more environmentally friendly and efficient IT estate. It no longer needs to be the Achilles Heel of an ESG policy. “
Mia Platform: Sustainable Cloud Computing
Davide Bianchi, Senior Technical Lead at Mia Platform, explores the silver lining of sustainable cloud computing. He reveals how it can help us reduce our digital carbon thumbprint with collaboration, efficient use of applications, containerisation of apps, microservices and green partnerships.
“We’re already on an important technological path toward ubiquitous cloud computing. Correspondingly, this brings incredible long-term benefits too. These include greater scalability, improved data storage, and quicker application deployment, to name a few.”
Also in this issue, we hear from Doug Laney, Innovation Fellow at West Monroe and author of Infonomics and Data Juice. Also, we learn how companies can measure, manage and monetise to realise the potential of their data. And, Deputy CIO Melvin Brown discusses the people-centric approach to IT supporting America’s civil service at The Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Doug Laney is Innovation Fellow at West Monroe and a leading Data & Analytics strategist. We caught up with the author of Infonomics and Data Juice to talk tech and how companies can measure, manage and monetise to realise the potential of their data
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Our cover story explores the rise of data and information as an asset.
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
Interface showcases leadersaiming to take advantage of data, particularly in a new world of AI technologies where it is the fuel…
How to monetise, manage and measure data as an asset
Our cover star is pretty big in the world of analytics… We meet the guy who defined Big Data. Doug Laney is Innovation Fellow at West Monroe and a leading Data & Analytics strategist. We caught up with the author of Infonomics and Data Juice to talk tech and learn how companies can measure, manage and monetise to realise the potential of their information. In his first book Laney advised companies to stop being fixated on hindsight-oriented analytics. “It doesn’t actually move the needle on the business. In the stories I’ve compiled over the last decade, 98% have more to do with organisations using data to diagnose, predict, prescribe or automate something. It’s not about asking questions about what happened in the past.”
Canvas Worldwide: A data-driven media business
Continuing this month’s data theme, we also spoke with Alisa Ben, SVP, Head of Analytics at full-service media agency Canvas Worldwide. Data has transformed the organisation, and what its clients do. “We look holistically at the client’s business and sometimes the tools we have might be right for them, sometimes not. It’s more about helping our clients achieve their business outcomes.”
TUI Musement: from digital transformation to digital pioneer
At travel giant TUI, handling data effectively is paramount when communicating consistently and meaningfully with up to 25 million customers annually. David Garcia, CIO for TUI Musement, talks about the tech evolution driving the travel giant’s provision of experiences, transfers and tours. It’s a big part of its operational shift from local to global. “As a CIO, I’ve always been interested in how the tech innovations we drive can support the business and add value.”
Hiscox: making cybersecurity more accessible
Liz Banbury, CISO at Hiscox and president of (ISC)² London Chapter, talks to us about how cybersecurity can become a more accessible, realistic career path for almost anybody. “When I was at school, topics like computer science didn’t even exist,” Banbury explains. “In one of my first jobs, over in Hong Kong, we were still using a typewriter! A lot has changed. My key point here is that there’s a lot of cybersecurity professionals who are really good at their job. They are inspiring, and have come from all walks of life. Crucially, they don’t have a maths, computer science, or technological background at all. But they still make great cybersecurity professionals.
Portland Community College: Risk vs Speed in Cybersecurity
Reet Kaur, former Chief Information Security Officer at Portland Community College, discusses the organisation’s transition to the cloud amid a digital transformation journey. “I don’t want to work with people who just say yes all the time. I want my ideas challenged to help forge the excellence in the security programmes I help build.”
DBHDS: Cybersecurity in healthcare
The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) exists to create ‘a life of possibilities for all Virginians’ and transform behavioural health. Its focus is on supporting people across the entire commonwealth. It helps them get the support they need in order to take wellness and recovery into their own hands. In an area like healthcare, sensitive information is all over the place, meaning cybersecurity is a priority – and this is where Glendon Schmitz, CISO at DBHDS, comes in. “The security team exists to help the wider organisation achieve its objectives with data. We’re there to protect the business, not the other way around.”
Also in this issue, we schedule the can’t miss tech events and get the lowdown on IoT security from the Mobile Ecosystem Forum.
This month’s cover story sees us speak with Brad Veech, Head of Technology Procurement at Discover Financial Services.
Having been a leader in procurement for more than 25 years, he has been responsible for over $2 billion in spend every year, negotiating software deals ranging from $75 to over $1.5 billion on a single deal. Don’t miss his exclusive insights where he tells us all about the vital importance of expertly procuring software and highlights the hidden pitfalls associated.
“A lot of companies don’t have the resources to have technology procurement experts on staff,” Brad tells us. “I think as time goes on people and companies will realise that the technology portfolio and the spend in that portfolio is increasing so rapidly they have to find a way to manage it. Find a project that doesn’t have software in it. Everything has software embedded within it, so you’re going to have to have procurement experts that understand the unique contracts and negotiation tactics of technology.”
There are also features which include insights from the likes of Jake Kiernan, Manager at KPMG, Ashifa Jumani, Director of Procurement at TELUS and Shaz Khan, CEO and Co-Founder at Vroozi.
Melvin Brown, Deputy CIO at the Office of Personnel Management, explains the organisation’s ‘sprint to the cloud’ and its determination to modernise at every level.
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Our cover story highlights the Office of Personnel Management’s ‘sprint to the cloud’ with technology.
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
Interface hears from leaders who champion a people-first approach driving successful technology transformations.
Culture Modernisation at the Office of Personnel Management
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is a government entity which manages America’s civil service. This month’s cover story explores how an organisation that prioritises people is taking a human approach to IT. Deputy CIO Melvin Brown oversees a portfolio of $500m in programs and a growing workforce of around 300 federal employees and contractors. OPM is undergoing a major cloud transformation… “We want to be cloud-first and cloud-smart as we move forward,” he explains. “So, we created a two-year sprint to the cloud plan where we take all our major applications and move them to the cloud in order to take advantage of all the benefits that brings, from both a security and a utility perspective.”
International Trade Administration: A strategic vision for technology
The International Trade Administration (ITA) strengthens the competitiveness of U.S. industry, promotes trade and investment, and ensures fair trade through the enforcement of trade laws and agreements. We hear from its CIO Gerald Caron who is passionate about involving all stakeholders in ITA’s transformation… “We’re introducing different ways of thinking to drive innovation at the International Trade Administration (ITA). What is the art of the possible? We’re looking to explore possibilities with technology across our business units and build simple foundations for the development of more complex approaches.”
Irwin Mitchell: Technology with a human touch
Also espousing the importance of a people-centric approach, Graham Thomson, Chief Information Security Officer at Irwin Mitchell, discusses his firm’s transformative legal solutions. “We’re far more than just a law firm,” he says. “I think what sets us apart is that we’re very people focused and an organisation that genuinely cares about not only our customers but our people too. People are your biggest asset, and you have to look after them.”
State of Vermont: Using AI for good
We spoke with Shawn Nailor, Secretary and CIO at State of Vermont, about IT modernisation, tackling cybersecurity state-wide, and how AI is being used for the good of Vermonters. “We’ve got to be practitioners in order to give good guidance on how to use advanced technology and where… We want to establish a practice by which we can lead by example and show good applications or AI tools to advance services and the delivery of products.”
Also in this issue, we round up the must attend tech events; get game-changing AI, Metaverse and ‘moonshot’ insights from Lenovo, and learn why people are at the heart of the decision-making process at energy company newcleo.
Amit Thawani, CIO for Consumer Data & Engagement Platforms at Wells Fargo, on the journey towards becoming a customer-centric company
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This month’s cover story reveals how a customer-centric approach to technology is helping Wells Fargo deliver stable, secure, scalable, and innovative services.
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
It’s our biggest issue yet! The common theme this month is the focus on the creation of customer-centric technologies that offer reliable, secure and helpful user journeys from travel and banking to health and business.
Interface dives deep for insights on understanding, planning, implementing and communicating change across industries.
Amit Thawani, Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Consumer Data & Engagement Platforms (CDEP) on the technology journey at Wells Fargo: “All tech employees at Wells Fargo are tasked with working towards delivering stable, secure, scalable, and innovative services at speed that delight and satisfy our customers while unleashing the skills potential of our employees.”
TUI: Developing a technology ecosystem
Kristof Caekebeke, CIO for Product & Engagement, is a member of the leadership team that is driving the transformation of the TUI technical ecosystem which has seen Master Domain Owners taking different blocks of the ecosystem under their control to roll out across the organisation.
TUI Group
Responsible for product and engagement, Caekebeke’s focus is on building products out of the thousands of hotels, flights, experiences and cruises TUI is offering. “I’m responsible for every contact point between the customer and TUI. The websites, the mobile apps, the retail systems – any contact point we have between the customer and TUI. It’s a large team of 1,100 tech people.
A digital bank transformation journey with Banco PAN
“Until 2018 Banco PAN was very much an analogue company reliant on legacy paper processes,” recalls Leandro Marçal. Joining the bank in December 2020, to become Technology & Operations Director (CIO/COO), Marçal was tasked with accelerating a digital transformation journey.
“Banco PAN invested in innovation before I arrived,” says Marçal. “It is my team’s job to formalise the path towards becoming a digital bank. Our legacy operation was digitalising. It was an opportunity to improve the customer experience with our checking account and credit card systems.”
Pohlad Companies: The power of people
A pillar of the community in Minneapolis, Pohlad Companies is well known to Minnesotans for its influence, its charity work, and the opportunities it has created for people since the 1950s.
Alongside significant commercial real estate investments, Pohlad Companies owns a custom engineering and robotics company, a group of automotive dealerships specialising in luxury vehicles, a film production studio, and many more businesses. Famously, the Pohlad family also owns the Minnesota Twins, a Major League Baseball team.
This variety is part of what makes Rachel Lockett’s job so exciting. She’s Pohlad Companies’ CIO and has spent a decade in her current role. Lockett began her career as a programmer over 25 years ago and quickly moved into IT leadership management.
Coalfire: Embracing change in cybersecurity
If you wait for something to happen, then it’s often too late. The art of having a finger on the pulse is an essential ingredient to success. Failure to manage change and implement cybersecurity protocols could mean leaving an organisation vulnerable to hackers.
Sreeveni Kancharla, Coalfire’s first Chief Information Officer, is leading the company’s digital transformation with unwavering determination. As a cybersecurity advisor, Coalfire assists private and public sector organisations in managing threats, closing gaps, and mitigating risks. Kancharla ensures that her team stays up-to-date with the latest technologies to guard against zero-day attacks.
Uni of Kansas Health: Cybersecurity at the heart
Speed versus safety. The two topics are intrinsically linked and vital in their own individual way. But can you have both in healthcare when the risks are so great? Ultimately, there is no higher stake than saving people’s lives – it goes above everything and is why cybersecurity is so vital.
Protecting the healthcare system
“There’s nothing more important to me than patient care,” affirms Michael Meis, Associate Chief Information Security Officer at The University of Kansas Health System. “It is one of the highest callings you can imagine, to be able to help people. While the cybersecurity team and me, individually, do not directly care for patients, we enable a lot of that patient care to continue and to be able to achieve some of the goals that the health system has set to provide that healing, research, and innovation within the healthcare space.”
Also in this issue, we ask ChatGPT what the future holds for AI and learn from Zoom how businesses can leverage analytics for insights from their hybrid events.
Dominic Fitch, Head of Creative Change at leadership development specialist Impact International, outlines five forward-looking skills for the next generation of leaders.
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There is no denying that the world of business is evolving at an incredibly fast pace. With the constant launch of new tools and innovative tech, workers are required to embrace a wide range of modern equipment on a regular basis.
As employees continue to up their game, it is only natural that the next generation of leaders will need a set of updated skills too.
Dominic Fitch, Head of Creative Change at leadership development specialist Impact International
Here, with some insights from Dominic Fitch, Head of Creative Change at leadership development specialist Impact International, we take a look at some crucial future requirements that business owners and managers will have to nail to guide their team in an efficient, successful fashion.
1. Technological inclination
In the same way that youngsters jump at the latest technology at the first opportunity, it is important for future leaders to emulate that same drive and curiosity.
The world is becoming increasingly digitalised, and the business sector is no exception. This is why company owners and managers should have a basic understanding of today’s technologies, exploring how modern equipment can actively aid their business. From cloud computing to artificial intelligence and UX development, there are many different tools that can increase your organisation’s chance of success.
Of course, nobody expects you to be an expert in computing coding or programming. But getting precious digital and tech skills under your belt can provide you with more than one ace up your sleeve.
2. Empathy and emotional intelligence
Just like an experienced, Michelin-star chef, future leaders have to juggle and balance several different aspects to create a perfect menu. Yes, technology will play an essential role in developing and driving your company forward. But software and robots have not yet mastered emotional intelligence, which means they cannot help on the more human side of things.
A business owner or manager should always strive to harness their relationship with colleagues and team members. Empathising, sympathising, supporting, and understanding the necessities of your employees is crucial, as this can inspire confidence and a sense of belonging in your people. If workers feel appreciated and cared for, there is a good chance they will go the extra mile to spur the growth of your business.
Hence, taking an interest in your team’s well-being and nurturing a shared feeling of unity is a fundamental attribute to possess.
3. Openness to diversity
One of the most prominent advantages of modern technology is that it’s abating boundaries and favouring connections with people worldwide. Hence, as time goes by, it is becoming more and more important to collaborate with colleagues from all over the globe. This means that, on a daily basis, you are working with teams from different cultures and who may even speak another language.
Engaging with people from all walks of life and with diverse backgrounds can open the doors to endless opportunities. Not only will you benefit from a vast range of experience, knowledge, and expertise, but you will also learn precious lessons on how to enter and succeed in global markets. Therefore, as the world becomes increasingly connected, future managers need to embrace diversity and make the most of its invaluable benefits.
4. Clarity and communication
Clarity and effective communication are timeless features of strong leadership. Managers need to build bridges between their team members and outline the company’s missions in a concise, transparent manner. In this respect, leadership development training is an excellent place to start when it comes to learning how to deliver messages and strategies that are straight to the point.
Future leaders have to be able to identify the right channels to carry this out in a smooth, effective way. With the many digital platforms at our disposal, it is important to choose one that can keep people on the same page at all times. What’s more, as innovations and possibilities arise, future managers need to communicate the essence of the question at hand in a digestible fashion.
Simplifying a complex situation or task is a crucial skill, and it is one that can aid both your team’s productivity and your business’ efficiency.
5. Foresight and adaptability
As technology evolves, artificial intelligence progresses, and the business sector continues to mutate, future leaders need to be flexible. Business owners and managers have to be ready to adapt and make sure they are not fazed by what the future holds. They should monitor trends and look at how to welcome change with a positive attitude.
How can you prepare for upcoming possibilities? One effective way is to run through various scenarios and start outlining all possible outcomes. What’s more, engaging with new circumstances and journeying out of your comfort zone can be an important learning curve. In fact, it will teach you how to deal with unfamiliar situations. If an unexpected opportunity comes about, you will have both the skills and confidence to respond to them with confidence.
To keep in step with the times, business leaders of the future will need to polish their set of skills. From emotional intelligence and adaptability to clear communication and openness to diversity, there are many aspects that will strengthen your leadership. By showing an interest for new software and technological developments, you can make sure your company is expanding its reach and exploring new, successful paths.
In EY’s January 2023 European CEO Outlook Survey, it was discovered European CEOs expect short-term challenges but have reason for optimism.
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Today’s CEO faces unprecedented challenges like never before and is tasked with navigating choppy waters.
Amid global uncertainty caused by a potential recession and on the back of war in Ukraine and disruption caused by COVID-19, it can feel overwhelming for even the most experienced leaders.
A positive horizon?
Despite this, consulting giants EY has discovered reason for optimism in its January 2023 CEO Outlook Pulse survey which includes 390 responses from CEOs across Europe. While the survey found 98% of respondents are indeed expecting a global recession, the majority of European CEOs (52%) anticipate it to be temporary and not a persistent one. These figures are a greater percentage than CEOs worldwide (48%) who point to more long-term optimism for the global economy among European CEOs.
According to the survey, 47% of European respondents believe this recession will be different from previous slowdowns. The recent crisis is more driven by myriad geopolitical challenges and an ongoing fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic compared with previous recessions primarily as a result of financial and credit market factors. Many CEOs are aware of this difference and acknowledge the necessity for new and sustainable approaches that build resilience in uncertain times.
In EY’s last survey in October 2022, ongoing pandemic-related concerns such as supply chain issues were the most important topics. However, since then supply chain pressures have eased to some extent with data from S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) showing improvement. Only 32% of European CEOs now cite supply chains as the key issue which is down from 41% in October. Given inflationary pressures and the upward movement in interest rates, European CEOs are increasingly focusing on the policies and steps they believe European governments should take to help businesses mitigate the downturn.
About 35% of European respondents, in comparison to 32% globally, consider uncertain monetary policy and increasing cost of capital as the biggest challenge to growth. With inflation beginning to decline in November 2022 after 17 months of upward trajectory, CEOs are closely following central bank activity for potential course changes.
A strategy change
In response to the current recession, EU policymakers are considering more dovish economic recovery proposals instead of top-down austerity rules seen during the sovereign debt crises a decade ago. This includes rethinking debt rules to help countries navigate this downturn. Alongside this, EU governments now face pressure on how to handle the discontent of people protesting against the rising cost of living crisis and questions still remain on how extensively they will intervene. In particular, governments are reluctant to pursue austerity measures as a result of protests from the crisis 10 years ago. Meanwhile, for CEOs, financing will continue to be a challenge as a result of increased capital costs that are set to persist which disrupted growth plans.
European CEOs have learned from previous financial crises and recognise that it is essential to think of new and sustainable strategies to capitalise on the opportunities.
What is the way forward?
According to EY, there are five directives which are worth exploring over the next few years.
Investing in operations European CEOs identify investing internally to boost operations as extremely important. Risk isn’t only about extraordinary events; day-to-day operational failures can also lead to losses, regulatory action and reductions in share prices. Operations such as finance, accounting and supply chain have emerged as the top priority area of investment for European CEOs (41%).
Recognising disruption and accelerating digital transformation
Amid ongoing global pressure to embrace new technologies and a digital transformation, COVID-19 further accelerated a trend toward digitalisation. Around 38% of European CEOs (in line with 37% globally) are looking to invest in digital transformation, data and technology to emerge stronger from this downturn.
Developing a strong environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy
Businesses need to ensure ESG processes are moved to the centre of business strategy. Sustainability, including net zero and other environmental issues, as well as societal priorities, is one of the key areas that European CEOs identify as a need for more investment.
Nurturing talent
Despite the recession, the labour market remains tight in Europe. European CEOs are weighing cost management options, with 37% considering a move to contract employment and 38% planning on reducing learning and development investments. About one third are also considering a restructuring of their workforce compared with global and Americas CEOs (36% and 42%) considering the same approach.
Portfolio transformation
Looking ahead, portfolio rebalancing is expected to be a key theme as CEOs will be compelled to make bold decisions regarding their business portfolio. During a recession, companies must critically assess what their core businesses are, what their focus should be and where they can create value by spinning out or selling non-core assets. Some 93% of European CEOs consider prioritising restructuring opportunities as an important initiative in the next six months.
Our exclusive cover story this month features Alan Rankin, Chief Procurement Officer at STADA, who discusses his company’s journey to offering a best-in-class procurement function.
Few industries can say that statement with certainty. But for the pharmaceutical industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, finding a solution quickly was non-negotiable.
Indeed, Alan Rankin, Chief Procurement Officer at STADA, acknowledges the role his sector played in helping to combat one of the biggest health crises of all time. He says the COVID-19 period made him “extremely proud” to be part of the industry. “The pharmaceutical industry worked hard to come up with a solution during a time when governments struggled to cope with what happened,” he recalls. “The industry had a real impact on the world being able to handle the situation and not going into financial meltdown. That alone makes me so proud to be in this space.”
Today, STADA stands as a renowned manufacturer of high-quality pharmaceuticals. The firm operates with a three-pillar strategy consisting of consumer healthcare products, generics and specialty pharmaceuticals. Its consumer healthcare brands such as Hedrin, Nizoral, Grippostad and Zoflora are among the top sellers in their respective product categories…
Not only that but we also have fascinating discussions involving all the hot topics around the procurement function at the moment, with George Schutter, Former Chief Procurement Officer at the District of Columbia, Noemie Chetty, Director of Procurement of the Seychelles’ Public Utilities Corporation (PUC) and Trevor Tasker, CEO at EMCS Industries. Plus, Bob Booth Senior Partner, Finance & Supply Chain Transformation at IBM Consulting details how AI could affect the procurement function. “We are now witnessing a tipping point in the application of AI at real scale, and CPOs are wondering how this impacts them and their colleagues. This article aims to equip CPOs and their teams with some ideas to consider and some pointers on applying AI in a professional capacity to their company,” he reveals.
Mike Randall, CEO at Simply Asset Finance, discusses how to build a people-first strategy that enables growth.
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As the UK economy continues to balance on the edge of a recession, employee retention is quickly being pushed to the top of CEOs’ lists. Over the past couple of years, the job market has shifted dramatically with previously unheard terms such as ‘the great resignation’, ‘quiet quitting’ and ‘hybrid working’ becoming commonplace. People are rightly prioritising their working situation and job satisfaction levels, questioning whether they believe in the organisations they are committing so much time to.
Consequently, there has been a power dynamic shift in favour of the workforce. Reportedly in the third quarter of 2022 businesses witnessed over 365,000 job-to-job resignations across the UK. In similar fashion, the phenomenon of ‘quiet quitting’ – doing the bare minimum required of a job – has become a growing concern but its rise is prompted by a growing number of employees feeling disengaged in their roles.
Against this backdrop of a highly turbulent job market, and increasingly difficult macro-economic pressures, it’s vital for CEOs to prioritise a people-first strategy to ensure healthy growth for their business in 2023. Data from Deloitte has even revealed that experts believe how engaged a workforce feels can directly correlate to overall business output, with 93% of HR and business leaders in agreement that building a sense of belonging is crucial for organisational performance.
Mike Randall, CEO at Simply Asset Finance
However, creating the right environment and recruiting, maintaining and nurturing the right talent to ensure a people first approach can be daunting. With this in mind, here are four learnings CEOs might want to consider when approaching this challenge:
1. Define your beliefs
Before CEOs and founders can hope to attract the right talent, it is critical to first distil and translate the business vision into something that can be understood by employees. Put simply, this means defining the business’ beliefs.
Some business leaders may already refer to this as an ‘employer brand’, and it can be key to not only securing better talent, but also saving a business money in the long-term. Data from LinkedIn for example, recently found that a strong employer brand can help to reduce employee turnover by as much as 28% and cost-per-hire by 50%. Defining these beliefs – or the tenets a business does and doesn’t stand for – is therefore the perfect exercise to put a vision onto paper, and clearly communicate it to its prospective talent.
2. Build a solid culture
Once these beliefs have been defined, they must be reflected, and built into a strong culture. A business’ beliefs should permeate through the whole organisation – from customer communications, to how staff are treated, to how leaders run the business. Culture should essentially be a representation of a business’ beliefs being put into practice.
Building a strong culture in a business, however, is not solely about these beliefs but also extends into how employees are equipped with the tools they need to succeed. Companies that invest in learning and development for example, have been found to benefit from a 24% higher profit margin than those that don’t, according to the Association of Talent Development. Training and development should therefore be seen as a worthwhile and necessary investment that can solidify your culture and ensure profitability, not just an unavoidable cost.
3. Invest in retention
With research from Oxford Economics estimating the average turnover per employee earning £25,000 a year to be £30,000 plus, there is an evident cost to businesses that fail to invest in retention. Tackling this will mean regularly taking the time to truly understand what makes employees tick – and more specifically, understanding their motivations, attitudes, behaviours, strengths and weaknesses.
As the past few years have evidenced, individuals are no longer deciding where they work solely based on salary, but are also thinking about employer values, flexibility, and benefits. To avoid employee churn, businesses should regularly take time to understand what drives their employees and implement retention strategies to address these drivers. Gathering and analysing employee data will play an important role here over the coming years, and should be built into a long-term strategy to optimise employee satisfaction.
4. Build for the future
A common challenge encountered by modern businesses and startups wanting to take a people first approach, can be their ability to stay committed to it. As a business grows in size and becomes successful, it can be all too easy to let external factors dictate its purpose and for it to lose sight of what it initially stood for. The reality is that when this happens, a business is in its most vulnerable state – as its beliefs become increasingly distant, and worse, employees no longer understand what it stands for.
When creating a people-first strategy its therefore important to think long-term. If there are external factors that will potentially put this strategy at risk in future, it’s crucial to identify them, and put in practical steps to mitigate them where possible. The pandemic, for example, is a prime example of an external factor that interrupted the status quo of many businesses – disrupting employees, customers and operations in general. While they can be unpredictable in nature, having a plan to get through these times can help to get you back on track and reassure talent that a solution is in place.
In this economic climate, defining beliefs, building a solid culture, and retention plan should be at the core of every business’ strategy. It’s only when these things are in place that a business can hope to attract and retain talented people that exude the same passion and values built into the heart of a business. As while a business’ growth may be defined by its leaders, it is delivered by its people who are putting that vision into practice.
Welcome to the launch issue of CEOstrategy where we highlight the challenges and opportunities that come with ‘the’ leadership role
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Our first cover story explores how Vodafone is leveraging strong leadership to drive the collaborations enabling businesses to champion change management and better use technology.
Welcome to the launch issue of CEOstrategy!
Tasked with accelerating business growth, while building the synergies across an organisation that can drive innovation to meet diverse customer needs and keep revenues on track, the modern CEO must be mentor, marshall and motivator on the journey to success.
“Leadership is purpose, it’s why do you do the things you do…”
Our cover story throws the spotlight on Vodafone US CEO David Joosten; also Director for Americas & Partners Markets at Vodafone Business, he talks to CEOstrategy about leading from the front and setting the standards to deliver growth while keeping employees and customers happy.
“People follow leaders that are honest about themselves. If you can reflect on what you’ve done well, but also where you need to improve it can inspire others to do the same.”
EMCS Industries Ltd: How a CEO can navigate change management
“Why hire talent and then tell them what do? You have so much to learn from the great people you hire. Micromanaging is not management, and it’s certainly not leadership. Let your people thrive!”
Read our interview with EMCS Industries Ltd CEO Trevor Tasker for more thought-provoking insights on leadership from the shifting tides of the marine industry in this maiden issue.
How to be an authentic leader
“At the most basic human level, everyone knows what it’s like to feel heard by another person, and how that changes our behaviour. It can help anger and sadness subside and enable us to start seeing things differently. So, when employees are being listened to by their leaders, it can only help how an organisation operates.”
Dr Andrew White, director of the Advanced Management and Leadership Programme at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and host of the Leadership 2050 podcast series, explores transformative approaches to leadership for the modern CEO.
How can CEOs drive forward culture change around diversity and inclusion?
Diane Lightfoot, CEO of Business Disability Forum, explores the changing the narrative around diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
“Disability is still often parked in the “too difficult” box when it comes to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Employers are often afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing and as a result, do or say nothing. As a CEO, the stakes feel (and often are) higher. That high profile platform can feel daunting at the best of times; when tackling an unfamiliar topic, it can feel positively overwhelming. But what we do and say as senior leaders has a huge impact. Indeed, it is critical in driving change.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-TRCm1dv6o
Also in this launch issue, we get the lowdown on agile ways of working from Kubair Shirazee, CEO of Agile transformation specialists Agilitea. Elsewhere, we speak with Nirav Patel, CEO of the consultancy firm, Bristlecone – a subsidiary of Mahindra Group and a leading provider of AI powered application transformation services for the connected supply chain – who discusses the challenges facing CPOs and supply chain leaders in our uncertain times. And we analyse the latest insights for CEOs from McKinsey and Gartner.
Standard Bank CIO Bessy Mahopo on the challenges of operating in a fractured market and how the company overcomes them
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This month’s cover story highlights how technology is helping Standard Bank overcome the challenges of a fractured market to both drive business growth and improve services for customers.
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
“Time may change me, but I can’t trace time…” sang David Bowie. Changes can be challenging to manage with the path to positive disruption not always a smooth change management journey.
Interface dives deep for insights on understanding, planning, implementing and communicating change across industries.
Standard Bank CIO (CIB – Transactional Banking) Bessy Mahopo explains how one of South Africa’s largest banks is using its own digital transformation successes as a template to support the country’s ongoing technological evolution by overhauling IT from the inside out. “I believe that once we start moving the curve to fifth and sixth generation technology, we’re going to become even more of a value-producer.”
The art of change management with SAP
Maria Villar, Head of Enterprise Data Strategy and Transformation at SAP, talks about the importance of driving change in the technology space and helping businesses thrive with data from the perspective of one of the world’s leading enterprise resource planning software vendors. “My job is about finding out what a good data strategy looks like and continuing to spend time with customers to look ahead…”
Talent transformation journeys with TUI
We caught up with Cerstin Lang, Director for HR Group IT at TUI. She reveals how it’s global For:ward program is driving digital transformation as the travel giant works with training partner Udacity to upskill IT talent. “Our IT goals are focused on developing a structure that supports new ways of working with the right balance to innovate and grow in the future.”
How TransUnion is enabling consumer trust
Alejandro Reskala, CIO Canada, LATAM, Caribbean at TransUnion, about technology transformation at a leading consumer credit reporting agency, its dedication to people, and how it makes trust possible. “TransUnion has always blazed a trail to use technology and data to generate insights that help support financial inclusion.”
Also in this issue, we ask what the birth of ChatGPT means for businesses leveraging tech and learn from Rivery why organisations need to rethink their data strategy with robust operational analytics.
Mark Weil, CEO at TMF Group, discusses the rise of staff attrition in the industry
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At the start of 2023 many companies are still struggling to find employees. The job market favours the applicant far more than before Covid-19 across many sectors. Higher interest rates and lower economic growth so far haven’t reduced the pressure on labour availability.
High staff turnover isn’t just a matter of the cost it creates. The disruption from running with a lot of open roles and with less experienced staff can disrupt client service, increase error rates and lead to more serious compliance and reputation damage.
Mark Weil, CEO at TMF Group
Examining the data
A lot of commentary on the situation has been based on surveys of employees’ intentions rather than their actual decisions. By managing our clients’ financial, legal and employee administration we have access to large volumes of data. This provides insight on the overall recruitment and resignation levels across workforces, from several hundred thousand employees, covering a broad range of sectors and job levels in more than 90 countries.
As a starting point, the data tells us that there was indeed a significant global increase in staff resignation during and after the pandemic. Across the 90 countries, average company staff attrition rose from around 15% annually in mid-2020 to 25% at the end of 2021. That’s a dramatic 67% increase in just 18 months.
Global annualised employee attrition trend
Digging deeper reveals a much more nuanced picture by company and country. In 2021, staff attrition averaged around 20% across the 90 countries but was below 10% in a small number, with Argentina the lowest at 6%. Of those above 20%, India, the UK and Poland topped the list with a rate of 26%. Both India and Poland are now major destinations for companies establishing regional service centres – locations that are supposed to be low cost, stable hubs that support many other countries. So rising staff turnover there will be particularly painful.
2021 average employee attrition by country
When examining the data at company level, annual attrition levels vary even more widely, from a low of around 5% to a high of 40%. Some of that will be a result of challenges in specific industries and companies. Some will arise from the underlying attrition in the labour market of the countries they operate in. To disentangle how much is company versus country, we compare in the chart below the attrition a firm is seeing with the average attrition it should be seeing given the mix of countries where it operates. The wide spread in the data shows that that country averages matter far less than individual company factors. For example, looking at companies whose country mix should give them expected attrition of around 15-20%, we see many at 30%-40% and others at just 5%-10% attrition.
Company actual 2021 attrition versus average for the countries where they operate
Staff attrition is a problem at any time, but becomes a significant threat to a business if it gets too high. How high is a matter of judgement and depends on the particular company. In professional services, for example, when staff attrition is above 20% it starts to impact client service and above 30% it can pose a risk to regulatory and reputational integrity.
The rise in global staff attrition, coupled with big spikes by country and company means that multinational firms will have an increased number of locations where attrition is high and potentially well beyond manageable levels. From 2020 to 2021 the number of employees in company locations experiencing more than 20% attrition nearly doubled, from around 15% to 27%. Looking at where the levels were highest, employees in countries experiencing more than 35% attrition rose from 1% to 7%. That means there’s an increasing number of hotspots, where extremely high staff attrition means companies need to intervene quickly to avoid staff resignations spiralling due to increased workload.
Factoring in country complexity
An important additional factor is the complexity of a particular country to operate in. Many countries have onerous business rules which are enforced vigorously. High staff turnover in complex countries is particularly dangerous because of the added risk of compliance breaches.
We can look at country complexity using TMF Group’s Global Business Complexity Index. It ranks countries annually based on 292 criteria, covering the fiscal, legal and employment environments for doing business in each location.
Procurement is in a state of flux. Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, the procurement landscape is volatile and requires…
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Procurement is in a state of flux.
Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, the procurement landscape is volatile and requires agility to navigate turbulent waters. But, despite significant disruption could there still be opportunity?
Simon Whatson, Vice President of Efficio Consulting, is optimistic about the future of digital procurement and despite a challenging few years he is confident of a successful bounce back. He gives us the lowdown on the direction of travel for digital procurement in 2023.
As an executive with considerable experience in the space, we’d love to learn more about your background and how you ended up in procurement. Why was this the specialism for you and how did you get involved to begin with?
Simon Whatson (SW): “I think the one-word answer of how I came into procurement was accidental. I studied maths at university, with a year in France, before I began looking for different roles to apply for.
“Eventually, I was offered a position with a big plumbing and heating merchant with global operations. I worked in that supply chain team for two and a half years. Although it was called supply chain, a lot of the work was procurement, which involved negotiating with suppliers. It was after that stint there, that I discovered consulting and joined a boutique procurement consultancy. Now I am onto my third consultancy and I’m very happy here!
“In terms of why I’ve stayed, one of the success factors in procurement is being able to work cross-functionally. Procurement doesn’t own any of the spending that it is responsible for helping to optimise. It must work with other functions and the spend owners. I quite like the people side of that, building relationships, almost selling internally to bring teams together. That really appeals to me and is a key reason why I’ve been very happy in procurement.”
As we move into exploring procurement today in 2023. The space is filled with challenges and complexities. You only need to look at the last few years. Covid, war in Ukraine, inflation – how would you describe the world’s recent challenges and their effect on the industry and what do you feel CPOs and leaders can do to combat these issues?
SW: “I would flip it around and say that these are not so much challenges but rather opportunities for procurement. When I started my career 18 years ago, procurement was often fighting to get a voice and there were complaints that procurement was not represented at the top table, but the war in Ukraine, inflation, COVID and ESG, these are things which are now on the C-suite agenda and procurement is ideally positioned to help companies face those challenges. If you think about COVID and the war in Ukraine, procurement is in a privileged position to help with this.
“I see some procurement functions that prefer to do what they know, which focuses on the process and transactional side. However, there are also many forward-thinking CPOs and procurement professionals out there, that have really seized this opportunity of being on the C-suite agenda and drive the thinking and the solutions to some of these big challenges we’re seeing.”
Although new technology in procurement has been around for well over a decade, digitalisation has become so much more of an important topic. How would you sum up where procurement and supply chain are in terms of digital transformation today?
SW: “It’s a bit laggard, but digital transformation is difficult, and we have to recognise there are some real trailblazers. There are some firms doing some fantastic things in digital to produce better outcomes. If you contrast your experience when you’re buying something in your private life, it’s much easier than 20 years ago. You can get access to a wealth of pre-sourced things, whether it’s food, a holiday, a car, or a book. You can see reviews of what other people think of these things.
“But when you go into your workplace as a business user and you want to buy something, it doesn’t quite work like that yet. You often have to fill in a form, send it off and wait for them to come back to you. They might come back a little bit later than you were hoping and might tell you that they don’t have that part on the supply frameworks. I think people sometimes get confused about how it can be so easy to buy something as large as a car or a holiday on their sofa at home, but when they want to buy something at work, it seems to be quite cumbersome. Digital can help a lot with that, but it is incumbent on organisations and procurement functions to figure out how to recreate that customer experience that we’ve become accustomed to in our private lives.”
With a new generation of leaders growing up with technology, some might say that it could be a key driver in helping to speed the adoption in procurement along. Is this something you would agree with or what would you point to as a key driver?
SW: “I do think that it will act as one of the catalysts for further digital transformation in organisations, because if procurement doesn’t manage to recreate that customer experience that the new generation expects, then they won’t use procurement going forward and will look to bypass it.
“The analogy that I’ve used previously in this case is one of travel agents. I remember as a child, my parents were able to take us on holiday and I remember the whole process. We would walk into town to the travel agent, and look at some of the brochures of options. They often then had to phone the various airlines or resorts on our behalf. They might not be able to get through, so we’d have to come back the next day. I remember as a child being quite excited by the whole process but actually, thinking back, it was quite cumbersome. You compare that to now, with being able to review online, and you can get instant answers to your questions. It’s not a coincidence that travel agents don’t really exist anymore.”
How much of a challenge is it to not get caught leveraging technology for technologies sake? How important is it to stay true to your approach and be strategic?
SW: “We conducted a study of many procurement leaders and CPOs a few years ago, and one of the things that we found was that about 50% of procurement leaders admitted to having bought technology just on the basis of a fear of missing out, without any real understanding of the benefits that technology was going to bring. That was a real shock and a revealing find because technology is not cheap, and its implementation is quite disruptive. If you’re purchasing a system because everybody else is using it, then there could be some pretty costly mistakes. It is really important to make sure that when buying technology, it is because the benefits are fully understood.
“My advice to companies when looking to digitalise is own your data, visualise that data, and manage your knowledge. If you can focus on getting those things right in that order, and make your technology decisions to support that goal, then that’s a much better way of thinking about it rather than just jumping in and buying a piece of technology.”
It’s clear that the procurement space is an exciting, but challenging, place to be. What do you think will play a key role in the next 12 months to push the digital conversation further to take procurement to the next level?
SW: “Looking forward, one thing that procurement needs to do and continue to do is attract the best people. Ultimately, people are what makes an organisation, and it is what makes a function successful. I think procurement has often not looked for the right skills in the people that it employs. Traditionally, it’s looked for people with procurement experience and while they are valuable and required, we also need leadership potential. People who think a bit more outside the box and aren’t so process driven. A lot of what procurement has done in previous years has been process driven, so if you’re just limiting your search of people to those that have had procurement experience, you’re inevitably going to end up with a lot of people who are process driven.
“I think being bolder and recruiting people from different backgrounds with different skill sets is the way to go. If procurement can ‘own’ the ESG space, that will help with the younger generation see procurement make a difference. I think that’s one thing that will be key to success going forward.”
Check out the latest issue of CPOstrategy Magazine here.
Paul Farrow, Vice President of Hilton Hotels’ Supply Management, sits down with us to discuss how his organisation’s procurement function has evolved amid disruption on a global scale
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The hospitality industry has endured a rough ride over the past few years.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic which stopped the world in its tracks and now with millions facing a cost-of-living crisis, it’s been a period of unprecedented disruption for those involved in the space and beyond.
But it’s a challenge met head-on by Paul Farrow, Vice President of Supply Management at Hilton Hotels, and his team who have been forced to respond as the world continues to shift before their eyes.
Farrow gives us a closer look into the inner workings of his firm’s procurement function and how he has led the charge during his time with Hilton Hotels.
Could we start with you introducing yourself and talking a little about your role at Hilton Hotels?
Paul Farrow (PF): “I’m the Vice President of Hilton’s Supply Management, or HSM as we call it. I’ve been with Hilton Hotels for 12 and a half years, and my role is to head the supply chain function for our hotels across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“Over the past few years, Hilton has grown rapidly and has now got 7,000 hotels in over 125 countries globally. What is really exciting is Hilton Supply Management doesn’t just supply Hilton Hotels and the Hilton Engine because we also now supply our franchisees and competitive flags. While we have 7,000 hotels globally, Hilton Supply Management actually supplies close to 13,000 hotels. That’s an interesting business development for us, and a profit earner too.”
You’re greatly experienced, I bet you’ve seen supply chain management and procurement change a lot in recent years?
PF: “The past two to three years have been tremendously challenging on so many industries but I’d argue that hospitality got hit more than most as a result of the Covid pandemic. Here at Hilton, supply management was really important just to keep the business operational throughout that tough time, but I’m delighted to say we’re fully recovered now.
“Looking back, it was undoubtedly difficult, and you only have to look at the media to see that we’re now going through a period of truly unprecedented inflation. On top of the normal day job, it’s certainly been a very busy time.”
Hospitality must have been under an awful lot of pressure during the pandemic…
PF: “Most of our teams as a business and all functions have worked together far more collaboratively than ever before through the use of technology and things like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Trying to work remotely as effectively as possible changed the way we all had to think and the way we had to do. Now we’re back in the workplace and in our offices, we’re actually looking to take advantage of that new approach.”
Inflation, rising costs, energy shortages, as well as drives towards a circular economy means it’s quite a challenging time for CSCOs and CPOs right now, isn’t it?
PF: “Those headwinds have caused and created challenges of the like that we’ve not seen before. The war in Ukraine and Russia has meant significant supply chain disruption and supply shortages of some key ingredients and raw materials. China is a significant source of materials and they’re still having real challenges to get their production to keep up with demand.
“All the local and short-term challenges are around energy and fuel pricing, so throughout the supply chain that’s been a major factor to what we’ve had to deal with. On top of that is the labour shortages. We rely heavily throughout the supply chain and within our business to utilise labour from around the world. In my region, particularly from say Eastern Europe as well as other businesses all fighting for a smaller labour pool than we had before. We are fighting with the likes of the supermarkets, Amazon’s, not just other hotel companies to capture the labour pool we need both in our properties but also within our supply chain supplies themselves.
Hilton operates a rather unique procurement function, doesn’t it?
PF: “We trade off the Hilton name because our brand strength is something that we are able to utilise and we’re very proud of, but we’ve also got additional leverage by having that group procurement model.
“We’ve got essentially two clients. We’ve got our managed estate which is when an owner chooses to partner with Hilton, they’re signing a management agreement because they want the benefit and value of the Hilton engine. That could be revenue management, how we manage onboarding clients and customers through advertising, as well as the other support we give in terms of finance, HR, marketing and sales as well as procurement.”
HSM is a profit centre and revenue driver through its group procurement model but how does this work?
PF: “Our secret sauce is our culture. It’s our people and that filters across all of our team members and indeed all of our functions. The key strategic pillars are the same for health and supply management around culture, maximising performance and so on as they are across the overall global business.
“Across our 7,000 plus hotels, the majority are actually franchised hotels because that’s the legacy of what still is the model in the US. When I joined Hilton 12 and a half years ago, the reverse is true where nearly all of our hotels in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and indeed in Asia Pacific, were and are managed. In the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions right now we’re building up close to a 50/50 split between managed, leased and franchised.”
What has pleased you most about the roll-out of the HSM?
PF: “It’s certainly not been easy because we’ve got 70 countries that sit within our region here in EMEA and Hilton’s penetration in those individual countries is very different. We may have 100 hotels in one of those markets and only one or two in specific countries. Our scale and our ability to get logistics solutions is different by market.
“Getting everyone on board to what we want to achieve to our guests and to our owners means we have to pull different levers. We have very effective brand standards. If you’re signing up to Hilton, you’re signing up to delivering against those brand standards that we believe are right for our organisation.”
What kind of feedback have you had from your clients?
PF: “Integrity is in our DNA, and we work very closely with our suppliers who we value as partners. These are long-term relationships, and we work hand in hand because we have to see that they’re successful so that we can be successful – it’s really important to what we do and we constantly look for feedback.
“With our internal and our external customers, we’ll have quarterly business reviews and so we’ll get that feedback through surveys where we are asking them to tell us what we do well and what we could do better. Our partners are now asking what additional value can you do to bring support to our organisation through ESG? So that’s what’s on the table now when it wasn’t before. But it’s not just that – it’s about the security of supply competitiveness, competitiveness of pricing, and a whole bunch of other very important things as well.”
Looking to the future, what’s on the agenda for the next few years?
PF: “We’re out there meeting and greeting people in person and there’s always new opportunities that make things exciting in what we do and how we work. Innovation’s very high on our agenda and we’re very proud of what we do in food and beverage. In non-food categories, it’s about how we support our owners and our hotel general managers to find that competitive edge and do the next big thing ahead of our competitors.”
Anything else important to know?
PF: “One thing we’ve been able to take full advantage of is how we’ve been able to grow our business by bolting on new customers. I think it’s fantastic that our competitors choose to use Hilton Supply Management because they benchmarked what our capabilities are and how competitive we are.
“Another key part of the agenda is environmental, social and governance (ESG) sustainability. Responsible sourcing and everything that sits within that is front and centre of what we do. Within that you’ve got human rights, animal welfare, single use plastics as well as general responsible sourcing like managing food waste. The list is very long, but they’re all very important.”
Check out the latest issue of CPOstrategy Magazine here.
CPOstrategy catches up with Sam de Frates, who has been leading procurement transformation at Mars, Incorporated, to discover how one of the world’s largest enterprises has put people at the heart of its plans…
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Our exclusive cover story this month, sees us catching up with Sam de Frates, Vice President, Commercial – Europe, CIS & Turkey at Mars, Incorporated, and the leader of procurement transformation at the company, to discover how one of the world’s largest enterprises has put people at the heart of its plans…
Talk of technological change and digital transformations often excludes the most vital tools in delivering meaningful value within an enterprise: the people. Because new tools, processes and capabilities only truly maximise their value if they are shaped by the very people that require their services. The adoption of technology without the human touch can be an expensive opportunity missed.
An experienced procurement leader who has worked at some of the largest companies on earth, de Frates joins us for a chat from his London office to discuss how digital procurement at Mars has evolved under his guidance, whilst the company undergoes cross functional changes at scale – a hugely significant transformation with Mars Associates and its suppliers at its heart…
Elsewhere, we also we discuss the hottest topics within the procurement function, with Paul Howard, Chief Commercial Officer at New Zealand Defence Force and Manuele Burdese, Sr Director, Head of Business Insights & Analytics Strategic Sourcing & Procurement, Bristol Myers Squibb. Plus, we have some incredible insights from Efficio, Ivalua and Hilton Supply Management.
Here are 10 of the most important leadership skills that CEOs need to demonstrate in 2023.
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In today’s world, a CEO needs to be lots of things to different people. The importance of having the leadership skill to being able to lead through unprecedented disruption was highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic and helped to define what makes a good CEO.
Here are 10 of the most important leadership skills that CEOs need to demonstrate in 2023.
1. Clear communication
Communicating effectively with employees is one of the most vital skills any leader can have. By adopting a transparent mindset, it leaves little room for miscommunication or misunderstandings. But rather than just being eloquent, CEOs should deliver meaningful content too. A CEO needs to be able to communicate the essence of the business strategy and the methodology for achieving it.
2. Strong talent management strategy
People are the most important component of all businesses. CEOs who are able to recruit and retain key employees have a greater chance of increasing productivity and efficiency. After recruiting good people, the key to retaining them is by harnessing a positive work environment that empowers employees to succeed.
3. Decision-making
As a leader, thinking strategically to make effective decisions is vital to the success of an organisation. Making decisions is a key part of leadership as well as having the conviction to stand by decisions or agility to adapt when those decisions don’t have the required outcome. While all decisions might not be favourable, making unpopular but necessary calls are important characteristics of a good leader.
4. Negotiation
Negotiation is a fundamental part of being a CEO. In a top leadership position, almost every business conversation will be a negotiation. Good negotiations are important to an organisation because they will ultimately result in better relationships, both with staff inside the company and externally. An effective leader will also help find the best long-term solution by finding the right balance and offering value where both parties feel like they ‘win’.
5. Creativity and innovation
Being quick-thinking and ready to explore new options are great skills of a CEO. Creative leadership can lead to finding innovative solutions in the face of challenging and changing situations. It means in the midst of disruption, of which it has been increasingly prevalent, leaders can still find answers for their teams. Creative CEOs are those who take risks and empower employees to drop outdated and overused practices to innovate and try new things that could lead to greater efficiency.
6. Agility
Without agility over the past few years, businesses would have failed. CEOs were forced to embrace remote working following the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic whether they liked it or not. Now, faced against a potential recession, these macroeconomic events are unavoidable and have to be managed carefully. Effective leaders will have their fingers on the pulse and ready to respond to changes.
7. Strategic forecasting
Creating a clear path forward is essential to achieving uninterrupted success. The ability to look into the future and identify trends and issues to then react to is vital. Good CEOs are able to plan strategically and make informed decisions to set goals and plan for the future easily.
8. Delegation
CEOs can’t do everything. A leader tends to be pulled in a number of different ways every day and it is impossible to be on top of everything. This means the importance of bringing in a team of people who are trusted and skilled in their respective areas of expertise. Successful CEOs are expert delegators because they recognise the value of teamwork and elevating those around them.
9. Approachability
An approachable CEO who welcomes conversation and is an active listener will help employees feel at ease raising issues or concerns. This approach will help build strong relationships with staff and customers and encourage a healthy culture which is beneficial to employee retention. Leaders with strong, trusting and authentic relationships with their teams know that investing time in building these bonds which makes them more effective as a leader and creates a foundation for success.
10. Growth mindset
If a CEO arms themselves with a growth mindset it allows them to meet challenges head-on and evolve. This shines a light on improving through effort, learning and persistence. As others may back down in the face of adversity and upheaval, successful CEOs will strive to move forward with confidence. Those with a growth mindset are unlikely to be swayed as they have the tools needed to reframe challenges as opportunities to grow.
In McKinsey’s latest report ‘Actions the best CEOs are taking in 2023’, we examine three of the biggest trends on the c-level agenda
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Anyone can sail a ship when things are going well. But it takes a strong, robust and characterful CEO to steer a business through choppy waters and out the other side.
In McKinsey’s latest report ‘Actions the best CEOs are taking in 2023’, the research and advisory firm uncovered which trends are set to have the biggest impact on how CEOs lead their business throughout the year.
McKinsey’s CEO Excellence Survey surveyed 200 of the best corporate CEOs of the past 15 years. This was completed by whittling down a list of all the current and former CEOs of the 1,000 largest public companies during that timeframe. The list was subsequently filtered based on tenure, including only those who had completed at least six years in the role. From there, the CEOs were continuously shortlisted until the best 200 were determined.
Each CEO was asked to identify the top three trends that are set to determine how leaders tackle the future. Here is an insight into those findings.
1. Actions to deal with digital disruption
CEOs are targeting digital trends in three key ways: developing advanced analytics, enhancing cybersecurity and automating work. OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT has accelerated the demand of companies looking to embrace advanced analytics for a competitive advantage. Improving cybersecurity is another key action for CEOs with the importance of guarding against external threats paramount amid strengthening and more mature cyberattacks. Lastly, automating work is another key priority to scale efficiency and eliminate boring and manual tasks which free up people’s time.
2. Actions to deal with the risk of high inflation and economic downturn
One CEO who is worried about economic uncertainty told McKinsey: “Act early to lower costs and protect the balance sheet so that you are stronger and leaner when the economy begins to turn more favourably.” McKinsey found that companies that outperformed the 2008 financial crisis cut operating costs by 1% before the downturn while the others expanded costs by the same percentage. The best performers reduced their debt by $1 for every $1 of book capital before the downturn. This can be done by reducing operating expenses, redesigning products and services as well as reassessing strategic and economic assumptions.
3. Actions to deal with the escalation of geopolitical risk
According to McKinsey, there are three actions to help manage the escalation of global and national crises. CEOs are targeting building robust compliance capabilities, creating resilience in supplier networks and investing in monitoring and response capabilities. These actions come following the challenges presented by COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and now inflation concerns. Many firms are choosing to build their trade compliance organisations and improve how they screen different customers and companies. While a defensive approach is the way forward for many, some companies see the turbulent times as an opportunity.
How Minted is leveraging digital technology to make investment in precious metals, accessible, affordable and simple
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Shahid Munir, co-founder of Minted, discusses how his firm is competing with larger banks for a spot at the top table of investment in fintech.
Few industries have boomed like the fintech space over the past few years. With a plethora of new technology at consumer fingertips like never before, banks are being properly challenged by upcoming startups offering an alternative solution. Among these is Minted, aiming to make the buying, selling, transferring and delivery of physical precious metals simple through flexible monthly plans and one-time purchases. The company was founded in 2018 by three close friends – Shahid Munir, Hamzah Almasyabi and Haroon Siddiq – with a shared passion for entrepreneurship, technology and the opportunities the financial industry presented. Their combined drive led to the creation of Minted.
Shahir Munir, Co-Founder, Minted
The rise of Minted
Munir, co-founder of Minted, admits the journey has been a “rollercoaster” since the trio decided to launch their venture. “It’s certainly been exciting,” he explains. “It’s been a great learning curve and was a case of taking an industry where so many people were so used to doing it one way and offering something new. This has been challenging because we have a great product, but no one understood it. We’ve had to go out and educate people first in what has been a journey of growth, but it’s a constant journey.”
A decade ago, financial technology was considered by many as ring-fenced by bigger banks. But Munir stresses he has tried to change that narrative and offer competition which provides tremendous value. “Previously, a bank was the only way you could provide financial products,” he says. “Technology has allowed more innovative and creative solutions to launch and test the bigger banks and what they became bad at which was the customer experience. Now you see bigger banks adopt a lot of the technology and some of the practices used by challenger banks which can only be a good thing. Being in London has also helped because it is one of the leading hubs for fintechs and really supports the financial technology industry.”
Armed with different skillsets, the three co-founders complement each other with a diverse range of experience. With Almasyabi bringing an operations background and Siddiq bringing business strategy, Munir completes the line-up with finance and technology know-how. “I think it’s what sets us apart and makes us different,” he says. “Our backgrounds mean we’re not tunnel visioned and can see clearly when things aren’t working. We have a great thinktank within the business which helps us come up with ideas.”
Making precious metals accessible, affordable and simple
“I recall seeing a meme about how the price of a Freddo chocolate had changed over the years, no longer being its trademark 10p, it was now 200% more expensive and also smaller in size. This led me down rabbit-hole of trying to understand why most items go up in price as years pass and rarely come back down again. I became fascinated with how the government increases the money supply and the concept of inflation – my money buys me less in the future than it does today.
“I met with the other two founders that same night and the thoughts extended from my mind into an intense conversation about quantitative easing, Brexit, cost of living – snacks were being consumed faster than the rate of government borrowing. Where could we park our money, what was better than money? That was when the penny-dropped (pardon the pun). Hamzah proclaimed: ‘What about gold, guys?’”
Digital disruption
Through Minted, customers will have full legal ownership over their gold and can also request to have their gold delivered to a verified address. The gold and silver are stored in a grade 10 vault in the UK with the highest level of security possible. The products are fully insured by Lloyds of London at the current value while in vaulted storage as well as when being transported.
As a digital disrupter, one of the biggest challenges Minted continues to face is a lack of understanding. Customer assurance is an important priority, and the organisation has established several initiatives to gain trust. Minted is registered and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) which means the firm operates to the highest financial standards and guidelines as determined by the FCA. “I feel like we need to go that extra mile,” stresses Munir. “What I think we underestimated at first was the extent to which people needed to ask questions until we launched a live chat facility on the website. This function helps build our knowledge base and allows us to hold the customer’s hand throughout the process. We’ve also found success when we’ve attended face to face exhibition events and had one-on-one interactions. It’s been brilliant to see first-hand the customer perception and look at what we can do better to meet their needs.”
Munir says he has noticed a trend of people starting with a “flutter” to test the water and check out the process. “I think it’s important that people build their confidence and recognise the value in what we offer,” he explains. “Once this is done, we often see those same customers make larger transactions. We know our difference can be a challenge for some people to accept which is why education is such an important topic to us. We have to keep doing explainer videos, use social media and hold community sessions to be there for customers.”
Scaling up
Minted recently launched its own app which offers customers an even easier way to manage their gold and silver, as well as introducing a tool to partner with businesses called Minted Connect. Munir believes the move has helped showcase an advanced, modern way for people to own physical items. “I love the app as it just makes things so much easier for customers via the platform,” he explains. “It’s been fantastic, a one-stop solution that helps stores the precious metals for free and allows them to be delivered at any time. In a world where everything is so digitally enabled it is nice to offer something physical – people don’t even buy cars anymore. Hopefully via customer feedback we can make improvements to the app that will help us develop new features.”
Munir believes gold is increasingly being seen as an alternative for savings and affirms global pressures like the threat of inflation amid economic uncertainty has helped people to realise the full potential of Minted’s offering. “In the past if you wanted to save money, you simply open a saver account and start adding money but with gold it was often a little trickier,” he says. “But with Minted we’ve simplified the process and tried to make it as automated as possible. Gold is a great alternative which has stood the test of time.”
Looking ahead, Minted is showing no signs of slowing down and is expanding into different territories. Munir remains positive for the next few years and what comes next for his organisation. “We’re working towards expanding the team because I feel like we’re at the stage now where each of our departments needs its own team of people to run each department,” he explains. “We’re scaling up and branching into new markets such as Turkey, and focusing in on developing the business to business side too.”
“Disruption should drive digitalisation and cloud uptake rather than hindering it.”
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Sal Laher, Chief Digital & Information Officer at global enterprise software provider IFS, reveals how a single strategy for cloud and digitalisation helps businesses maximise the rewards of growth.
Digitalisation equals transformation
Digitalisation and the business transformation projects that enable it are again on the radar for many businesses, particularly given the current macro-economics and potential recession being predicted. According to recent data from Research and Markets, The Global Digital Transformation Market size is expected to reach $1,302.9bn by 2027, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.8% in the period 2021-2027.
This renewed focus on digitalisation is aligned to businesses accelerating cloud migration, including readily available SaaS solutions. The Flexera 2021 State of the Cloud Report finds 92% of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy and 80% have a hybrid cloud strategy.
Sal Laher, Chief Digital & Information Officer, IFS
Both trends will go hand in hand as digitalisation and cloud migration continue to drive business efficiencies, process change and consumer service demands. Most organisations are aware of the potential rewards both business models can bring. This is because it is not the first time they are being talked about– this major transformational shift has already been in place for a decade. But some, wary of the disruptive impact of recent global events are holding back from implementing them. However, it is the wrong approach.
Disruption should drive digitalisation and cloud uptake rather than hindering it. Even in isolation, either moving to the cloud, or undertaking digitalisation, will enable faster decision-making, supported by greater compute power and more agile processes, generating faster output and enhancing customer service. Yet, to drive competitive edge, organisations need to combine cloud migration with business transformation and look to maximise those benefits. To do this, they must develop a single strategy covering both elements and move forward with a common approach.
Migrating to the cloud for business transformation
By digitalising, organisations have an opportunity to benefit from faster time to insight, enhanced business and customer connectivity, and operational efficiencies. It allows them to more easily collect and analyse data that they can later turn into actionable, revenue-generating insights.
Over time, they can go further and start to tap into the benefits of artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). But it is the additional compute power and scalability of the cloud that helps them to maximise these benefits and fulfil the potential of digital technologies.
Cloud migration also includes adopting evergreen application (business process) solutions in the cloud with the many SaaS solutions that are available today. That’s why it is important that they adopt a single plan to migrate to the cloud and drive business transformation all in one. This tandem approach also avoids unnecessary customisation, making a business much more agile to change based on actionable data insights.
Adopting a single plan will, in itself, drive up efficiencies and drive down costs. But critically, the two must be linked to ensure that businesses maximise the benefits of the migration process.
It is cloud, after all, that helps businesses adapt to the new digital world, enabling them, for instance, to leverage out of the box business applications, digital analytics tools and low code platforms that deliver informed decision-making and reduce costs. But cloud doesn’t just maximise the benefits for businesses, it also accelerates them. Cloud has become the fulcrum of digital transformation, mainly due to its ability to enable innovation at scale and allow businesses that have digitalised to rapidly launch enterprise-ready products.
Without cloud, businesses will struggle to drive through timely updates to systems and processes. The costs of stakeholder management may ramp up. Moreover, moving to the cloud without doing it within the step-by-step structure of digital transformation risks mistakes being made, increasing the likelihood of data loss and security breaches through misconfigurations.
Optimising the benefits of digital transformation in the cloud
We have seen how important it is to adopt a single strategy for cloud migration and digitalisation and to execute them in tandem. But organisations also need to maximise the benefits of the combined approach. So how can they best do this?
First, they need to avoid procrastination and delay. The benefits of digitalisation and cloud migration working together are compelling – and senior leaders need to seize the initiative and kickstart the transformation. To get the ball rolling, they need to conduct a benchmarking exercise to better understand where their business stands in terms of its capabilities or gaps. This will help to decide where efforts and resources should be focused.
They then need to align their business processes with IT. That’s key as modern business models increasingly emphasise the digitalisation of processes.
Cloud computing and network security concept, 3d rendering,conceptual image.
They should begin by determining their goals and the systems, technologies, and processes currently in use to achieve them. Next, they need to brainstorm and document core business objectives before developing a cloud and digitalisation migration roadmap to guide their implementation. Measuring performance will also be crucial to optimising results. In choosing which metrics to analyse, organisations should concentrate on those that will most positively impact their bottom line or user experience.
Ensuring employees buy into the process of cloud-based digitalisation will also be key. Organisations should use cloud-based digitalisation as an opportunity to strengthen business processes and help employees switch to new ways of working which maximise the potential of the new technology.
Digital readiness
Given all this, it is vital businesses don’t delay on their journey to digital and the cloud. Unfortunately, CIOs often struggle to know where to start with a cloud and digital migration strategy.
Before they begin, they often look to put a complete strategy in place up front. The truth is that it is not necessary. Instead, they need to get going and prioritise what’s most important. Pick one area, settle on a use case, digitalise, and move it to the cloud, demonstrate results – and then repeat incrementally. That will enable the business to showcase value and create momentum. Over time also, this single coordinated approach, will allow it to tap into a wide range of cloud and digitalisation related benefits – and ultimately to maximise the rewards.
Ian Povey, CIO – Head of Payments Services & Technology, on the strategic transformation taking place at NatWest benefitting both the bank and its customers
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This month’s cover story reveals how innovation is at the core of change for payments processes at NatWest.
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
Charles Darwin famously said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.” Technology is helping us to evolve. And that evolution is being driven by innovation.
“It may be a cliché, but a transformation journey really has no end… If you fixate on a constant end state without ‘checking in’ you can, and likely will, fail in your objectives.” A wise outlook from a CIO with three decades of change management experience across banking’s payments panorama.
Ian Povey, CIO – Head of Payments Services & Technology, discusses the strategic transformation taking place at NatWest and how that journey of change and innovation is benefitting both the bank and its customers as it evolves to become a relationship bank for a digital world. “Our environment is always changing – we must be on the back of the ‘Change Dragon’ and steering/influencing as a leader and always learning from our teams for new ideas.”
Customer-Centric transformation at FedEx
We also check in with logistics leader FedEx… Custom Critical CIO Cheryl Bevelle-Orange reveals a “technology-forward yet flexible company” embracing innovation and “paving the way for customers to get more relevant information faster about their packages while delivering with excellence”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=galaZZlrEn0
Continuous Improvement in IT at Mazars
Mazars CIO David Marcelino explains his approach to innovation and leading on a successful IT transformation program at one of the world’s largest audit and advisory firms aiming to improve the digital experience for all its stakeholders. “Change Management, adoption, training and awareness are at the core of every single business technology project we deliver.”
Tech innovation at speed with the US Air Force
We also caught up with George Forbes, Director of Digital Operations Directorate at the United States Air Force, who outlines the importance of innovation within the federal government.
Digital Transformation in healthcare at Avellino
Nancy Selph, Global Head of IT at Avellino Lab, discusses how technology is creating new opportunities to improve health outcomes and the importance of leadership in the industry.
Also in this issue, we round up the key tech events and conferences across the globe; we learn how Minted are making it easy for everyone to invest in gold; and we feature the latest on cloud digitalisation from IFS.
What does today’s CEO need to do to accelerate an organisation’s digital transformation journey?
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Digital transformation journeys are no one-size-suits-all. There is no singular way to welcome a new wave of technology into operations.
Since the turn of the century, digitalisation has had an increasingly influential impact on the way CEOs make decisions. Today’s world is full of disruption and potential risk. And with technology growing in complexity it can be challenging to lead such a revolution against a backdrop of economic uncertainty.
Embracing digital
According to KPMG 2022 CEO Outlook, which draws on the perspectives of 1,325 global CEOs across 11 markets, 72% of CEOs agree they have an aggressive digital investment strategy intended to secure first-mover or fast-follower status.
Advancing digitalisation and connectivity across the business is tied (along with attracting and retaining talent) as the top operational priority to achieve growth over the next three years. This digital transformation focus could be driven as a result of increasingly flexible working conditions and greater focus on cybersecurity threats.
However, the prospect of recession is threatening to halt digital transformation in the short-term. KPMG research found that four out of five CEOs note their businesses are pausing or reducing their digital transformation strategies to prepare for the anticipated recession.
This is reinforced further when 70% say they need to be quicker to shift investment to digital opportunities and divest in those areas where they face digital obsolescence.
When a company’s digital transformation ambition is mismatched to its readiness, it is the CEO’s responsibility to close the gap. According to Deloitte, in order to do this successfully, the CEO must assess the current level of organisational readiness for change.
This covers four key pillars that are mixed together to work out an organisation’s overall readiness: leadership, culture, structure and capabilities.
How CEOs can close the gap
Leadership: CEOs need to ensure their c-suite and other key executives are motivated and equipped to execute the vision. CEOs interviewed by Deloitte in a recent study emphasised the importance of the leadership team supporting the transformation vision and having a positive attitude and willingness to transform.
Culture: A large potential barrier to readiness in the organisation is down to culture. Low cultural readiness takes the form of bureaucratic, reactive and risk-averse ways of working that are at against the collaborative, proactive learning mindset needed for ambitious transformation.
Structure: If a company hopes to operate differently, it could mean the need for organising in an alternative way. CEOs will often need to lead the reorganisation of teams, assignment of new roles, revision of incentives, strategies to collapse organisational hierarchies or layers to increase agility.
Capabilities: CEOs need to equip their organisation with four key capabilities to harness digital for a superior capacity for change. These are nimbleness, scalability, stability and optionality which are often enabled or supercharged by digital technologies which are critical factors for competing in an increasingly disrupted world.
For now, one of the CEOs most important roles when steering the ship through disruption is to be ahead of the latest trends and tackle change head-on. By embracing a new digital future that will provide the company with long-lasting benefits, it will help create a brighter and future-proofed firm for years to come even after the CEO is gone.
Sara Malconian, Chief Procurement Officer at Harvard University & Jim Bureau, CEO of JAGGAER explain how ESG & the Circular Economy is changing the evolution of procurement.
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We speak to Sara Malconian, Chief Procurement Officer at Harvard University and Jim Bureau, CEO of JAGGAER to see how ESG and the Circular Economy is changing the evolution of procurement…
Sara, how have you seen your role evolve as a procurement leader over the years as ESG and supplier diversity come into focus?
Procurement leaders have gone from ‘cost cutters’ to ‘problem solvers’ within their organisations. Our core mandates used to be to drive cost savings and efficiency. We were hyper-focused on getting the most out of the organisation’s spend and supplier relationships. Those priorities haven’t gone away, especially in today’s inflationary environment, but the expectations of the procurement function are significantly higher and broader today.
Procurement functions saved their companies during COVID and the confluence of disruptions that followed. We showed we are a strategic linchpin. We are now looked upon to drive value and impact and strategically guide our organisations to achieve broader goals, including diversity and environmental, social, governance (ESG). Internal stakeholders realised the benefits of procurement and sought help with advancing their department’s agendas or solving their challenges. We listen to their needs, allocate the right resources, and ultimately enable them and the overall organisation to be successful.
I’ve been in procurement for over 20 years, and I can honestly say you’d be hard-pressed to find a more rewarding and exciting career. Procurement professionals have a real opportunity to make a tangible difference within their organisations, communities, and the world through the way we source products and services.
What is Harvard doing to have a positive impact on society? Can you share some examples, Sara?
Across the Harvard community, students, alumni, faculty, and staff are advancing scholarship and teaching on the world’s most significant challenges, and everyone wants to do their part to address inequities. Supplier diversity and inclusion have been a priority for Harvard for years, but we wanted to make even more of an impact and really invest in the growth and development of diverse businesses, especially as the pandemic highlighted inequities and disparities within our communities.
In 2021, we formed the Office for Economic Inclusion & Diversity (OEID), which is dedicated to reaching out to diverse suppliers, giving them opportunities, and providing them with tools, training, and resources to be successful. The office also encourages the use of underrepresented business enterprises (UBEs) in the purchasing of all goods, services, and construction at Harvard and standardises procurement practices with these businesses across the university.
We’re proud of the work this office is doing. We’re actively training suppliers on Harvard’s policies and how they can work with us. We’re creating a central location for them to access bid and RFP opportunities. UBEs can also apply to be mentored by Harvard Business School students.
We’ve created a dashboard to track and analyse spend with diverse suppliers across all of Harvard’s schools and measure progress over time. Everything we’re doing is aimed at increasing spend with our existing diverse suppliers, as well as the number of diverse suppliers that work with Harvard, and helping these suppliers grow their businesses.
Jim, why is prioritizing ESG and supplier diversity important and what steps can companies take today to progress in their journey?
Beyond being the right thing to do, investors, boards, regulators, customers, and employees now expect organisations to prioritise ESG and diversity initiatives and walk the talk. There’s also a clear business impact. Supplier diversity drives competitive bidding processes that lead to cost savings. Working with partners who are sustainable and have different ideas and perspectives fuels innovation and creates a competitive advantage. Sourcing from a sustainable and diverse supplier pool also reduces risk by broadening organisations’ access to multiple resources for various materials, products, and services.
One of the most critical steps companies can take to progress on their ESG journey is to make it clear to suppliers that environmentalism is a priority for their organisation. They will attract suppliers with higher levels of ESG maturity and provide suppliers who are earlier on in their ESG journey with sustainability toolkits and training to help educate them on eco-friendly best practices and sustainability innovations.
This step avoids having to overhaul their supply chain to account for ESG. Strategically managing suppliers by leveraging third-party data, scorecards, and supplier audits are crucial for understanding the ESG risks that suppliers pose and minimizing disruptions by working with them to correct these issues.
Successful supplier diversity programs start with a top-down culture shift. If a company’s culture isn’t diverse, inclusive, and supportive for all its stakeholders, they won’t be able to drive supplier diversity in a meaningful way. Supplier diversity strategy should map back to company goals and include an executive-level champion to sponsor the program internally and help bring in the resources they need.
Outside of leveraging technology to identify diverse suppliers and build a program, businesses can talk with people who have been in their shoes. They can collaborate with like-minded companies at industry events, engage in relevant LinkedIn groups, and connect with organisations such as the National Minority Supplier Development Council.
Once diverse suppliers are on board, organisations can create a supplier diversity policy that clearly outlines how many diverse suppliers need to be invited to bid for each event to ensure teams are executing on the strategy. Leading supplier diversity programs go beyond simply spending with diverse suppliers to providing mentorship and training them on how to respond to RFPs correctly, as well as creating environments where it’s easier for them to engage.
Jim, what role does technology play in helping organisations achieve ESG and supplier diversity goals?
Technology is a key enabler of ESG and supplier diversity initiatives. One of the biggest obstacles to supplier diversity and ESG is a lack of reliable supplier data. Suppliers don’t always keep their information up to date in self-service portals. The data procurement teams have isn’t always enriched to the level they need, with insights on diversity status, certifications, and proof of ESG compliance.
Researching and assessing suppliers is tedious and time-consuming, which leads many organisations to skip the verification step. Without this information, organisations don’t have a true picture of the inclusivity and sustainability of their supplier network, which makes it impossible to identify the right partners to source from to meet their ESG and supplier diversity goals and make an impact.
Technology addresses this challenge by automatically collecting, enriching, validating, and integrating the supplier data needed to obtain this level of supply base visibility and make decisions that drive ESG and diversity. AI-powered tools are available to match buyers with specific diverse suppliers who also have the capabilities to help drive ESG objectives and meet broader procurement criteria.
Software that segments the supply base and helps visualise spending with small and diverse suppliers across a variety of classifications is critical for setting benchmarks and measuring progress and ROI.
Jim and Sara, how do you expect the ESG and diversity conversation to shift and where should procurement leaders focus for the future?
Sara: I expect we’ll see the conversation shift to emphasise measurement. It’s not enough anymore to say you’re committed to ESG – you need to prove it and show demonstrable progress and ROI. Maintaining the momentum on ESG initiatives is hard. Technology is key for setting benchmarks and goals, ensuring accountability for hitting key milestones, and measuring progress and return in a credible way.
Jim: In a declining economic environment, choices inevitably need to be made. I expect the conversation around ESG will center around where companies can focus to maintain progress on ESG initiatives as financial and economic pressures come to the forefront. While some companies may need to scale back in some areas to preserve cash and resources to navigate a downturn, I’d advise them to be careful about slowing ESG down too much as it will be much harder to catch up to current levels after the economy bounces back.
I’d argue that when ESG is done right it can be a strategic lever for navigating a down economy, saving organizations money and resources, driving innovation, and helping them achieve broader business objectives and resilience.
Here are five of the biggest procurement events happening during 2023 that chief procurement officers won’t want to miss.
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Procurement Futures
London, UK | 1-2 February 2023
Held at the QEII Centre in central London, Procurement Futures is a new conference, launching in 2023. It promises delegates the chance to find out how to make supply chains more resilient, with thought-provoking and presentations and discussions designed to inform and inspire.
There is a flexible programme of content that can be tailored to attendees’ preferences, with networking opportunities throughout and a huge variety of sessions to attend and take part in.
This CIPS event has three streams of content: Insights, Ignite and Interact. Insights will showcase presentations and panel discussions from leaders, Ignite will consist of hands-on workshops to help delegates optimise their procurement strategies and Interact will be smaller groups taking part in interactive roundtables and debates.
Speakers across the two days will include Ross Grierson, Director of Procurement, Primark; Patrick Dunne, Director of Group Property, FM & Procurement (CPO), Sainsburys Plc; Rebecca Simpson, Procurement and Supply Chain Director, Balfour Beatty; and Nick Jenkinson, Chief Procurement Officer, Santander. In addition, delegates are ablew to book a one-to-one career workshop, where they’ll get advice on professional development from coaches covering a variety of specialisms.
Tickets are £795 for CIPS member, £995 for a non-member and £2240 for a supplier/solution provider, and there is a discount of 30% for tickets purchased before 30 November 2022.
The third World Digital Procurement Summit is aimed at procurement directors, VPs, managers and other industry specialists. The two-day event will focus on accelerating procurement processes, adopting emerging technologies, finding the right talent, overcoming the barriers to progress and embarking on a journey of transformation. It’s a hybrid event, bringing together procurement experts from various industries, which will maximise knowledge exchange opportunities. The event organisers list five key learning points for delegates:
Exploring the latest advances in data and cognitive technologies to gain greater insights and improve procurement processes
Overhauling the procurement ecosystem with new technologies and strategies to drive business value
Sharing the best practices of monitoring and managing a range of risks to hedge against future disruptions
Developing capabilities and skillset required for the digital transformation of procurement
Defining ESG metrics of the procurement strategy to ensure business continuity
Speakers will include Paul Harlington, Group Procurement Director at TUI Group and Patrick Foelck, Head of Strategy and Transformation Procurement at Roche.
Click here to check out a video from a previous event. Tickets cost €1495.
Returning for its 8th annual event, Women in Procurement & Supply Chain will deliver two days dedicated to leadership and the future of procurement. The event will feature a series of exclusive panel discussions and keynote addresses examining career development, overcoming imposter syndrome, working with confidence, developing an unbeatable talent pool, mentoring, diversity and inclusivity.
It will also address risk mitigation, digital disruption, ESG, sustainability, economic development, ethical sourcing, category management, cultural diversity, strategic sourcing, supplier relationships, procurement with purpose, and supply chain resilience. There are two pre-conference masterclass options on 6 March – that can be booked separately – covering either contract law or leadership skills.
Some of the reasons to attend include:
Discover the path to taking your procurement career to a new level while elevating your organisation with dedicated days on leadership and the future of procurement
Learn best practice strategies to facedown supply chain vulnerabilities and reduce risk exposure
Get ahead of the game with insights into the future of procurement and the impact of globalisation on modern supply chains
Put yourself at the cutting edge of ESG and procurement with the latest updates and trends in procurement with purpose
Speakers for the main two-day conference include Michelle Richard, Director of Procurement, Thales; Karina Davies, Chief Procurement Officer, icare NSW; and Kylie McKinlay, Procurement Partner – Property and Business, Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Tickets start at $3,495 with discounts available until 25 November 2022.
The Americas Procurement Congress will feature the region’s most progressive CPOs sharing their expertise
With a focus on what makes CPOs tick, the Americas Procurement Congress will feature the region’s most progressive CPOs sharing their expertise in keynote presentations and working groups.
Giving delegates the tools to stay on the cutting edge of procurement developments, there are also sessions aimed at those with responsibilities over governance, procurement capabilities and quantifying data. Unsurprisingly, sustainability will also be a key theme in 2023, and attendees will hear from a diverse range of sustainability leaders about how to transition from traditional metrics to a purpose-driven function.
The agenda for Americas Procurement Congress 2023 will include:
Sustainability of the future
How to transition from traditional metrics to a purpose-driven function
Harnessing the power of digital transformation
Utilizing data as a driver of sustainable value, supply continuity and transparency Agile procurement
New approaches and skills that facilitate speed and agility
Frictionless procurement
Removing friction from the procurement process to support high-velocity sourcing
Beyond Just in Time
Designing future-fit supply networks for an age of chaos and conflict
Gartner Supply Chain Symposium/Xpo 2022 addressed the most significant challenges that chief supply chain officers and supply chain leaders face as they mitigate risk and navigate uncertainty in an increasingly dynamic and challenging environment.
At the conference, the top 5 sessions that CSCOs and supply chain leaders met on included:
Signature Series: The Future of Supply Chain
What the Pivot to Sustainable Profit Means for Procurement Leaders
The Art of the New Age One Page Dashboard: Why Your Current Perfor-mance Measures May Be Doing More Harm Than Good
Manage Supplier Risk With Technology
Procurement Role Redesign: Stop Fitting Square Pegs Into Round Holes
Here are five of the best procurement schools in Europe.
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As procurement becomes an increasingly vital and strategic function within many organisations, people are beginning to realise the full potential of turning it into a career for themselves.
This has subsequently led to many universities noticing the demand in the industry and offering courses which equip students with the relevant qualifications and skills needed to succeed in the supply chain space.
With this in mind, here are five of the best procurement schools in Europe.
1. CIPS
Course: Various Where: Across England
Run by Oxford College of Procurement and Supply, there are 10 Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply centres in England offering several different qualification levels to choose from. The courses are recognised throughout the world as harnessing leading edge thinking and professionalism across the procurement and supply chain management space.
CIPS offers courses such as level three, four, five and six in procurement and supply with each qualification created to reflect current, emerging and best practice in procurement and supply chain management. Classes focus on exploring legacy purchasing and supply methods as well as techniques and theory to the application in a business environment.
CIPS doesn’t just offer in-person studying as courses are designed to suit individual lifestyles with virtual classrooms, part-time and weekend options to choose from.
2. Politecnico di Milano
Course: MSc in Supply Chain and Procurement Management Where: Milan, Italy
Renowned as being one of the best scientific and technological universities in the world, Politecnico di Milano offers an extensive portfolio of programmes in a variety of different spaces. Its supply chain master’s degree is a 12-month course aimed at equipping students with vital knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the industry.
The course also includes a number of practical activities in the programme such as lessons with international lectures, workshops on soft skills, company presentations, projects with companies, company visits and an international study tour in Rotterdam.
According to Politecnico di Milano, 86% of students were employed three months after graduation while 55% were also working abroad during the same period.
The course was ranked third in the TOP 2021 Eduniversal Best Masters Ranking (Global) and eighth in the QS Supply Chain Management Masters Rankings for 2023.
3. SKEMA Business School
Course: MSc (and MS) Supply Chain Management and Purchasing Where: Lille and Paris, France
Skema offers two supply chain management (SCM) and procurement masters: The premium international MSc Global Supply Chain Management in Lille taught in English, and the MS in SCM and Purchasing in Paris and Lille mainly taught in French. France’s highly-rated supply chain and procurement program has been designed with a progressive shift from theory to practice. The degree covers the entirety of supply chain activities from planning, purchasing, receiving, production, storage to delivery through nine compulsory and six elective courses.
The global MSc has a new cooperation with the leading prestigious business school, MIT in the US, plus another cooperation with Politechnico from Milano. The MSc master’s degree provides soft skills in supply chain and purchasing management as well as going into future trends in digitalisation, AI, sustainability, ethics, globalisation, risk management and agility. The course’s primary goal is to find future leaders who are seeking to make a positive impact on the world of supply chain management and procurement. The MSc is a full time program, complemented by paid internships in the area of the student’s choice, while the MS alternates weeks of classes with professionals at the forefront of their fields.
4. Audencia Business School
Course: MSc in Supply Chain and Purchasing Management Where: Nantes, France
Created in 2009, Audencia Business School’s programme will cover topics such as procurement, global sourcing and supply chain strategies. Other topics to feature includes green logistics, Big Data, digital transformation, negotiation and commercial law. The course will provide expertise from industry insiders as business executives visit and share professional insights during the programme.
The school works closely with the corporate world and is recognised for its responsible management practices. Audencia is triple-accredited, highly ranked and internationally oriented and according to its website, 79% of course graduates are employed before graduation. The course is available as a one-year or two-year master’s programme.
In autumn 2024, the course is set to be renamed to the MSc in Responsible Procurement and Supply Chain Management.
5. Cranfield School of Management
Course: MSc in Procurement and Supply Chain Management Where: Cranfield, United Kingdom
Cranfield School of Management provides students with specialist knowledge and skills in procurement needed to progress their careers
Cranfield’s Procurement and Supply Chain Management course has been co-designed with senior industry executives. This purchasing postgraduate course provides students with specialist knowledge and skills in procurement needed to progress their careers. Possessing one of the largest facilities in Europe, the course places considerable emphasis on how to overcome real-world challenges.
Students will gain an in-depth understanding of supply chain strategy and sustainability, procurement strategy, supplier selection and evaluation, negotiation and contact management. They will also be taught how to use data, models and software to solve problems and inform decisions, inventory and operations management and how to design effective supply chain operations.
Students will have the opportunity to attend a study tour and experience a different supply chain perspective elsewhere in Europe.
The course was ranked 11th in the world on the QS Supply Chain Management Masters Rankings for 2023.
Our exclusive cover story this month features Sangram Bhosale, CPO at Xcel Energy.
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Our exclusive cover story this month features Sangram Bhosale,Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer at Xcel Energy. Sangram Bhosale is a highly experienced CPO with an impressive track record of delivering procurement excellence within the energy sector for some of its biggest names.
When the former TransAlta and Husky Energy CPO joined Xcel Energy as Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer (CSCO) in 2020, he wasted no time devising a procurement transformation plan to advance the function to the top quartile. One that would capacitate the rest of the organization to meet and overcome the many technical and tactical challenges to meet current and future needs.
What attracted Bhosale to Xcel Energy was its visionary leadership team and an opportunity to catalyze the profound shift in how energy is generated and consumed.
“One of the things that I love, and a big part of why I joined Xcel Energy, is that we are a purpose-driven organization with a bold vision of being an industry leader in clean energy. The fast-evolving and innovation-driven utility industry also attracted me,” he tells us from his Denver office.
“Today, utilities are no longer the stodgy beast of yesteryears where not much had changed for decades. New technology is being explored and adopted, with billions invested in grid expansion and strengthening to meet reliable, cleaner, and increased energy demand. To be at the forefront of and lead that clean energy transition aligns closely with my values and beliefs and makes my role at Xcel Energy very exciting.”
Elsewhere, we also feature exclusive interviews with Vice President of Procurement, Anna Barej, and Director, Procurement Center of Excellence, Shawn Calabrase from Best Buy, Alessandro Gaiati, CPO at Fedrigoni, Norian Wasch, Director Procurement at EuroFiber, David Latten, Head of Global Indirect Procurement at Logitech, as well as Heath Nunnemacher, VP Global Electronics Sourcing, TTI and Mark Brady, Global Supply Chain Director at McPherson’s. It’s a bumper issue!
Expert analysis of the tech trends set to make waves this year
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Digital transformation is a continuing journey of change with no set final destination. This makes predicting tomorrow a challenge when no one has a crystal ball to hand.
After a difficult few years for most businesses following a disruptive pandemic and now battling a cost-of-living crisis, many enterprises are increasingly leveraging new types of technology to gain an edge in a disruptive world.
With this in mind, here are what experts predict for the next 12 months…
1. Process Mining
Sam Attias, Director of Product Marketing at Celonis, expects to see a rise in the adoption of process mining as it evolves to incorporate automation capabilities. He says process mining has traditionally been “a data science done in isolation” which helps companies identify hidden inefficiencies by extracting data and visually representing it.
“It is now evolving to become more prescriptive than descriptive and will empower businesses to simulate new methods and processes in order to estimate success and error rates, as well as recommend actions before issues actually occur,” says Attias. “It will fix inefficiencies in real-time through automation and execution management.”
2. The evolution of social robots
Gabriel Aguiar Noury, Robotics Product Manager at Canonical, anticipates social robots to return this year. After companies such as Sony introduced robots like Poiq, Aguiar Noury believes it “sets the stage” for a new wave of social robots.
“Powered by natural language generation models like GPT-3, robots can create new dialogue systems,” he says. “This will improve the robot’s interactivity with humans, allowing robots to answer any question.
“Social robots will also build narratives and rich personalities, making interaction with users more meaningful. GPT-3 also powers Dall-E, an image generator. Combined, these types of technologies will enable robots not only to tell but show dynamic stories.”
3. The rebirth of new data-powered business applications
Christian Kleinerman, Senior Vice President of Product at Snowflake, says there is the beginning of a “renaissance” in software development. He believes developers will bring their applications to central combined sources of data instead of the “traditional approach” of copying data into applications.
“Every single application category, whether it’s horizontal or specific to an industry vertical, will be reinvented by the emergence of new data-powered applications,” affirms Kleinerman. “This rise of data-powered applications will represent massive opportunities for all different types of developers, whether they’re working on a brand-new idea for an application and a business based on that app, or they’re looking for how to expand their existing software operations.”
4. Application development will become a two-way conversation
Adrien Treuille, Head of Streamlit at Snowflake, believes application development will become a two-way conversation between producers and consumers. It is his belief that the advent of easy-to-use low-code or no-code platforms are already “simplifying the building” and sharing of interactive applications for tech-savvy and business users.
“Based on that foundation, the next emerging shift will be a blurring of the lines between two previously distinct roles — the application producer and the consumer of that software.”
He adds that application development will become a collaborative workflow where consumers can weigh in on the work producers are doing in real-time. “Taking this one step further, we’re heading towards a future where app development platforms have mechanisms to gather app requirements from consumers before the producer has even started creating that software.”
5. The Metaverse
Paul Hardy, EMEA Innovation Officer at ServiceNow, says he expects business leaders to adopt technologies such as the metaverse in 2023. The aim of this is to help cultivate and maintain employee engagement as businesses continue working in hybrid environments, in an increasingly challenging macro environment.
“Given the current economic climate, adoption of the metaverse may be slow, but in the future, a network of 3D virtual worlds will be used to foster meaningful social connections, creating new experiences for employees and reinforcing positive culture within organisations,” he says. “Hybrid work has made employee engagement more challenging, as it can be difficult to communicate when employees are not together in the same room.
“Leaders have begun to see the benefit of hosting traditional training and development sessions using VR and AI-enhanced coaching. In the next few years, we will see more workplaces go a step beyond this, for example, offering employees the chance to earn recognition in the form of tokens they can spend in the real or virtual world, gamifying the experience.”
6. The year of ESG?
Cathy Mauzaize, Vice President, EMEA South, at ServiceNow, believes 2023 could be the year that environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) is vital to every company’s strategy.
“Failure to engage appropriate investment in ESG strategies could plunge any organisation into a crisis,” she says. “Legislation must be respected and so must the expectations of employees, investors and your ecosystem of partners and customers.
“ESG is not just a tick box, one and done, it’s a new way of business that will see us through 2023 and beyond.”
7. Macro Trends and Redeploying Budgets for Efficiency
Ulrik Nehammer, President, EMEA at ServiceNow, says organisations are facing an incredibly complex and volatile macro environment. Nehammer explains as the world is gripped by soaring inflation, intelligent digital investments can be a huge deflationary force.
“Business leaders are already shifting investment focus to technologies that will deliver outcomes faster,” he says. “Going into 2023, technology will become increasingly central to business success – in fact, 95% of CEOs are already pursuing a digital-first strategy according to IDC’s CEO survey, as digital companies deliver revenue growth far faster than non-digital ones.”
8. Organisations will have adopted a NaaS strategy
David Hughes, Aruba’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, believes that by the end of 2023, 20% of organisations will have adopted a network-as-a-service (NaaS) strategy.
“With tightening economic conditions, IT requires flexibility in how network infrastructure is acquired, deployed, and operated to enable network teams to deliver business outcomes rather than just managing devices,” he says. “Migration to a NaaS framework enables IT to accelerate network modernisation yet stay within budget, IT resource, and schedule constraints.
“In addition, adopting a NaaS strategy will help organisations meet sustainability objectives since leading NaaS suppliers have adopted carbon-neutral and recycling manufacturing strategies.”
9. Think like a seasonal business
According to Patrick Bossman, Product Manager at MariaDB corporation, he anticipates 2023 to be the year that the ability to “scale out on command” is going to be at the fore of companies’ thoughts.
“Organisations will need the infrastructure in place to grow on command and scale back once demand lowers,” he says. “The winners in 2023 will be those who understand that all business is seasonal, and all companies need to be ready for fluctuating demand.”
10. Digital platforms need to adapt to avoid falling victim to subscription fatigue
Demed L’Her, Chief Technology Officer at DigitalRoute, suggests what the subscription market is going to look like in 2023 and how businesses can avoid falling victim to ‘subscription fatigue’. L’Her says there has been a significant drop in demand since the pandemic.
“Insider’s latest research shows that as of August, nearly a third (30%) of people reported cancelling an online subscription service in the past six months,” he reveals. “This is largely due to the rising cost of living experienced globally that is leaving households with reduced budgets for luxuries like digital subscriptions. Despite this, the subscription market is far from dead, with most people retaining some despite tightened budgets.
“However, considering the ongoing economic challenges, businesses need to consider adapting if they are to be retained by customers in the long term. The key to this is ensuring that the product adds value to the life of the customer.”
11. Waking up to browser security
Jonathan Lee, Senior Product Manager at Menlo Security, points to the web browser being the biggest attack surface and suggests the industry is “waking up” to the fact of where people spend the most time.
“Vendors are now looking at ways to add security controls directly inside the browser,” explains Lee. “Traditionally, this was done either as a separate endpoint agent or at the network edge, using a firewall or secure web gateway. The big players, Google and Microsoft, are also in on the act, providing built-in controls inside Chrome and Edge to secure at a browser level rather than the network edge.
“But browser attacks are increasing, with attackers exploiting new and old vulnerabilities, and developing new attack methods like HTML Smuggling. Remote browser isolation is becoming one of the key principles of Zero Trust security where no device or user – not even the browser – can be trusted.”
12. The year of quantum-readiness
Tim Callan, Chief Experience Officer at Sectigo, predicts that 2023 will be the year of quantum-readiness. He believes that as a result of the standardisation of new quantum-safe algorithms expected to be in place by 2024, this year will be a year of action for government bodies, technology vendors, and enterprise IT leaders to prepare for the deployment.
“In 2022, the US National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) selected a set of post-quantum algorithms for the industry to standardise on as we move toward our quantum-safe future,” says Callan.
“In 2023, standards bodies like the IETF and many others must work to incorporate these algorithms into their own guidelines to enable secure functional interoperability across broad sets of software, hardware, and digital services. Providers of these hardware, software, and service products must follow the relevant guidelines as they are developed and begin preparing their technology, manufacturing, delivery, and service models to accommodate updated standards and the new algorithms.”
13. AI: fewer keywords, greater understanding
AI expert Dr Pieter Buteneers, Director of AI and Machine Learning at Sinch, expects artificial intelligence to continue to transition away from keywords and move towards an increased level of understanding.
“Language-agnostic AI, already existent within certain AI and chatbot platforms, will understand hundreds of languages — and even interchange them within a single search or conversation — because it’s not learning language like you or I would,” he says. “This advanced AI instead focuses on meaning, and attaches code to words accordingly, so language is more of a finishing touch than the crux of a conversation or search query.
“Language-agnostic AI will power stronger search results — both from external (the internet) and internal (a company database) sources — and less robotic chatbot conversations, enabling companies to lean on automation to reduce resources and strain on staff and truly trust their AI.”
14. Rise in digital twin technology in the enterprise
John Hill, CEO and Founder of Silico, recognises the growing influence digital twin technology is having in the market. Hill predicts that in the next 20 years, there will be a digital twin of every complex enterprise in the world and anticipates the next generation of decision-makers will routinely use forward-looking simulations and scenario analytics to plan and optimise their business outcomes.
“Digital twin technology is one of the fastest-growing facets of industry 4.0 and while we’re still at the dawn of digital twin technology,” he explains. “Digital twins will have huge implications for unlocking our ability to plan and manage the complex organisations so crucial for our continued economic progress and underpin the next generation of Intelligent Enterprise Automation.”
15. Broader tech security
With an exponential amount of data at companies’ fingertips, Tricentis CEO, Kevin Thompson says the need for investment in secure solutions is paramount.
“The general public has become more aware of the access companies have to their personal data, leading to the impending end of third-party cookies, and other similar restrictions on data sharing,” he explains. “However, security issues still persist. The persisting influx of new data across channels and servers introduces greater risk of infiltration by bad actors, especially for enterprise software organisations that have applications in need of consistent testing and updates. The potential for damage increases as iterations are being made with the expanding attack surface.
“Now, the reality is a matter of when, not if, your organisation will be the target of an attack. To combat this rising security concern, organisations will need to integrate security within the development process from the very beginning. Integrating security and compliance testing at the upfront will greatly reduce risk and prevent disruptions.”
16. Increased cyber resilience
Michael Adams, CISO at Zoom, expects an increased focus on cyber resilience over the next 12 months. “While protecting organisations against cyber threats will always be a core focus area for security programs, we can expect an increased focus on cyber resilience, which expands beyond protection to include recovery and continuity in the event of a cyber incident,” explains Adams.
“It’s not only investing resources in protecting against cyber threats; it’s investing in the people, processes, and technology to mitigate impact and continue operations in the event of a cyber incident.”
17. Ransomware threats
As data leaks become increasingly common place in the industry, companies face a very real threat of ransomware. Michal Salat, Threat Intelligence Director at Avast, believes the time is now for businesses to protect themselves or face recovery fees costing millions of dollars.
“Ransomware attacks themselves are already an individual’s and businesses’ nightmare. This year, we saw cybergangs threatening to publicly publish their targets’ data if a ransom isn’t paid, and we expect this trend to only grow in 2023,” says Salat. “This puts people’s personal memories at risk and poses a double risk for businesses. Both the loss of sensitive files, plus a data breach, can have severe consequences for their business and reputation.”
18. Intensified supply chain attacks
Dirk Schrader, VP of security research at Netwrix, believes supply chain attacks are set to increase in the coming year. “Modern organisations rely on complex supply chains, including small and medium businesses (SMBs) and managed service providers (MSPs),” he says.
“Adversaries will increasingly target these suppliers rather than the larger enterprises knowing that they provide a path into multiple partners and customers. To address this threat, organisations of all sizes, while conducting a risk assessment, need to take into account the vulnerabilities of all third-party software or firmware.”
19. A greater need to manage volatility
Paul Milloy, Business Consultant at Intradiem, stresses the importance of managing volatility in an ever-moving market. Milloy believes bosses can utilise data through automation to foresee potential problems before they become issues.
“No one likes surprises. Whilst Ben Franklin suggested nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes, businesses will want to automate as many of their processes as possible to help manage volatility in 2023,” he explains. “Data breeds intelligence, and intelligence breeds insight. Managers can use the data available from workforce automation tools to help them manage peaks and troughs better to avoid unexpected resource bottlenecks.”
20. A human AI co-pilot will still be needed
Artem Kroupenev, VP of Strategy at Augury, predicts that within the next few years, every profession will be enhanced with hybrid intelligence, and have an AI co-pilot which will operate alongside human workers to deliver more accurate and nuanced work at a much faster pace.
“These co-pilots are already being deployed with clear use cases in mind to support specific roles and operational needs, like AI-driven solutions that enable reliability engineers to ensure production uptime, safety and sustainability through predictive maintenance,” he says. “However, in 2023, we will see these co-pilots become more accurate, more trusted and more ingrained across the enterprise.
“Executives will better understand the value of AI co-pilots to make critical business decisions, and as a key competitive differentiator, and will drive faster implementation across their operations. The AI co-pilot technology will be more widespread next year, and trust and acceptance will increase as people see the benefits unfold.”
21. Building the right workplace culture
Harnessing a positive workplace culture is no easy task but in 2023 with remote and hybrid working now the norm, it brings with it new challenges. Tony McCandless, Chief Technology Officer at SS&C Blue Prism, is well aware of the role organisational culture can play in any digital transformation journey.
“Workers are the heart of an organisation, so without their buy in, no digital transformation initiative stands a chance of success,” explains McCandless. “Workers drive home business objectives, and when it comes to digital transformation, they are the ones using, implementing, and sometimes building automations. Curiosity, innovation, and the willingness to take risks are essential ingredients to transformative digitalisation.
“Businesses are increasingly recognising that their workers play an instrumental role in determining whether digitalisation initiatives are successful. Fostering the right work environment will be a key focus point for the year ahead – not only to cultivate buy-in but also to improve talent retention and acquisition, as labor supply issues are predicted to continue into 2023 and beyond.”
22. Cloud cover to soften recession concerns
Amid a cost-of-living crisis and concerns over any potential recession as a result, Daniel Thomasson, VP of Engineering and R&D at Keysight Technologies, says more companies will shift data intensive tasks to the cloud to reduce infrastructure and operational costs.
“Moving applications to the cloud will also help organisations deliver greater data-driven customer experiences,” he affirms. “For example, advanced simulation and test data management capabilities such as real-time feature extraction and encryption will enable use of a secure cloud-based data mesh that will accelerate and deepen customer insights through new algorithms operating on a richer data set. In the year ahead, expect the cloud to be a surprising boom for companies as they navigate economic uncertainty.”
23. IoT devices to scale globally
Dr Raullen Chai, CEO and Co-Founder of IoTeX, recognises a growing trend in the usage of IoT devices worldwide and believes connectivity will increase significantly.
“For decades, Big Tech has monopolised user data, but with the advent of Web3, we will see more and more businesses and smart device makers beginning to integrate blockchain for device connectivity as it enables people to also monetise their data in many different ways, including in marketing data pools, medical research pools and more,” he explains. “We will see a growth in decentralised applications that allow users to earn a modest additional revenue from everyday activities, such as walking, sleeping, riding a bike or taking the bus instead of driving, or driving safely in exchange for rewards.
“Living healthy lifestyles will also become more popular via decentralised applications for smart devices, especially smart watches and other health wearables.”
The digital landscape is changing day by day. Ideas like the metaverse that once seemed a futuristic fantasy are now…
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The digital landscape is changing day by day. Ideas like the metaverse that once seemed a futuristic fantasy are now coming to fruition and embedding themselves into our daily lives. The thinking might be there, but is our technology really ready to go meta? Domains and hosting provider, Fasthosts, spoke to the experts to find out…
How the metaverse works
The metaverse is best defined as a virtual 3D universe which combines many virtual places. It allows users to meet, collaborate, play games and interact in virtual environments. It’s usually viewed and accessed from the outside as a mixture of virtual reality (VR), (think of someone in their front room wearing a headset and frantically waving nunchucks around) and augmented reality (AR), but it’s so much more than this…
These technologies are just the external entry points to the metaverse and provide the visuals which allow users to explore and interact with the environment within the metaverse.
This is the ‘front-end’ if you like, which is also reinforced by artificial intelligence and 3D reconstruction. These additional technologies help to provide realistic objects in environments, computer-controlled actions and also avatars for games and other metaverse projects.
So, what stands in the way of this fantastical 3D universe? Here are the six key challenges:
Technology
The most important piece of technology, on which the metaverse is based, is the blockchain. The blockchain is essentially a chain of blocks that contain specific information. They’re a combination of computers linked to each other instead of a central server which means that the whole network is decentralised. This provides the infrastructure for the development of metaverse projects, storage of data and also allows them the capability to be compatible with Web3. Web3 is an upgraded version of the internet which will allow integration of virtual and augmented reality into people’s everyday lives.
Sounds like a lot, right? And it involves a great deal of tech that is alien to the vast majority of us. So, is technology a barrier to widespread metaverse adoption?
Jonothan Hunt, Senior Creative Technologist at Wunderman Thompson, says the tech just isn’t there. Yet.
“Technology’s readiness for the mass adoption of the metaverse depends on how you define the metaverse, but if we’re talking about the future vision that the big tech players are sharing, then not yet. The infrastructure that powers the internet and our devices isn’t ready for such experiences. The best we have right now in terms of shared/simulated spaces are generally very expensive and powered entirely in the cloud, such as big computers like the Nvidia Omniverse, cloud streaming, or games. These rely heavily on instancing and localised grouping. Consumer hardware, especially XR, is still not ready for casual daily use and still not really democratised.
“The technology for this will look like an evolution of the systems above, meaning more distributed infrastructure, better access and updated hardware. Web3 also presents a challenge in and of itself, and questions remain over to what extent big tech will adopt it going forward.”
Storage
Blockchain is the ‘back-end’, where the magic happens, if you will. It’s this that will be the key to the development and growth of the metaverse. There are a lot of elements that make up the blockchain and reinforce its benefits and uses such as storage capabilities, data security and smart contracts.
Due to its decentralised nature, the blockchain has far more storage capacity than the centralised storage systems we have in place today. With data on the metaverse being stored in exabytes, the blockchain works by making use of unutilised hard disk space across the network, which avoids users within the metaverse running out of storage space worldwide.
In terms that might be a bit more relatable, an exabyte is a billion gigabytes. That’s a huge amount of storage, and that doesn’t just exist in the cloud – it’s got to go somewhere – and physical storage servers mean land is taken up, and energy is used. Hunt says: “How long’s a piece of string? The whole of the metaverse will one day be housed in servers and data centres, but the amount or size needed to house all of this storage will beentirely dependent on just how mass adopted the metaverse becomes. Big corporations in the space are starting to build huge data centres – such as Meta purchasing a $1.1 billion campus in Toledo, Spain to house their new Meta lab and data centre – but the storage space is not the only concern. These energy-guzzlers need to stay cool! And what about people and brands who need reliable web hosting for events, gaming or even just meeting up with pals across the world, all that information – albeit virtual – still needs a place to go.
“The current rising cost of electricity worldwide could cause problems for the growth of data centres, and the housing of the metaverse as a whole. However, without knowing the true size of its adoption, it is extremely difficult to truly determine the needed usage. Could we one day see an entire island devoted to data centre storage? Purely for the purposes of holding the metaverse? It seems a little ‘1984’, but who knows?”
Identity
Although the blockchain provides instantaneous verification of transactions with identity through digital wallets, our physical form will be represented by avatars that visually reflect who we are, and how we want to be seen.
The founder of Saxo Bank and the chairman of the Concordium Foundation, Lars Seier Christensen, argues, “I think that if you use an underlying blockchain-based solution where ID is required at the entry point, it is actually very simple and automatically available for relevant purposes. It is also very secure and transparent, in that it would link any transactions or interactions where ID is required to a trackable record on the blockchain.”
Once identity is established, it is true that it could potentially become easier to assess creditworthiness of parties for purchasing and borrowing in the metaverse due to the digital identity and storage of each individual’s data and transactions on the blockchain. However, although it sounds exciting, there must be considerations into how it could impact privacy, and how this amount of data will be recorded on the blockchain.
Security
There are also huge security benefits to this set up. The decentralised blockchain helps to eradicate third-party involvement and data breaches, such as theft and file manipulation, thanks to its powerful data processing and use of validation nodes. Both of these are responsible for verifying and recording transactions on the blockchain. This will be reassuring to many, given the widespread concerns around data privacy and user protection in the metaverse.
To access the blockchain all we will need is an internet connection and a device, such as a laptop or smartphone, this is what makes it so great as it will be so readily available. However, to support the blockchain, we’re relying on a whole different set of technologies. Akash Kayar, CEO of web3-focused software development company Leeway Hertz, had this to say on the readiness of the current technology available: “The metaverse is not yet completely mature in terms of development. Tech experts are researching strategies and
testing the various technologies to develop ideas that provide the world with more feasible and intriguing metaverse projects.
“Projects like Decentraland, Axie Infinity, and Sandbox are popular contemporary live metaverse projects. People behind these projects made perfect use of notable metaverse technologies, from blockchain and cryptos to NFTs.
“As envisioned by top tech futurists, many new technologies will empower the metaverse in the future, which will support the development of a range of prolific use cases that will improve the ability of the metaverse towards offering real-life functionalities. In a nutshell, the metaverse is expected to bring extreme opportunities for enterprises and common users. Hence, it will shape the digital future.”
Currency & Payments
Whilst it’s only considered legal tender in two countries, cryptocurrency is currently a reality and there is a strong likelihood that it will eventually be mass adopted. However, the metaverse is arguably not yet at the same maturity level, meaning cryptocurrency may have to wait before it can finally fully take off.
Golden Bitcoin symbol and finance graph screen. Horizontal composition with copy space. Focused image.
There is no doubt that cryptocurrency and the metaverse will go hand-in-hand as the former will become the tender of the latter with many of the current metaverse platforms each wielding its native currency. For example Decentraland uses $MANA for payments and purchases. However, with the volatility of crypto currencies and the recent collapse of trading platform FTX indicating security lapses, we may not yet be ready for the switch to decentralised payments.
Energy
Some of the world’s largest data centres can each contain many tens of thousands of IT devices which require more than 100 megawatts of power capacity – this is enough to power around 80,000 U.S. households (U.S. DOE 2020) and is equivalent to $1.35bn running cost per data centre with the cost of a megawatt hour averaging $150.
According to Nitin Parekh of Hitachi Energy, the amount of power which takes to process Bitcoin is higher than you might expect: “Bitcoin consumes around 110 Terawatt Hours per year. This is around 0.5% of global electricity generation. This estimate considers combined computational power used to mine bitcoin and process transactions.” With this estimate, we can calculate that the annual energy cost of Bitcoin is around $16.5bn.
However, some bigger corporations are slowly moving towards renewable energy to power their projects in this space, with Google signing close to $2bn worth of wind and solar investments in order to power its data centres in the future and become greener. Amazon has also followed in their footsteps and have become the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy.
They may have plenty of time yet to get their green processes in place, with Mark Zuckerberg recently predicting it will take nearly a decade for the metaverse to be created: “I don’t think it’s really going to be huge until the second half of this decade at the earliest.”
About Fasthosts
Fasthosts has been a leading technology provider since 1999, offering secure UK data centres, 24/7 support and a highly successful reseller channel. Fasthosts provides everything web professionals need to power and manage their online space, including domains, web hosting, business-class email, dedicated servers, and a next-generation cloud platform. For more information, head to www.fasthosts.co.uk
Todd Salmon, Executive Advisor for Strategic Services at GuidePoint Security, on the cybersecurity challenge of keeping up with the pace of the ever-changing digital world
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This month’s cover story explores how GuidePoint Security, an elite team of highly trained and certified experts, cut through cybersecurity chaos and confusion to put control back in customers’ hands.
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
Interface welcomes in 2023 with a need-to-know list of what we can expect from technology this year and how it can allow enterprises to gain a competitive edge in a disruptive and increasingly digital world. Faced with everything from process mining and AI to quantum-readiness and the metaverse we cut through the hype to bring you the facts.
GuidePoint Security: digital transformation in cybersecurity
“Cybersecurity is in such a reactive mode because of the sheer volume of risks and vulnerabilities an organisation faces,” says Todd Salmon, Executive Advisor for Strategic Services at GuidePoint Security. “We see a lot of copycats and repeat attacks happen, but at the end of the day it’s all about creating solutions to help combat those problems.”
GuidePoint’s elite team of highly trained and certified experts, cut through cybersecurity chaos and confusion to put control back in customers’ hands. Helping them make the smartest, most informed cyber risk decisions, and choose and integrate the best-fit solutions to build the most effective cybersecurity program, Salmon discusses the challenge of keeping up with the pace of the ever-changing digital world.
bp: a strategic reinvention
“We are investing in digital to drive process efficiency and improve insights; but also to develop our people with the skills we need for now, and the future at bp. This means we are playing to win while caring for our people through investing in their personal development,” says Head of Strategic Transformation Nick Hales.
“After setting the right foundations through various remediation and compliance initiatives, we embarked on our digital transformation journey,” adds Strategy & Transformation Manager Emmanouela Vlachantoni. “There was a clear opportunity to standardise and streamline our controls environment to reduce complexity and increase insight.”
Fairfax County: winning the IT war with cybersecurity
Meanwhile, across the pond, we learn how Fairfax County in the State of Virginia is reaping the rewards of a cybersecurity program enabling government services and keeping citizens safe. “My role is to educate our leadership to ensure they understand the business value of cybersecurity as it relates to government services. Being accountable for the security of their systems and data is a key factor in developing a successful cyber program,” explains CISO Michael Dent.
Also in this issue, we round up the key tech events and conferences across the globe and, with the help of the experts at Fasthosts, take a deep dive into the metaverse… Can virtual reality become our reality? Read on to find out.
This month’s cover story is an exclusive and compelling insight into the procurement strategy at Vodafone New Zealand.
“For me, the future of procurement is two things: digital and sustainability,” says Rajat Sarna, Chief Procurement Officer and these two themes are the thread that runs through everything he’s put into place since he took over the reins of the procurement function at Vodafone New Zealand in October 2020.
The role was a huge one to take on, too – the telco employs 2,000 people, serves 2.4m customers and is a $2bn revenue company. The scale of its operations is huge with customers consuming over 3 billion minutes, 4,500 terabytes of mobile data and 55,000 terabytes of fixed line data every month. A key part of his mandate was to transform procurement into a market-leading operating partner to the business that would “ultimately improve the value that we deliver to our customers”.
Sarna went back to basics initially, thinking about what the future capability of Vodafone New Zealand would look like, and what its procurement operation needed to be to support this. He says: “It was very critical for me to have a purpose and it cannot just be better savings or improved cost position. That’s not purpose; purpose is: what are we doing in terms of how we align with the future of procurement?”
Elsewhere, we have exclusive interviews with procurement strategists Lawrence Kane, a SIG Sourcing Supernova Hall of Fame member and Nirav Patel, CEO of Bristlecone. Plus, a ProcureTech exclusive and a guide to the best procurement events over the next 12 months and much, much more.
Nick Hales, Head of Strategic Transformation and Emmanouela Vlachantoni, Strategy & Transformation Senior Manager, on the journey to reinvent business processes that are reimagining bp
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This month’s cover story reveals how bp’s Strategic Transformation leaders are on a journey to reinvent business processes that are reimagining the energy giant.
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
Our final issue of Interface for 2022 covers some of this year’s hot tech topics: digital transformation, cybersecurity, data & analytics, customer-centricity and more…
“We are investing in digital to drive process efficiency and improve insights; but also to develop our people with the skills we need for now, and the future. This means we are playing to win while caring for our people through investing in their personal development,” says Nick Hales.
“After setting the right foundations through various remediation and compliance initiatives, we embarked on our digital transformation journey,” adds Emmanouela Vlachantoni. “There was a clear opportunity to standardise and streamline our controls environment to reduce complexity and increase insight.”
Fairfax County: winning the IT war with cybersecurity
Meanwhile, across the pond, we learn how Fairfax County in the State of Virginia is reaping the rewards of a cybersecurity program enabling government services and keeping citizens safe. “My role is to educate our leadership to ensure they understand the business value of cybersecurity as it relates to government services. Being accountable for the security of their systems and data is a key factor in developing a successful cyber program,” explains CISO Michael Dent.
Piedmont Healthcare: data & analytics at the heart of growth
The power of data cannot be under-estimated… At Piedmont Healthcare Mark Jackson, Executive Director of Business Intelligence is building a data strategy driving speed to insight at scale. “Tool selection has played an important role in our ability to scale the BI program and deliver rapid insights in a dynamic environment.”
Also in this issue, CalArts CTO Allan Chen explains how an IT strategy based on coordination and collaboration is supporting six schools; Information Tech VP Fausto Sosa de la Fuente reveals the people-centric transformative IT process at construction industry giant CEMEX; and we take a look at the latest insights from McKinsey highlighting the lessons CEOs can learn from successful digital transformations.
John MClure, CISO at Sinclair Group – a diversified media company and America’s leading provider of local sports and news – talks about the evolution of cybersecurity and the cultural shift placing it at the forefront of business change
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This month’s cover story explores how Sinclair Broadcast Group is embracing the evolution of cybersecurity and placing the role of the CISO at the forefront of business transformation.
Welcome to the latest issueof Interface magazine!
Communication, secure and at speed, is a vital component of the transformation journey for both the modern enterprise and its relationship with stakeholders, be they customers or partners. Putting the right building blocks in place to deliver successful change management is at the heart of the inspiring stories in the latest issue of Interface.
Our cover star John McClure progressed from a career in the military and work as a consultant in the intelligence industry to fight a new kind of foe… As CISO for Sinclair Broadcast Group, a diversified media company and America’s leading provider of local sports and news, he talks about the evolution of cybersecurity, the battle to meet the rising velocity and sophistication of cyber-attacks and the cultural shift of the role of CISO placing it at the forefront of business change.
“Sinclair is unique in terms of its different business units and how it operates. It’s my job as CISO leading our cyber team not to be an obstacle for the business; we’re here to help it move faster to keep up with market forces, and to move safely. We’re here to engineer solutions that work for the enterprise but also help us maintain a positive security posture.”
State of Florida: digital government services
We also hear from CIO Jamie Grant who is leading the State of Florida’s Digital Service (FL[DS]) on its charge to transform and modernise the way government is accessed and consumed. He is building a team of talented, goal-oriented and customer-obsessed individuals to drive a digital transformation with innovation at its heart. “Leadership is really about developing the team and investing in the people. And it turns out that when you get their backs, they appreciate it and then you can achieve anything.”
ResultsCX: putting people first
Jamie Vernon, SVP for IT & Infrastructure at AI-powered customer experience solution specialist ResultsCX, discusses what drives customer care in the 21st century, and the part technology has to play.
“We are the custodians of our customers’ customers,” says Vernon. “In this increasingly tenuous relationship with their customers, they trust us. My leadership takes that responsibility very seriously, and charges each of us with doing everything we can to provide a perfect call, or email, or chat, every time, thousands of times a minute, around the clock and around the calendar.”
Jamie Vernon, SVP for IT & Infrastructure at AI-powered customer experience solution specialist ResultsCX, discusses what drives customer care in the 21st century, and the part technology has to play.
“We are the custodians of our customers’ customers,” says Vernon. “In this increasingly tenuous relationship with their customers, they trust us. My leadership takes that responsibility very seriously, and charges each of us with doing everything we can to provide a perfect call, or email, or chat, every time, thousands of times a minute, around the clock and around the calendar.”
Also this month, Sarita Singh, Regional Head & Managing Director for Stripe in Southeast Asia, talks about how the fast-growing payments platform is driving financial inclusion across Asia and supporting SMEs with end-to-end services putting users first, and we get expert advice for the modern CEO from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School.
The evolution of procurement into a true strategic business enabler is fuelled by technological advances. The ability to dig deep into data with true visibility into an enterprise’s entire spend and supplier network has been provided through ever-evolving platforms, such as Coupa’s highly successful Business Spend Management (BSM) platform. In BSM, Coupa has created a digital ecosystem that brings suppliers, vendors, and partners together in the same room with a single ‘source of truth’.
Elsewhere, we discuss how strategic procurement is the way forward at a rapidly growing enterprise, with John Butcher, Group Procurement Director Just Eat Takeaway.com. Plus, we grill Maximillian Tan, Director Business Procurement Asia at FrieslandCampina, one of the largest dairy companies in the world with a cooperative tradition going back 150 years, on how he is unlocking value at the enterprise.
Our cover story this month reveals how Dr Roman Salasznyk, Senior Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton, and his team are driving innovation at the IT services specialist to deliver digital solutions supporting federal agencies in their quest to drive mission-critical programs
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This month’s cover story charts how IT services specialist Booz Allen Hamilton is delivering digital solutions to support federal agencies in their quest to deliver mission-critical programs.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Technology is changing lives; from banking to transport and manufacturing to healthcare, the scaling of digital transformation journeys across global industry sectors is enabling and enhancing our lives… Harnessing the power of tech, to manage everything from the evolution of our supply chains to our response to medical emergencies like COVID-19, is changing the game.
Our cover story this month reveals how IT services specialist Booz Allen Hamilton is delivering leading edge solutions to support federal agencies in their quest to deliver mission-critical programs.
“We’ve made a concerted effort to invest and provide leading-edge capabilities to support some of our client’s most pressing public health challenges across the federal government space,” says Salasznyk. “Technology must add value, solve a business problem, and deliver measurable improvements in efficiency and effectiveness.” That efficiency is driven by over 29,000 experts around the world driving digital journeys, developing analytics insights, engineering, and cybersecurity solutions while working shoulder-to-shoulder with clients to choose the right tech to realise their vision and transform.
Nuffield Health: digital transformation for a healthier tomorrow
Nuffield Health is the UK’s largest healthcare charity (independent of the NHS) operating 37 hospitals and 114 Fitness & Wellbeing Centres. IT leaders Jacqs Harper and David Ankers describe the organisation’s incredible digital transformation and how its people-first attitude runs deep. Nuffield’s beneficiary-centric approach means “driving experiences” to be optimal and best-in-class is paramount. “What was really compelling when I joined Nuffield was how much of a difference this business can make to the nation in terms of improving its health,” says Ankers. “And equally, how we as a team can make the lives of practitioners so much easier. There’s a huge amount of value IT can add.”
Also in this issue, we hear from Celonis on why process mining can help companies stop wasting money on tech they don’t need, and we present the latest analysis from consultancy giant McKinsey’s Technology Council highlighting the development, future uses and industry effects of advanced technologies across 14 key trends.
CPOstrategy’s cover star this month is procurement transformation expert, and CEO and Co-Founder of Tropic, David Campbell…
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Right now, procurement excellence is blooming. Experts determined to create change are coming to the fore and aligning procurement with SaaS to bring an end to the do-it-yourself way of working that decimates technology budgets. Tropic is one such game-changer, providing the tools to navigate software procurement’s complexities for competitive advantage.
The CEO and Co-Founder of Tropic is David Campbell, a born entrepreneur. He grew up on a cattle ranch in California and has always had at least one side-hustle on the go. Even as a child, he was running some form of money-making venture at any one time – but he didn’t necessarily consider that entrepreneurial pursuits were his calling until later.
CEO and Co-Founder of Tropic, David Campbell
Campbell studied English at UC Berkeley, and on graduating assumed he’d go into the arts. He’s a lifelong musician and writer, and he moved to a cabin in the woods to write the ‘next great American novel’. This venture, while it didn’t have the exact results he had hoped for, planted the seed in his mind that perhaps entrepreneurialism was for him because he loved setting his own hours and vision, creating a strategy, and executing that…
Elsewhere, we have exclusive interviews with supply chain and procurement leaders at the City of Edmonton and QSC, as well as the results of our first Sustainable Procurement Champions Index. We also have some exciting news from DPW too, ahead of its conference later this month.
Our cover story this month investigates how Fleur Twohig, Executive Vice President, leading Personalisation & Experimentation across Consumer Data & Engagement Platforms, and her team are executing Wells Fargo’s strategy to promote personalised customer engagement across all consumer banking channels
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This month’s cover story follows Wells Fargo’s journey to deliver personalised customer engagement across all its consumer banking channels.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Partnerships of all kinds are a key ingredient for organisations intent on achieving their goals… Whether that’s with customers, internal stakeholders or strategic allies across a crowded marketplace, Interface explores the route to success these relationships can help navigate.
Our cover story this month investigates the strategy behind Wells Fargo’s ongoing drive to promote personalised customer engagement across all consumer banking channels.
Fleur Twohig, Executive Vice President, leading Personalisation & Experimentation across the bank’s Consumer Data & Engagement Platforms, explains her commitment to creating a holistic approach to engaging customers in personalised one-to-one conversations that support them on their financial journeys.
“We need to be there for everyone across the spectrum – for both the good and the challenging times. Reaching that goal is a key opportunity for Wells Fargo and I have the pleasure of partnering with our cross-functional teams to help determine the strategic path forward…”
IBM: consolidating growth to drive value
We hear from Kate Woolley, General Manager of IBM Ecosystem, who reveals how the tech leader is making it easier for partners and clients to do business with IBM and succeed. “Honing our corporate strategy around open hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) and connecting partners to the technical training resources they need to co-create and drive more wins, we are transforming the IBM Ecosystem to be a growth engine for the company and its partners.”
Kate Woolley, IBM
America Televisión: bringing audiences together across platforms
Jose Hernandez, Chief Digital Officer at America Televisión, explains how Peru’s leading TV network is aggregating services to bring audiences together for omni-channel opportunities across its platforms. “Time is the currency with which our audiences pay us, so we need to be constantly improving our offering both through content and user experiences.”
Portland Public Schools: levelling the playing field through technology
Derrick Brown and Don Wolf, tech leaders at Portland Public Schools, talk about modernising the classroom, dismantling systemic racism and the power of teamwork.
Also in this issue, we hear from Lenovo on how high-performance computing (HPC) is driving AI research and report again from London Tech Week where an expert panel examined how tech, fuelled by data, is playing a critical role in solving some of the world’s hardest hitting issues, ranging from supply chain disruptions through to cybersecurity fears.
Our cover story this month reveals how Sarita Singh, Regional Head & Managing Director for Stripe in Southeast Asia, and her team are driving financial inclusion across the region and supporting SMEs with end-to-end services putting users first
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This month’s cover story reveals how Stripe’s payments platform is driving financial inclusion across Asia.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Opportunities for innovation and growth via the adoption of new technologies are everywhere. However, organisations are faced with a bewildering array of choices to help them transform and choosing the best option to drive positive disruption is a tough call. We take a look at some of these fascinating journeys…
Sarita Singh, Regional Head & Managing Director for Southeast Asia, Stripe
This month’s cover story explores the genesis of fast-growing payments platform Stripe. Sarita Singh, Regional Head & Managing Director for Southeast Asia, leads a team driving financial inclusion across the region, supporting SMEs with end-to-end services putting users first.
“We’re building products and the financial infrastructure to help our users go cross-border, beyond their domestic boundaries, to widen their markets and drive efficiencies within their financial services infrastructure. With Stripe under the hood, businesses are able to focus on what they do best without wasting time researching, purchasing, integrating, and maintaining dozens of payment technology point solutions because Stripe is a platform that offers all of them, and is already integrated.”
IAG: tech procurement linked to purpose
We speak with IAG’s CPO & VMO Claire Ledder, who reveals the transformative approach to technology procurement being deployed by an Australian market leader home to several leading insurance brands. “We’re now able to tackle sourcing and contracting with an end-to-end approach capable of measuring the value delivered.”
Portrait Photography
U.S. Department of State: facilitating diplomacy with tech
Todd Cheng Director of IT Customer Service at the U.S. Department of State, talks about the ever-evolving relationship between technology and diplomacy. “We’ve been through the process of updating the IT model at State to a new, more customer centric version of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL).” By his calculations, these changes have benefited the organisation by reducing network disruption by some 400,000 hours of diplomacy every month.
Afni
Afni’s CISO Brent Deterding explains how breaking down the traditional and perceived barriers between security and the boardroom can transparently position cyber effectiveness as a critical enabler of improved business outcomes.
Afni’s CISO Brent Deterding
Also in this issue, we hear from Zoom on the future of work and report again from London Tech Week where an expert panel gave advice for businesses on anticipating and preparing for cyber risk against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty.
There is an urgent need for the digitalisation of the procurement function, according to a new report from leading smart sourcing solutions organisation Globality
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There is an urgent need for the digitalisation of the procurement function, according to a new report from ProcureTech and leading smart sourcing solutions organisation Globality.
The report, which can be read in full here, states that 9/10 of global procurement leaders are committed to the urgent transformation of their operations and processes to become more resilient, agile and future-proofed in these uncertain and volatile times.
The report, which surveyed 170 global procurement leaders, claims that innovative and emerging technologies are being harnessed in order to better arm CPOs as they face global inflation, COVID-19 and geo-political crises such as the war in Ukraine.
Those surveyed also cited the growing need to fully digitalise operating processes in order to improve efficiency and boost cost reduction, while enhancing agility, resilience and value. 90% expected operational transformations within the next three years.
The report covers:
Digitalisation drivers
Future procurement operating models
Digital work in the future
Procurement process digitalisation
Digital supplier management
Challenges to progress
Value of digital adoption
Change manifesto
“Everyone recognises this shift, 99% of companies plan to make changes to their operating model over the next three years,” says the Globality report. “In 2020 and 2021, change has been thrust upon us all. In 2022 and beyond companies are owning the shift. In our research, we have seen the procurement leaders outperform their peers through a focus on resilience and cost in the short term. However, to maintain this competitive advantage in the long term, they need to adopt a new digital-led operating model.”
That said, 81% cited a lack of organisational support with regards to digitalisation, indicating a need for further engagement at some enterprises. 68% say that digitalisation will continue to increase business self-service, while 50% of organisations aim to move to a business procurement-centric organisation, acting as advisors and business partners versus executing transactional processes.
This month’s cover story reveals the cycles of transformation, being led by CDO Lucho Torres, which are driving the disruptive digital journey at Peru’s second largest financial services group
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This month’s cover story reveals reveals the cycles of transformation driving the disruptive digital journey at Scotiabank Peru, the country’s second largest financial services group.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
A customer-centric vision is often an important factor in the journey towards a digital transformation where a commitment to continuous improvement can bring scalability and lasting growth. Interface taps the brains behind some of the biggest tech successes happening across the globe today…
Lucho Torres, SVP & Chief Digital Officer at Scotiabank Peru is on a mission to leverage the trust in a global banking leader founded in 1832 and lead a transformation to create “the most relevant, simple and fast digital bank for consumers and businesses” across Peru. “The challenge was to build a digital bank with scalability and sustainability. We have created a customer-centric value proposition by building and taking to the market our own digital platforms and financial products to deliver personalised and intuitive customer experiences.”
IBM
We speak with IBM’s AI & Data guru Jean-Philippe Desbiolles who gives us a fascinating overview of his book AI Will be What you Make of It: The 10 Golden Rules of Artificial Intelligence. “I am passionate about the fact that at IBM we are transforming businesses by leveraging technologies in a broad sense of the word. And one of those key technologies is Artificial Intelligence.” Listen to our podcast with Jean-Philippe here or you can watch it below…
Digital Transformation in healthcare, education and telecomms
Also in this issue, Michael Haenelt, CIO at the Weed Army Community Hospital tells us the story of the development of a state-of-the-art medical facility at Ft Irwin, in California’s remote Mojave Desert, where a commitment to digital transformation is at the beating heart of the organisation.
This month’s cover story explores the customer-centric digital transformation journey of leading insurer AXA being led by UK & Ireland CIO Darrell Ryman
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Our cover story this month explores how leading insurer AXA‘s customer-centric digital transformation journey is refining the art of the possible to unite business with technology.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
The opportunity to leverage data & analytics to transform organisations seeking to sharpen their digital focus and better connect with internal and external stakeholders is at the forefront of a revolution in connectivity driving both operational efficiency and growth. In this issue we bring you some inspiring stories that reflect the impact today’s innovations are having on shaping the business journeys of tomorrow…
This month’s cover story explores the customer-centric digital transformation journey being led by AXA’s UK & Ireland CIO Darrell Ryman. “It’s both a challenge and an opportunity for the insurance industry,” he reflects. “Many of the legacy systems firms use are now outdated and based on the nine-to-five business operating model – they’re not designed for the modern digital experience.” Ryman’s IT team is driving that transformation pivot by focusing on three key pillars: developing a digital backbone, becoming a digital business and creating a digital ecosystem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6wxgQ2gAmI
XGS
Today’s on demand transactions require custom logistics solutions. We discover how flooring supply chain specialist Xpress Global Systems (XGS) is combining existing data with employee experience to deliver technology solutions that form the core of the company’s humanised approach to digital transformation.
EY
Also in this issue, Ken Priyadarshi CT AI leader of EY Technology, explains how the leading professional services network is developing Digital Twins to deliver big-data and low-latency scenario planning models for financial services: “It’s time for the digital twin to become a mainstream tool for the C-suite and go beyond the traditional manufacturing or operational use-cases.”
Data management driving efficiency and growth
Elsewhere, we learn how specialist insurance broker Howden is achieving success in Asia by establishing a structured, data-driven, engagement and distribution strategy; and reveal the way America’s leading critical infrastructure damage prevention firm, Stake Center Locating, is future-proofing by transferring its expertise from legacy systems to the cloud.
Our cover story examines how Microsoft is accelerating innovation for sustainable growth by providing specialised solutions supporting financial health for enterprises and their customers in the Azure cloud
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Our cover story this month reveals how Microsoft is supporting future-first financial services in the cloud.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Digital transformation can take many forms, powering the strategies to achieve goals across a diverse range of sectors from education and manufacturing to business development and health. In this issue we explore some of these compelling success stories.
Gracing this cover of Interface is Bill Livezey, Director of Financial Services for Intelligent Cloud at Microsoft. Bringing a quarter century of experience at the tech giant to his latest role, he explains how it is accelerating innovation for sustainable growth by providing specialised solutions supporting financial health for enterprises and their customers. A broad set of data models and tools in Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud work together and allows for its partners to join in quickly building differentiated experiences in an industry-compliant and secure public cloud.
Virtusa
Today’s businesses require change at a scale and speed that defies traditional ways of working. By delivering deep digital engineering and industry expertise through client-specific and integrated agile approaches, we learn how Virtusa, in conjunction with key partners like Pega, is driving digital transformation with the pace and passion of a startup delivered with expert execution on a global scale.
Bossard
Also in this issue, we hear from Bossard, a leading global provider of product solutions and services in industrial fastening and assembly technology. Chief Information Officer Georg Meyer reveals how IT is supporting its efforts to achieve ‘proven productivity’ while working towards its 200th anniversary strategy goals.
Digital Transformation supporting Sustainability
Elsewhere, we discover how the School District of Oconee County has transformed the lives of its teachers and students through the pursuit of digital transformation; and reveal the way SodaStream is leading the fight against plastic pollution, aligning its operational and digital goals with sustainable solutions and products that truly help to preserve our planet.
Our cover story investigates how the latest cybersecurity technologies ensure the Commonwealth Bank and its customers are protected from cybercrime
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Our cover story this month charts how the Commonwealth Bank is strengthening its cybersecurity posture to protect 16 million customers
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Cybersecurity, and the need to share data safely and securely, goes beyond the day to day requirements of one organisation, it’s about enterprises at all levels collaborating to develop an ecosystem for the greater global good.
Our cover star Memo Hayek, General Manager Group Cyber Transformation & Delivery at CommBank, is leading a team on such a journey while executing the technology transformation required to fortify cybersecurity for CommBank. Leveraging the latest cutting-edge technologies from partners including AWS and Palo Alto Networks – in demand as the global attack surface grows – Hayek is flying the flag for women in STEM careers and delivering the strategies to ensure the bank, its Australian community and the wider global economy are protected from cybercrime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQNXY2duLZs
Philip Morris International
Also in this issue, we learn how Philip Morris International (PMI) is instigating a digital revolution in the travel retail sector, merging the physical and online worlds by implementing a number of CX-driven initiatives framed around PMI’s IQOS brand which is helping smokers to non-smoke products.
Valtech
We hear again from global business transformation agency Valtech on its efforts to embrace diversity across the length and breadth of its organisation to make it better able to provide solutions that touch all of society. Una Verhoeven, VP Global Technology, gives her perspective on the diversity debate and how that’s further supported in the technological evolution with the rise of composable architecture.
Digital Transformation
Elsewhere, we discover how biotech firm Debiopharm’s digital transformation journey is ushering in a new era for drug development and clinical trials. We also reveal the innovative global IT transformation plans of market-leading tile manufacturer Terreal.
Procurement transformation is at the heart of our chat with Tod Cooper, Director Procurement at the Department of Corrections in New Zealand
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This month’s exclusive cover story features Tod Cooper, Director Procurement at the Department of Corrections in New Zealand, who reveals all regarding the strategic restructure of the procurement function.
Procurement transformation is at the heart of our chat with Tod Cooper, Director Procurement at the Department of Corrections in New Zealand
Most of us like to think that if we were presented with the chance to do something positive and societally significant for our country and its indigenous people, in particular, we would.
And that’s exactly the opportunity Tod Cooper, Director Procurement at the Department of Corrections in New Zealand, has grasped with both hands, with the department’s dedication to supporting Māori.
Business transformation through leadership has been a major part of Cooper’s working life, preparing him for the challenges he’s faced at the Department of Corrections.
“It’s a big personal passion for me,” he says. “I’m not a guy who likes to sit still. Continuous improvement is a big thing. I’m always asking myself how we can make things better, looking at new ways of re-engineering, and getting good people around me who can enact my vision of things.
I’m a typical extrovert who’s easily distracted by the next thing, so it’s really important to have a good leadership team around me that understands the vision and can pull me back in.”
Elsewhere, we also speak with Dean Bennett, VP of Procurement, and Mike Cowling, VP of Global IT at BeiGene, about the benefits of a strong collaboration between procurement and technology, and what makes the company so special. Plus, we have an exclusive ‘provenance in the supply chain piece’ from IBM’s Blockchain Leader, Winston Yong.
Our exclusive cover story this month explores how IAG Firemark Ventures is disrupting insurance to reimagine the customer journey today…
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Our exclusive cover story this month explores how IAG Firemark Ventures is disrupting insurance to reimagine the customer journey today
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Technology with the capacity to enhance customer journeys and evolve in line with our changing needs is the holy grail that the companies featured in this packed issue of Interface are on a quest to deliver…
Our cover star Scott Gunther, General Partner at IAG Firemark Ventures, embodies that pioneer spirit. Leading the investment arm of Australia and New Zealand’s largest insurer to think like a startup and drive innovation in the FinTech & InsurTech space, Gunther’s vision is being realised… “We not only provide staple financial services but the solutions that can make the world a safer place by reacting to everything from natural disasters to life-changing events.”
Trusted by 95% of Fortune 500 companies, Microsoft Azure is delivering transformative cloud journeys for organisations at all levels. Laurent Pierre Jr, General Manager for Azure Customer Experience Engineering Support (CXP), reveals how by creating a high trust environment, the speed at which you and your team can execute and perform becomes a force multiplier.
Keeping with the theme of transformative tech, BSI talk us through the innovation behind the extraordinary world of immersive auditing, outlining its advantages and the potential for a continuous wave of disruption set to provide deeper client value and change the dynamics of assurance forever.
Also in this issue, we hear from Lockton Re on how its global reinsurance business is benefiting from the deployment of smart solutions that leverage new technologies; speak with the CIO at the Office of Inspector General (a part of the US Department of Health & Human Services); discover advances in the digital approach to identity validation with Okta and get the lowdown from Vodafone on how blockchain has the potential to disrupt telcos.
Our exclusive cover story this month takes a drive down the information superhighway with Auto Club Group and the Automobile…
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Our exclusive cover story this month takes a drive down the information superhighway with Auto Club Group and the Automobile Association of America.
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
A customer centric approach to the creation and deployment of digital services is something that unites the business transformation journeys we explore in this issue of Interface.
Our cover story examines how one of the oldest organisations in the US – the Automobile Association of America (AAA) – and Auto Club Group, among its largest affiliates, are building trust in technology through cybersecurity to support more than 14 million members with a range of digital services. Chief Information Security Officer, Gopal Padinjaruveetil, explains: “Cybersecurity can be the brake in the information vehicle so a business doesn’t have to slow down, enabling it to accelerate change with confidence without putting the organisation, and its members, at risk.”
Elsewhere, we discover how insurance giant Generali is leveraging analytics and AI on a global scale for a structured approach to insurance services delivering long term security and peace of mind for its customers as a lifetime partner.
Delivering innovation on a global scale, SAP’s customer-centric business technology platform currently serves 91% of the organisations making up the Forbes Global 2000, while a staggering 70% of all global transactions touch an SAP system. We find out more…
Also in this issue, we hear from Insider on why Apple’s iOS15 update will impact ecommerce and data gathering; we get the lowdown from EY on the four key steps organisation should take to accelerate their digital transformation and learn from Pulsant how to identify and achieve your business transformation goals.
IT heads say data leaks in the home will cause the biggest security headache over the next two years as…
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IT heads say data leaks in the home will cause the biggest security headache over the next two years as hybrid working arrangements see employees buying and installing their own technology, according to new research by Brother UK.
More than a third (34%) of the respondents cited the issue as their top concern as more decentralised purchasing decisions for devices such as laptops, printers and scanners are creating more data vulnerabilities.
The research, which surveyed 500 IT leads working for UK businesses, found that just 13% expect employees to be in the office full time over the next two years.
Work to minimise security risks was signalled by almost a quarter (23%) of respondents anticipating that office technology would be centrally procured with employees purchasing home tech from approved supplier lists over the next two years, up from 19% that currently have this procurement model.
However, 11% of IT leads said they expect all office and home technology to be procured by employees on their own over the same period, compared to 5% that currently operate in this way, which could signal some additional challenges for security in the future.
Other top concerns included data security in the office (27%), network security for remote workers (13%) and accountability (12%).
Mike Mulholland, head of services and solutions at Brother UK, said: “The immediate challenge for IT leads in managing people working from home is ensuring that the technology connected to business systems is secure.
“This is part of a wider opportunity for the channel, as they help customers respond to new challenges from the workforce becoming more dispersed, by providing new solutions and services.
“But it’s important that suppliers consult with clients on balancing the efficiencies gained from decentralised procurement against the security and integration that’s more assured from centralised decision making.
“Helping customers to build lists of approved technology for employees to procure from may pay dividends in productivity and security benefits.
“It will also be important for IT vendors and partners to advise when managed services can offer the best outcomes for businesses. Managed print services, for example, gives IT managers full oversight of print fleets wherever they may be, enabling them to manage security settings, firmware updates, and diagnostics from afar.”
Overall, the research found security to be the top priority for IT heads. Almost two-thirds (63%) saw the issue to be as being ‘very important’ over the next two years, compared to 52% that said the same for productivity, 50% for cost-efficiency and 48% for sustainability. Nearly half (49%) associate security with business resilience, while two-thirds (66%) said they are currently working towards improving their IT security in order to underpin resilience.
Martin Riley, Bridewell Consulting’s Director of Managed Services, explains why a cyber security strategy can future proof your business and provide the platform for a successful digital transformation
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Regardless of sector, digital transformation has become a business necessity for organisations in 2021. Described as the most important trend in business today, 65% of the globe’s GDP is expected to be digitalised by the end of 2022. And with promised benefits including improved operational efficiency, agility and employee productivity, it’s no surprise that businesses are going digital.
However, while there’s no denying the importance of digital transformation, different levels of organisational maturity can lead to different approaches and this is particularly apparent when it comes to security. Many organisations often take a reactive approach, whereby business and technology transformation are the priority and security is only considered afterwards. However, the risks from putting security on the backburner can be numerous, including higher costs and extended timelines to retrofit crucial security fixes.
Martin Riley
More mature companies have a different approach – one that puts security transformation first, ahead of digital transformation, to ensure the best possible future-proofed outcome. Their success is now providing a valuable proven blueprint for other firms to follow. So, to reap the benefits of this approach where should you start?
Shift your mindset
Before embarking on any transformation, it’s imperative to get your strategy right. Move away from thinking purely about digital transformation and cyber security as separate strategies and instead develop a cyber security transformation strategy. This will ensure that you can reduce risk and improve your cyber resilience, even as your attack surface grows.
It may be that security transformation becomes the driver of your digital transformation. For example, if you have identified vulnerabilities within your legacy IT infrastructure that necessitates a need to move critical data to the cloud.
Take critical national infrastructure as an example… The convergence of IT and Operational Technology (OT) as well as increased legislative requirements, such as the Network and Information Systems (NIS) Regulation, is driving a clear need for cyber security transformation. Organisations need to adapt to gain a holistic view of cyber security across physical OT and cloud systems before transformation can take place.
Understand your risks
Digitalising your business ultimately introduces new risks. For example, new digital channels can broaden your attack service, while poorly configured cloud-based infrastructure can pose easy targets for cyber attackers. There’s also risks from the internet of Things (IoT) which increases sensitive data proliferation (and by association, vulnerabilities), as well as authentication and access risks posed by remote working and connected supply chains. Before embarking on a transformation plan, you need to understand the security implications of any changes.
Assume zero-trust
In order to ensure that security is front of mind in your transformation you need to adopt a philosophy of a zero trust, where no individual or device is trusted. This involves verification by authenticating and authorising based on all available data points, utilising just-in-time and just-enough-access to limit user access and using analytics to drive threat detection. Not only does this help businesses to be prepared for cyber threats, but also articulates the value of security transformation to other departments.
Embed security from the outset
It can be tempting to simply keep investing in a growing number of security technology tools as and when your transformation takes place. However, all too often there is little integration, overlap and there are gaps in the coverage these tools offer. And while a well-configured set of security tools can provide coverage, many drive threat alerts that are false positives or benign positives, leading to fatigue and alert blindness. Instead, ensuring security is a critical part of the initial design of your transformation strategy.
Use security intelligence to your advantage
Move away from a focus on prevention to response and make security intrinsic throughout the business by implementing proactive measures such as Managed Detection and Response (MDR). By combining human analysis, artificial intelligence and automation to rapidly detect, analyse, investigate and actively respond to threats, MDR can encourage alignment of security transformation with digital transformation.
Cyber Technology Security Protection Monitoring
An adaptive and customisable security model, MDR can be deployed rapidly and cost-effectively as a fully outsourced service or via a hybrid SOC. It helps develop a reference security architecture that enables you to safeguard on-premise and legacy systems, cloud-based infrastructure applications and SaaS solutions, whilst also protecting and responding to new security and user identity threats as well as reducing cyber risk and the dwell time of breaches.
Engage third party support
Finally, don’t neglect to seek help from outside your organisation. By engaging a security architect early on in your project lifecycle, you can benefit from robust and detailed analysis and expertise to ensure the correct decisions are made, tracked and traced from beginning to end. They can also help you understand the interdependencies across your IT estate, identify risks and suggest best practice, as well as legal and regulatory obligations to ensure you continue to be able to withstand a range of cyber attacks throughout your transformation.
Reaping the rewards of cyber security transformation
Every business is on a digital transformation journey, regardless of size or objectives. However, as organisations transform, so do technology and cyber threats. Those that fail to adopt a more proactive and efficient system for mitigating risks and handling, responding, detecting and learning from cyber security attacks will find themselves falling behind and the security function unable to keep up.
Ultimately, cyber and digital security should be thought of as inseparable – and those that can plan and integrate both into their transformation projects from the very beginning will be in the strongest position to succeed and future-proof their business.
By implementing a robust cyber security transformation process and proactive security measures, such as MDR that can support secure digital transformation, you can reap the benefits of a stronger, structured system for managing, isolating and reducing threats and continue to pivot, transition and serve in the new digital economy without leaving security on the side-lines.
Bridewell Consulting
Bridewell Consulting is a specialist cyber security and data privacy consultancy. NCSC Certified and CREST accredited, it provides reliable, high-quality security and risk consulting services; helping its customers protect not just their data, but their reputation, customer trust and bottom line. Providing four core service areas: cyber security, data privacy, penetration testing/red team assessments and managed security services, Bridewell’s expert team of professionals possess specialist industry experience and proven capabilities. They can deliver effective cyber security and data privacy services across financial services, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, technology, retail, media, government, aviation and 24×7 critical services. As a vendor agnostic business, Bridewell is able to effectively and honestly engage with business executives and provide advice, guidance and services in a way that is most appropriate for each organisation, ensuring that proposed solutions are aligned with its clients’ strategy, business objectives and the wider IT architecture.
Learn more about emerging trends across the tech panorama in the latest issue of Interface
This month’s exclusive cover story focuses on how global digital agency Valtech is on a mission to inspire organisations to…
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This month’s exclusive cover story focuses on how global digital agency Valtech is on a mission to inspire organisations to embrace inclusivity, supporting everyone to succeed in tech…
Welcome to the latest issue of Interface magazine!
Technology and its ability to transform the human experience for all the stakeholders of any business, from customers to employees to partners, is the defining theme of this issue of Interface.
At the heart of this line of inquiry, our cover story reinforces why technology should be for everyone. Valtech, a global digital agency focused on business transformation, is on a mission to encourage organisations to embrace inclusivity, “inspiring everybody to have an authentic voice” by supporting women and people of all walks of life to succeed in tech-based careers. Our interviewee, Sheree Atcheson, Global Director of Diversity & Inclusion, pledges: “We are trying to do something that leaves the world better than we found it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W25hWRdDMA
Elsewhere in this issue, we explore the rise of AI in banking and learn how solutions are being deployed by UnionBank of the Philippines. Dr. David Hardoon, Senior Advisor for Data & AI, explains how the bank is better leveraging data to drive financial inclusion with the delivery of services to the underserved and unbanked. We also speak with Alexandre Kozlov, Head of International IT at Kelly Services, and discover how the staffing giant is embracing business relevant IT with tech that puts people – clients, candidates and recruiters – first.
Also in this issue, we.CONECT tell us how they are using technology to bring people together for virtual live events; we explore AI’s influence on data centre management, and discover why security can future-proof your digital transformation journey.
Welcome to a very special edition of Interface Magazine!
There are few enterprises with a heritage and scale enjoyed by Carrefour. The 63-year-old global grocery and retail giant is undergoing enormous change across its numerous territories and grocery formats, and not before time. Sitting, as it does, at a pivotal moment in its history, Carrefour is facing, and meeting, the challenges of size and legacy as it leverages tech and data to transform into a company ready for the challenges ahead. We caught up with Carrefour’s leadership team across its numerous territories and divisions to find out how it’s transforming its operations on a global scale…
Carrefour has embraced a widespread ongoing transformation, as the retail landscape experiences monumental shifts in behaviour. And the person Carrefour looked to, to deliver this incredible programme of change, was the then rather youthful 45-year-old Alexandre Bompard who joined the Group as Chairman and CEO in July 2017. Bompard has a proven track record in delivering change having been at the helm of French retail chain Fnac-Darty. Bompard’s “Carrefour 2022” transformation plan “embodies the goal of bringing eating well – healthy, fresh, organic, local food – to within everyone’s reach”, said Bompard upon its launch. “To become the world leader in the food transition for everyone”.
Elsewhere in this issue, we speak to Cesar Augusto Dos Santos, Director of IT and CIO of giant Brazilian Communication Service Provider Claro, regarding its digital transformation at scale, as the company enters an exciting new phase of its evolution. Plus, we have some fascinating and insightful content covering digital transformation, business goals versus business purpose and a guide to new working practices that could change your company overnight!
Featuring… Swisscom, State of New Jersey and Cementos Pacasmayo, plus much, much more…
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Welcome to another packed issue of Interface Magazine!
Following the success of an exciting B2C portal, we revisit the dynamic partnership between Swisscom and Accenture to find out more about the follow-up: a brand new B2B offering…
In June 2020, Interface Magazine published an in-depth feature on telco giant Swisscom’s new omni-channel platform – created in conjunction with Accenture – which transformed Swisscom’s B2C offering. Accenture delivered the framework for this digital omni-channel platform (DOCP) and, over time, Swisscom was able to run it independently. In the story, we mentioned that the company was also planning a B2B transformation. At the time, the plan was in its infancy.
Now – again, hand-in-hand with Accenture – Swisscom has launched this exciting new element of its business. We spoke with three people directly involved with this next step – Stephan Schneider, MD of Accenture; Anne-Thérèse Morel, Head of Capability Management at Swisscom Business Customers; and Matthias Piller, Solution Train Engineer at Swisscom – to gain a broader insight on what has changed since our last catch-up.
Elsewhere, we sit down with Luis Miguel Soto Valenzuela, CIO of Cementos Pacasmayo, to discuss the company’s digital and customer experience transformation, and its dedication to improving Peru. And we catch up with Poonam Soans, Chief Data Officer of the State of New Jersey, who explores how she is overseeing a data-driven revolution to better serve its citizens.
We take a look at 5 apps that have underscored the new necessities of remote work: collaboration, security, employee engagement… and a well-equipped home office, as identified in Okta 2021 Business at Work report.
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Many of us have adapted seamlessly to working from home over the last 12 months. Technology, and the way software organisations have stepped up to the plate to supply the tools we needed most, has been key to this. We take a look at 5 apps that have underscored the new necessities of remote work: collaboration, security, employee engagement… and a well-equipped home office, as identified in Okta 2021 Business at Work report.
While it now feels utterly normal to join a professional video chat and see the inside of people’s home offices, kitchens, or sheds, the fact is that it’s only been normal for less than a year. Many people thrive on home working, although some did struggle with the shift, and numerous reports have explored the clear benefits of a more flexible working situation than most of us had pre-pandemic.
One of the main reasons why many of us have adapted so seamlessly is the role technology has played, and the way software organisations stepped up to the plate to supply the tools we needed most. ‘A shakeup in our top apps underscores the new necessities of remote work: collaboration, security, employee engagement… and a well-equipped home office’, states the Okta 2021 Business at Work report.
As well as a rise in the use – and choice – of tools that enable us to better work with our colleagues, clients, and peers, remote workers have required additional protection that their employers would normally take responsibility for, hence the rise in security-related apps. Additionally, HR teams are busy investing in whatever will give them the best employee engagement, in order to ensure staff feel happy and supported at a time when they’re separated from their co-workers.
Interestingly, the Okta report shows that 90% of the fastest-growing apps are brand new to the top 10 – the first time in the report’s history. ‘Companies needed to enable remote work, which means supporting at-home workspaces and virtual collaboration, and these apps helped them do it. Also, for the first time, security tools claim four top spots in the fastest growing category, and an HR-centric tool appears for the first time since 2016’.
Microsoft 365
The real heavyweight app of 2020/21 was Microsoft 365, which is no surprise considering most office workers need to use at least one element of the app every day, and many of them haven’t invested in it for their personal computers. In the words of the Okta report, ‘Since our first report in 2015, Microsoft 265, Salesforce, and Google Workspace have held three of our top four spots. They may have rebranded once or twice, but they are embedded in our desktops and our work lives’.
AWS
Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing service that works on a pay-what-you-use basis – it’s not surprising, then, that it’s such a popular choice, particularly at a time when the way we work has changed so drastically. ‘We’ve seen some exciting changes in out top rank’, the report states. ‘Cloud platform AWS has risen steadily from sixth place five years ago to become this year’s second most popular app by number of customers’.
‘The new second-place global rank for AWS is driven by its strong growth in EMEA and APAC, where it has seen over 25% growth since April 2020, compared to 16% growth in North America during the same time period’.
Salesforce
A CRM platform and cloud computing service, Salesforce’s popularity has remained steadfastly near the top of the list. This is thanks, in part, to its usage in the US: ‘Salesforce and Zoom’s global ranks are underpinned by their popularity in North America’, the report states. In APAC and EMEA, Salesforce is several spots lower, but this hasn’t affected its appreciation elsewhere.
Google Workspace
Formerly known as G Suite, Google Workspace combines collaboration and productivity tools, and cloud computing. Its broad appeal has brought it to the top four spot, regardless of how it overlaps with other apps. ‘While companies may splurge on a few best-of-breed apps, we might expect they would tighten their belts where they see clear redundancy. However, 36% of Okta’s Microsoft 365 customers now also deploy Google Workspace, the largest jump in the past three years. Top collaboration tools have never been more important for productivity’.
Zoom
Zoom is no longer simply a name – it’s a verb. “Shall we Zoom later?” is the latest “Google it”, thanks to the video call app’s usability, stability, and business-friendly features like the ability to record meetings and set a photo of the Taj Mahal as your background. ‘Tools enabling collaboration, including Zoom, have jumped in the ranks’, the report states.
‘[It] had only joined the top apps by unique users for the first time in 2019, ended this current data period in sixth place. In our Businesses at Work (from Home) report in April, when we highlighted apps that had seen significant growth in numbers of corporate and personal users in March, Zoom was our fastest growing app by number of unique users. While unique users dipped a bit over summer, by the end of September they were reaching new highs, likely related to Zoom’s extensive efforts to support distance learning’.
It sounds like a strange parallel to draw, but when it comes to the implementation of a digital transformation project – specifically the automation of business processes – Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) and their senior counterparts could learn a lot from the Great Britain Cycling Team.
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Digital transformation, big data and Artificial Intelligence and like phrases used before them, ‘automation’ has grown to become quite the buzzword in the world of business. In fact, there’s now so much talk about the use of technology to ‘streamline operations’, that automation is almost an unattainable panacea in the eyes of many – even in the tech sector where organisations should perhaps know better.
Yes, at an enterprise level, there are some corporate giants thinking big and really nailing it. Likewise, there are some vast organisations with dedicated project teams and six or seven-figure budgets, that become so shackled with scope creep that their automation aspirations remain nothing more than pipedreams.
There are also smaller – and often nimbler – businesses that would be ideally placed to implement automation-led initiatives large and small, but they simply don’t know where to start. Their CTO may have an articulate vision and the ‘toolkit’ to achieve it, but the all-important buy-in from the wider management team – if not the rest of the organisation – doesn’t exist.
It’s certainly a mixed bag, but it needn’t be such a minefield. This narrative will be ‘preaching to the converted’, for many CTOs. So what’s the answer and what will finally stop holding digital transformation projects back?
The aggregation of marginal gains
Organisations embarking, from scratch, on a quest for greater automation, need to stop worrying about moving mountains from day one. Instead of focusing on the entirety of what’s possible, there is arguably more value in breaking the job down into actionable and achievable component parts.
In this respect, much can be learned from Sir Dave Brailsford, head of British cycling, who took the long-suffering team from winning only one gold medal in 76 years, to seven at the 2008 Beijing Olympics – an achievement mirrored in London four years later.
Aware that aiming for gold felt like a daunting and perhaps even impossible plight, he applied the theory of marginal gains to the sport. In other words, he deconstructed everything to create a checklist of micro tasks and concentrated on improving each element by just 1% to secure a significant aggregated performance increase. The mentality centred on progression, not perfection.
Likening this to automation in business may seem like a stretch, but the same principle applies. The possibilities that automation can unlock are almost endless, so to cover everything will probably never be feasible. But by making individual systems and processes more ‘joined up’ with digital transformation – as well as quicker and slicker to execute, with an eye on best practice throughout – means even 1% efficiency gains will soon add up.
Removing digital silos
Some businesses may have far to travel on their automation journey, whereas others may have already made a start by ‘thinking digitally’.
This is something at least, because the digitisation of processes represents an important step. But what happens if these tools and technologies continue to exist on ‘digital islands’, with varying degrees of customisation and few – if any – ‘bridges’ between them to enable the data to do what it needs to. If someone must pull all the strings to make multiple products work together – with a questionable degree of effectiveness – there remains much to do.
The key to automation is to define the process that will spontaneously enable widget A to press buzzer B that activates application C and produces data point D – and so on – digital transformation!
Everything needs to work together, much like a team. And it’s OK to start small.
In simplistic terms, a business may decide to outsource its mailing so it’s saving time – and money – that would otherwise be spent licking stamps! This soon outweighs the cost involved.
But automation can be far more sophisticated too, of course. An email marketing platform can talk intuitively to a CRM tool as a sales pipeline advances, for example, before auto-updating a billing engine when a deal converts and triggering a conversion report to better understand ROI.
Without this automation, people involved in any one part of the process would still have confidence the data existed in there. However, the time otherwise required to uncover it, and then manually push it through the system, could mean the insight soon becomes obsolete and the associated opportunity is consequently lost. The real-time nature of the intel is where the value lies – much like the of-the-moment performance of the GB Cycling Team – hence the beauty of triangulating these multiple elements to create a truly integrated eco-system.
Is Digital Transformation only for big players?
In saying all this, one of the most important points to perhaps note is that automation shouldn’t be feared. Digital transformation is not necessarily a complex process that lies only within the reach of gigantic corporations with equally large budgets. Yes, data volume makes an investment in automation easier to justify. And a degree of technical competence is needed to orchestrate the integration of tools that lead to a super-slick outcome. But it needn’t cost the earth. For senior professionals who have perhaps worn the t-shirt a couple of times over, it’s better to communicate that – making it relatively easy to move forward as a result.
Secondly, automation is not trying to rid people of their jobs and replace them with ‘robots’ – a fear that seemingly shows no sign of fading. On the contrary, at a time when employees are becoming increasingly discerning about their workplace fulfilment levels, it can liberate them from burdensome, administration-centric tasks, and free up their time to focus on activities that make better use of their skills – boosting both productivity and engagement as a result.
Thirdly, the benefits associated with automation aren’t isolated solely to staff motivation and workplace efficiencies. Automation – or certainly, an automation-savvy mindset – can become the lifeblood of a firm’s scale-up strategy, which empowers the business to grow at speed, with a constant eye on cost control and service levels too. In the current economic climate, this agility – not to mention bottom line protection – has arguably never been so important.
by Terry Daniell, Operations Director at Trenches Law
The new update gives all users tailored access to relevant market research and reports based on their role in their organisation. The update was implemented to prevent an ‘information overload’ from deterring workers and teams from utilising market research – something which can be a real problem for large enterprises who have vast amounts of data and insights available for different teams spread across business units, countries and product lines.
Workspaces & Teams also allows organisations to create separate Workspaces (for example, one for the B2C business unit and one for the B2B business unit) within their Stravito platform. This helps large enterprises give employees direct and easy access to relevant insights, while limiting improper use of the wrong insights, leading to time savings and improved decision-making across business units.
Within each Workspace, organisations can also create Teams to further fine-tune access and relevancy of insights within their business unit, enabling enterprises to customise their experience and access to information in the platform.
In addition to improving user experience, Workspaces & Teams makes it easier for administrators to tailor confidentiality for sensitive research documents.
Thor Olof Philogene, CEO of Stravito, commented: “We are always looking for new ways to combine insights relevance and security to enhance customer engagement with our platform. This Workplace and Teams update is purpose-built for large organisations with distributed units and branches, but as the business landscape continues to change against the backdrop of the pandemic, we also see increased demand for this type of services to suit organisations of all sizes.”
The Workspaces & Teams update follows another recent development targeted towards enterprise customers: ISO 27001 certification.
Stravito’s ISO 27001 certification recognises that the development and delivery of the Stravito SaaS are done in accordance with global information security best practices.
To receive the certification, an in-depth audit testing all security processes and frameworks was undertaken. This included incident management, risk management, employee management, secure software development, and the management of information from third parties – giving customers full peace of mind that their data and information is secure.
Notable aspects of Stravito’s security, which was commended, include its information security policy, which covers all aspects and employees of the organisation, an incident management process, which allows Stravito to triage and resolve any incidents promptly, a secure software development life cycle, ensuring they deliver secure and bug-free code, and a solid risk management framework, which is used to identify and mitigate risk throughout the organisation.
Marcus Södervall, head of Security at Stravito, commented: “Receiving the ISO 27001 certification is a huge accomplishment for Stravito, reinforcing our commitment to implementing best-in-class security that truly protects our customers and their data.”
“Not only does ISO 27001 test the maturity of Stravito’s processes, but it also embeds security into our company’s DNA, shining a light on the trusted and reliable platform we have built.”
By doubling down on essential capabilities for enterprises, like customisation and security, Stravito aims to continue its mission to simplify knowledge discovery for global organisations.
Google, BT and DCMS among over 1,000 organisations offering free mentorship to independent organisations through Digital Boost
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Digital Boost, a new platform connecting organisations with digital skills founded by serial entrepreneur Sherry Coutu CBE, has today set out a bold ambition to digitally upskill 500,000 women from female-led organisations by January 2022, with 200,000 of those from BAME backgrounds. This comes as recent research revealed that 97% of charities feel insecure about their command of digital skills, while a survey conducted by BT and Small Business Britain found that 63% of small businesses lack confidence in future-proofing their business.
Digital Boost helps small organisations access digital skills through unlimited free one-to-one mentorships delivered by volunteers at some of the world’s most respected organisations including Google, DCMS, Visa, BT and The Big Lottery. Digital Boost is also working with its partners to offer specialised workshops and access to short online courses to its learners.
Since its launch in June 2020, Digital Boost has mentored more than 2,000 small businesses and charities. It currently has 1,600 partners listed on the platform and has successfully delivered multiple one-to-one mentoring sessions.
Sherry Coutu CBE, founder of Digital Boost, said, “We’re proud to work alongside our valued partners to mentor at least 1 million people who work for small businesses and charities by 31st January 2022, of which 20% will identify themselves as BAME and 50% will identify themselves as female. With our enhanced digital platform that offers unlimited mentoring support as well as commercial partnerships for potential corporates, we believe we can significantly boost the revenues of female-led businesses”.
As a beneficiary of multiple mentoring sessions, Amanda Mann, founder of Mann’s Cookies, said: “Mine is a Covid-19 business. I couldn’t imagine I would have so much fun and meet such amazing people but I didn’t have any business experience so I am so grateful I found Digital Boost. They were brilliant on our mentoring calls and they were great at helping me get to grips with the mechanics of business, showing me how to deliver great customer service and sharing tips on keeping up my social media presence.”
Three years on from Open Banking launched in the UK, let’s look at what we’ve done and where we can go from here…
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Earlier this year, UK Open Banking celebrated three years. Since 13 January 2018, regulated third-party providers have been able to integrate with bank APIs to access customers’ financial data, in an effort to break down the barriers standing in the way of seamless data sharing.
The overarching goal of this new regime was to give consumers and businesses greater visibility and control over their finances, with technology at the forefront of this mission. Specifically, the pioneering Open Banking initiative was created to enable financial technology (fintech) providers to bring innovative new propositions to the SME and consumer market.
By extension, the users of Open Banking would benefit from products that were better suited to their unique financial situation, enabling them to compare available products in order to find the best deals on the market. So, as we reflect on three years of Open Banking, the question is: how much progress has been made, and what’s in store for the future?
Increasing collaboration through innovation
The introduction of a new requirement for all UK-regulated banks to allow customers to share their financial data with authorised third-party providers introduced a new era of collaboration within a previously segregated market.
Joined by one overarching mission – namely, to drive innovation and deliver the best possible customer experience – large banks and fintech startups began forming valuable partnerships. Thanks to more efficient data sharing, incumbents, for instance, have been able to integrate propositions developed by fintechs into their own platforms, in an effort to better meet the evolving needs of the customer.
The benefits to the customer are evident: a more interconnected and open financial ecosystem, which enables them to browse available products and access the right services for their needs.
Since its inception, Open Banking has served to shift the power to the customer and increase competition within the sector. By utilising new apps and digital platforms, banking customers now have access to a fuller and clearer view of their finances. This allows individuals to budget more effectively, switch products more easily, and generally make more informed decisions.
Increasing uptake
Since the initiative was launched in 2018, Open Banking adoption among UK consumers and businesses has surged. While generating awareness about its benefits has been a slow process (a recent PwC study found that only 18% of consumers were aware of what Open Banking means for them), the COVID-19 pandemic has driven Open Banking usage.
Today, over two million users utilise Open Banking-enabled applications and services. This number has doubled since January 2020, with the pandemic likely having a strong influence on the rate of uptake.
As disruption took hold and personal finances took a hit, many people turned towards online banking and money management apps, in search of tech solutions that could bolster their financial confidence. Since the first lockdown in March 2020, almost one in five (17%) of UK adults have started using an online banking service to help with their money management goals, with this figure rising to 45% among 25-34-year-olds.
Without the advent of Open Banking, the accessibility and value of such solutions would be questionable. After all, many of these fintech solutions use Open Banking to connect directly to users’ bank accounts to provide a more tailored service.
At the same time, it has also enabled financial services providers to obtain an accurate and up-to-date view of an individual’s financial situation, as well as their past and present behaviours, in order to deliver more personalised guidance.
How will Open Banking develop?
Open Banking today generally covers personal and business current accounts, credit cards and online e-money accounts. In the future, the concept will extend to cover all financial markets – from pensions to investments and insurance.
Now that we have built the underlying infrastructure, it will become easier to build on top of this. More complicated use-cases of Open Banking will begin to develop, with competition from non-traditional players such as fintechs and challenger banks stepping in to provide a range of new services – particularly within industries that previously strayed away from large scale digital transformation.
As the ability to let information flow between applications continues to improve, new products and iterations of existing offerings will be built, integrated and modified at a much greater speed than before. We will shift away from a closed banking system to one that encourages new aggregators, service partners, and payment providers to add value to existing businesses models, and in doing so, create a range of new customer-centred financial services.
Examples of innovations that we are already seeing include services that provide personalised advice to banking customers looking to improve their credit score, and applications that enable employees to save directly from their salary.
We’ve come a long way in the Open Banking revolution, giving consumers and businesses greater control over their financial lives and the ability to choose products and services that work best for them. As we progress further towards Open Finance, this initiative will give customers greater influence over a wider range of their financial data, and offer access to enriched financial services.
Ammar Akhtar is the co-founder and CEO of Yobota, a London-based technology company. Founded in 2016, Yobota has built a fast, flexible, cloud-native core banking platform, which allows clients to create and run innovative financial products. You can follow Yobota on LinkedIn and Twitter.
With 2025 deadlines looming for ambitious corporate public pledges around sustainability, this should be top of the business agenda for enterprises in 2021. However, are organisations acting fast enough?
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Worryingly, every five weeks that passes represents 1% of our decade. Aspirations of operating more sustainably at some point in the future are now becoming a much closer reality, which means organisations have targets that they need to meet over a relatively short time frame. This is especially true when it comes to ‘net zero’ emissions pledges – perhaps the most pressing climate concern the planet is facing. For example, by 2030, Unilever has committed to halving the greenhouse gas emissions of their products across the lifecycle, while Heineken has set an 80% target reduction. BP is facing an even bigger challenge as an energy company, leaning away from fossil fuels and committing to net zero carbon from their operations by 2050. Written by Mark Perera, CEO, Vizibl
Therefore, with only a few years remaining until some of those deadlines, clearly now is the time for enterprises to take decisive action.
Many organisations still don’t know how they’re going to achieve these targets. However, given the urgency of the issues, they’ve launched their efforts regardless, anticipating the discovery of further solutions along the way.
Sustainability delivers more than just the environmental benefits
Alongside the need to protect our planet, hitting these targets is actually key for the survival of some of these businesses. Strong sustainability performance pays dividends in opportunities for growth, increased returns on capital, and in managing threats to the business, with McKinsey finding that the value at stake from sustainability risks can be as high as 70% of EBITDA.
Given that 50% of the Standard & Poor’s 500 will likely be replaced within the decade, companies must look beyond business as usual towards the strategies that will shore up their own survival – especially in our post-COVID environment where many will face stiff competition. With record private equity, a robust M&A market and the growth of many startups with billion-dollar valuations, not to mention the impact of the pandemic and an economic decline, there will be plenty of turbulence in the road ahead.
We recently hosted a webinar around sustainability, which featured speakers from Unilever, Heineken and BP, where we discussed all of these issues and more. Interestingly, all three organisations were in agreement that consumer relevance will be key to organisational longevity and the ability to attract talent will also be central to business success. Consumers are very much driving the sustainability agenda, therefore setting and meeting sustainability targets will be key driver for business continuity.
Enterprises are driving towards stakeholder capitalism
This focus on doing right by consumer and employee values corresponds to a wider movement towards stakeholder capitalism. This drive advocates shifting away from a sole focus on maximising shareholder value towards a company strategy which creates value for all its stakeholders – from customers and employees, to suppliers, communities, and the environment.
Along with making themselves accountable to a broader set of stakeholders, organisations should also be drawing from these stakeholders to meet sustainability targets. Likewise, leveraging from a wider ecosystem will also help to meet these goals; partnering for value to increase the bottom line will be a key procurement trend in 2021.
Seeing as 80% of company emissions and up to 90% of their impact on biodiversity and natural resources originates in the supply chain, it is not surprising that companies are looking past internal operations when pursuing ambitious sustainability targets. Given also that 50-70% of company innovations originate externally, it makes sense to look beyond the boundaries of the organisation and to the broader ecosystems of suppliers to source new solutions.
Working with a broader ecosystem of suppliers to foster innovation
One great example of this kind of partnership is an initiative that BP is spearheading. As the company works towards net zero for its tech and IT estate, BP is moving away from high-power data infrastructure in favour of forging deep partnerships with cloud providers. The cloud providers also have net zero commitments of their own, which they can support using renewable energy sourced from BP. This partnership presents a win-win situation where both companies can hit their targets in tandem.
What we are also seeing is that this is changing the role of procurement. Instead of being viewed as a function that ‘protects’ the company from its suppliers by continuously driving down costs, procurement is now looking to collaboration and partnerships to find the innovation that will help the organisation continue to grow.
And as procurement moves away from a single-minded focus on cost-cutting, it will facilitate relationships which in turn deliver on key business strategies like sustainability and growth.
How procurement can drive initiatives to meet sustainability goals
To this point, procurement has a great role to play in helping an organisation meet its sustainability targets, given that the function has historically been curious and hyper-diligent when it comes to costs. Moving forward, enterprises need to apply that same rigour when it comes to sustainability by asking searching questions about energy and water usage, emissions impact, and how we are affecting our communities both locally and on a global scale if we bring that level of curiosity and collaborative problem-solving into supply chains, we’ll have a big impact on business longevity and help to meet those lofty sustainability goals that are closer than we all feel comfortable with right now.
Our exclusive cover story this month is an in-depth look behind the scenes at Cisco…
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Welcome to issue 20 of Interface Magazine!
Our exclusive cover story this month is an in-depth look behind the scenes at Cisco; the company that helps its clients adapt to an ever-changing world by providing the building blocks of a digital ecosystem that allows more agile and efficient communication alongside operational prowess. But what about Cisco itself? What does transformation look like inside this Silicon Valley giant, and how does itsuccessfully harness data-driven, digital technologies to improve its own operations to boost growth and profitability?
We caught up with Dr. Christian Vogt, Cisco’s Chief Innovation Officer of Data & Analytics at his Silicon Valley office. Christian’s mission is to drive the adoption of digital, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence at Cisco, and to incubate and scale the capabilities needed to accomplish this, both inside his organization and across the company. Some of these technologies are developed by Cisco’s own engineers, while others are the result of partnering. To achieve the latter, Christian has established an open-innovation arm that partners closely with world-class startups and venture capital firms in Silicon Valley and beyond. “My goal is to make us a more data-driven, digitally enabled, and AI-powered company,” Christian explains.
Elsewhere, we also meet up with Aviva Italy to see how a cloud-native ecosystem will help the company address the new paradigma of insurance. Plus, we look at the past, present and future of Open Banking and examine how CTOs could learn so much from the GB Cycling Team!
Research reveals that millennials would be willing to take a pay cut to work in a nicer office; and also consider quitting if their workplace is either outdated or inefficient…
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Today, smart buildings are becoming more dynamic and tailored to individual requirements, specifically within the office space. And with Gartner predicting that the greatest source of competitive advantage for 30% of organisations over the next few years will be their ability to creatively exploit the digital workplace, the pressure is on for businesses and building owners alike to invest in the latest technologies and techniques to provide even better user experiences.
Employee Expectations
Research reveals that millennials would be willing to take a pay cut to work in a nicer office; and also consider quitting if their workplace is either outdated or inefficient. Employers need to keep up with the rapidly changing demands of employees in order to stay competitive when attracting and retaining talent.
To achieve this, workspaces are now becoming more ‘aware’ through an ecosystem that allows buildings to dynamically adjust to the requirements of users through the convergence of IT and Operational Technology (OT) such as building management systems, energy and space management. There is an expectation in place that facilities and building management firms will adapt to meet employee expectations; if not, then they will fall behind.
Collaboration and Productivity
Many companies are leading the way with shared office facilities and hot desks on a part-time or multi-lease basis. With desk layouts developed by algorithms, companies are responding to the demand for mobility and flexible consumption in the modern digital workspace. By configuring open and closed spaces through noise-absorbing fabrics and glass doors, buildings are providing the privacy of individual offices within an open plan setup, meaning that staff no longer need to be confined by physical walls.
Furthermore, data can be collected about user movements, machinery condition, energy usage and other activities within the building that can be used to optimise the user experience and enhance collaborative processes further. For example, mobile phone controlled AV screens, wafer-thin sensors that can detect occupancy and trigger the air conditioning system, ongoing measurement of internal environmental conditions including temperature, humidity and CO2, and indoor mapping and navigation platforms.
Sustainability
With 72% of office workers revealing that a sustainable environment is important to them, embracing this new movement has become a competitive necessity. Through clever environmental design which optimises space, consumption and resources, smart offices can reduce the overall environmental impact and save money and resources along the way. From autonomous energy systems that shut off heating and lighting when rooms are vacant to systems that monitor and optimise the use of water and electricity, these offices can identify their most wasteful aspects and also lessen the pressure on the national grid.
Making the Business Case
Smart buildings in themselves are opening up new revenue streams. But the cost of IoT implementation may be perceived as a barrier to its adoption and development. Many smart offices are built from scratch so existing workplaces need to be retrofitted with technology. And although there is an upfront investment or cost to retrofit an existing building, once installed, additions such as optimised lighting make running these spaces much more cost-effective to the building owner.
The Role of the MSP
Managed Service Providers have a valuable potential role to play beyond providing Digital Communications and collaborative infrastructure including high speed internet lines, Wi-Fi and cloud based collaboration technology such as Microsoft Teams. The MSP can work with an emerging ecosystem of expert IoT infrastructure, device and applications companies to deploy IoT sensor devices, capture and flow data to cloud based applications for insight and action. The MSP can become the agent of new efficiency gains for buildings and their users, generating new income streams and increasing user satisfaction.
Conclusion
People are the largest investment of an organisation, and as new technologies evolve to make their lives easier and safer, it is important to look at which technologies, strategies and approaches will create the most positive, productive and efficient impact for your office and users. IoT technologies, effectively overlayed and combined with existing digital infrastructure and collaboration initiatives, potentially deliver new data insight to further improve and enhance the intelligent workspace and productivity. An ecosystem of expert IoT companies working with incumbent MSPs can be an effective design, deployment and management mechanism for tapping into the intelligent workspace opportunity.
A business that’s fully and passionately dedicated to ¨promote beauty to achieve personal fulfilment¨, Belcorp is creating something new for itself that’s not a cultural reset, per se, but a cultural reboot. The message behind this Latin American beauty corporation, which operates across 14 countries, remains the same – but it’s now better, stronger, even more deeply ingrained in each and every fiber of the business. What is, on the face of it, a digital transformation for Belcorp has actually been a full people-centric makeover from the inside-out – it just happens to have been driven by technology. With his hand on the tiller is Venkat Gopalan, Chief Technology, Data & Digital Officer for Belcorp, who stepped in 18 months ago to help push the digital plan, resulting in a hard press on the fast-forward button for the company’s development.
Elsewhere, we catch up with Lori Snyder CIO, Information Systems & Technology at the State of Nebraska for the Department of Health and Human Services, to see how the state is using digital strategies to battle COVID-19. Plus, we have exclusive interviews with former Apprentice winner Mark Wright, Director of Climb Online and James Shanahan, CEO Revolut Singapore. We also list 5 essential tips to building an intelligent workplace.
According to the latest ONS figures, the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on the physical retail sector has been mixed. Stores…
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According to the latest ONS figures, the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on the physical retail sector has been mixed. Stores selling hardware, paints and glass, for example, saw a 13% increase in the value of retail sales compared to last year. Others have been hit particularly hard – with clothes store sales down by more than a quarter (26%) in the same time frame.
The forthcoming wave of vaccinations promises to restore the UK’s economy to a more stable position. Nonetheless, we must consider the possibility that changes in consumer behaviour may linger even when lockdowns and social distancing are a thing of the past, as well as how different sub-sectors within the industry will be affected.
Let’s therefore look at two opposing, but equally possible scenarios on the road ahead.
Scenario A – Opening the floodgates
After months of being cooped up at home, customers flock to town centres, industrial parks and shopping centres to exercise their freedom to purchase goods in-person. Sales volumes increase, but supply chains become stretched due to spikes in product demand and store inventories become more difficult to effectively manage.
In addition, disruption to both the need and availability of workers in the months prior leaves stores understaffed, leading to long queues and disgruntled customers. Finally, customers who for months have been encouraged to go cashless are now making far more card and contactless payments, leaving some POS systems struggling with the uptick in data traffic and leading to more frustration for staff and customers alike.
Scenario B – The high street ghost town
For many, shopping online during the pandemic switched from something people wanted to do to something people needed to do. As a result, those who were previously sceptical or unfamiliar with technology (or who simply preferred shopping in-person) had to familiarise themselves with the process. Of course, although many within this group may still be averse to e-commerce today, we must assume that at least some will use their newfound familiarity to continue shopping online in the post-Covid era.
In this scenario, customers new to e-commerce have been swayed by the user-friendliness, low prices and fast delivery on offer online. As a result, footfall on the high street struggles to recover to pre-pandemic levels, creating a tough environment for the small independent retailers who compete with the online giants.
Preparing for every outcome
While these two scenarios are diametrically opposed, the Internet of Things (IoT) could help address some of the issues described in both situations. Comprising a dynamic network of sensors, devices and equipment, the IoT makes it possible to view and interact with physical objects as easily as files and folders on a computer. In other words, the IoT creates a digital overlay that sits across the physical infrastructure of retail stores, effectively facilitating the agility of online shopping in a physical space.
It will require investment, but securing the future is a goal that pays dividends. Here we look at the solutions the IoT has to offer in these two scenarios.
Solution A – Unlocking efficiency at every stage of the supply chain
Preparing to mitigate the negative outcomes in this scenario requires retailers to take a hard look at the systems they have in place, identify areas in urgent need of greater efficiency, and implement new IoT tools to address them:
Real-time supply chain – inventory sensors and POS data are integrated into a direct communication system with supply chain partners, triggering automated manufacturing and production systems and adjusting stock delivery schedules accordingly.
Data-driven decisioning – capacity sensors linked to data analytics platforms not only track the number of customers in-store, but analyse seasonally-adjusted data relating to the length of time customers spend in the aisles and predict where and when staff will be needed.
Robotic process automation (RPA) – from processing supplier deliveries to quarterly stock counts, RPA systems automate time-consuming tasks that happen behind the scenes, freeing up staff time for better workforce scheduling and more focus on customers.
Solution B – In-store customer experience unmatched by online retailers
Innovations such as live product tracking and same day delivery have recently tipped the customer experience race in online retailers’ favour. To attract new customers and retain their business, brick-and-mortar stores must emulate the dynamic, digital and personalised experience offered by their online counterparts:
Interactive digital displays & kiosks – positioned at the store entry, customers can benefit from an optimised in-store journey and a highly personalised experience by viewing commonly bought items, their location within the store and in-the-moment marketing offers based on purchase history.
Roaming POS – queuing is eliminated as tablets carried by staff process customer payments anywhere in the store. In addition, RFID scanners built into trolleys and baskets can total large volume purchases in real-time, without needing to take a single item out to scan.
Customer application integration – in-store geotargeting systems can link via Bluetooth to customer-facing smartphone applications to help locate specific items and provide other useful pieces of information, such as stock levels, current offers and the location of staff.
LTE & SD-WAN branch networking: laying the foundations for the future of physical retail
Regardless of which scenario becomes a reality, any subsequent IoT strategy must begin with a reliable, secure and agile network. The first step is cutting the cord with fixed broadband connectivity and setting up a private in-store network running on LTE. Also known as wireless WAN (WWAN), this solution offers retailers greater levels of flexibility thanks to out-of-the-box connectivity and unparalleled reliability through multiple network channel management.
The second foundational requirement for retail IoT is SD-WAN. With the sheer quantity of network applications running in most branches, cloud monitoring and troubleshooting features – including automated alerts – SD-WAN enables retailers to cost-effectively manage WAN conditions at widespread locations. Crucially, SD-WAN also allows secure VPNs to be established in a matter of minutes, providing robust protection for devices and sensitive information, such as customer payment data.
Survive and thrive in the future of retail
The past year has been an uphill struggle, not least for retailers contending with limited footfall in their physical stores. Investing in new technology may not be top of mind for all retail businesses in the immediate future. But for those who are able and willing to make small adjustments to innovate may find they are able to unlock efficiencies in their supply chain, improve their in-store experience and attract and retain new customers once lockdown restrictions start to ease.
74% of businesses are boosting their marketing and consumer research budgets this year, to better reach potential customers.
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74% of businesses are boosting their marketing and consumer research budgets this year, to better reach potential customers, according to new research from Stravito, a leading provider of knowledge management software for insights.
The research, which was conducted by independent polling company Censuswide, surveyed 200 business decision makers in large and medium sized UK companies in the last week of December 2020.
It revealed that 76 per cent of business are set to overhaul their customer engagement strategy in response to the disruption and dispersal caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, suggesting that many companies are already anticipating 2021 to be the year that they ‘bounce-back’ from the difficult period caused by the crisis.
Interestingly, 82 per cent of surveyed decision makers agreed that data-driven insights are a top priority for them in 2021, and a whopping 83 per cent agreed that improving communication and relationships with customers will be critical to their business growing this year.
Similarly, 72 per cent of business decision makers agreed that their company needs to improve its knowledge and research sharing capabilities in order to improve sales in 2021.
Thor Olof Philogène, CEO and co-founder of Stravito, commented:
“In this pandemic era, connecting to consumers on a ‘human level’ is more important than ever, and demonstrating empathy and understanding with customer concerns and needs is imperative.
“This process must start with comprehensive market and consumer research to help inform business strategy and understand exactly how consumer behaviour and expectations has adapted over the course of the very eventful last 12 months. With workforces still distributed, and remote working here to stay for the foreseeable future, it is essential that research and business insights are made available to all departments and workers in a given company, so that there is no misalignment in knowledge or customer acquisition strategies. Getting instant access to all available market research at the touch of a button will also go a long way to preventing knowledge silos developing between already distributed workforces and departments.”
Connected technology is of critical importance in this process, and is likely to be one of the key economic drivers going forward.
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Although we have bid a grateful farewell to 2020, the disruption and uncertainty we experienced are spilling over into 2021. If there is one thing that we learnt last year, however, it’s that we need to accelerate the pace of transformative change. Connected technology is of critical importance in this process, and is likely to be one of the key economic drivers going forward.
The digital and physical world continue to converge
2020 symbolises a turning point of adaptation to digital interactions in everyday life, be it working from home, ordering groceries or online schooling. Consumers in 2021 and beyond expect to experience a seamless blend of intertwined in-person and online interactions along the customer journey.
In the manufacturing world, we can expect the rapid growth of AI, IoT and other industrial automation technology, especially since human resources become less accessible and reliable.
Technology’s place in the boardroom
In 2020, technology proved to be a competitive advantage for some companies and a threat to the survival of others. In particular, the failure to have a genuine eCommerce presence cost many companies dearly. As a result of this, the lines between technology strategy and corporate strategy are beginning to blur. In order to survive and thrive, organisations need to assess their current tech capabilities and expand on future possibilities.
Data-driven decision making
To prepare for current changes and an unknown future, corporate and technology strategists need to have access to accurate data to analyse, identify trends, reduce wastage and inform their strategies.
The first step in this process is accurate data collection. This is enabled by Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and networks that are able to report on virtually anything, 24/7. The next step is the ability to analyse this data. Again, technology platforms with advanced analytics capabilities, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are making meaningful analytics a possibility. By using tools such as cloud-based dashboards, organisations have the ability to:
– Identify internal and external strategic forces
– Inform decisions
– Monitor outcomes
– Develop strategies continuously and dynamically
Information technology accessed by everyone, but trusts no-one
Cloud-first, cloud-only
One of the first steps in digital transformation is modernising legacy enterprise systems and migrating them to the cloud. The adoption of cloud-based applications became particularly important in 2021, with a large proportion of the office-based workforce operating from home. In order to continue with business as usual, employees needed access to critical software and collaborative working. In 2021, organisations will adopt a cloud-first mentality when it comes to building or upgrading technology infrastructure.\
Zero trust is a must
In an increasingly digital world, cybersecurity is high up on the list of organisational risks. Zero trust security (which involves security measures that require everything to be verified) is shaping cybersecurity initiatives. In a zero trust architecture, there is no inherent trust, and every access request should be validated based on:
– User identity
– Device
– Location
– Any other variables that provide context to each connection
Access to data, applications and workloads is provided based on the principle of least privilege.
For most companies, the creation of a zero trust architecture will require third-party assistance from digital transformation experts in IoT spheres.
Supply chains move to the front office
Supply chains were once seen as ‘behind-the-scenes’ necessities. When COVID-19 hit, it quickly became evident that even the most resilient and agile supply chains were only as strong as the weakest links.
A recent survey of supply chain professionals found that 97% of respondents said that their organisations experienced disruptions related to COVID-19. The same survey found that 73% of respondents are now planning major shifts in the way they approach procurement and supply chain management.
In 2021, more and more organisations are realising that the way they conduct their supply chains can actually become a competitive differentiator. Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, customers are increasingly looking for more streamlined supply chains, fast, contactless delivery and greater traceability. In addition, organisations are realising the value of data extracted through the supply chain network.
There is a growing trend to fit products with IoT-enabled sensors that provide 24/7 asset visibility from the source to the hands of the consumer. The ability to capture larger volumes of real-time data allows supply chain operators to mine this data for operational insights.
In addition, the use of drones, condition monitoring, robots and image recognition are making physical supply chains more effective, efficient and safer.
Contactless customer service
Delivery and shipping
Born out of customer desire to minimise physical contact, contactless delivery options will continue to develop in 2021. Contactless delivery is made possible by artificial intelligence-based applications and robotics.
Telemedicine
To minimise the risk of COVID-19 exposure in the healthcare sector, practices have started implementing more telehealth offerings. These include:
– Remote/video consultations
– A.I-based diagnostics
– No-contact medication delivery
Autonomous vehicles
Autonomous driving technology is set to make significant progress during 2021, with major manufacturers such as Honda and Ford announcing plans to mass-produce autonomous vehicles and launch autonomous driving ridesharing services.
Zero food waste
Food security came to light in the midst of supply and demand challenges brought about by the coronavirus in 2020. In 2021, reducing food waste is moving higher up the agenda.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that more than 30% of the world’s food is lost or wasted every year. Smart technology can be used to reduce food waste, increase food security, and assist with better distribution of food resources worldwide. For example, automated, sensor-based inventory management and replenishment ensures that the correct quantities of food are ordered at the right time, completed without human intervention and inaccuracies.
Blockchain
And, finally, no series of predictions would be complete without a quick comment on blockchain technology. For the most part, the application of blockchain tech is overshadowed by its “poster boy” application—Bitcoin and other crypto currencies. However, as we move into a smarter age, the process accountability distributed ledger technology guarantees will ensure that 2021 will see greater transparency on ordering, delivery and workstream management, along with a host of tradable asset ledgers coming online. All of which will improve efficiency across operating lines and help cut waste.
Technology and transformation 2.0.2.1
These trends predicted for 2021 are connected by the thread of digitalisation and connected technology. The need for this transformation was accelerated by the ‘new normal’ necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, which set the world on a course towards powerful new digital capabilities. Daunting as this may seem, having the right technology partners on board helps organisations take advantage of the critical technology trends of today.
Two-thirds of accounting departments still process invoices manually: only 15% are fully paperless
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Despite the increasing need to process invoices remotely as more employees are urged to work from home, the majority of companies are still lagging behind in automation implementation. Accounts payable departments are still largely processing invoices manually, according to a survey of accounting and finance professionals released today by Ephesoft, Inc.
The survey gathered responses from 200 accounting and finance professionals from 26 countries. Key findings include:
Distributing or processing paper documents
Businesses are shifting to automation of their processes – especially for high-value, high-volume documents such as invoices. However, the survey results indicate that companies are slow to change when it comes to digitally transforming invoice processing and other financial documents.
● Only 15% of respondents said that their organisation is fully paperless, which means the majority of businesses (85%) are not.
● Of those who are not, just slightly over 50% are actively pursuing a paperless environment.
● One-third (33%) of companies are predominantly paper-heavy, still far from intelligent automation.
With an average cost to process per invoice at about £11, a lack of automation is likely to keep company growth limited, leaving room for a significant increase in productivity. Modern automation has been proven to cut costs significantly, often by 80% or more, which can be reinvested in other areas.
Current technologies
When asked whether their businesses currently have document management, workflow, AP automation, RPA or artificial intelligence technologies in place, a majority of companies report having some type of document management and workflow tools system in place, but AI applications are still under-utilised. Here’s the breakdown, further showing a lack of current automation tools:
● Less than one-third (30%) employ accounts payable automation.
● Only 12% utilise RPA tools and just slightly less (11%) report using AI.
While these findings are understandable and relatable, Ephesoft predicts that new AI-powered low-code/no-code, cloud technology, which is evolving at a rapid pace, will remove barriers to entry into AI.
The AI Journey
When the question was posed, “What is your organisation’s location on the AI journey?” responses were split, with 42% saying they were in the planning stage and 40% saying they were not planning on implementing AI tools at all.
We can conclude from the data that AI has still not been widely adopted, but many organisations have plans to invest in it.
“This survey confirms that the accounting profession has lagged in adoption of newer technologies such as AI/ML, cloud and low-code/no-code architecture likely impacted by traditionally long implementation cycles and complex integrations,” said Naren Goel, chief financial officer, Ephesoft. “The accounts payable space is an ideal example where manual steps like entering invoices into an ERP system can greatly impact efficiency, so it’s exciting that we are finally starting to see innovation in this space with point solutions that are up and running in hours, eliminate manual tasks and allow accounting professionals to focus on higher value-add functions.”
The survey on digital transformation, AI, technology and automation was conducted on Nov. 5, 2020, by Accounting Today on behalf of Ephesoft. Responses are from 200 accounting and finance professionals from 26 countries, including CEOs, CFOs Partners, CIOs, CTOs, CPAs, accountants, controllers, auditors and consultants in a variety of industries, including banks, energy, government, healthcare, technology, accounting services, airlines, auto, education, large global consultancies and many others.
Industry experts say that INSTANDA’s no code platform and ADROSONIC’s insurance domain expertise will empower insurers with the agility to price risk in ways that meet the client’s needs in a changing post-Covid-19 world.
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In a significant development to accelerate the ongoing digital transformation in the insurance industry, INSTANDA, a UK-based SaaS Insurance software platform has entered a partnership with ADROSONIC, a digital consulting firm. Industry experts say that INSTANDA’s no code platform and ADROSONIC’s insurance domain expertise will empower insurers with the agility to price risk in ways that meet the client’s needs in a changing post-Covid-19 world.
Delighted over the tie-up, Tim Hardcastle, the CEO & Founder of INSTANDA, said: “Partnerships play a key role in the insurance industry, not merely for the growth and expansion of the business involved, but also for the transformation of the industry. The new partnership with ADROSONIC is exciting as it provides capability to new markets in North America, India, Middle East as well as Europe.”
Mayank, CEO & MD, ADROSONIC, said that the tie-up would provide insurers with innovative digital product and customer propositions for new markets as well as liberate insurers from inflexible legacy tech and from high-risk, high-cost and multi-year change programs.
“Given the paradigm shift that the market is undergoing, partnership models need to demonstrate not just agility and flexibility but to do so with high quality execution. ADROSONIC and INSTANDA have an outstanding track record of delivery so I am excited at what we can offer insurers to realise their ambitions and bring new ideas to market.” Hardcastle added.
“An unprecedented event like Covid-19 has left a sudden yet profound impact on the Insurance Industry and their IT Systems, as they are now subject to rigorous scrutiny following the rapid shifting of entire workplaces online that was forced due to the pandemic,” Mayank said.
“As the key decision-makers respond to the new market demands and opportunities, they are starting to question the limitations of their existing processes and legacy systems, they also had to reassess the cost base turning to a more cost-effective and agile platform which enables them to provide quicker and more responsive service to their customers and clients. In such a scenario, INSTANDA’s no code platform coupled with ADROSONIC’s domain expertise along with a wide range of digital accelerators including RPA, Data Analytics, & CRM are key in liberating insurers from inflexible legacy technologies.
These accelerators will power transformation across organisations looking at improving their ROI by dramatically reduced product launch times, underwriting and distribution costs and an unrivalled customer experience,” he concluded.
INSTANDA works with the leading carriers, MGAs and brokers in UK, Europe, North America, LATAM, Africa, Middle East and Australia. INSTANDA is the Insurance Industry’s first no-code business platform and allows insurers to break into new markets as well as overcome the drawbacks of legacy IT systems and embrace the benefits of digital transformation.
Significant Investment Growth of 200% over the Next 5 Years
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A new study from Juniper Research has found that network operator spend on MEC (Multi-access Edge Computing) will grow from $2.7 billion in 2020 to $8.3 billion in 2025, as operators invest heavily in upgrading network capacities and infrastructure to support the increasing data generated by 5G networks.
The study also revealed that by 2025, the number of deployed MEC nodes will reach 2 million globally in 2025, up from 230,000 in 2020. These devices, which take the form of access points, base stations, and routers, will play a vital role in managing the vast quantities of data generated by connected vehicles, smart city systems and other emerging data-intensive services.
The new report, Edge Computing: Use Cases, Innovation Opportunities & Market Forecasts 2020-2025, notes that this increase in investment is a result of network operators enhancing key network functions, by moving infrastructure used for processing data from core network locations, to base stations at the edge of their networks. It anticipates that the capabilities of 5G technologies, such as high throughput, low latencies and high device densities, will necessitate roll-outs of MEC nodes in urban areas.
The research identified smart cities as a key industry that will benefit from MEC node roll-outs, as operators and planning authorities identify how best to install 5G-compatible edge nodes. It suggests that these parties explore utilising existing city structures, such as street lighting and sidewalks, to mitigate issues of space limitation inherent to densely-populated areas.
Consumers to Benefit from Operators’ Take-up of Edge
The research forecasts that over 920 million individuals will benefit from edge‑enhanced Internet connectivity by 2025; rising from 100 million individuals in 2020. Services, such as music streaming, digital TV services and cloud gaming, will be the biggest beneficiaries of the ultra-low latency provided by operators’ increasing roll-outs of MEC nodes over the next 5 years.
James McLeod, EMEA Director, Faethm, the article looks at how AI and automation have come to be perceived as a threat to human employability much more than any other revolution-driving technology
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Technology, AI and societal change are the two major hallmarks of industrial revolutions. It would be remiss to discuss the first industrial revolution, for example, without reference to steam power and the migration of the workforce from the country to the city, or the third industrial revolution without reference to the internet and rapid globalisation.
Today, as AI/automation and the decentralisation of labour push the world toward the fourth industrial revolution, a core characteristic of these changes has become clear: an acceleration in the speed at which specific skills rise and fall in demand. Over the past 100 years or more, the length of these cycles has dropped from decades to just a matter of years, creating one of the biggest employability challenges for businesses and individuals alike moving forward.
To stay abreast of change, companies must fundamentally change the way in which they look at skills, training and career development. This isn’t just another story about technology and AI creating as many jobs as it invalidates, but rather a need to consider how existing roles will evolve and how people in at-risk jobs can easily transition into roles where they continue to add value on top of technology:
– What needs to happen? Career development must no longer be seen as horizontal (i.e. whereby individual workers refine a particular set of specific skills over the course of their careers and/or lives). Instead, careers must also follow a lateral trajectory, expanding not just upward, but outward into new skill areas.
– How can this be achieved? Each role will have a set of transferable and non-transferable skills. By identifying which skills sit across different roles, employers can corridor existing employees into new roles lessening the need to search for brand new talent.
– Why should employers do this? Trying to keep abreast of demand for new skills by constantly hiring new talent is a costly and unsustainable strategy. Moreover, by looking at how individual processes translate to value can help eliminate bloated processes and release capacity, making roles not only more relevant, but more efficient.
The ‘Financial Sector, Threat Landscape 2020’ report revealed five top security challenges that the financial sector are currently facing, the risks of future threats, and how to spot these risks before it is too late. Here, CPOstrategy takes a closer look…
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We are no stranger to the notion of cyber security, but one industry that suffers the most from cyber security threats is the financial secretary. Key security measures within the sector have evolved dramatically with the likes of key codes, two factor authentication, voice ID, behavioural analysis, one-time passcodes, protective messaging and digital fingerprinting.
1. Ransomware
Amazingly, the term “ransomware” was only added to the dictionary three years ago. In that time however, ransomware has increased dramatically in terms of the frequency of incidents and the range of methods used to conduct them. Let it be known that the attackers are extremely sophisticated. Once they have your data, who’s to say that your data will be given back or decrypted even if you pay up. Worse still what’s stopping them coming back to attack you again? The report found that once an attack is made, the bad actor will sell the details on to their associates to go after the victim again after deployment, because the payload can still be there, activated and deactivated.
2. Internal Threats
The report takes a look at the Verizon, 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) where it shows that ‘employees’ mistakes account for roughly the same number of breaches as external parties who are actively attacking’ the organisation. Now isn’t that terrifying? Misdelivery within the company, by which information has inadvertently been sent to the wrong person, stands tall as one of the most common issues when it comes to the notion of insider threats. Next time you forward an email or send one to the wrong person/recipient, click on the wrong mailing list, that’s a misdelivery. In the interests of fairness, misdelivery is almost always accidental and non-malicious, but the effects can be devastating. Especially if sensitive data is inadvertently shared to the wrong recipient.
3) App Developments
There’s an app for that. There really is. Apps in the investment and finance space have grown substantially in 2020 which is of course a good thing, as the ability to invest online is quick and easy, and accessible to all. But, with demand comes rushed development. Many of these apps were developed quickly and quite frankly are not ready for cyber-attacks. So that means no two-factor authentication, no protection from appropriate regulations, are not patched or maintained properly, and do not have contingency plans in place to mitigate the effects of a cyber-attack. What that means then is personal information of app users is relatively easy to steal and sell. This can be done by creating duplicate fraudulent apps to trick the user. On these duplicate apps, the imagery and language of the genuine app is mirrored. Once the personal information is supplied, all the money involved (real and virtual) is up for grabs. And so begins the circle of ransomware life.
4) Third-Party Risks
Few organisations work on their own. Quite rightly too. Think about third parties that they use. Vendors, partners, email providers, service providers, web hosting companies, law firms, data management companies, subcontractors. The list goes on. They are all essential to business operations and a lot of these third parties share IT systems and even sensitive information through legal teams so it goes without saying that third parties may very well be an open backdoor into your financial systems for attackers to infiltrate.
5) COVID-19
Yep, even cyber crime has been affected by COVID. It is that unavoidable. Cyber criminals are continuing to target the financial sector even during the pandemic. There has been quite the spike in cyber attacks on banks, financial organisations and the third parties connected to them. Going back to simpler times before COVID-19, if an attacker wanted to sabotage a company or steal data, they would target the business itself. They’d aim their sights at the website, the social accounts, the logins and all their vulnerabilities. In response, organisations had counter measures in place. But now, you just need to target a single remote worker and the house of cards comes tumbling down.
With virtually all companies looking at AI, what are some of the key risks they need to consider before implementation?
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Today virtually all companies are forced to innovate and many are excited about AI. Yet since implementation cuts across organisational boundaries, shifting to an AI-driven strategy requires new thinking about managing risks, both internally and externally. This blog will cover “the seven sins of enterprise AI strategies”, which are governance issues at the board and executive levels that block companies from moving ahead with AI. by By Jeremy Barnes, Element AI
1- Disowning the AI strategy
This is probably the most important sin. In this case, a CEO and board will say that AI is a priority, but delegate it to a different department or an innovation lab. However, success is not based on whether or not a company uses an innovation lab—it’s whether they are truly invested in it. The bottom line is that the CEO and board need to actively lead an AI strategy.
2- Ignoring the unknowns
This happens when companies say they believe in AI, but don’t reach a level of proficiency where it’s possible to identify, characterise and model the threats that emerge with new advances. Even if it is decided not to go all-in on AI innovation, it’s still important that there is a hypothesis for how to address AI within a company and an early warning system so the decision can be re-evaluated early enough to act. Being a fast follower requires as much organizational preparation and lead time as leadership.
3- Not enabling the culture
The ability to implement AI is about an experimentation mindset. That and an openness to failure need to be adopted across the company. Organisations need to keep in mind that AI doesn’t respect organisational boundaries. Most companies want high-impact, low-risk solutions that could simply lead to optimising, rather than advancing new value streams. It is hard to accept increased risk in exchange for impact but it will come as part of the continuous cultural enablement of an experimental mindset.
4- Starting with the solution
This is the most common sin. It’s important to be able to understand the specific problems you’re trying to solve, because AI is unlikely to be a solution for all of them, and especially not blindly implementing a horizontal AI platform. Have the conversation at board level to ensure that an overarching AI strategy, and not simply quick-fix solutions, is the priority.
5- Lose risk, keep reward
As mentioned in the third sin, it is natural for companies to want to implement AI without any risk. But there is no reward without risk. A vendor motivated to decrease risk will also decrease innovation and ultimately impact by making successes small and failures non-existent. AI creates differentiation only for companies that are willing to learn from both their successes and their failures. A company that doesn’t effectively balance risk in AI will ultimately increase its risk of disruption.
6- Vintage accounting
Attempting to fit AI into traditional financial governance structures causes problems. It doesn’t fit nicely into budget categories and it’s hard to value the output. The link between what you put in and what you get out can be less tangible or predictable, which often makes it harder to square with existing plans or structures. Model the rate of return on AI activities and all data-related activities. This demands that these activities affect profit (not just loss) and assets (not just liabilities).
7- Treating data as a commodity
The final sin concerns data and its treatment as a commodity. Data is fundamental to AI. If data is poorly handled, it can lead to negative impacts on decision-making. Data should be treated as an asset. The stronger, deeper and more accurate the dataset, the better models that you can train and more intelligent insights you can generate. But, at the same time, when personally identifiable information is stored about customers, it can be stolen, risking heavy penalties in some jurisdictions. You need to build towards data from a use case rather than invest blindly in data centralisation projects. So, now you know what not to do. Here are some of the simple things that you can do to move ahead. First, talk to your board about how long it will take to become an AI innovator, modelling it out, rather than simply discussing it conceptually.
Second, prepare for change and put in place monitoring. AI shifts all the time, so you’ll want to regularly check in to adjust and pivot your strategy. It’s important to develop a basic skill set so you can redo planning exercises with your board. Third, model out risks in both action and inaction. But don’t model them in a traditional approach, which is to push risk down to different business units and then compensate those units for reducing risk rather than managing trade-offs. Instead, view those trade-offs in terms of risks and rewards, and start to think about how you are accounting for the assets and liabilities of AI. Ultimately, you want to start to model what is the actual rate of return for all these activities that you are doing. Then benchmark it against what you see in other companies from across the industry, and that will give you a good picture of the current situation and where to go.
With a rise in immersive training and workouts on demand, connectedness matter most…
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In what is almost a redundant statement, due to the very obvious nature of it, technology has taken over every facet of the modern world. From the way we eat (ordering a takeaway or watching a YouTube cooking tutorial) to the way we purchase the very clothes on our backs (via H&M, Zalando etc.), technology is right there as an enabler. In fact, in 2020, global retail sales are projected to amount to around $26.tn dollars, with an estimated 1.9bn people worldwide purchasing goods (including food) or services online.
Go back just one year to 2019, and e-retail sales surpassed $3.5tn worldwide. The fact of the matter is, technology has made this possible and it will continue to drive these numbers to almost unimaginable levels. The really fascinating thing about this however, particularly in a year beset by lockdowns and restricted movement outdoors, is how many of these transactions were made from home and how much of that $3.5tn has been spent in the palm of our hands?
In all the talk of global markets and industry being disrupted and revolutionised by technology we often focus on those trillion dollar ones because they are the traditional ‘big hitter’ industries. Over the past decade however, one industry sector has seen incredible growth all over the world and technology (to no surprise) has seen that growth take on a whole new level. In 2019, the global fitness and health club industry exceeded $96bn. There are more than 201,000 health and fitness clubs worldwide and more than 174mn global members. It’s clear to see; the health and fitness space is not to be sniffed at. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, ways in which technology has redefined the fitness industry is through on-demand services. Like everything else in our lives, we want it and we want it now. But for Jean-Michel Fournier, CEO of Les Mills Media, it’s important to remember what people want with their fitness experiences before getting lost on working out how to provide that to them through technology.
“We are more and more connected,” he says from his home gym in San Francisco. “Connection in fitness is very important. Being able to be part of a community and believing in something bigger than you is way more motivating than exercising by yourself and not being able to share what you achieve or what you’re doing. It’s about trying to connect with people who have the same objective, or same experience or someone who can advise you. So that community is very important and with technology now you’re able to be engaged and supported by your community, anywhere, anytime.”
That sense of a shared community, through health and fitness, defines the very core of Les Mills. Headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, Les Mills is on a mission to create a fitter planet not by making people work out but by helping people fall in love with fitness so that they want to work out.
Les Mills provides workouts that are licensed by 19,500 partners in 100 countries around the world and has a tribe of 135,000 certified instructors to deliver the likes of BODYPUMP, BODYCOMBAT and GRIT workouts to millions of members. With the future of fitness merging between physical and digital, the company has led the charge in delivering immersive training and workouts on demand. This is where Fournier, a fitness fanatic and a student of Silicon Valley, looks to continuously drive engagement with members and it starts with that sense of connectedness and love affair with fitness.
“Actually, I don’t really care about technology. Technology for me is an enabler. Technology’s here to help improve the life of our community,” he laughs. “It’s really my very first company where I’ve seen how we help people to live a better life. To feel better when they wake up in the morning, and do the exercise and fall in love with our classes, where people are doing body pump and body combat on a daily basis and they share their pictures, their achievements through the community. It’s so exciting when I see that and that’s what feeds me, honestly.”
The health and fitness space is notoriously costly and often seen as a luxury, pricing people out entirely. So surely technology and on demand services would simply follow suit? Fournier recognises this, recalling the unfortunate passing of his father over the past few years and how that had made him rethink the role of technology in fitness. “Before my father passed away, he told me that he wished he could go back and be in shape and feel proud of his physical fitness,” he says. “That really impacted me. It made me ask one question; how can we help people get better access to fitness services. The answer is through technology.”
Fournier believes that technology is the key to democratising fitness services, making it truly available to everyone. Les Mills offers all of its fitness programs and workouts, together with advice and FAQs, through a simple and easy to use mobile and tablet app. This app will capture all kinds of data from its members and their activity and feed it back to them in a way that is personalised to each user. While we are competitive by our very nature and we do crave the shared community that Fournier speaks of, we all have our own personal goals and our own achievements that we strive for. But how can an app provide personalised experiences for well over a million users all over the world? The answer is, again, technology. Specifically Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
“The technology allows us to think about things that are perhaps within our subconscious that impact our exercise,” says Fournier. “When are we most motivated to exercise? How does our sleeping habits impact our performance? At what point during a day am I going to get the best results? These are all things that AI and Machine Learning will allow us to think about and understand better. It’s really opening everyone’s eyes and making that process of falling in love with fitness that little bit more seamless.”
Machine Learning, while not a new concept, is still in its infancy in terms of global implementation. Fournier believes that we are “at the beginning of a tsunami” when it comes to Machine Learning and that when it does become a norm, personalisation will come naturally. He compares the concept of personalisation in fitness to that of other streaming on-demand services like Netflix. Personalisation in those platforms can only stretch as far as presenting films that you like based on your activity, or personal lists you create. In fitness, the variables are so sparse and unique to each individual that a “one service to many” approach simply will not work.
“Technology in the fitness spaces creates a sense of accountability with both the community and the coaches” says Fournier. “You are starting to see more and more coaching platforms out there and we are doing some experimentation with this at Les Mills, where people have a coach in their pocket. Now they are connected with the coach and the coach is going to communicate directly and check on your performance. They look at the data and see that you’ve done the workout and congratulate you for it. Then you feel good about it.”
Fournier admits that it also works both ways, thanks to those extremely different variables; “Say you haven’t done it, the coach can ask you why. It’s because you’re tired, or you’ve hurt yourself. The coach can then work with you to adapt the workout. So that’s going to create this accountability and technology is going to help to create this connection between your data and your community. There’s going to be this golden triangle of information here.”
The benefits of technology are clear to see; the personalisation of the user experience comes directly from it, so Les Mills should just go ahead and throw all of its eggs into the technology basket right? Wrong. Les Mills, since the very beginning back in 1968, is a business built on the foundations of family and community. Right from the top with Phillip Mills himself, to his wife Jackie and children Diana and Les Mills Jr, there is a culture that looks at fitness services and exercises and marries that with technology that can spread that culture all over the world. The technology will never drive the business, the community will. This in itself brings an interesting challenge to the table, yes Les Mills wants to serve the world and help each and every one of us, but it’s also a business and a business will also be driven by revenue and bottom line results through innovation. “So how do you innovate? You need to be sure you have a good understanding of the mission,” says Fournier. “At the end of the day if there are people out there fleeting the next best tech thing in fitness and they’re being more successful, good for them. At the end of the day the mission for Les Mills is not to conquer the world, or to be a dominant company. At the end of the day, we are here to really help people.”
Les Mills is driven by people, for people. That is abundantly clear. Personalisation is one challenge that the company faces and for the most part succeeds in, but what about the actual user experience? How easy is it for someone to log in to the CMS, search through the copious amounts of workouts and then stream those workouts in a truly seamless experience? Les Mills, like many businesses right now, works to provide an omnichannel experience for users so they can indeed access it anytime and anywhere. But omnichannel is a word that has fallen into the trappings of many other keywords in technology right now. How does the company look to move away from simply following a trend and offer a true omnichannel experience?
“It’s hard,” laughs Fournier. “Not everybody has an internet connection at 100 or 200 megabytes. Not everyone has the same bandwidth and capabilities to stream. These days there are a number of successful platforms out in the world, which makes it easier. Having streaming capabilities and adding a strong architecture while working with the best CMS platform out there is critical. Around four years ago, coinciding with when I came into the business, we laid down a very strong and robust platform that can support millions of recurrences and millions of subscribers, to be sure we can provide the quality that our users need regardless of their situation.”
The lines between health and fitness and digital are increasingly blurring and reaching a point as to where we may not be able to think about exercise and fitness without a livestream, at home experience. As with any technological shift, there is also a generational shift running alongside it. It isn’t simply a case of older generations of gym users and fitness professionals suddenly pivoting to digital or being alienated as the world around them becomes an increasingly digital one. As we have seen in many other industries, it is not that black and white and it comes as no surprise that this is something that Les Mills understands more than most.
“If someone wants to enjoy our content on an app, they can. If they want to enjoy our content in a live streaming class, they can. If they want to enjoy our content in a live class with a real instructor they can do it as well,” says Fournier. “At the end of the day we are a content provider. What we do is create amazing fitness choreography linked to music and we do so in a way that is truly accessible to all and for all.”
In 2020, the world was forced to stand still as it became gripped by the coronavirus pandemic. With lockdowns and restrictions put in place to protect the lives of people the world over, this closed a lot of doors for the likes of restaurants, retail stores and yes; gyms and fitness centres. One could be forgiven for thinking that Les Mills, pioneers in the streaming on demand space for fitness, were well prepared for this and suffered minimal impact from this. “Our customers are those fitness clubs and the community centres that provide Les Mills classes to their communities,” reflects Fournier. “So we were hurt there. Everybody moved to digital, which was great and thanks to the great work we did in previous years in building a robust platform we were able to absorb the millions of recurrences into our platform and keep the right level of stability.”
For Les Mills, it has always been about the community and when that community is forced to stay indoors and to stay away from the physical connectedness, the focus changes slightly. Connected community has always been a cornerstone of Les Mills, but in these difficult times the company changed tact and became much more connected to its community than ever before. “I’m very proud of the Les Mills team because we really focused on what was important. The focus was really on responding to the customer needs,” beams Fournier.
“People wanted more connection, so we generated some live streaming classes. They wanted to talk with their instructors live, so we did a lot of live Q&As that were pretty amazing.”
Fournier points to one example where the Program Director, Glen Ostergaard, presented a live streaming class to over 25,000 people worldwide. Just a few short years ago, this would have been unprecedented even for Les Mills and yet here it was, leading one of the largest live streaming fitness classes in the world and exceeding all expectations.
Elsewhere, in the absence of being present in classes and under the watchful eye of a trainer, Les Mills needed to think about how it could leverage the 140,000+ fitness instructors around the world and enable them to connect with the people. “These people aren’t just the faces you see on our apps and workouts, they are the community who run the classes in centres and in gyms,” says Fournier. “They understand fitness, they understand health and wellness and they are a part of the whole community so we started to connect and to create a networking effect, connecting the expert to the community that has a need. It has been quite amazing to see this level of engagement and communication with instructors and seeing how they can exercise better.”
Right, the future and what it will look like for many remains uncertain. The last year has taught us to rethink our perceptions of how industries can and should operate and has forced a lot of businesses to rethink their operations. In some cases, this has created great opportunities and change for good. For fitness and exercise, which as we know was already going through it’s own evolution prior to 2020, this evolution and convergence of fitness and technology will continue at an incredible pace. As we talk of new norms, what does that actually mean for Les Mills? Can it ever go back to what it was before? “Some people enjoy exercising from home. Some people are enjoying working out more outdoors and hiking or going to the park and doing their exercise routines there. And you will always have people missing their fitness club,” says Fournier. “Human nature will always go back to convenience and people will want to go back to the convenience of a fitness club or a class.”
“I firmly believe that club operators need to evolve and they need to focus on their members.There are an increasing amount of members who are outside the club as we’ve discussed. You see the evolution right now, more and more are embracing digital, creating some challenges and motivating people to exercise outside of the club. It’s a pretty big shift and one that’s going to continue, so we have to continue to look at our offering and how we can continue to serve our community in the best way possible.”
By failing to involve more general staff, company leaders hinder DX progress
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While businesses are doubling down on digital transformation (DX), new research from Futurum Research found that organisational leaders are leaving many of their employees behind in the process. The study revealed that 94% of all employees want to be more involved in DX, and almost half (44%) of the general staff say they simply don’t know how to help. This not only disenfranchises some employees, but it can also slow the pace of DX success.
The global study, sponsored by Pegasystems (NASDAQ: PEGA), surveyed executives, technology leaders, and general employees from over 500 enterprises in North America and Europe on the role company culture plays in driving DX success.
As company leaders accelerate the pace of DX in the wake of the pandemic, the research revealed many employees are eager to be part of the solution. But despite this enthusiasm, only 10% of general staff strongly agree they know how to contribute to their company’s digital transformation efforts. Interestingly, there is also still confusion at the top: even 14% of CEOs report they don’t know how to get involved.
The research also uncovered three additional insights on how leaders should infuse DX into the fabric of their business:
Barriers to success must be addressed holistically: A majority of business decision makers (68%) believe improving customer experience is the most important DX driver, followed closely by automating existing processes (67%) and improving or updating processes (65%). While most agree on the ultimate goals, decision makers face a wider variety of roadblocks to reaching them, namely a lack of adequate skills (42%), partnerships (36%), and budget (36%). These holistic operational issues must be addressed – starting with training or hiring for these skills – to ensure DX success at scale.
Effective DX leadership drives top-down results: Who usually leads the DX charge? Only 18% of respondents believe it’s the CEO compared to 47% who identify the CTO or CIO. But when employees cite the CEO as the DX leader, employees report a more positive perception of DX, which can be helpful in building a stronger DX culture. For example, 67% of respondents from organizations with CEO-led DX expect to be ‘very effective’ in technology leadership compared to only 51% in CIO-lead organizations and 34% when the CTO leads.
Digital transformation is a journey on which no one should be left behind: Leaders need to find ways to bring all employees on the DX journey so they feel vested in the outcome – even in the smallest of ways. Respondents cite helping to train others on new technology (50%), being open minded about using new tools (40%), and voicing positivity about DX (35%) as the top ways they believe they can help – which are all relatively achievable. Broader employee participation at any level helps the DX culture permeate through an organization so businesses can ultimately better serve their customers.
ServiceNow research highlights opportunities for organisations to boost productivity as today’s new pace of working creates the perfect environment for innovation
The Work Survey gathered opinions from 900 C-suite leaders and 8,100 employees across 11 countries, including 100 C-level executives and 1,000 office workers in the UK. It found that, despite 96% of UK leaders and 87% of UK employees stating that their company transitioned to new ways of working faster than they thought possible during the initial lockdown, many departments would not be able to implement new digital processes within a month in the event of another major disruption, such as the one we are facing now. Only a minority of UK leaders believe that customer service (37%), finance (38%) and IT (39%) could introduce new workflows within 30 days.
This challenge is exacerbated because most businesses still have a digital disadvantage, with 98% of UK C-level leaders admitting to still using offline processes. These include:
“Organisations innovated rapidly, and initial sprints enabled them to react to the immediate COVID-19 challenges,” said Chris Pope, ServiceNow’s VP Innovation. “Some decisions made were knee-jerk and rapid, but at what cost? There may be good short-term gains, but are they ‘match fit’ for our new ways of working? For organisations still struggling to integrate and implement a fully integrated workflow system, the future of work will not arrive, and soon they’ll fall behind.”
Worker safety is paramount
The survey also showed there are doubts when it comes to workplace safety from both UK leaders and UK employees.
“The critical challenge for UK organisations will be balancing the immediate need for business continuity with the personal needs of their employees,” said Pope. “2020 has been a difficult year for a lot of people. Many have seen restrictions over the past several months, which look set to continue through the winter. Businesses need to lead with compassion and combine empathy with meaningful action to help their employees navigate the months to come. In this distributed working environment, how organisations handle the moments that matter, from when a hire joins to when they leave, not only determines talent retention but will also contribute to overall business continuity and success.”
Business leaders split on return to office preferences
UK business leaders are also divided on how to keep their company most productive. While 49% want to maintain new ways of operating once the crisis subsides, 51% are keen to return to business as closely as it was prior to COVID-19, indicating a divide in approach.
Despite 57% of UK employees feeling they now have a better work-life balance, both UK leaders (99%) and UK employees (80%) have concerns about how remote work will impact their business moving forward.
The research indicates that leaders are prioritising speed of business while staff care about the human side of working. In terms of the largest challenges posed by remote work, UK leaders are most concerned about extended timelines for new releases or innovations (48%). Conversely, UK employees see reduced collaboration (48%) as their largest worry.
More information about The Work Survey can be found by accessing the survey findings slide deck and infographic.
Survey Methodology
Wakefield Research fielded an online quantitative survey in September 2020 to 900 C‑level executives and 8,100 office professionals (employees) from companies of 500 or more employees in the following countries: United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, India, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. While Wakefield surveyed across industries, the findings highlight meaningful differences from employees in the following five key industries: financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunications, and public sector.
iland research reveals hidden pitfalls of hyperscale cloud and low confidence in key features of cloud services, while a lack of resources is holding back cloud migration projects for 83%
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iland, a leading VMware-based cloud services provider for application hosting, data protection and disaster recovery, today released the findings of its research into customer confidence in cloud services. It found that despite the increase in cloud adoption due to the pandemic, three quarters of organisations surveyed say hyperscaler IaaS instance types may not meet their cost and performance needs for mission-critical applications, while more than one in five are not satisfied with key features of cloud provision such as security, performance, availability and support.
The research also found that a lack of migration resources is delaying or preventing cloud projects for more than 80% of organisations surveyed.
The research: The Hidden Pitfalls of Working with Hyperscale Clouds was conducted among 501 senior IT executives, including CIOs, CISOs and CTOs, in the UK and US by independent research organisation, Opinion Matters, in June 2020. Participants were asked for their views on security, performance, compliance and their overall level of confidence in the cloud services they have invested in.
Key research findings include:
83% say lack of migration resources and/or time has delayed cloud migration. Among those, 12% say it has entirely prevented migration.
75% say a T Shirt size or hyperscaler instance type does not meet all their performance and cost requirements.
24% are not confident that hyperscale clouds can meet performance and availability requirements for specific applications.
23% are not confident that production data is protected via backup or disaster recovery in the event of data loss with their cloud service provider.
24% are not confident they can get the support they need from their cloud service provider.
53% say security is the top factor in cloud supplier selection.
76% agree CSPs should assist or actively manage customer data compliance.
Commenting on the research findings, Researcher Charles Moore said: “While cloud adoption has seen a significant uptick due to the pandemic, the lack of migration resources for many customers has delayed or prevented deployment. Customers need to choose a cloud vendor that can fill the internal resource gaps that can hinder success.”
Justin Giardina, iland Chief Technology Officer, added: “The business benefits of moving to the cloud are indisputable, but with 83% of those surveyed saying that migration resources are necessary to achieve those benefits it’s clear that customers need to look beyond just the cloud platform and ensure their vendor can offer the supporting services that can reduce risk and improve time to value.”
“Hyperscale cloud services are missing the mark for a significant proportion of the organisations surveyed,” continues Giardina. “Having trust in critical cloud features is fundamental to realising its benefits, so with more than one in five respondents lacking confidence in aspects such as performance, availability, backup and support points to the hidden pitfalls of hyperscale clouds.”
Security, management, visibility, and control are priority customer requirements for cloud solutions
The study also found that key requirements for cloud service provision include common or unified management across all services; this is a priority for 73% of those adopting multi-cloud solutions. Similarly, infrastructure visibility and control are must-have features for 71% of respondents. Many were looking to the future, with 89% saying it was important or critical that they can write to their CSP’s API for future software development and deployment.
Security is a primary criterion for cloud provider selection, with 53% saying it is the leading consideration and a further 43% saying it is a major factor. Three quarters of customers also want to see cloud service providers helping manage data compliance.
The survey found that the majority (74%) of respondents felt it was important that CSPs preserve their company’s existing networking environment when they move to the cloud. This reflects the current landscape, where many organisations are being forced to accelerate their cloud adoption programmes due to the pressures of supporting large-scale remote working. Giardina notes: “When organisations are being rapidly pushed out of their comfort zones and forced to shrink deployment schedules to the absolute minimum, being able to maintain the familiar networking environment in the cloud is an advantage that is appealing to under-pressure IT departments.”
We catch up with digital strategist Dr Paul J Bailo, who reveals the third part of his digital transformation masterclass…
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I believe that our final chat within the Digital Transformation Trilogy is based around culture…
The first of our trilogy into what constitutes a successful digital transformation centred around leadership and this was followed by planning. But the glue to keeping this all together is the culture. And culture’s very hard to define for a lot of people, but it’s really the essence of what your organization is about.
It’s truly understanding what your value systems are. When we think of who we are and what we believe we bring to an organization – our beliefs, our religions, our upbringing and what mom and dad taught us – we bring in our feelings of how we see the world. These are basic perceptions, deep, embedded thoughts in our minds, shared beliefs, and even unconscious feelings, right? Who we are and what we are as human beings have developed through where we lived, what zip code we lived in, our friends, our family, religion and background. And these are the values we bring into an organization, which are fundamental to this idea of culture. So, you’re mixing all these different values in order to drive a digital culture, in order to set the right mindsets and behaviors that could be shared with all the members of the organization.
When we talk about digital culture, it’s usually about organizational change and transformation…
Historically, organizations talked about siloed use of digital, but now we’re talking about how every department needs to be digital. When you start talking about keeping everything in a small group and collaborating, we’re saying, “No, digital is everywhere in every aspect of the business.” These are traditionally very hard things for organizations to develop in their culture. And it’s rooted in this idea and belief of who this organization is and what they stand for. And this digital culture needs to be reinforced on a daily basis from the executive leadership down to the frontline people. The culture is the foundation for the business’ success in digital. It’s this stable environment in which organizations behave and hold everyone accountable. I think of culture almost like baseball in a sense.
Baseball? How so?
So, baseball is a set of rules and every player knows that these are the rules. There’s a first base man, second base person and third base person. There are rules and regulations on how you behave in the game of baseball, so when people, the players go out in the field, everyone knows what to do. With our digital culture we need to know the norms that we believe in, and the values we hold true, and the actions we expect. These actions have rituals and behaviors and routine processes that are digital, and there’s a digital culture, which basically serves their structure. These structures are a digital structure of org charts, and products, and mission statements that build the digital culture, in order for organizations to be very successful in the execution of digital initiatives. It’s this idea of the digital culture driving the actions, the mindsets, and driving the mindset at the root of the cultural change that must exist, in order for organizations to be successful in this current world that we’re living and the constant change.
The focus of digital is not just about the actions alone, it’s about the actions and the change that must happen in our heart, minds, and souls in these organizations that are transforming to be digital. It’s who we are and what we stand for, and consistently reminding ourselves and the employees, and the team members, and the shareholders of what we stand for in this digital culture. It is the mindset and behaviors that we agree to. and police, to hold everyone accountable. Understand that by doing this in our culture, they will reap the benefits of this digital change and digital landscape by agreeing that this is how we’re going to support each other in our overall digital culture: the values, the behaviors, how we talk to each other, how we behave with each other, how we execute as a team together.
What are the tangible benefits to this cultural approach?
It’s through minimal disparity and a sharing of the high risk of failure. Support is built into the culture. Taking a massive risk is built into the digital culture. It is extremely hard to change the culture because you’re truly trying to rewire people’s minds. And in legacy organizations, most people hate change, so you have to think about the power structure in this idea of digital culture, and this idea that decisions need to be made quickly, efficiently, very fluidly, and to constantly evolve in this idea of continuous improvement, which means that the culture will be evolving with it also. It’s the values and beliefs that the organization hold as one. It also is the emotional piece. It’s truly, how do you want to work? Is this a place that you want to belong to? Are your personal values aligned with the digital values of this organization? What are the values, right? The values that this organization holds true in this digital arena, are a critical part of the culture, absolutely critical.
Digital is forefront and the lifeblood of these organizations that must have a digital culture in order to survive. There’s no way companies are going to survive – banks, financial institutions, insurance companies – if they continue to behave in the way they’re behaving. Clients will not come to them, and will leave them in droves, if they are not bleeding edge digital organizations that have a culture pushing the envelope in transformation and change. Even the idea or ideas of decision-making, in a digital arena, are fast and furious. It’s not this big, long, legacy type of committee, in order to say these are now the decisions. It’s fast and furious in order to keep up with the marketplace. It’s the idea of strategy on a continuous, unending basis. It’s the idea that digital will change the way organizations conduct business.
It’s seeing the power shift within an organization?
Right! This digital culture is driven by the outcomes. And it’s this idea of digital culture which causes this power shift in the organization. And this is very egotistical, right? This idea of digital culture is a power grab for some people. It’s a mindset rewiring. It’s a behavioral rewiring. It’s an adjustment of values and behaviors. It’s a way of policing each other in a way that might make some people very uncomfortable. When we’re thinking about this, it’s this idea of culture which is one of the core pillars of a digital organization, and looking at these digital organizations in order to be much more efficient and effective in this brutal environment we’re currently in. It’s also building relationships, understanding that the idea of digital culture is a never-ending learning environment.
Apple doesn’t have the best products or the best services, but they react to the market extremely quickly. They react to it because they have a culture of learning, both on the soft skills and the hard skills. They understand the challenges of digital technology very quickly because their culture supports this idea of never-ending learning. A true digital culture within the organization is a learning institution. A digital culture in an organization is an organization that takes care of its employees and upskills them. It identifies the skills that employees need to be competitive, identifies the skills that organizations need in order to drive cultural digital change.
When we talk about digital culture, we’re discussing a massive shift in the way organizations think and behave as well as the organizational structure, the power structure, and executive mindset change. It’s really this idea that digital skills are required in every level of leadership, that training is necessary and the best practices of digital are required.
The new issue features exclusive content from Marsh UK, HPE, and Rim of the World Unified School District…
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Welcome to the latest issue of Interface Magazine!
This week’s cover star is Alistair Fraser the CEO of UK Corporate at Marsh who has given us an exclusive insight into the massive transformational change at the insurance brokerage, that seeks to help enterprises survive and thrive during a global pandemic…
The COVID-19 pandemic’s economic and social impacts are driving significant shifts in global political risk — introducing new dynamics and accelerating existing geopolitical megatrends, such as trade protectionism and the transition to a multipolar world order.
“We segment our service delivery to clients based on their size and needs around risk and insurance,” explains Fraser, from Marsh’s Bristol office. “Our role is to advise our clients on their insurance and risk requirements so that they can manage risk in a more controlled way, helping them to protect their business, roll out new products and services, and continue to thrive.”
Elsewhere, we speak to Erik Vogel, Global Vice President, Customer Experience at HPE to see how the global, edge-to-cloud Platform-as-a-Service company is transforming the customer journey with GreenLake to provide an ‘everything-as-a-service’ offering…
Plus, we have the third and final instalment of digital strategist Paul Bailo’s Digital Transformation masterclass, and an exclusive with Mads Fosselius, CEO and Founder, Dixa who reveals the secrets to succeeding in this ‘new world’. And we speak to Michelle Murphy, Superintendent of Rim of The World Unified School District, who explores how a digitalisation of the classroom begins and ends with the success of the student in mind.
Data revealed as Tech Nation and Dealroom launch the Impact & Innovation database…
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New research from Tech Nation and Dealroom reveals that investment into UK impact startups increased 9.5x between 2014 and 2019. UK impact startups have raised €1.4B so far in 2020 with Cleantech and Climate tech companies raising the most capital of all UK impact startups.
The biggest rounds for UK impact startups in 2020 include Octopus Energy, Arrival, Connexin (Hull), Tokamak Energy (Abingdon), Compass Pathways, Cera, Highview Power, FiveAI (Cambridge), The Meatless Farm Company (Leeds).
It comes as Tech Nation and Dealroom launch the Impact and Innovation database, that catalogues 4,939 startups and scaleups, 7,472 funding rounds, and 232 exits of innovative companies addressing the world’s most pressing challenges.
George Windsor, Head of Insights at Tech Nation, commented: “UK impact tech firms have come on leaps and bounds over the last six years – with nearly 10x more investment made into groundbreaking companies in 2020 than 2014. UK tech must continue to play a key part in tackling some of the world’s toughest challenges, including climate change. This revolution is happening right across the country. Tech Nation is pleased to work with some of the leading companies in this space through our world-first Net Zero programme – ensuring that companies working in this sector can scale to have the greatest impact.”
The data also reveals that European startups are more impact-focussed than their global peers. €6B was invested into European impact startups in 2019, making up over 15% of all VC investment in the region. This research shows that what was once fringe investment and innovation activity is finding traction and proven success in Europe, becoming a core part of European innovation ecosystems.
Climate tech startups, which includes electric vehicles, have attracted the most investment within the Impact sub-sector, with European players emerging as global market leaders. European companies working to tackle climate change and its impacts have attracted €9.8B in VC investment in the last five years.
Impact innovation startups are also fueling growth and job creation. Crucially, these startups are actively hiring, the Impact & Innovation database lists over 2,100 jobs in impact startups that are currently hiring in Europe – over 390 of these are in the UK.
The Impact and Innovation platform will bring together startups, investors, non-profits, governments, and corporates in one open-access data-driven platform. The new mapping of the global impact and innovation ecosystem will facilitate data-driven policy and decision making, the sharing of cross-industry knowledge, and will foster the partnerships required to help next generation innovators succeed on the global stage.
While the virus has presented many challenges, it has also opened up opportunities for increased industry security and customer relationships. Agnė Selemonaitė, Deputy CEO at ConnectPay, explains.
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1. Increased industry security
Banks and other financial institutions have been a major target for scammers since the beginning of the pandemic; in fact, cyberattacks between February and April alone spiked an astonishing 238%. The increased volume of threats has encouraged companies to face the situation head-on and implement new safeguards.
“Putting more safeguards in place will benefit market players long after the crisis has blown over, as market players will be better equipped to deal with the constantly evolving digital threats,” says Selemonaitė.
2. Growth of digital payments market
Alongside the World Health Organization encouraging us to go cashless, the crisis has stimulated the growing amount of e-payments. Selemonaitė notes Sweden’s example: amidst the uncertainty, Sweden’s central bank signed an agreement to gain access to EU TIPS platform, which will act as the basis for the country’s own platform for instant payments.
“Sweden’s approach shows that in order to be in a better spot to satisfy increasing demand for faster, more convenient services – you need to be proactive,” Selemonaitė explains. “We follow this approach too; having realised our clients’ needs for greater options amidst quarantine, we integrated more payment methods into our Merchant API.”
3. Accelerating digital banking development
As banks had to severely limit their working hours during the lockdown, digital banking picked up the slack to accommodate the financial needs of people working from home. “As the new wave of customers sieged the system, faster development of banking services took precedence,” says Selemonaitė. In the US alone, over 45% of people have changed the way they bank amidst the crisis, and according to a European customer survey by McKinsey, there has been a 20% increase in digital engagement.
4. Enhanced customer experience
The aforementioned McKinsey survey showed that people who are highly satisfied with their digital banking experience are two-and-a-half times more likely to open new accounts with their existing bank than those who are just just satisfied. The aftermath of COVID-19 is expected to continue down the path of developing simplified UX to attract and retain clientele.
“Although requiring meticulous work, constant UX evaluation can greatly benefit product credibility and client retention, for instance, our first UX update led to doubling our monthly conversions,” says Selemonaitė. “It is likely that we will see a more customer-focused approach in the post-crisis industry too.”
5. A catalyst for fintech companies
The ’08 financial crisis gave a boost for the fintech industry, as, at the time, people were losing trust in the system, and in legacy financial institutions. In the aftermath, some entrepreneurs parted ways with the concept of traditional banking, aiming to present the market with a more technologically sophisticated solution.
“This time, the crisis could have an even greater impact for fintechs, as well as regtechs, as they rely on solutions fintechs can develop,” adds Selemonaitė. “Unfavourable circumstances drive the need to innovate across interconnected sectors.”
Marius Galdikas, CEO of ConnectPay, explains the role of digital finance during a pandemic, and how it has changed society forever…
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Could you tell us a little about your background?
I originally come from the field of technology. I’m a physicist, and I’ve always marveled at engineering and technology – digital technology, specifically. Through the years, I shifted into products and then into fintech, which was very exciting to me, because fintech is about people and technology. It’s about good people that understand regulation, understand business and understand technology. I am now the CEO of ConnectPay.
Data shows that cyberattacks on financial institutions spiked enormously between February and April this year – why is that?
I think the main reason it happened is actually at the core of the pandemic; the pandemic means people are locked up at home, so you end up with many more users of digital financial services than there usually are. Cash is unusable at this time, when you’re locked up, so you have a lot of new customers in digital finance – some of them are tech savvy and others are not. There’s a lot of people that never used digital financial services, and now they must. So you have this influx of customers into the market, that’s number one. Number two, governments reacted and we had these stimulus programs released, which means there’s a lot of funds being distributed through different programs. And many of those funds are meant for relieving the consequences of joblessness.
So you have a lot of new funds moving around and, because all of it is happening in the digital finance area, I think that stirred up the whole fraudster community. Fraudsters are working hard, now, to try and use the situation to steal funds from people, which results in information security threats and cyber attacks. Cyber attacks are means of achieving the goals for fraudsters.
How has cyber security adapted to combat this issue?
It’s a very big challenge to tackle. Number one is, all of the financial services providers that already operate online, they have their assets online, they have the required technology and so on. Could that have been changed so fast? No. Information security requires a lot of work and insight, and it’s a lengthy process to deploy specific tools to combat that. So I don’t think much has changed, but I think a realisation came that fraud prevention is now a very important area.
As well as increased security, what have been some of the digital baking trends since the emergence of COVID-19? How have people changed the way they handle money?
The stride towards a cashless society has obviously been accelerated, forcefully. Some countries and some companies will do better than others, but I think majority of the change is yet to come, because the pandemic will result in economic hardship and economic hardship will result in changes, in innovation, just like we had in the 2008 crisis. That gave birth to Bitcoin crowdfunding, sharing economies – all of that was an outcome of financial crisis, and I think we will see something come up that we cannot even imagine right now. What is the driver for those changes? Previously in 2008, there was a huge loss in trust towards financial institutions. The financial sector was the reason behind the crash, and so trust was lost, and all of these instruments – crowdfunding, sharing economy, blockchain technology – were targeted specifically at, “Hey, we don’t trust financial institutions anymore; what can we do to exclude them from the economy altogether?”
So what will happen now, I think, will be the same, depending on the size of the downturn. I’ve been hearing that in the Western and European developed markets, countries have been hit very hard, financially, by the pandemic. This will continue; there will be financial problems. It’s different because, previously, everybody lost jobs and salaries went down. Now, there’s a different aspect to what the hardship will be like, and it will result in something new.
What are your thoughts on a cashless society? Do you think it’s inevitable or are there barriers? And if it does happen, how far away do you think it is?
I do think it’s inevitable. I think the entire world is going towards a cashless society at different speeds; for example, the Nordic countries are the biggest cashless societies in the world, whereas the UK is probably five years behind them. In the US, cash is still very important –people love cash in the States – so they’re about 10 years probably behind the Nordics. However, the direction is the same. It’s all going towards cashless. The reasons for it is obviously internet penetration and mobile phone penetration – those are the key factors towards how fast will we get to cashless society, country-by-country. But also, what we need to understand is that cashless society also sort of puts a strain on the society as a general, because elderly people might be excluded from this market or might have trouble or problems adapting to the cashless environment. However, sometime, we will all be there.
The push towards the cashless society is driven by two things: one is the new consumer. These are new people, the new generation, and exchanging funds should be as simple as messaging or using social media. So one driver is this new generation that drives the digital economy and the cashlessness, because they live in the digital world. The other part is the actual financial institutions that drive the cashless society, but their reasoning is different – it’s efficiency. They want to cut costs. They don’t want to have physical retail locations. Nobody wants to transport or count cash. There’s fraud issues related to cash, so the financial institutions are driving it from another perspective.
Do you think it’s safe to say that digital banking is no longer a luxury, but a necessity?
Absolutely. We see that the world is much more fragile than we thought. We are all forced to go online, work from home, access our financial instruments from home, shop online, get government funding and stimulus online without going anywhere, and so on. It is a necessity, it is definitely not a luxury and everybody will have to adapt to that. I just hope it becomes less painful for everybody to transition, and that people don’t lose out on their money through fraud.
We spoke to Carlene Jackson, CEO of Cloud9 Insight, about the transformative power of both technology and company culture…
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What led to you launching your business, Cloud9 Insight?
I started Cloud9 about 10 years ago, and it was an opportunity to support small businesses to deploy CRM in the cloud for the first time, because I saw a trend of more and more clients moving to the cloud. There’s an opportunity to help clients with making the most of their data in the SME space, plus they’re able to use Microsoft technology to get more insights – hence the name Cloud9 Insight. At the time, most of my competitors were still looking to sell on premises-software, but I saw a gap in the market.
Historically, what I’d seen with enterprise clients I had worked with, is that CRM projects had been at least a year long, and often you’d question whether the business had moved on since the definition stage of the project, and if it was still fit for purpose. I think projects these days need to be a lot more agile to support clients with business transformation; for me, working with cloud technology allows that agility.
There’s a quote on your website where you say you have a love of change and disruption – what does that mean to you, as a tech leader and expert?
I think it comes naturally to me. I’m moderately dyslexic, and some say that dyslexics are quite creative people. I find it hard to read anything without having a pen and paper in my hand, because I always got lots of ideas, and I think part of the reason that entrepreneurs have often been so successful as dyslexics is that we often think differently. If you look at tackling problems the same way they’ve always been tackled before, then you’ll probably come up with the same answers – but if you can address things differently, then maybe you might come up with a better opportunity.
When I started my business, I moved almost immediately to the Alps; I hadn’t worked in the Microsoft channel, and I had no preconceptions about what did a Microsoft partner selling CRM did. That meant my business model turned out very different to a lot of others. I also recruit a lot of young people into my business – which is why I’ve set up an apprenticeship programme, called Vantage Academy – and having them involved in the business has helped maintain that creative, disruptive model.
So is company culture very important to you?
Definitely. I used to work at IBM, and it was quite normal to travel around different offices around the country, visit your clients and just pop in and hot desk. Depending on which office you went to, some people were a bit more chatty and you got to hear a little bit more about what they’re doing. But what I noticed about my business, as it was growing, was it was becoming departmentalized and siloed in the same way that many of my clients complain about. I didn’t want that; I don’t want the salespeople not working with the support people, or projects people, and so on. There’s so much opportunity to learn when you have conversations with colleagues across different parts of the organisation, and I really wanted to make sure that we worked as a team.
I know you’re a big advocate for diversity in the workplace, and in the general realm of technology – what are some of the benefits diversity can bring?
First of all, organisations need to make sure that the demographics of who they employ reflects the demographics of who you’re selling to, because it’s difficult to understand them otherwise. Certainly in a B2C market, having representation across age groups in your workforce is really important. What I’ve found is that what really motivates the older generation is the ability to be a mentor and a leader to those that don’t yet have the experience. They want to give back.
As for younger people, they have energy, ambition and hunger to pass on to across the workplace, allowing great things to happen, and I think it increases the performance of my overall team. Diversity could also be gender; certainly in many sectors like tech and oil and gas, it is heavily biased towards males, and a lot of my staff do tell me that it’s nice to have a more balanced workplace.
I’m a lot more people centric than maybe a lot of my peers might be; I like to embrace the people and the value of people in businesses, both within my clients and within my own team. That’s really important to me.
You wrote a piece about how working from home is changing attitudes to work, specifically citing children gatecrashing video calls and how that represents how the life part of work-life balance can no longer just be hidden away – with technology supporting people really successfully to work from home, will things ever go back to ‘normal’?
I think there’s no going back to ‘normal’, for sure. The old way is not going to exist at all. There’s two types of businesses: those who are probably kidding themselves and just about surviving, and those who are probably a lot more agile and forward-thinking, who are going to look at the trends that have been happening, jump onto those trends and allow a lot more flexibility around people working from home.
The other great thing about this mobility of the workforce, is that maybe your team don’t even have to be in the vicinity of your office – maybe not even the vicinity of the UK. Maybe we can tap into where the best talent is.
How do you think female entrepreneurship can be encouraged in tech, and other STEM industries?
I love that question. One of the exciting things about me being able to set up an apprenticeship business is I’m definitely going to use my voice and position to be a great advocate for younger females to come into the tech sector. I think there might be a perception that you need to have technical skills, but having great leadership skills, having creative skills are also very important and greatly valued in the sector. It’s just trying to open the younger generation’s mind, especially for young females, as to the skills that they have inherently, in great abundance, how are they valued, and how can they use those skills to make a difference.
And for me, technology is a great enabler of change and making a difference. I’d like to see schools working more with younger people to help them feel confident about working with technology. When I hire people that are fresh out of school, I’m absolutely dismayed by how few skills they have in using technology. That crosses all genders, but it’s really sad to see the percentage of females attending degree courses that are highly attended by males. However, when you look overseas at places like Poland, they have a much greater balance, so I think we have a lot to learn about what is it that overseas countries are doing that we’re not. I suspect that starts at a young age in school, and if we could create more entrepreneurs, then our economy will be much more successful.
So it’s about encouraging STEM topics in schools, full stop, not just for girls but all genders, in order to fill that skills gap.
Yes, absolutely. I think that if there’s more integration between businesses and their involvement in schools, and that opportunities to learn entrepreneurship and problem-solving using technology exist, that might open their eyes.
Ray Stanley, CIO and VP of Marian University, tells us how an IT strategy empowers the student to unlock their true potential.
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Our cover story this month is an exclusive look behind the scenes at Indianapolis’ Marian University to see how its unique technology strategy puts the student experience front and centre. Ray Stanley, CIO and VP of Marian University, tells us how an IT strategy empowers the student to unlock their true potential.
“In higher education, we have many different groups of customers. We have the staff, faculty and students and so being a driver of technology is critical,” explains Stanley. “But you also have to make sure that you’re listening to your entire customer base as a whole and that you’re understanding and aligning with the trends in higher education.”
“In higher education, the industry kind of forces you to go where it needs to go in its offerings,” Stanley explains. “You also cannot force technology and expect adoption. You’re not here to support a business to make a profit, your goal is to support the faculty to instruct a student for successful graduation and it’s a completely different mindset and a completely different model.”
Elsewhere, this month, we spoke to Carlene Jackson, CEO of Cloud9 Insight, about the transformative power of both technology and company culture. Marius Galdikas, CEO of ConnectPay, explains the role of digital finance during a pandemic, and how it has changed society forever. Plus, AgnėSelemonaitė, Deputy CEO at ConnectPay reveals five opportunities that COVID-19 has created for the digital banking sector…
deVere Group reports that enquiries for Vault, its global money app and card service, has experienced a jump in enquiries of 67% in Quarter 3.
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Growing demand for green, paperless banking and fears over post-Brexit rule changes have triggered a “monumental surge” in enquiries for money and challenger bank apps, reveals one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory and fintech organisations.
deVere Group reports that enquiries for Vault, its global money app and card service, has experienced a jump in enquiries of 67% in Quarter 3.
The cutting-edge app allows users to deposit, store, transfer and exchange money in most major currencies. The deVere Vault Prepaid Mastercard®️ can be used online, in-store and at any ATM location across the globe where Mastercard®️ is accepted.
Nigel Green, CEO and founder of deVere Group, which launched Vault in 2017, comments: “The monumental quarter-on-quarter surge for banking-style apps is, we believe, attributable to two main drivers.
“First, individuals and companies are increasingly embracing and expecting green, paperless banking.
“This is partly fuelled by the pressing need for us all to drastically reduce waste and better protect the environment – something the pandemic and issues such as raging wildfires has collectively focused minds on – but also because a paperless system is, typically, a more convenient and efficient one.
“Traditional banks have a long way to go to catch-up with tech-driven challenger banks and fintech [financial technology] firms, which are intrinsically much greener and are leading the charge to a paperless future.”
He continues: “The other major point driving engagement with e-money apps in Europe specifically is that many of the UK’s banks are set to abandon their customers, by closing their accounts and stopping use of their services across Europe within weeks unless they have a valid UK address.
“Under post-Brexit rules, it becomes illegal for UK banks to service customers living in the EU without applying for new banking licences.
“This will cause significant disruption for many individuals, families, businesses and other organisations.
“As such, people are flocking to firms that already operate under pan-European rules.”
The massive jump in enquiries, says Mr Green, underscores that “fintech is the future of finance” – not only for clients’ convenience and efficiency but also, in a large part, because it is more environmentally sustainable.
The deVere CEO concludes: “For Millennials and Gen Z clients especially there’s been a radical shift toward ‘less stuff, more impact’ in banking and financial services.
“And this is just the beginning of this global and far-reaching trend.”
…but just 15% think the Government encourages innovation, research from GovGrant reveals
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Just 15% of UK SMEs think the Government is creating an economic environment in which they are encouraged to innovate, according to new research by GovGrant, the R&D and IP specialists. This is despite the fact that over three quarters of these businesses consider innovation to be important for recovery from Covid-19, reaffirming the disconnect between businesses and the Government support schemes available.
The survey collected the views of over 500 SME decision-makers across seven different sectors. The findings show that whilst 85% of respondents acknowledged the importance of innovation, just 26% felt their current activity was highly innovative.
Luke Hamm, CEO, GovGrant, comments:
“Despite the Government’s R&D Roadmap outlining its commitment to R&D and innovation, our research shows the need for further support when it comes to recognising innovative activity. SMEs urgently need clarity and a common definition of innovation that transcends sectors, geography and generations if we’re going to plug the gap between the support that’s available and how SMEs make use of it. This is particularly true when it comes to IP.”
This might be the result of confusion around the definition of innovation, with respondents split across three different definitions – 42% of respondents said they viewed innovation as tiny and continual changes that happen daily, with the rest saying that it either happened rarely (but made a considerable impact) or occurred sporadically. This disconnect may well be the reason that many SMEs are failing to claim valuable tax credits for their R&D, with nearly a quarter stating they had never done so.
GovGrant’s research also revealed that 43% of UK SMEs do not have anyone in charge of the commercialisation of intellectual property and innovation at Board level. As a result, only a quarter of respondents (24%) thought the main purpose of a patent was to add commercial value, and one fifth said they had no strategy in place to track their IP.
Luke Hamm concludes:
“Innovation has never been more important for creating a resilient and productive economy post Covid-19, especially with Brexit and the end of the transition period also fast approaching. We need to be taking intellectual property much more seriously. The Government must do more to improve awareness and accessibility of its support schemes, including the Patent Box, if SMEs are going to invest in their R&D and thrive. We urgently need to review the patent process and make it attractive on the global stage.”
Nell Walker talks to James Shanahan, CEO Revolut Singapore, regarding a new dawn of digital banking
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“By re-conceiving the infrastructure of a bank, the way that a bank delivers its services, you can take an order of magnitude off the cost and you can bring a level of experience to the customer that’s not hamstrung by old tech, by old thinking, by siloed approaches…” James Shanahan, CEO of Revolut Singapore
We spoke to Carlene Jackson, CEO of Cloud9 Insight, about the transformative power of both technology and company culture
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Interface Magazine hooks up with Carlene Jackson, CEO of Cloud9 Insight, who reveals the transformative power of both technology and company culture…
What led to you launching your business, Cloud9 Insight?
I started Cloud9 about 10 years ago, and it was an opportunity to support small businesses to deploy CRM in the cloud for the first time, because I saw a trend of more and more clients moving to the cloud. There’s an opportunity to help clients with making the most of their data in the SME space, plus they’re able to use Microsoft technology to get more insights – hence the name Cloud9 Insight. At the time, most of my competitors were still looking to sell on premises-software, but I saw a gap in the market.
Historically, what I’d seen with enterprise clients I had worked with, is that CRM projects had been at least a year long, and often you’d question whether the business had moved on since the definition stage of the project, and if it was still fit for purpose. I think projects these days need to be a lot more agile to support clients with business transformation; for me, working with cloud technology allows that agility.
There’s a quote on your website where you say you have a love of change and disruption – what does that mean to you, as a tech leader and expert?
I think it comes naturally to me. I’m moderately dyslexic, and some say that dyslexics are quite creative people. I find it hard to read anything without having a pen and paper in my hand, because I always got lots of ideas, and I think part of the reason that entrepreneurs have often been so successful as dyslexics is that we often think differently. If you look at tackling problems the same way they’ve always been tackled before, then you’ll probably come up with the same answers – but if you can address things differently, then maybe you might come up with a better opportunity.
When I started my business, I moved almost immediately to the Alps; I hadn’t worked in the Microsoft channel, and I had no preconceptions about what did a Microsoft partner selling CRM did. That meant my business model turned out very different to a lot of others. I also recruit a lot of young people into my business – which is why I’ve set up an apprenticeship programme, called Vantage Academy – and having them involved in the business has helped maintain that creative, disruptive model.
So, is company culture very important to you?
Definitely. I used to work at IBM, and it was quite normal to travel around different offices around the country, visit your clients and just pop in and hot desk. Depending on which office you went to, some people were a bit more chatty and you got to hear a little bit more about what they’re doing. But what I noticed about my business, as it was growing, was it was becoming departmentalized and siloed in the same way that many of my clients complain about. I didn’t want that; I don’t want the salespeople not working with the support people, or projects people, and so on. There’s so much opportunity to learn when you have conversations with colleagues across different parts of the organisation, and I really wanted to make sure that we worked as a team.
I know you’re a big advocate for diversity in the workplace, and in the general realm of technology – what are some of the benefits diversity can bring?
First of all, organisations need to make sure that the demographics of who they employ reflects the demographics of who you’re selling to, because it’s difficult to understand them otherwise. Certainly in a B2C market, having representation across age groups in your workforce is really important. What I’ve found is that what really motivates the older generation is the ability to be a mentor and a leader to those that don’t yet have the experience. They want to give back.
As for younger people, they have energy, ambition and hunger to pass on to across the workplace, allowing great things to happen, and I think it increases the performance of my overall team. Diversity could also be gender; certainly in many sectors like tech and oil and gas, it is heavily biased towards males, and a lot of my staff do tell me that it’s nice to have a more balanced workplace.
I’m a lot more people centric than maybe a lot of my peers might be; I like to embrace the people and the value of people in businesses, both within my clients and within my own team. That’s really important to me.
You wrote a piece about how working from home is changing attitudes to work, specifically citing children gatecrashing video calls and how that represents how the life part of work-life balance can no longer just be hidden away – with technology supporting people really successfully to work from home, will things ever go back to ‘normal’?
I think there’s no going back to ‘normal’, for sure. The old way is not going to exist at all. There’s two types of businesses: those who are probably kidding themselves and just about surviving, and those who are probably a lot more agile and forward-thinking, who are going to look at the trends that have been happening, jump onto those trends and allow a lot more flexibility around people working from home.
The other great thing about this mobility of the workforce, is that maybe your team don’t even have to be in the vicinity of your office – maybe not even the vicinity of the UK. Maybe we can tap into where the best talent is.
How do you think female entrepreneurship can be encouraged in tech, and other STEM industries?
I love that question. One of the exciting things about me being able to set up an apprenticeship business is I’m definitely going to use my voice and position to be a great advocate for younger females to come into the tech sector. I think there might be a perception that you need to have technical skills, but having great leadership skills, having creative skills are also very important and greatly valued in the sector. It’s just trying to open the younger generation’s mind, especially for young females, as to the skills that they have inherently, in great abundance, how are they valued, and how can they use those skills to make a difference.
And for me, technology is a great enabler of change and making a difference. I’d like to see schools working more with younger people to help them feel confident about working with technology. When I hire people that are fresh out of school, I’m absolutely dismayed by how few skills they have in using technology. That crosses all genders, but it’s really sad to see the percentage of females attending degree courses that are highly attended by males. However, when you look overseas at places like Poland, they have a much greater balance, so I think we have a lot to learn about what is it that overseas countries are doing that we’re not. I suspect that starts at a young age in school, and if we could create more entrepreneurs, then our economy will be much more successful.
So it’s about encouraging STEM topics in schools, full stop, not just for girls but all genders, in order to fill that skills gap.
Yes, absolutely. I think that if there’s more integration between businesses and their involvement in schools, and that opportunities to learn entrepreneurship and problem-solving using technology exist, that might open their eyes.
Sarah Doherty, Product Marketing Manager at iland discusses how a cloud-based infrastructure can accelerate IT initiatives.
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There’s no doubt about it, we are living in a cloud enhanced world. No matter what is happening in life, whether it’s uploading pictures of the family, keeping track of friends on social media, or working remotely, the fact remains that the cloud is a part of our everyday lives in one way or another.
So why are organisations so hesitant to adopt a cloud infrastructure? From speaking with customers, the reason extends across infrastructure, business as well as, let’s face it, an overall new way of thinking about what is the best way to mitigate risk.
When we talk to business leaders, the idea of moving from a CAPEX model to an OPEX model is appealing for pretty much everything but IT. They still look at IT assets and think about budget cycles and performance/capacity per the pound or dollar. This can put them into situations where they are purchasing hardware on three to five-year cycles, subsequently discovering after two years that the hardware they have invested in isn’t doing what it needs to do. However, at that point, the business is committed.
They may be locked into a certain vendor or platform and the pain of moving seems overwhelming or they may have concerns about moving to the cloud in general. In a nutshell, this approach is not compatible with the flexibility and scalability that many businesses need in their toolkit.
The tangible business benefits of using a cloud-based infrastructure have been heavily publicised of late, with the onset of COVID-19 necessitating a quick and efficient move to the cloud, in order to keep businesses moving. However, implementing a cloud strategy to future-proof an organisation can, not only have top-line operational benefits such as data security, business continuity, resilience, scalability, and accessibility – it can facilitate wider digital transformation strategies.
This will prove crucial to maximising business efficiency and time-to-market of these initiatives, in the event of another worldwide event where physical access to a building is not possible. After all, an organisation’s end users have become accustomed to receiving a faultless service – even during a global pandemic – and would have expected businesses to have learnt their lessons from COVID-19.
Organisations wanting to implement a range of IT initiatives have unarguably accelerated cloud adoption. However, when choosing a cloud partner, they normally express the following concerns around adaptability to the cloud, which cloud providers need to tackle head-on.
Security and Compliance
While it may not be the first thing that springs to mind for IT professionals looking to quickly enact digital transformation strategies, such as building applications that will streamline internal business processes, security practices must adapt as data moves to the cloud. While assets are normally well-locked down, it is easy to accidentally create vulnerabilities in the cloud since customers are responsible for setting many security controls around their apps and data.
All clouds have a different set of best practices and design principles. Therefore, knowing those practices up-front will help cloud admins avoid headaches later. Working with the right cloud partner to plan and then execute a cloud strategy will not only eliminate headaches now and later but will also help to grow the business for the future.
It goes without saying that vulnerabilities must also be addressed as soon as possible. Cybercriminals are currently stepping up their attacks to take advantage of remote employees. Phishing attacks are at an all-time high on small and large businesses, as well as public resources like hospitals and healthcare providers. Therefore, businesses must assign responsibility to an individual or group of individuals to look after the organisation’s data from the onset, especially during the migration period.
There is no time like the present to reinforce an organisation’s IT security and compliance guidelines, many of which include the relevance of when employees travel or occasionally work from home. This includes a refresher on password policies and how to identify and report phishing attempts. It’s important to help employees with securing their home networks, and all the other policies and guidelines they would typically follow at work to protect the company and customer data. This might also be an excellent time to train employees on document and data retention best practices.
Cloud Expertise and Management
Most IT teams are running at full throttle as it is, and the idea of learning entirely new jobs, alongside current tasks, can be daunting. Furthermore, IT managers may be wondering how to firstly move their teams to the cloud, and subsequently get them up to speed quickly and manage projects in the long run, minimising business disruption as much as possible.
A good first step is to implement a robust cloud migration strategy. This will help communicate a clear vision and change management plans to all employees within the organisation, including IT teams at the coalface, demonstrating how the move to the cloud will really help the business, and prove ultimately beneficial in the long-run. For example, key drivers are the need for greater availability, the desire to move from CAPEX to OPEX and the need for greater scalability as the company grows.
Furthermore, the progression from traditional server-based infrastructure to virtualisation and then to cloud involves several mental leaps. The cloud requires an adjustment of mindset and an ability to accept ways of doing things differently. However, this is the only efficient way to take wider business and IT strategies forward. Organisations should start their move with non-mission-critical applications, which are typically the easiest to migrate. The transition of refactoring some applications to function as cloud-native or distributed applications can take more time.
It goes without saying that organisations choosing a managed service provider to manage their cloud migration and ongoing support should lean on their partner as much as possible, especially in the first few months, to help teams get up to speed with new processes and workflows.
It’s all about short term pain for long-term gain.
Cost Control
Understanding all the factors that contribute to billing before an organisation makes the move to the cloud is a must, since cost management changes can lead to problems if they are not understood.
Cloud services are generally billed once a month or follow a pay-as-you-go pricing model. However, users must factor in hidden fees, such as data transfer costs, and additional support and training. These budget surprises can pose a challenge if not addressed proactively.
Organisations should choose the cloud partner that doesn’t spring any surprising extra fees; the best providers should have simple, easy-to-understand invoicing portals and support, where businesses have complete visibility of all costs in one place. This is increasingly crucial as businesses scale their cloud offering up and down – sometimes on a month-by-month basis – with differing costs to reflect this. When scaling in such a way, organisations need to be made aware of how these changes will be billed – i.e. immediately or on monthly terms. Not addressing the finer points of billing can unnerve an organisation who are not familiar with cloud models, or a SaaS approach.
It is important to look past the challenges and focus on the true advantages. The cloud provides a great opportunity to modernise IT infrastructure and gain operational efficiency through cloud-native design practices.
All clouds have a different set of best practices and design principles. Therefore, knowing those practices up-front will help cloud admins avoid headaches later. Working with the right cloud partner to plan and then execute cloud strategies will not only eliminate headaches now and later but will also help businesses to grow in the future through planned digital transformation initiatives that can be executed without the constraints of legacy hardware.
Gobeyond Partners and Webhelp surveyed 500 respondents at director level and above across a range of industries about the impact of COVID-19 on their businesses.
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New research from Gobeyond Partners, the consulting firm focused on customer journey transformation, and Webhelp, Europe’s leading provider of outsourced customer engagement services, has today revealed that over 60% of business leaders are re-evaluating how much they will be investing in change and transformation since COVID-19, yet only a third of survey respondents are committing to a higher spend in this area.
Gobeyond Partners and Webhelp surveyed 500 respondents at director level and above across a range of industries about the impact of COVID-19 on their businesses. By combining Webhelp’s expertise in customer engagement with Gobeyond Partners’ customer journey design and transformation capabilities, the two organisations were able to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 across a number of key areas and offer recommendations to businesses as they start to plan towards a post pandemic world. When it comes to the issue of transformation, the research highlights the value of an intelligent use of rightsourcing* which will be crucial for businesses to establish the most cost effective and relevant solutions to support the flexibility and speed needed during this transition period.
Change and transformation are two of a number of data points highlighted in the joint research and accompanying report by Gobeyond Partners and Webhelp which explores how consumers arenow demanding more human experiences, even in digital environments, and why organisations must balance agility and adaptability against a clear focus on maximising value from investment in transformation.
Mark Palmer, CEO of Gobeyond Partners comments on the findings: “As the urgency for change and transformation intensifies in our new reality, it raises some pivotal questions. How different willservice look and feel in the future? How will businesses and their operations need to adapt? And how can employers engage and support their colleagues to deliver on new customer promises? The engineering of an authentic human experience in the digital world will need a delicate balance, and companies will need to work hard to create service transformation that satisfies both these needs. This may expose a lack of capability and flexibility inherent in many organisations, due to a lack of investment. For brands to survive, leaders can no longer pay lip service to digital transformation and digital must be fully integrated into the overall operating model.”
Other key findings from the joint research include:
70% of businesses have seen a direct impact to their bottom line as a result of COVID-19, with more than half being negatively affected.
These financial impacts are expected to last, with more than 80% of respondents believing they will be financially impacted for six months or more and 50% expecting their finances to be affected for more than a year.
Companies that have been affected negatively by COVID-19 are twice as likely to expect cuts to their transformation budgets after the pandemic has subsided.
Craig Gibson, Chief Growth Officer at Webhelp Group continues: “Overall whilst budgets may reduce, spend on individual change and transformation programmes should not be reduced commensurately. Instead, the entire change portfolio should be reviewed and reprioritised. Now is the time to focus on and invest in a critical, clear and concise set of priorities, which the whole organisation can communicate and contribute to. This will ensure that the most critical agenda items will accelerate, without depleting vital cash reserves.”
Digital strategy is the cornerstone of any business – but how is it driven? Dr. Paul J. Bailo, Global Head of Strategy and Innovation at Infosys Digital, explores digital leadership.
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When it comes to digital leadership, people often become fixated on the software part of that – but you are somebody who believes that the human element is just as important.
Absolutely. I don’t see how any organisation in this current world could survive without a true digital leadership model, when digital is at the forefront of every business. With COVID-19 coming into play and people working from home, you really have to develop your digital talents in relation to digital leadership. How do you become part of an employee’s moral values? How do they hear your voice for leadership and guidance? And how do you do this without physically being next to that person? How do you actually lead in this world of digital without a physical person being there? In my experience, and my own research, one of the critical elements to being a real digital leader is to have vision.
How do I take these pieces of technology, people, and process and look towards the future, allowing us to get from point A to point B, while keeping us moving forward? Six months ago, some people were sort of thinking about digital, some organisations had digital in a box, some people had digital in the corner, and some people didn’t even have a Chief Digital Officer. Fast forward today, if you didn’t have a digital model when COVID-19 hit, you’re dead in the water. That kick in the butt is allowing businesses to see cracks and fractures in their leadership model, that they don’t have a digital leadership framework where they have a vision for digital, and that digital is everything.
What are the most important tools in a digital leader’s arsenal?
Creativity, and a great network. You have to have a big Rolodex; you have to have a big contact list in your phone. You have to have a great network of different people from different areas that you could call upon. You may need people in the artistic world, the academic world, the philosophical world. You may need high-end programmers. You need all these people at your beck and call and you need them to build these solid relationships in order to share the wealth of knowledge.
In my opinion, it doesn’t help a digital leader to network in the same area that they’re familiar with. They have to break out of their own shell and network and build deep relationships, working relationships, outside of their norm. A lot of people say, you’re in digital, so you’re going to go to the digital conference. That’s great; I love to go to the digital conferences, and I love to speak at them.
However, I also go to other conferences, which have nothing to do with digital or data. I’m interested in aerospace, so I go to aerospace conferences to see about what’s happening in the aviation space. I go to museums to see the world differently, where there might be something in that artwork that intrigues me, that gets my brain to be working and thinking about problems differently.
When we start talking about networking, digital leaders need to know that they have to expand their proficiency in networking. They need to look outside what they’re comfortable with.
The way a digital leader thinks is that the day something is successful is the day it’s antiquated, so you have to rewire your mind that it can always be better. And this is not new – this is how nature works, it’s called evolution. Everything is constantly changing for the better, depending on the environment, or depending on the conditions that we’re living in. So when you start thinking about the digital leadership, I don’t think it just comes naturally – it’s an art form. It’s something you have to work on, it’s something you have to rewire your brain for; you have to read about it, you have to be thinking about it, you have to be talking about it, and you have to collaborate with others.
What do you think are some of the pitfalls, or common mistakes people make, when it comes to successful digital leadership?
Great question. Number one is thinking you have the people’s support when you don’t; thinking you actually have the leadership and the inspiration of the people, when you don’t. Thinking that what you suggested works without testing it out and trying it first. Talking without substance or an understanding of the data, and having the ability to talk to people but not really having empathy for them. People are smart, and they want to know that you’re going to walk through fire with them.
The idea of leaders considering themselves to be in a position of power – those days are over. People don’t want that; they want a leader who’s at the front, who’s going to be with them day and night to make sure things work. They want someone to are for and love them, who has the vision, experience and knowledge to assess risks very quickly.
These qualities are not easily found; there’s a limited amount of people who can do this, but if you can communicate digital change and transformation in a way that really touches their hearts – in a way that people understand – they’re happier to take risks. I look for the pebbles in people’s shoes; a lot of people focus on the big pain points and miss the smaller ones, but as a digital leader, you need to understand. Then you can instil in them self-leadership, and show them that you’ll be there to pick them up if they take a risk and fail.
We’re hearing more and more about the advantages of failing, and that it should be seen as testing and progression.
I think we’ve all failed, right? Historically, everyone has failed, but many swept it under the rug because people weren’t rewarded for failing, and looked down upon it, but life is made for us to fail. If you have a newborn baby, as it develops, it starts to crawl. And then, eventually, it tries to stand up and immediately falls down. Then it says, wow, okay, I learned something: let me try this again. They keep trying.
This is who we are as humans. Failure is just part of how we learn; we’ve put a societal black cloud over it, but it’s how we were made. You don’t learn as much in your successes as your failures. So, in looking for a great digital leader, you want to make sure this person’s failed a lot and has been through everything, because that’s the person who sees around the corners.
What are the three most important attributes of a digital leader?
Number one, be human. Number two, have a vision that people can understand and believe in. Number three, be curious about data, technology, the world – be curious about many different things. It could shape your thinking in formulating the best digital transformation solution around.
This isn’t something you become overnight – for the best digital leaders, it’s who they are. They’re naturally curious, they already have vision, they gravitate towards technology and they love people. People have to really want to work with you, believe in you, trust you, and love you to do really great things.
Welcome to another packed issue of Interface Magazine! This month’s exclusive cover story follows the work of Chad Kalmes, Vice President Technical Operations at PagerDuty, to see how the SaaS digital operations management pioneer is supporting digital transformation across the sectors and around the globe…
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This month’s exclusive cover story follows the work of Chad Kalmes, Vice President Technical Operations at PagerDuty, to see how the SaaS digital operations management pioneer is supporting digital transformation across the sectors and around the globe…
PagerDuty is a real-time digital operations company whose platform supports a lot of critical real-time use cases for its customers by sitting at the heart of whatever technology ecosystem that particular customer is using. PagerDuty responds to signals and data from all the different software applications and systems in that environment and helps to proactively and intelligently understand when something is not working appropriately. The platform then helps customers to focus resources in a real-time manner to solve those problems, before they actually become issues or outages. The company is on a dramatic growth curve, with a raft of big-name clients such as Netflix, Peloton, DoorDash and Amex. “I joined PagerDuty about a little over two years ago to help them on that journey of maturing their processes, thinking through what needed to change to make them more successful, and getting them on that path toward public company readiness and ultimately the IPO last year,” he tells us.
Plus, we speak to Alessandro Crisci, Senior VP of IT for Amplifon Americas, who talks digital transformation and how an aging population is more digitally enabled than ever before…
Elsewhere, we catch up with digital guru Paul Bailo, to kick off a trilogy of digital transformation masterclasses. Plus, we list the top five opportunities that COVID-19 has created for the digital banking sector…
“Thecritical piece to any digital transformation, is the planning phase – and it is truly the hardest”
Our Digital Transformation Trilogy continues with Dr Paul J. Bailo, a digital thought leader par excellence, taking us through the importance of planning to a successful digital transformation programme.
Digital transformation is laid bare with an insightful trilogy of podcasts from Dr. Paul J. Bailo…
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“I don’t see how any organisation in this current world could survive without a true digital leadership model.” Dr Paul J. Bailo, Executive – Digital Strategy, Data & Innovation
Dr Paul J. Bailo, a digital thought leader par excellence, takes us through the importance of leadership to a successful digital transformation programme
Over half [55%] of SMEs believe that their competitors have a better digital presence than they do, according to new research by leading creative agency, Sparkloop.
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The research, which questioned 500 decision makers from SMEs across the UK on how much time, budget and resource they have invested into their digital brand presence, also revealed that despite believing their competitors had a better brand presence, 45% of respondents had not reviewed the performance of their website in over 18 months.
In addition, 25% of respondents advised that they rarely, or only annually, make changes to improve the performance of their website to engage potential customers.
When questioned on the level of investment SMEs made into their digital brand, 46.3% advised they invested under £2,000, 53.7% invested £2,500 plus and 10.9% invested £10,000 plus.
However, a quarter [25.8%] of SMEs haven’t invested in their website and wider digital brand presence in over 2 years.
Other key take outs from the research include:
Only 31% of SMEs believe that they have a stronger digital brand presence than their competitors.
44.3% of SMEs have developed their website using ‘off the shelf’ platforms like Wix, Square Space or WordPress, with 31.6% opting for creative and technical input from an external agency.
A staggering 62.3% of SMEs have not taken advantage of tech features, like chatbots, blogs and feedback to increase stakeholder engagement or improve the performance of their website.
This new research comes as the majority of UK SMEs are forced to review and pivot their existing growth strategy following the impact of the current situation.
Gayle Carpenter, Creative Director of Sparkloop, confirmed: “This latest research is incredibly telling and effectively demonstrates that SMEs UK wide do not place enough value into both creating and maintaining a strong brand and digital presence, which could be damaging to their business.
Currently, SMEs are facing the significant challenge of survival following recent events. Those with the strongest brands, an engaging website and integrated digital presence will instil confidence and drive growth, both during and following this time of uncertainty.
For business owners looking to use this time to disrupt and develop, it doesn’t necessarily mean investing tens of thousands into your website and wider digital presence, but it does mean evaluating your brand by ensuring it represents your business and attracts the right target audiences. This is consistently overlooked by the majority of SMEs, as demonstrated by the research, but could be fundamental to future growth and success as we return to some form of business as usual.”
Established in 2004, Sparkloop has successfully delivered bespoke design and communication strategies for brands and businesses across the UK and overseas, with long-standing clients including Red Bull and HomeServe.
Founded by design and branding specialist, Gayle Carpenter, the firm is headquartered in Camden, London, with a South West regional office based in Bath, Somerset.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the agency has launched its Virtual ‘Spark-Up Sessions’ initiative, designed to help businesses quickly solve problems and identify achievable outcomes when establishing a clear and effective digital brand presence.
To find out more about this latest research, download a copy of Sparkloop’s SME Digital Brand Presence Report 2020 at www.sparkloop.com.
Chief Information Officer Philip Clayson is putting digital agility at the heart of the company’s strategic transformation plans for the future, following the recent acquisition of SSE Energy Services by OVO Energy.
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OVO Energy was founded in 2009 and redesigned the energy experience to be fair, effortless, green and simple for all customers. Following the acquisition of SSE Energy Services, today OVO Energy and its Retail partners serve nearly 5 million customers, all striving to deliver more affordable clean energy for everyone.
SSE Energy Services has been supplying power to millions of UK homes for decades. The technology infrastructure within the company had been built and maintained with dependability and assurance at its core.
Clayson is now empowering the 1,000 strong IT team to adopt a learn-fast, fail-fast culture and mindset, while at the same time maintaining the performance and quality of their outputs. Key to achieving this has been extending the company’s partnership with Expleo. Through the adoption of Expleo’ automated testing solutions, SSE Energy Services can now bring new products to market faster, without sacrificing quality.
With customers’ digital engagement increasing and the introduction of smart metering within homes, SSE Energy Services knew it had to focus on digital agility and innovative product offerings.
In order to accelerate this direction, SSE Energy Services appointed Philip Clayson as CIO in August 2019, bringing experience of driving fast-paced digital transformation for companies including News Corporation, BT and TalkTalk.
Clayson said: “With increasing numbers of new digital enabled products to deliver to market, at an accelerated pace, we needed to leverage technology and expertise to help us drive up our competitive advantage and increase our agility.”
SSE Energy Services formed a strategic partnership with Expleo, a leading technology and engineering consultancy. As the two companies previously worked closely together, SSE Energy Services had trust in Expleo’s expertise to help with a key part of the programme. This would help SSE Energy Services maintain performance and quality, but crucially boost agility, shortening product and system releases from several weeks to just a couple of days, by providing a pioneering approach to automation.
Automation first
Expleo was in an excellent position to advise the company on how to best move to a framework that automated the entire testing lifecycle for all of its complex and integrated retail systems.
Julie Heneghan, Client Director at Expleo, said: “Many companies use automation on low-risk, fringe applications and as a result deliver limited value to their organisation. However, our in-depth understanding of SSE Energy Services’ systems meant it was clear to us that an automation-first approach would deliver the biggest possible impact in terms of value.”
To help achieve the transformation, the relationship moved from a standard services delivery model, to a strategic and innovation-led partnership, with SSE Energy Services entrusting Expleo to deliver best-in-class testing and assurance that would reduce the cost and frequency of system defects.
Expleo helps SSE Energy Services to enable mass testing of the software deployed to customers for smart metering. This includes testing the smart meter itself before it’s installed into customers’ homes, to testing the app on the in-home display which helps customers see how much energy they are using.
“Now, instead of a traditional services supplier model, SSE Energy Services works in partnership with us to map out the future IT change roadmap safely in the knowledge that Expleo automatically delivers the quality assurance they need without any effort on their part.” says Heneghan.
Innovation to the fore
To best deliver the benefits of automation and other improvement initiatives in the future, SSE Energy Services and Expleo have created a joint innovation board with dedicated funds to formalise the creation of new ideas and concepts and ultimately put them into practice.
Combining the best of technology and engineering, Expleo is a digital partner for the future for energy and electric vehicle companies. As energy and mobility markets converge, Expleo provides clients with end-to-end expertise in the design, development and implementation of a seamless customer experience. Its track record of delivery in smart energy billing solutions, battery charging technology, electric vehicles and the wider smart grid puts it in a unique position to help its clients innovate for the future.
“Innovation is at the heart of what we do at Expleo,” says Stephen Magennis, Managing Director of Expleo’ s Technology business in the UK. “But for us, it’s about making incremental changes, on a continuous basis, to drive bigger overall gain. This also allows us to monitor and measure each innovation and work out what it’s actually achieved for our client’s business, so we can take a swift decision on whether to keep it or move onto something else that could potentially have even greater impact.”
SSE Energy Services has continuous insight into the progress of testing and innovation through Expleo’s Quality Intelligence Platform (QIP), part of its innovative AI and analytics offering. It monitors execution and results, demonstrating release on release productivity and efficiency gains by aggregating the data into a dashboard, giving a real-time and predictive view of progress, quality and velocity.
Tom Little, SSE Energy Services IT Delivery Manager, who played a leading role in the technical transformation, says: ‘’We want to get our solutions to market quickly, but we can’t sacrifice quality. There are critical journeys where customers rely on us to deliver every single day. Our automation-first approach and partnership with Expleo has helped us to deliver quality to our customers.”
Exceeding expectations
In applying the new automation tooling, SSE Energy Services is already seeing compounded benefits. These include smoke-testing new environments in near-real-time and a reduction in manual test effort of up to 65 per cent. “This enables the SSE Energy Services technology team previously involved in this area to have more time to focus on new initiatives for the company to accelerate the pace of change”, says Clayson.
The direct result for SSE Energy Services is that new customer offerings can be pushed through faster – helping it set the pace in the market. In fact, the speed of output is now 2-3 days, rather than 2-3 weeks or months with an overall cost saving of 60 per cent.
Technology + people + culture = pace
Having the right technological tools is a vital part of any digital transformation. But in order for the investment to be a success, there needed to be an internal shift within SSE Energy Services toward a highly engaged, learn-fast fail-fast culture and mindset.
To this end, SSE Energy Services invested in upskilling staff, including introducing formal accreditation in delivery management techniques such as Agile as well as technological disciplines to increase agility from the bottom up. Expleo aided this programme by providing Scrum Master training to key SSE Energy Services team members, including project managers and product owners.
Industry leading digital transformation for growth
With the acceleration of digital and agility at SSE Energy Services, it is now much more nimble when it comes to dealing with change. This proved crucial with the unexpected arrival of Covid-19. The fact that both internal and external partner teams were able to quickly pivot to operating virtually, with no impact on services, demonstrates that its transformational journey has brought additional benefit to SSE Energy Services and ultimately its customers.
“Our digital transformation means that IT is now an engine for growth and competitive advantage. It enables SSE Energy Services to swiftly respond to change. The team and our partners including Expleo should be proud of being part of what must be the biggest digital transformation the sector has seen due to Covid-19.” says Clayson.
The company’s successful digital transformation, underpinned by its pioneering adoption of automation in partnership with Expleo, means that it is continuing to set the pace of change in the industry.
Dan Jelfs Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Mobica, discusses how we are on the cusp of a connected digital revolution, making technology more pervasive and a key driver of strategic change to businesses and models
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Tell us about your career journey and your experience
I’ve worked in the global technology industry for about 25 years now. I landed in it so by accident, more than design, straight out of university. I’m not an engineer by trade. I went through Business School at university and my first role was at AT&T. I worked a lot in mobile communications and wireless networking in the 1990s. What I found very fascinating, and enjoyed was the way that technology changed people’s lives, usually in a positive way. I also liked the globallness of the industry and the opportunity to work with so many bright minds with different perspectives from around the world. I think fairly early on in my career, I realised I had a passion for innovation and that the large corporate culture that I was in wasn’t going to satisfy that.
I made quite a radical decision around the early noughties to leave a large corporate and move to a venture capital funded startup. It was really looking at the evolving mobile data services market, and what sort of content services could generate viable business models. I really spun through a number of other startup type businesses during the noughties and then joined a software services business in 2009.
I’ve really been doing software consultants and software services now for about 10 years. The reason I made that change is because the mobile devices world which I’ve been very focused on up until then, was to open source with the launch of operating systems like Google’s Android, most prominently in the battery. At a structural change within the mobile communications market that would drive demand for software services within that, I thought it’d be a very interesting journey to go on.
I’ve also got a huge passion for British technology companies. I think there’s not enough British technology success stories within the global technology market. So I joined Mobica about 18 months ago as a vehicle to try and do my bit to change that.
How does that make you the right person to bring about change?
What we move into now is a world of everything being connected and data science and artificial intelligence applications off the back of those things being connected. So I have that core experience around connected software, and then I’m able to help C-levels in companies in other industries that aren’t familiar with connectedness and digital, and bring all that experience to bear to help them on their transformation.
How has the technology conversation changed?
10-15 years ago, I thought the technology industry was far more discrete and defined. And in fact, some industries and many companies really didn’t need to dip any more than their toe into it. I think we’re on the cusp of a revolution now where everything’s connected, and through that the things that are connected we’ll be able to acquire artificial intelligence over time.
I just don’t think there’s any industry or there’s any company within an industry that has been great at embracing that now. I think that’s the fundamental difference for me. There were the technology industries that were more disruptive and defined. Now it’s totally pervasive and it’s a driver of strategic change to businesses and business models and industries. You just, you can’t avoid it, wherever you’re working.
How has the traditional customer changed?
There are more customers that are, as a legacy, not so technically proficient and need support to really understand the potential for strategic change the technology is bringing and how to implement that within their business.
Where does Mobica fit into this technology conversation?
We support customers in two areas, either modernization or transformation in relation to enabling technologies.
Modernization is probably not quite as strategic in context of the transformation piece. Now, a good example would be cloud applications which are quite a trend. In recent years, we’re really moving apps to the cloud. We help companies deal with the technical challenges that this new type of technology brings to the transformation. Part of the work we do is where there’s a combination of new technology that facilitates a fundamental redesign of the business model, and potentially of the structure of the company too. We help them think about the way to design that transformational change/
How do you define transformation?
In the transformation paradigm when you talk about strategic design, you look at what your brand might be in a digital environment or what the business model might be. Often the scenario is that companies are moving from tech non/digital to digital for revenue generation. That can fundamentally change the way they address the customers, the way the brand reaches out. So in many ways, the starting point for me is strategic design and non technical. The outcome of a strategic design process, though, becomes a very technical software engineering implementation.
What are the challenges?
Sometimes I can end up in a conversation and maybe the executives of the company aren’t quite sure, from a business case point of view, when to pull the trigger on a digital transformation… There’s an internal discussion that happens; maybe it’s in two quarters’. 12 months’ two years’ time. I think you could be kind of wrong. If you look at the end destination, you may as well just start into digital straightaway, don’t delay. But I think some internal wrestling around understanding the return on investment is sometimes apparent.
I also think about the cultural change within the technology environment, or the engineering environment of the company. I’m seeing the needs change from very established businesses whose technology hasn’t changed much over a couple of decades to suddenly needing speed, digital and agile. Culturally, from a software engineering point of view, like a Silicon Valley startup, that’s not easy in that it’s quite a barrier to affect change.
How do you go about changing mindsets and enabling a cultural change within a business?
We bring a lot of our learnings from the way we work with companies around the world, anonymized into the discussion to help realise that even though they don’t think they’re on the same page, they’re on a cliff edge. The future is digital, we were able to see some success stories of some really positive digital transformations as well, that you could point to that are often powerful in terms of changing the minds of executives as well.
How important is it to look outside your own industry?
It’s fundamental and there are enough of those kinds of stories in different industries to use already. It’s very helpful within that discussion to point to some very successful digital innovation stories.
It’s important to also look at where things haven’t worked to look at the failures and look at the mishaps as well, as much as you look at these case studies in the success stories.
Is tech replacing people?
Effecting that cultural change with the state in relation to the status quo is just too difficult, will take too long and costs too much. What we need to do is sort of start over and I’ve seen some companies create what are essentially new legal entities and new ventures, and build from the ground up. I’ve seen other companies create digital innovation and disruption units alongside their existing organisational structure and start to see that digital DNA move into the company, but from within what’s exists today.
I’ve also seen others who strategically partner with software services firms to bring that digital agile culture into the mix of their overall software, software engineering and technology capability to drive and effect change in the established culture and established engineering.
How has the supplier relationship changed?
We’re in a process ourselves of moving from a tactical partner to a strategic partner increasingly, and our strategic partners. The different dimension is the buyer is two or three levels higher in the organisation and therefore, either in or close to the C-suite, that they’re looking for long term collaboration and the souls of strategic challenge to their business.
What makes Mobica a partner of choice?
Within our engineering team, we create the space in terms of time invested into internal innovation projects that are really aligned around strategic technology bets that we make in regards to what’s going to be important in the future. If we do that correctly, that keeps us ahead of the curve.
Technology buzzwords?
I talked about strategic design earlier. It’s really that design and planning thing it’s really looking at, where are you and where are you trying to get to and what’s important on that journey. There’s always careful thought and planning before you scale out engineering projects.
Marketplaces change so much that it’s not going to be a straight line, so how do you account for things that aren’t going to go according to plan?
We propose an agile development process and you’re constantly iterating and constantly changing. Whilst you know the general direction of where you want to get to but you don’t necessarily take a stroll along together. So it allows for bends in the road and iterations to design as we go through.
Talk to me about the dynamic between incumbents and start-up companies?
I think enough large established companies have suffered and gone by the wayside. They’ve been cannibalised by a startup coming from nowhere. For everyone to be aware of these larger organisations, they need to create an innovation strategy of their own.
Ideally, you know, if anyone’s going to cannibalise their existing business models, they’d prefer that it was them. So I think there’s a lot more effort and thought put into that and less destruction caused by startups. It doesn’t stop the startups being acquired by some of these companies to complement their digital transformations.
What advice would you give in order to succeed?
Don’t underestimate the value of strategic design before you head out on the engineering journey that follows good design.
Welcome to another packed issue of Interface Magazine!
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This month’s cover exclusive features Dan Jelfs, Senior Vice President of global sales at Mobica, who discusses how we are on the cusp of a connected digital revolution, making technology more pervasive and a key driver of strategic change to businesses and models.
“In the transformation paradigm when you talk about strategic design, you look at what your brand might be in a digital environment or what the business model might,” he tells us. “Often the scenario is that companies are moving from tech non/digital to digital for revenue generation. That can fundamentally change the way they address the customers, the way the brand reaches out. So, in many ways, the starting point for me is strategic design and non-technical…”
“Sometimes I can end up in a conversation where maybe the executives of the company aren’t quite sure, from a business case point of view, when to pull the trigger on a digital transformation… But often, when you look at the end destination, you may as well just start into digital straightaway, don’t delay.”
Elsewhere, SSE Energy Services reveals how its pioneering adoption of automation is underpinning an industry-leading transformation that is setting the pace of change in the energy sector. Plus, we have exclusive insights from business leaders at Union Bank, Radius Networks, DeKalb County and Sij Group. And we outline 5 industries predicted for growth post-Covid…
Pat Lynes, Founder & CEO at S&S, explores how the concept of transformation has redefined the workforce economy
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Tell us about your background and your career journey prior to S&S…
It started off with telco recruitment, working with some of the big ISP brands in the UK when there was that Internet Service Provider explosion, so I worked with the EZ net board to help them build their capability to try and make a mark in the UK. Of course it did quite successfully, and then Sky bought them out and then that turned into a big integration point programme which I resourced. Fundamentally at the heart of it was always speaking to boards, finding opportunities and problems and then connecting groups of people to solve those problems but with a recruitment angle on it.
Where did S&S come intothe equation?
I was privileged to be headhunted to come over and work for a guy called Simon Fosse. There were four of us around the table. We wanted to do something fundamentally different in the market. We are a collection of senior knowledge workers and senior recruitment. So over a sort of six and a half year period, I grew that particular business, from scratch to an eight figure revenue business and we did really well. We work with boards and help people like Burberry become a digital first organisation, working alongside their CIO and putting in different project teams to deliver their digital programmes. And I love it. That’s exactly what I love doing and I think towards the back end of that
I started to fall out of love with traditional recruitment. I think that the actual model is getting disintermediated. What I was seeing in the market is what not a lot of people are talking about right now, which is this jobs revolution at the senior end of the market.
So a lot of people talk about the gig economy, and the sort of low end of the gig economy. But there’s absolutely this explosion around this expert revolution, this interim revolution of executives and senior knowledge workers leaving the permanent world to trade via their IP and value and building a service around that and becoming independent experts. So I kind of saw a few things intersecting at once, which was this interim revolution of senior knowledge workers becoming independent experts coming into the market. That’s how I’ve always been successful in my career serving that market.
The other thing was management consulting fatigue. So if you look at the traditional route to getting consulting advisory and then delivery of big programmes or big digital transformation probes, people traditionally went for the Big Four or the Big 10. And I think fundamentally now what we’re finding is a lot of people are starting to back off from using those channels for a number of reasons. So I kind of had this idea in my mind of what if I brought all of the experts I’ve used over the years into a community based approach to consulting and working with clients. Could it be a challenger service provider to some of the Big Four, the Big 10, larger consulting providers? So it really came from that spirit of uniting my network already into a services business to fundamentally help organisations transform. I’m pleased to say we’re just out of year three coming into year four. We’ve gone from strength to strength and we’ve really hit a tone in the market
What has changed over the course of your career?
Earlier in my career, transformation was synonymous with a multi-year Big Bang approach. I think the thing that we see around the way that transformation is being perceived is that there’s a lot of fatigue about that kind of word these days. When I go into these big businesses, if you say the word transformation, you can just see the fatigue on their face, or they’ve been through so many different transformations.
I think the word transformation is just overused. People might be putting the data centre into a cloud, they call it transformation. They might be doing a desktop refresh, they’re calling a transformation. I think the word transformation probably needs to be retired. But back in the decade of 2000 to 2010 transformations were big, multi-year things where benefits were not derived until three or four years down the line. I saw a lot of businesses that would spend and invest so much money in those big initiatives for it not to work or to not deliver the intended benefits to the board. I think when you look at the decade that came after the first decade of this century, you only need to see the gradual shift in pace. One is the aggressive shift in customer preferences, the unforgiving landscape in business now. If you look at the shift from the first decade, if you said that Toys R Us or Blockbuster would be obsolete in the last decade, you’d have probably laughed. You’d have probably laughed if we said Thomas Cook would be obsolete at the end of the last decade. The other high profile casualty Carillion from a b2b perspective and more recently with Mothercare. I think the trend was absolutely more long term programmes and long term transformation.
S&S was formed based on this shift, where businesses need to break that down into manageable chunks to keep the business invigorated and aligned and onpoint, where you can actually deliver the sum of a transformation every 90 days by incremental bits of value, that give business benefit to the board, the customers, the internal stakeholders, etc.
The other shift focuses on talent and the changing work in preferences. There was this big thing to build huge permanent workforces. I don’t get that anymore. I just don’t get why you want to own your talent. Is the word permanent? Should that be retired? What does permanent actually mean? I think the new generation coming through doesn’t want to be permanent. Millennials don’t want to be permanent. The generation after that are now starting to want to become executive gigs or you know, experts where they want to have a fractional relationship with their work, they want to do gigs and fluid gigs and go into organisations and not get caught up with the company political drag and just trade value and do the stuff that they love. So they’re starting to design work around what they love doing. Baby boomers are just realising that I don’t want to retire. I think this changing workforce, this changing opportunity, this changing landscape that’s going around from the industrial way of working to the future of work is really going to accelerate this decade.
When I started, no one really designed anything around the customer. Now the companies that are winning are designing everything around the customer. You hear of great examples like giffgaff using the power of the crowd to get iterations and feedback on their products and services. So using the network effect to enhance and build their products and services right in the sweet spot of what the customer wants.
When I designed S&S I resigned from my former company and resigned as a board director. I spent three months interviewing my executive network, just asking about the current state of affairs and looking to get a capability. What do you like? What don’t you like? What frustrates you? If you had a magic wand, what would be the ideal solution? When I launched the business, the first products programme in a box that we were bringing to market was programme management in a box where we come and deliver the outcome – and we tested it first. My network said they didn’t really see themselves on that path – a commodity. I got the feedback, tweaked it and then came back with ‘teams as a service’. Teams have interim experts designed around an outcome or a problem. So it’s a mission based team to be deployed into an organisation to help them have an innovation capability. Help them have an incumbent change capability, so they can constantly reinvent themselves, turn around a failing programme, align the board, etc.
How does anyone go about defining digital transformation?
Transformation again, is synonymous with trying to transform a legacy laden organisation. So it’s an organisation that probably on the whole was born in the last century. So they’re geared for the Industrial Revolution. They’ve got higher hierarchies. They’ve got an obscene amount of technical debt, they’ve got a vendor lock in with some of the big guys and the big software packages. They’ve got legacy people skills and people in roles that might have been there for a bit too long and legacy leadership and on the whole that causes a lot of ambiguity and confusion. They’re trying to transform soup to nuts in an organisation born in the last century and decentralise it to an organisation that’s fit for purpose or designed around products and services with business agility in the core. This is incredibly hard. Some of the traditional consultancies will go in and sell you a playbook that might work in one of your competitors. But when it’s actually shoved into organisation it will not work because you’ve got cultural nuances and other nuances that are just difficult to decipher unless you’re in there and you’re trying to really get to the bottom of what’s going on.
So invariably, what we see is the older ways of consulting have not solved this problem. Because if they had done, we wouldn’t be having all these companies that are starting to die, or starting to have consecutive years of declining revenues.
Problem number one in organisations is often that the boards are under so much pressure, they’ve got so much operational drag on their time. They might have city pressures. They’ve got issues going on in their business. They’ve got failures, they’ve got burning platforms and they’ve got people issues with miscommunications going on and people leaving people joining. I could go on and, and that’s actually really hard for that level of executive to actually get some time to think about where our business should go.
We start off with getting executive groups to stop and we bring them into our workshop environment. What does the future look like for your business? Do you have the right strategy? What does the customer of your future look like? Where would you like your company to be in three or five years? What does it look like? What does it feel like? How are your customers? How are your people feeling? How do you constantly iterate in accordance to market conditions? What kind of talent have you got? What is the baggage in the old company that you never want to have again?
It’s a concept of reverse engin eering the future rather than trying to fix the past? What I find with transformations these days is that a lot of them are trying to fix the past before they can even get to the future and by then they’ve lost two or three or four years and they’ve actually got no value into the business and they’ve wasted a lot of money. The organisation is completely fatigued with transformation and change. They don’t actually have a muscle in the business of how to change after they’ve done it, because they’ve been heavily reliant on the management consulting drug. We try to turn all of that stuff upside down and actually get them to think. So if there is a discovery process, we have our IP of how we do it. At the end, there is a point of view, a solution, a roadmap and a way.
It’s getting them to come together and go through that process. They’ve all got equity in that process and they all feel like it’s their idea, because eventually, invariably it is and we’re adding points of views. We’re adding expertise and we’re facilitating. We also find that’s what actually gets the board and the leadership teams aligned. If I think about some of the problems I see in transformation, digital transformation, business transformation, it might not be the right strategy, the board might not be aligned. We’ve seen it before we get sponsored to go in somewhere and then the sponsorship dies. So the business doesn’t follow through on it. But if you get the board aligned with the right strategy for the right transformation, get them ready for change, execute outcomes every 90 days – then everyone in the business starts to get confidence that it’s moving in the right direction and can visualise the work around the organisation.
Long gone are the days where you’ve got racks and racks of people where no one’s talking to each other. As a recruiter, you could imagine that I’ve been into thousands and thousands of businesses and most people are dead behind the eyes in the middle of the company. They’re just coming in doing their nine to five, tapping their keyboard, doing a bit of work, finding a bit of politics and falling out with someone. It’s not all doom and gloom on the whole in my experience but there’s a lot of bloated organisations where it is like that. There’s too many people doing too many things. They’re not talking to each other, and then they’re not collaborating. We find if you visualise the work at board and leadership level, and bring the work to the people, and carbonise everything so you’ve got a flow of work going through and there’s collaboration and cross functional teaming that’s delivering value to a customer. Then you have a cross functional team delivering value to an internal customer, cross functional teaming, where the execs and the leaders are working with the staff, and you really get the whole organisation aligned to get into their intended state.
I have business coaches, and I’ve had life coaches before, so I’m probably the product of coaching. I made a decision when I was 28 to just try and be someone of growth and be an individual who has a growth mindset and I don’t know all the answers and I need help. I need to be on the hook sometimes for improvement and to sustain some of the gains that I’ve made. So why don’t we have that in companies? We’re starting to see now where we’ll put a board coach alongside the board. We have enterprise coaches, we put across the leadership teams can bang coaches and agile coaches and flow coaches working with the organisation. So it’s that kind of coaching concept that we see in the individual market coming into the business world and I’m a massive advocate of it.
It starts to bring in the concept of continuous improvement and continuous reinvention. And knowing that your last 90 days isn’t gonna be as good as your next 90 days, in terms of you as an individual or you as the business and in terms of how close you are to the customer in terms of the health of the organisation.
Paul Bailo, PhD, MBA with a clinical degree in social work is a graduate professor at Columbia University and an executive working on combining digital transformation, digital strategy and data analytics into one powerful solution.
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How would you describe your work?
I like to say 90% of my job is saying no in a very nice way (ha ha) so organisations really get to the point very quickly and understand new models in this digital world. Because what has worked in the past, will not necessarily work in the future. It is a completely different paradigm with organisations in the financial world. And in the insurance world and in the government, and in fintech and banking. They all need to actually start thinking differently. My world is really like a Venn diagram, where I have my academic Columbia University educational world, where I’m pushing really hard trying to build a future data scientist. And my executive world, where I’m trying to educate executives and help them with their corporations and companies to be more effective.
How would you describe a digital transformation?
I think we first have to define digital for a company. And I think digital really is that heart of why a company exists, and what really matters. And it’s really not about the company, but it’s how you perceive the client you’re working for. And how do you make that customer experience greater in a very transformational stage. Looking at that customer journey, and how you make the person’s life easier, simpler and better. Because I think when you start talking about digital and digital transformation, I think everyone has a different definition of it. Neither are they right, neither are they wrong. I think it really comes down to the customer, and how you use digital. And when I say digital, I mean digital data, innovation, transformation, pushing forward in order to help organisations make unbelievable customer experiences, which then makes a happy customer, which then allows the organisation to build a loyalty bond with that customer and then drive revenue. My fundamental belief is, feelings drive actions, actions drive productivity, productivity will drive revenue. And if you don’t have a happy customer then the whole system falls apart. How do you look at data digital transformation to make your customers’ lives a hundred times better?
The customer journey has become a massive buzzword in recent years and certainly influences many digital transformations…
Oh yeah. Andrew, you make a really good point. It’s all about the competition, but it’s all about the new people, your new customers. I mean you have millennials, and young people and they are transforming every industry on earth. They’re not putting up with things that maybe you and I would put up with. The minute they don’t like something, they’re gone. One extra click, one extra step. And also, if the companies aren’t loyal in making their lives easier for them, they’re gone. When you look at the data, millennials hate banks and insurance companies. It’s terrible. They would rather bank at Google, Yahoo or Facebook to have a greater allegiance to the tech companies than the traditional banking corporations. When you look at the data, these large monolithic companies aren’t really engaging in the digital arena with these digital natives. Their customer base is dying off rapidly. And the only way you’re really going to get them back is to really understand that customer and how you make their lives easier.
So legacy institutions need to start being less risk averse?
Yeah, definitely. You’re better off making a wrong move than no move. Right? You’re going to have to start thinking about it. I think you really have to start thinking about this idea of a digital leader. And the first idea is that a digital leader is a human being. And how do you make someone’s life easier and better? But now I think you have to make sure these organisations have a culture that’s really supporting this idea of digital transformation throughout the enterprise. Sometimes you may have the will and you want to have the skill. So if you have the will you could always buy the skill or get the skill, to understand the version of a digital leader and what is it going to take to mastermind this cultural transformation. Or you have the skill, and don’t have the will. And that’s what I see a lot of, where people just don’t want to do this. Because the world is tough and most people don’t want to change. And we’re talking about a fundamental paradigm shift in the thinking of how most organisations behave. If you take banks, imagine you grew up in a bank, you spent 20 years at a bank and now you’re saying why are you even building a branch? This morning, I went to the bank four times today, I never even left my office. I don’t think this idea of a bank and branches exists today. You don’t need branches to do what you need to do. And these are fundamental paradigm shifts that have to occur in the world. And millennials, mobile technology, 5G… I mean the world is shifting drastically. And the underlying business models don’t hold true anymore. The things my parents told me to do, or not do, are exactly the opposite of what people do today. My mom would say, “Hey Paul, don’t go into a stranger’s car.” And what do we do now, we use Uber and Lyft and we go into strangers’ cars. “Don’t stay at a strangers house.” What do we do now, you have Air B&B. The models have shifted drastically.
How important is the customer journey and trust?
Make it easy for the customer, and then behave in a proper manner, and then actually build the trust and be transparent. Look, you don’t have to be all things to all customers. And if you can’t do what you want them to do, the fair answer is we don’t do that. It’s just simple, just don’t do it. If you’re looking for an electrician and you’re a plumber, don’t try to be an electrician. You’re just going to get yourself electrocuted. It doesn’t pay.
Talk to me a little about your ideal digital leader…
When you start thinking about digital transformation, it’s about having the right digital leader, and having a digital leader who’s actually human. You have to understand human behaviour and embrace that, and then make a bridge between human behaviour and the digital world, that’s the first thing. The digital leader has to be this visionary. You can’t just have these ideas of where you want an organisation to be, you want them to be able to share. And grab people in the organisation to share this vision, and this belief and get people excited about it. To actually feel and taste this vision of digital. And then you have to walk the talk. You can’t just be saying, “Here’s the vision, let’s go do this.” You have to show people, and you have to define it for the organisations. And what does it really mean for people in the organisation to be a digital organisation. American Express had this model and behaviours of what they wanted for an executive and this was transcended down to every person. This is what it looks like, this is the behaviour. This is what the digital leader has to do in order to transform and get a company ready for digital transformation. And when we talk about transformation, it’s really rooted in this idea of change.
And change is really one of the hardest things in the world do…
But the funny this about digital transformation/change, is we change every minute, every day. Change is a constant in our lives, but we sort of deflect it, and we’re afraid of it, as opposed to embracing it. Obviously within leadership you have to be a change agent and understand that this is not going to be easy, and don’t sugarcoat it. You have to be with the people, understand the people and hear them out. Make sure you have their heart, minds, and souls, and then build that plan, build that vision. Share in that. Talk the talk, walk the talk. And then really inspire people and make sure that you’re holding hands and walking forward together in the dark. The simple task of harnessing this brain power, and then winding people up and letting them go is so important. Why are you hiring really good people if you’re not going to really trust them and let them do their thing.
Leadership is so important isn’t it?
Yeah, you have to be bold and get a person who sees the company differently and who has the experience as a digital leader and understands human behaviour, innovation, technology and the customer experience. And that could lead and change the organization. You have to be a change agent. If you’ve been in the company 20 years, you’re going to think a certain way. And that’s the same way you always have. You have to radically change the way you’re thinking, and deal with the fact that this will not be easy. And be clear in terms of what you want. The DNA of digital has to be part of everyone’s mindset in order to make this work. Digital’s in the corner right there. And then you have technology in the corner over there. And then you have marketing over there. They all have to be digital. They all have to be under one roof and playing the same game. And having the right objectives is integral and identifying what those objectives are. Is it the enhancement of the customer experience? Is it digital transformation business processes? Is it the simplification of a service management system? Is it the optimisation of infrastructure? Is it the insights and the analytics that will drive competitive advantage? You really have to focus in on what you’re trying to do. You can’t just paint with a broad brush; you have to have these identifiable objectives attached to your long-term vision in order to transform these organisations. The elephant in the room here, is of course, the technology… You really want to make sure you have the right technology in order to enable this transformation. And what I’ve see a lot of times, is that people are selecting the wrong technology stack. I think a lot of it has to do with the fear of change and the fear of failing. Failure is critical piece that you have to embrace. Because you will fail, you’re going to have problems, this stuff’s not easy. The quicker you can embrace this, the quicker you can get over it, and move the organisation forward.
Interface Magazine talks to Vladimir Arshinov, IT Director at steel producer SIJ Group regarding the company’s massive digital transformation
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Going into 2017, SIJ Group (Slovenian Steel Group) – Slovenia’s biggest steel producer and one of the largest manufacturers of stainless and special steels in Europe had typical IT structure with semi-independent IT departments on each plant. And like many modern enterprises, SIJ was at work drafting a strategy to transform its operations, systems and processes into a more unified structure in a bid to improve productivity, safety and the all-important bottom line.
Vladimir Arshinov is SIJ’s IT
Director and his initial focus in 2017 was trained on the digital
transformation of SIJ’s IT department to a more transparent organization with a
clear workflow. Previously, IT was a department of innovation with each individual
plant having its own independent function, none of which connected with each
other, often across varying geographies. “This meant that lots of efforts were wasted
solving the same issues with different solutions,” Arshinov reveals.
At the end of 2017, SIJ
established a Project Management Office. PMBOK was selected as a master
methodology and the Head of PMO received PMP certification and developed
internal regulation documents, rules and methodology. After finalizing the
initial establishment phase, hiring project managers and the organization of
the operational work, SIJ came to the conclusion that to raise the scope and
complexity of the projects program, they needed a tool. The MS Project
Management Server was duly selected and implemented allowing SIJ to simplify
observation of the progress of projects and control, while ultimately reducing
duration. Project team meetings were almost eliminated, and the distribution,
control and execution of project tasks, were assigned to the project team
members who managed and controlled projects including budget consumption. Each
project member would then be measured for effectiveness.
Turning the IT department
into a leaner function was a massive first step for SIJ as it needed a firm
foundation upon which all future innovation could sit. And so, the next step in
SIJ’s internal IT transformation was aimed at the most sensitive and critical
area: software development. As with many metallurgical companies SIJ had a bulk
of different IT systems, which were supplied or developed in the past and had
to be either permanently supported, or, due to the business requirements,
changed. One concern with the legacy system was the reliance on locally based
productive software developer engineers developing new solutions and then,
after, supporting them, resulting in a massive drop in development speed, as
development and the subsequent support increased. This situation was causing
overloading, burnout and frustration, triggering a desire to change something;
sometimes resulting in employer change. However, SIJ IT considers people as its
major asset and were determined to break the vicious circle of “one system
– one person – forever”.
“What we did from an organizational point of view was to unify all geographically distributed developers from 4 different companies into the several virtual groups in each department,” Arshinov explains. “Each group has a Team Leader role, who assigns tasks to the group members and controls the execution of each individual task.”
Development
at SIJ is now organised according to an agile approach using scrum boards and
Microsoft Project Server to control all the time sheets of the people involved
in the projects, plus their schedules and budgets. SIJ uses
Microsoft Azure DevOps Server for unified storage of inter-company source code
and Change Request Scrum board monitoring and control. Process and technical
solutions now allow SIJ to involve external software development partners into
the development process while controlling their activities, deliverables and
costs. Developers can now use the Azure DevOps Server
with the scrum board and are now able to register change requests in their
system by themselves, where they see the progress of all individual change
requests coming through the process with the integration of the IT Director
informing the exchange and updating the status of the task development.
In October 2019 SIJ revamped
and migrated its Corporate Business Intelligence system to a new MicroStategy
platform. The project took six months and provided SIJ with an extensive
corporate Business Intelligence system with more than 180 different dashboards
covering production, finance, sales, procurement, HR, Legal and investment
functional areas. The overwhelming majority of the data now uploads
automatically and the business intelligence tool has
created a unified reporting system across the group utilizing the same source
of data in order to integrate it. “There was huge involvement of the business
customers with Oracle BI and this year, we moved to this new platform,”
Arshinov explains. “The front end of the system was changed (from Oracle BI) to
MicroStrategy for usability and a unified interface. Now, SIJ has a system that
looks the same no matter the device it’s accessed from. This project allows us
to organize and develop the team that tests the trial usage and develops the
processes of the PMO (Project Management Office) inside the IT function.”
The BI System contains the
entire spectrum of corporate data and allows SIJ to move quickly and
transparently when taking a management decision, while reducing the number of
mistakes, misunderstandings and time-consuming meetings.
The next system to be unified across the group was the Salesforce CRM system, which is now fully integrated. Then, an Oracle supplier portal followed, which opened the possibility of organizing tenders, thus massively simplifying the purchasing process. Oracle Innovation Management is another successful implementation, which, although a relatively small project, has had a big influence on the business transformation and innovation through increased flexibility. “It is also used to motivate people to suggest improvements and new innovative ideas,” he says.
So,
what have been the major successes, according to Arshinov, following the
ongoing digital transformation at SIJ? “The main difference between now and
then was that each individual company was living alone, and I see now that the
IT function in this case is unifying the people and allowing them to speak in a
single language. It doesn’t matter if it’s a steel center or a big plant,” he
explains. Costs have been dramatically reduced too, outsourcing being a prime
example. In 2016, SIJ was spending more than 70%
annual budget for operational external services.
For 2020, that part of budget reduced to 40%. Meanwhile, the capital investments part of the
budget has grown from 4% in 2016 to 56% in 2020.
The
implementation of a Supply Chain Planning system (from Quintiq) incorporating
the Oracle Business Suite, has improved the delivery, safety and performance of
SIJ’s plants. “We improved Delivery Performance OTIFF (on time and in full) of
a stainless steel plant by 12.8% in six months,” he enthuses. “And we shortened
the production cycle by 15,4% from ordering to shipping, which is a brilliant
result within six months of going live.”
In
SIJ Matal Ravne has replaced the melt shop technology system and entire plant
manufacturing execution system to replace the obsolete legacy system – which
had zero planning functionality – with PSI Metals. “First of all, we’re increasing the level of understanding
and the knowledge of the internal IT team, while dramatically decreasing
project cost by involving internal specialists into the supplier team. That
allows us to save several hundred thousand Euros of project budget and it’s a
win-win situation for the supplier as well. First of all, the supplier is
receiving our team, which knows the production and the limitations and has
extensive inside knowledge. At the end of the day, the commercial value, in
this case, is the cheaper price. Cheaper than anybody else is able to receive.”
Another
and no less important project for Sij Metal Ravne is the joint development work
with Comtrade Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). Laboratories in
metallurgy companies are complicated and highly demanding environments with
unique processes required for quality control of all products and this solution
covers and improves core laboratory processes and will be highly integrated
with the PSI manufacturing execution system from one side and Oracle ERP on the
other.
Through this massive digital transformation, SIJ has also managed to increase quality control through sophisticated AI, which has massively impacted its operations. The acquisition of scrap metal, a major influence on SIJ’s bottom line, can now be influenced through advanced detection systems that can detect impurities, thus representing huge savings when it comes to procurement. “The conservative saving is €1.4m,” he says.
The
digital transformation at SIJ is touching every aspect of the company’s growth and
is certainly an ongoing journey rather than a destination. “We are not an IT
company, that’s understood,” Arshinov says. “But we are supporting services
inside the business, and of course our main concern will always be supporting
the production of steel. But we’re not there yet.”
Leveraging Radius Networks location technology for curbside pickup, in-store order delivery, and payments.
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Technology has and always will be used to solve problems. At the very basic level, technology is developed and used to make things simpler. Just look at our day to day lives and the way that technology has, for the most part, made our experiences simpler and this has changed the way we as consumers engage with retailers and restaurateurs. We now expect and outright demand that the businesses we enter and purchase food and items from offer the same level of seamlessness that we experience in our own homes. The interesting thing however, is that this isn’t necessarily a new challenge for restaurants and retail stores; these businesses have been looking to enable the most seamless and effective customer service since the very beginning. The only real thing that’s changed is the tools that they have at their disposal.
“At the end of the day, I think this goes for business philosophy in general, you really need to understand the problems that your customers have, and then solve them,” explains Marc Wallace, CEO and Cofounder of Radius Networks, a location technology service provider. “In our case, customers are businesses, such as restaurants, grocery stores, retailers or casinos; so we are targeting very specific problems. In most cases, those problems are taking wasted time out of the equation.”
Picture the traditional, and maybe even stereotypical, restaurant environment, where a food order is ready to go to the table and the service staff has to locate and identify the corresponding table to that order. In some instances, more than most, they may even walk throughout the entire restaurant before arriving at the right table with the right customer. Through wireless-enabled location technology, Radius Networks has transformed the customer experience by allowing businesses to track customers, improve profit margins and ultimately increase customer retention.
Customers have, and will always, vote with their feet, and in order to retain those customers, businesses need to be able to remove the pain points. As Wallace noted, wasted time is one of the single biggest pain points in customer service. Radius Networks offers location-based curbside pickup, in-store and table service solutions, as well as mobile payment technology to remove not only the one pain point, but multiple pain points. “We’re addressing other key problems, such as payments. When you dine-in at a restaurant and are in a hurry to leave, trying to get your server’s attention to pay for your bill can be frustrating for the customer. It leaves a bad taste in their mouth at the end of their dining experience,” says Wallace.
“We’ve developed solutions for making payments remotely without contacting the server. The server is notified when the bill is paid, and they can focus their attention on real problems that other customers have instead of shuttling credit cards back and forth.”
At the time of writing, the world has been gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, a truly unprecedented event that has completely devastated lives and economies all over the world. It has also completely ripped up the rulebook when it comes to food and retail, with lockdown restrictions forcing businesses to either close down entirely, or pivot to delivery services. Radius Networks’ FlyBuy curbside pickup solution was actually launched over 12 months ago, but it has fast become a key technology offering that is solving an unforeseen problem. By automating the curbside delivery service for customers, FlyBuy provides a turnkey, end-to-end solution that uses the customer’s location for a faster, easier order pickup experience. “There was already a pre-existing return on investment (ROI) with FlyBuy because we were reducing the wait times for customers when ordering for pickup, which results in more frequent visits” says Wallace. “Throughout this pandemic, curbside delivery has become the only channel that people can do, so the importance of it has risen dramatically. It was once within a business’s top ten things it needed to consider, and has now risen to the very top of their to-do list.”
Radius Networks is currently offering a free version of both its FlyBuy curbside and buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) software for restaurants, retailers, and non-profits during the COVID-19 crisis.
By its very definition, location tracking technology appears to be very intrusive. It is tracking locations and using that data to inform decision making, after all, and naturally that can cause a little fear and a hesitation. Wallace acknowledges these concerns and understands them wholeheartedly. “We had a decision to make early on in the company whether we were going to harvest data and use it for marketing purposes or whether we were going to be a privacy-centric company and focus on providing a solution,” he says. “We chose to be a privacy-centric company, mostly because all of us as individuals wanted that for ourselves.”
“When it comes to us as a location company, are very transparent with our customers and our businesses, so that they can be transparent with their consumer customers about what we’re doing with their location data, what we’re using it for, and how long we’re keeping it.”
This transparency is built into the very DNA of the company. FlyBuy will only ever use the location data to alert restaurant/retail staff that a customer is on the way and onsite to pick up their order, and only after the customer has opted-in to sharing that information. After a period of time has passed, they will then delete that data entirely. Its policy dictates that it does not, and will never, share that data with any third party, giving customers peace of mind that their data is safe and used only as agreed when they opt-in. Wallace believes that, while the reluctance and fear is understandable, consumers have access to services’ policies and can ‘do some homework’ in order to allay them. “I think, given the amount of options we are given today, customers can no longer just assume every location company is tracking or doing something devious with their information. They need to be aware when they approve location usage and when they don’t,” he says. “If they can be sure that sharing their location brings value to them, whether it be to have a car service come to their exact location, or their groceries meet them at their car immediately upon arriving in the pickup zone, they will happily share their location. Once they have established a level of trust in the people that are requesting location permissions, and see the benefits it brings to their lives, there is no problem.”
Radius Networks was founded in 2011, and for the best part of a decade, it has grown from strength to strength as a business, working with the likes of McDonald’s, Five Guys, and Coca-Cola, as well as being recognized in the INC 500, the Deloitte Fast 500, and the CIO Magazine’s Most Promising Digital Experience Solution Provider. But none of these successes would have been made possible, without a solid and sound foundation within the business. “I’ve been told by people ‘wow you guys got really lucky.’ Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it. Our mission is to solve problems for businesses, and right now businesses need our help more than ever. There were a lot of really difficult times over the years where we worked hard and earned the right to stay in the game, and we are once-again earning it right now,” says Wallace.
“Take FlyBuy as an example. I’ve been asked as to whether I thought this piece of technology that we developed over the last few years would ever be as important as it is right now. Yes. Yes I did, and so did everyone else on our team, and that’s key to our success as a company. Every single person at Radius Networks is engaged and believes in what we do.”
In these times of crisis, the spotlight has shifted significantly onto those business fundamentals and Wallace is extremely proud of the business he has built and the people within it. “The business principles that we’ve been practicing over the last few years have paid off. We are a strong company with sound fundamentals and sound financials. We haven’t over extended ourselves, either from an investment perspective or from an expenses perspective and that’s paying off for us now,” he says.
“It is tough in the current environment to point to positives, because you almost feel ashamed to do so. I think we’ve done a lot as a company to help others; we’ve given our product away for free to hundreds of small businesses, thousands of locations, with no obligation, and it’s a testament to the work we have done to get to this point. A lot of companies are doing a lot of good work to help each other right now and they can do so because they are built on solid foundations.”
Those foundations start from the very top. Wallace is a key advocate in communication. Much like Radius Networks communicates in an open and transparent way with its customers, the same rules apply from within. He admits that the pandemic has, ironically, made that communication better in some aspects, but it has always been a key part of what makes Radius Networks tick. “We’re talking to our customers all the time. My team is the best team in the world. They’re working in overdrive right now, communicating at such a high level, and listening to customer needs, because their needs have changed dramatically,” he says.
“As the CEO, I try to have frequent hands-on-deck tag-ups with everybody to give them an update and try to be as transparent as possible about the status of the business and what’s happening. I do this so they can feel comfortable that they have a job today, and they’ll have a job tomorrow. We work together to come up with our team goals, and stay aligned and upfront about everything that may come up along the way.”
Listening to the customer is key. That much is no secret. But when it comes to technology, listening to customers is absolutely essential when ensuring that what you’re offering is what the customers need and what they want. Wallace’s role as the CEO is not to sit at the top of the business and leave it to everyone else. He is very much active and engaged at every level to ensure that everything Radius Networks is doing is driven by the customer. Wallace is proud of the culture within his business and often finds himself sitting on a call with a major customer and beaming at how well his team listens and understands the customer’s needs and how Radius can successfully address them. “I’m so proud that we, as a team, have a culture that takes so much pride in their work,” he says. “Our people have always been solid employees, pre pandemic, but they have become absolute rockstars today.”
The world as we know it has changed forever and we cannot begin to predict what this new world will look like post pandemic. One thing is for certain, communication, and the way in which businesses engage with their customers, will never be the same again. Radius Networks has enjoyed success after success over the past ten years, and as we all experience great uncertainty, the goal for Wallace is to continue providing valuable location technology for many years to come. The key to succeeding, regardless of such uncertainty, remains the same for Wallace and his team. “Persistence,” he says. “It’s about persisting through the bad times, just like the good times, and trusting your business fundamentals and experience. Being transparent with employees and having a good team around you is key.”
Mercedes aren’t just luxury vehicle engineers, they’re innovators. This should hardly be surprising given the fact that Karl Benz, back…
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Mercedes aren’t just
luxury vehicle engineers, they’re innovators. This should hardly be surprising
given the fact that Karl Benz, back in 1886, was patented with the rights to
the development of the first ever car, a three-wheel vehicle, titled
Motorwagen.
A leading car brand in
the automotive industry, the German manufacturer, Mercedes, have mastered the
art of luxury engineering. It’s unsurprising that this brand, originally from Stuttgart,
are the creators of some of the most premium models of vehicles we’ve been
graced with.
After Benz’s successes
over the years, they have certainly been on the frontline of technological
innovation which allowed them to perform better than their competitors. If
you’ve had your Mercedes A Class for example in for a service, you’re probably
aware of the main features these beasts have to offer. However, in this
article, we take a look at ways the German manufacturer has kept a distance
between themselves in and other automotive companies in the industry,
maintaining the title of tech leaders.
Popularly known as the
G-Class, the Gelandewagen is a SUV like never before. Initially built as a
military vehicle back in the late 70s, it has become synonymous with the
affluent members of society throughout the world. Sharp edges and a bold frame
sit outside the natural smooth ergonomic design of Mercedes-Benz. However,
there is no denying that this is a fan favourite —the six-wheel model even
became popular with the Pope. Meanwhile, the 300 SL model, recognisable from a
movie series featuring a certain Mr Bond, was the car that helped bring Benz
back after the Second World War.
Without a doubt the
most iconic vehicle in the Mercedes lock up, despite astounding capabilities on
the race track and an exterior design which makes it look like it belongs on
the winding roads of the French Riviera accompanying a Stella Artois advert, it
wasn’t that that made the car so memorable. Gullwing doors, opening up as
opposed to out, were a first — but, despite what one may think, this wasn’t a
style choice. In fact, the shape of the car’s chassis prevented conventional
doors being included.
When Imagination Becomes Real Life
The F200 model was
initially introduced as a concept prototype with a wide range of technological
augmentations. Helping form the basis of the design used in the S-Class and the
CL-Class, the F200 imagination, interestingly, didn’t include side mirrors or
your standard rear-view. Instead of these features that aid visibility, the
F200 included four cameras mounted in the corners of the roof, and one
additional camera fixed to the rear bumper.
Output from the
cameras was fed to a digital screen where the mirror would typically be
located. Despite the fact cars in 2019 are still using mirrors, quite
remarkably, the F200 started a revolution that would see parking cameras
included in the vast majority of vehicles. Meanwhile, ambience was high up on
the list of priorities of the F200, with an industry first lector-transparent
glass roof, which, with the touch of a button, would morph from see-through to
opaque.
Anti-lock Brakes
The concept of the
anti-lock brakes was originally created by Gabriel Voisin in 1929, which
prevents wheels from locking. However, it wasn’t until the 1970s when a joint
venture between Bosch and Mercedes saw the system introduced into production
vehicles. Now, ABS, which helps the driver maintain control of the vehicle, is
a standard feature on every vehicle following the introduction by Mercedes. The
safety in vehicles was rapidly enhanced as a result.
Creation of the Airbag
It’s hard to believe
that airbags weren’t always a necessary feature of cars. Back in 1981, after
more than a decade of development and testing, undoubtedly the world’s most
crucial safety feature was finally introduced. Becoming a common feature in all
Mercedes vehicles as of 1992, two years before the passenger side airbag was
introduced, there is no denying that the airbag has transformed automotive
health and safety.
Implementation of Touch-Sensitive
Controls
A concept which has
completely revolutionised motoring is ease of use,
Ease of use is an
increasingly important aspect of motoring, for example consider cruise control
and how this has drastically enhanced the everyday driving experience. Back in
2017, Mercedes unveiled the tech features available on their next generation
E-Class, one of which being an innovative system which lets the driver control
the infotainment system from the steering-wheel using finger swipes. Not only
is the system effortless and considerably safer than the alternatives, it was
also an industry first when Mercedes rolled it out.
It is undeniable that
Mercedes are an industry leader in the automotive industry. From innovation in
safety to amusement, Mercedes have truly thought of it all. One step ahead of
their competitors, we can’t wait to see what other advancements they have under
their sleeve.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are witnessing an unprecedented increase in home working, which requires remote access for tools and communications to conduct our daily jobs. This disruption is putting IT infrastructures at risk, while validating much of the industry’s investment in business continuity, resilience, scalability, accessibility, data protection and security.
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With a global at-home workforce now entirely in place, what can IT professionals and CIOs do to ensure their private and public clouds can keep up and remain safe? And what steps and tests should they take to support a protracted change in the way we work? According to a recent Gartner survey, more than 74 percent of CFOs and business finance leaders expect at least five percent of their workforce will never return to their usual office workspace — becoming permanent work-from-home employees after the pandemic ends.
Even in the face of a global pandemic, we continue to promote a culture that requires easy and instant access to our tools, information and each other over cloud collaboration tools like Slack, Google Drive, Office 365, Microsoft Teams, as well as in-house applications.
This demand on IT requires private, public and hybrid clouds to have the agility, scalability and security to support entire workforces no matter where they are. IT leaders who have planned for this worst-case scenario are ready to scale at a moment’s notice. Likewise, they’ve already considered the impact on licensing, vulnerability and added traffic from employees working at home over personal devices and unsecured networks.
IT professionals who support an at-home workforce need to understand the difference between employees “running” applications and “accessing” applications. When technology is set up and configured correctly, it should be easy to access. That’s the whole idea of SaaS and cloud. The challenge is, how do you administer it? How do you run it?
Organisations that maintain private clouds onsite, which might not be accessible during stay-at-home orders, need a plan to make repairs physically — like swapping hard drives, replacing switches or cables — when their employees are home.
Likewise, whether at home or work, the end-user experience should be the same. If all apps and tools are optimal in an office environment, how do you make those adjustments ahead of time, so remote employees still have the same access and capabilities as if they’re working in the office? And how do you maintain your security and IT compliance obligations?
Where and how to start?
The easiest advice might be to avoid trying to boil the ocean all at once. If your applications and data aren’t on the cloud already, it’s possible to mobilise secure VPNs and encrypt applications for mobile devices. If you’re on the cloud already, you’re several steps ahead of others. But you still need to work with your cloud service provider to review your workloads, applications, and data requirements.
At the same time you’re focusing on accessibility, remember to address your vulnerabilities. Right now, cybercriminals are stepping up their attacks to take advantage of remote employees. Phishing attacks are at an all-time high on small and large businesses, as well as public resources like hospitals and healthcare providers.
Now’s the time to reinforce your organisation’s IT security and compliance guidelines, many of which include the relevance of when employees travel or occasionally work from home. This includes a refresher on password policies and how to identify and report phishing attempts. Help employees with securing their home networks, and all the other policies and guidelines they would typically follow at work to protect your company and customer data. This might also be an excellent time to train employees on document and data retention best practices.
COVID-19 will create additional security threats as attackers attempt to take advantage of employees spending more time online while at home and working in unfamiliar circumstances. Some of the biggest threats associated with the pandemic include phishing emails, spear phishing attachments, cybercriminals masquerading fake VPNs, remote meeting software and mobile apps.
Above all, you must have the same level of resilience and redundancy plans in place for home working as you do for onsite, even if you are 100 percent in the cloud. It is important to recognise that the same problems that happen on a day-to-day basis when you’re in the office can also occur when the office is vacant.
Prepare for the new normal
Going forward, all businesses should plan for an eventuality like COVID-19 happening again. This means understanding data security, business continuity, resilience, scalability, accessibility and so much more. For example, you may not need extra capacity and compute power now; but you need to know that within minutes you can get to that number. And, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of organisations have internal-only networks to manage power supply, fans, cooling and switches. What if you can’t get into the building?
Futureproof and understand the boundaries between personal and company devices and assets. Understand what you need to put into place to protect your business and your employees.
And finally, companies that are leveraging cloud services need to communicate frequently with their providers to address future needs and concerns. Make sure you know what they can do ahead of time to keep your remote workforce operating. Hopefully, these circumstances will be short-term, and life will return to some normality soon, but my advice is to always plan for every eventuality and what may now be the new normal.
Leading U.K. retailer selects Blue Yonder’s end-to-end Luminate platform to power its supply chain strategy
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Blue Yonder Tech, today announced that Sainsbury’s, one of the United Kingdom’s leading multi brand, multi-channel retailers across food, clothing, general merchandise and financial services, has selected its end-to-end supply chain platform as the foundation of its supply chain transformation.
Sainsbury’s will deploy Blue Yonder to power its end-to-end supply chain strategy, on a single artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform. To support the business’s future supply chain program, Sainsbury’s will benefit from extending its current Blue Yonder solutions footprint, with powerful new capabilities. These current and new capabilities will now span AI-powered demand forecasting and replenishment, digital control tower, space management, macro space planning, range management, warehouse management, labor management and yard management.
Sainsbury’s is a leading multi brand, multi-channel retailer based in the U.K., operating more than 2,000 stores across its Sainsbury’s, Argos and Habitat brands. Sainsbury’s also operates a number of wholesale partnerships globally.
By partnering with the in-house engineering expertise of Sainsbury’s Tech, together the two businesses will create an autonomous self-learning supply chain platform with advanced machine learning capabilities. This step forward will enable Sainsbury’s colleagues to spend more time on the store floor and serving customers. Sainsbury’s chose Blue Yonder for its leading machine learning (ML) capabilities and SaaS-based solutions that uniquely power an end-to-end supply chain experience.
“We relentlessly seek to improve the way we serve the needs of our customers. Having a predictive, autonomous and adaptive supply chain powered by world class technology products and Sainsbury’s Tech engineering means we can show up for our customers whenever and however they shop with us,” said John Elliott, chief technology officer – Retail at Sainsbury’s. “Blue Yonder provided a strong balance of advanced capabilities, ML experience and a culture and value set closely aligned to our own, including a commitment to sustainability.”
By implementing Blue Yonder’s solutions, Sainsbury’s will further enhance its ability to monitor and respond to ever-changing customer needs, predicting and preventing potential supply chain disruptions. Blue Yonder’s Luminate platform includes ML-based forecasting and ordering solutions that help stores better manage fresh and perishable products. It also includes Blue Yonder’s crisis control center – Luminate Control Tower – which provides complete supply chain visibility, orchestration, and collaboration across the end-to-end supply chain and prescribing more automated, profitable business decisions.
“We are thrilled to expand upon our long-standing partnership with Sainsbury’s by offering iconic, game-changing, and customer-centric solutions that meet consumers’ daily and ever-changing needs, particularly in the critical environment in which we are all living today,” said Mark Morgan, executive vice president and chief revenue officer, Blue Yonder. “We know how important Sainsbury’s supply chain is to the company’s rich history of success and the loyalty of its customers. Our innovative AI and ML capabilities have a proven track record of real results, and our end-to-end platform is unmatched in the market. Our goal is to make AI and ML become key enablers of Sainsbury’s future digital transformation as the company expands its remarkable, trusted, multi brand, multi channel business.”
Carlo D’Alanno, Executive Creative Director at Rufus Leonard explores how the integration of your brand and your people with your technology is the secret to delivering meaningful and game-changing disruption.
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What makes a truly transformational
and disruptive idea? The answer is two-fold. Firstly, these ideas understand
and respond to new behaviours while leveraging new or underutilised technology.
And secondly, they often come from ambitious organisations who understand how
to integrate the right people and skills to stretch a vision and deliver on a
single, motivating purpose or mission.
In short, game-changing ideas create
real-world impact for people and businesses. And this happens when creativity
and technology come together. After all, companies that harness technology to
deliver their promise grow 4X faster than their competitors.
Carlo D’Alanno, Executive Creative
Director at Rufus
Leonard explores how the integration of your
brand and your people with your technology is the secret to delivering
meaningful and game-changing disruption.
Your brand is your difference
Brands that
dominate have a credible offering delivered in a way that others can’t (or don’t
think of first). Think Nike+ turning a footwear brand into a premium fitness
provider. Zipcar proving the sharing economy can work with real stuff. Or
Kickstarter connecting bedroom entrepreneurs with investment. Find your
distinct position and build around a mission that your people can buy into and
your customer experience can deliver on.
It’s about
identifying and investing in hero moments along the journey – specifically
where your brand could credibly provide a unique experience – which will create
a memorable experience for your customers. Let’s take a look at a few examples.
Threads – customer journey mapping and digital ecosystem design at its best
The idea: Personal, luxury fashion shopping through Instagram and
WhatsApp/WeChat.
The stretch: For a sector that’s build around appearances, Threads have
understood that so many customers now engage with brands via social and avoid
retail spaces when in ‘research mode’. They have taken a seemingly vital
channel out of the mix.
The transformation: Pioneers in chat-commerce, they’ve built a platform where
someone sees an item on social, starts a chat with an adviser and completes the
purchase in the app. This means integration into social platforms, and
retailer/manufacturer inventories, as well as secure payment technologies.
The impact: With an average transaction value of $2.5k per-spend, and a
recent funding round of $20m, they have become a significant partner in the
fashion retail mix.
Squarespace – democratising a previously closed world
The idea: A website-building tool for anyone with a computer and an idea.
The stretch: They democratised the previously closed world of website
creation, giving the tools to the people with the business idea, but not the
design and code skills.
The transformation: Building code into templates transformed the way sites can be
built without the need for training or expertise. Complete with a user
interface that champions their own principles of simplicity, and accessibility.
It’s a rare thing – a beautiful piece of software.
The impact: 2m+ subscribers, valued at $1.7bn, hosting circa 350k websites
with 22% market share (self-editing and publishing plus hosting). These big
numbers speak to their success in growing a previously untapped niche: entrepreneurs
and small-scale start-ups looking for a cost-effective and beautiful route to
market.
R2 Data Labs – from manufacturing to a data analytics powerhouse
The idea: A data innovation catalyst inside Rolls Royce.
The stretch: Improving the way customers operate by delivering untapped value
and insight from aggregating a myriad of data sources.
The transformation: Utilising new technology in Machine Learning and AI, they’ve
moved the company from a product-based to a service-based model. Working in
partnership with other Rolls Royce business units using manufacturing and
design to build a virtual environment for experimentation that will give
customers unparalleled insight and the ability to understand their data in new
visual ways.
The impact: These data analytical capabilities improve efficiency,
productivity and risk management. New data insight is impacting the ways Roll
Royce design and manufacture their products and has opened up new revenue
stream in aftersales care. R2 Data Labs is building data innovation
communities through skill sharing, accelerator programmes and partnerships.
Creating a culture of shared creative leadership
To embed game-changing thinking into
your organisation, it’s important to nurture the integration of passion and
profession, encouraging your people to be the driving force behind shaping your
business. So ask yourself and your employees these questions:
Passion: how might we help people find the ‘one thing’
that motivates their work?
Purpose: how might we identify the common goal that
brings individual passions together?
Flow: how might we create a way of working and
environment that lets a team get immersed and motivated and, be supportive
and honest?
Risk Taking: how might we make it possible,
and acceptable, to stretch our clients outside of their comfort zone?
Your key takeout
How you
answer these questions will be unique to your business, culture and sector. The
common thread that all successfully, strategic and creative brands share is a
willingness to integrate and delegate. To bring together people with diverse
talents, passions, backgrounds and skillsets and to support them to solve the
company’s biggest problems for themselves.
As UK businesses look towards the cloud to enable digital innovation, more than half (58%) say the move has been…
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As UK
businesses look towards the cloud to enable digital innovation, more than half
(58%) say the move has been more costly than envisaged, according to new
research from Capita’s Technology Solutions division.
However, the
research reveals that cloud migration (72%) remains the top transformational
priority for most organisations, ahead of process automation (45%), big data
analytics (40%), and artificial intelligence/machine learning (31%). This is a
further indication that organisations see cloud as a core component to
effectively enabling these next-generation technologies.
The ‘From Cloud Migration
to Digital Innovation’ report, which surveyed 200 UK IT decision
makers, cites reduced cost (61%), improved speed of delivery (57%), and
increased IT security (52%) as the main reasons for organisations to move to
the cloud. However, 90% of respondents admitted that cloud migration had been
delayed in their organisation due to one or more unforeseen factors. Issues
such as cost (39%), workload and application re-architecting (38%), security
concerns (37%), and skills shortages (35%) all point to a process that is more
complicated than expected.
“Cloud adoption is a critical foundational step towards opening up real
transformative opportunities offered by cloud-native technologies and emerging
digital platforms and services. While some forward-thinking organisations are able to keep their eye on
the goal, the complexity of the migration and application modernisation process
tends to introduce delays and cost-implications that slow down progress,” said
Wasif Afghan, head of Cloud and Platform at Capita’s Technology Solutions
division.
A more
complex and costly migration than expected
On average,
those businesses asked had migrated 45% of their workloads and applications to
the cloud. However, this did correlate to organisation size as organisations
with more than 5,000 employees have further to go, with less than a third (31%)
of workloads and applications migrated. This could be the result of having
larger, more complicated systems.
Nearly half
(43%) of respondents found security to be one of the greatest challenges they
had faced during their migration. A lack of internal skills (34%), gaining
budget approval (32%), and progressing legacy migration solutions (32%) were
other significant challenges organisations had faced.
In fact, half
of respondents found their organisation had to ‘rearchitect’ more workloads and
optimise them for the cloud than they had expected. Further, only just over a
quarter (27%) found that labour/logistical costs have decreased – a key driver
for moving to the cloud in the first place.
“Every migration journey
is unique in both its destination and starting point. While some organisations
are either ‘born in the cloud’ or can gather the resources to transform in a
relatively short space of time, the majority will have a much slower, more
complex path. Many larger organisations that have been established for a long
time will have heritage IT systems and traditional processes that can’t simply
be lifted and shifted to the cloud straight away due to commercial or technical
reasons, meaning a hybrid IT approach is often required. Many organisations
haven’t yet fully explored how they can make hybrid work for them, combining
the benefits of newer cloud services whilst operating and optimising their
heritage IT estate,” said Afghan.
A platform
for innovation
Despite some of
the challenges outlined in the report, the majority (86%) of respondents agree
that the benefits of cloud are compelling enough to outweigh its downsides. For
more than three-quarters (76%) of organisations, moving to the cloud has driven
an improvement in IT service levels, while two-thirds (67%) report that cloud
has proven more secure than on-premise.
Overall,
three-quarters of organisations claimed to be satisfied with their cloud
migrations. However, only 16% were ‘extremely satisfied’ – indicating
that most organisations have not yet seen the full benefits or transformative
potential of their cloud investments. In addition, 42% of respondents currently
believe that cloud had ‘overpromised and underdelivered’.
“It’s no longer enough to think
of cloud as simply a way to benefit from initial cost savings or just another
place to store applications and data. Today, the move to cloud is driving a
spirit of innovation right across the enterprise, paving the way for advanced
digital services to be rolled out in a highly accessible, faster and more
cost-effective way – whether that’s AI, RPA, complex data analytics or machine
learning. Only through the alignment of IT and lines of business leadership –
in terms of goals, vision, direction and mindset – can organisations fully unleash the potential of cloud to
address their key business objectives, whether that is improving business
agility, delivering an enhanced customer experience or enhancing business
efficiencies.” said Afghan.
CEO & Founder of INSTANDA, Tim Hardcastle, discusses how businesses leveraging technology are speeding up processes, increasing flexibility, reducing costs,…
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CEO &
Founder of INSTANDA, Tim Hardcastle, discusses how businesses leveraging
technology are speeding up processes, increasing flexibility, reducing costs,
freeing up resources and driving profits.
February 2020 brings with it the first leap
day in four years, gifting us with a whole extra day of precious time. With
this theme in mind, I asked myself: what could be achieved within the insurance
industry if only we had more time?
The greatest challenge facing insurers and
their time is inflexible technology solutions and legacy platform constraints.
Whether it is by limiting the ability of insurers to improve existing
processes, or to develop new ones, the legacy systems still used by the
industry today waste time, create congestion and frustration, and
simultaneously, stall improvement and progress.
But technology offers a solution. As we’ll
explore, we see insurers increasingly challenging the constrains of time and,
through the use of technology, they are beginning to set the path of a more
streamlined, reliable and efficient way of doing business. In this article we
show the businesses doing just that and outline the impact it’s having:
speeding up processes, increasing flexibility, reducing costs, freeing up
resources and driving profits.
Bringing products to market in record speed:
Hiscox
The ability of digital platforms to
drastically reduce time to market is not a new concept. But what speeds are we
talking? Hiscox are leading the way when it comes to distribution and
responding to market need. Hiscox’s car product in Germany for example was
built in just 10 weeks and the second product, with more channels, was built in
just 6 weeks.
Through the use of INSTANDA’s no-code
technology, Hiscox has been able to create their own ‘agile product factory’.
This means Hiscox have a team of in-house and partner configurators who are
adding more books, building new products and making changes whenever the
business requires it.
Increasing flexibility and driving
innovation: Imperium
Imperium aims to empower its customers by
making specialist products easy to purchase. This requires them to get highly
tailored products out to brokers, proactively anticipate customers’ needs and
respond to market changes – quickly.
But thanks to traditional systems, it often
takes months to make adjustments to existing products, let alone build a new
one. Implementing a digital pathway by working with INSTANDA allowed Imperium’s
trained super-users to transform to product-build mode.
In the days following a new product launch,
Imperium can now react immediately to broker feedback and make changes to their
questions and rates within the hour. And for the management team, it has
dramatically reduced the time spent with systems providers. Imperium can now
spend time developing the business and fine-tuning their offerings.
Saving customers time: Aviva
It’s not only the product teams and insurers
that benefit either, but the end consumers too. Aviva’s recent deployment of
INSTANDA’s no-code platform to introduce innovative life and health cover
offers a useful case in point. Aviva found that medium sized enterprises (SMEs)
were citing product cost and lack of staff and resources as the two biggest
barriers to managing insurance.
Using INSTANDA Aviva can deliver a solution
that offers a flexible, highly tailored, yet simplified protection insurance
for small businesses.
Driving efficiency: Top 5 global insurer
When it comes to speciality lines, time is
complex. Combined with the limits imposed by legacy IT processes, they are
additionally challenging given their complexity and diversity. As a result,
many are manually run and slow as a result.
In this insurer’s case, despite a number of
efficiency efforts their operational model was only able to assess and quote on
12-15% of the 10,000+ submissions received without increasing headcount.
However, in just eleven weeks, the team
worked with INSTANDA and Deloitte to digitise the process, enabling the
business to significantly increase the size of their book without increasing
headcount.
Speeding up the process increased the
potential for efficiency and growth by reducing costs, improving customer
(broker) experience and thereby providing an opportunity to maximise profits.
Leaping ahead: A lesson in bettering
insurance industry
The ability to free up time and resource is
integral to insurers looking to revitalise and grow their business – and the
only way that the insurance industry as a whole will be able to leap forward.
As the above examples demonstrate, we’re
helping companies make the most of their time and create more of it as a
result. Through technology, insurers are enabled to quickly build the products
they know customers want whilst development teams are freed up, so profits can
be maximised. Moreover, customers are increasingly empowered through
easy-to-purchase, personalised insurance products delivered in never before
seen timescales.
With technology, the insurance industry can
leap forward on its own, without an extra calendar day.
Airport chaos, banking glitches, cancelled surgeries, data loss; the potential consequences of IT faults are well known, far-reaching and the…
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Airport chaos, banking glitches, cancelled surgeries, data loss; the potential consequences of IT faults are well known, far-reaching and the subject of frequent headlines. Still, fewer than half of the UK’s SMEs are prepared to cope adequately in the event of IT disruption. This is according to the latest research* commissioned by full-service IT consultancyILUX.
The survey, which canvassed the opinions of over 500 UK-based SMEs, revealed that just two fifths (42%) of those polled had an IT disaster recovery plan in place. This is despite the fact that a significant proportion (24%) had already experienced damage or loss due to an IT fault.
Of the proportion who have experienced damage and / or loss:
• 43% experienced the loss of important data
• 40% experienced a drop in staff productivity
• 29% suffered a loss of sales / transactions
• 24% experienced data breach / GDPR implications.
Data loss can potentially have very serious consequences for companies, especially if the loss involves personal data protected under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)[1], as was the case for almost a quarter of respondents. Failure to comply with GDPR can lead to significant financial penalties, as the recent heavy fines issued to airline British Airways and hotel chain Marriot bear out.
James Tilbury, Founder of ILUX, comments: “Although a significant proportion of UK SMEs have experienced serious problems as a result of IT disruption, it seems that the majority are still failing to take adequate steps to prevent or mitigate faults.
“This suggests that preparing for the risk of IT disruption is still treated as more of an afterthought than an essential aspect of business planning by the majority of SMEs. I would urge caution to any firms thinking in this way. Businesses today tend to be critically reliant on technology to power their everyday processes and keep operations running smoothly, securely and efficiently. Not only that, the right technology-driven processes can also set them apart, delivering innovation, improved customer experiences, a competitive edge – and ultimately growth.”
These findings are explored in more detail in the ILUX Whitepaper “Business Worries Keeping You Up At Night?” which can be downloaded here https://www.ilux.co.uk/just-relax.
Mauro Guillén Zandman, Professor of International Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA Srikar Reddy, Managing Director and Chief…
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Mauro Guillén Zandman, Professor of International Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Srikar Reddy, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Sonata Software Limited and Sonata Information Technology Limited
Artificial intelligence (AI) relies on big data and machine learning for myriad applications, from autonomous vehicles to algorithmic trading, and from clinical decision support systems to data mining. The availability of large amounts of data is essential to the development of AI. But the scandal over the use of personal and social data by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica has brought ethical considerations to the fore. And it’s just the beginning. As AI applications require ever greater amounts of data to help machines learn and perform tasks hitherto reserved for humans, companies are facing increasing public scrutiny, at least in some parts of the world. Tesla and Uber have scaled down their efforts to develop autonomous vehicles in the wake of widely reported accidents. How do we ensure the ethical and responsible use of AI? How do we bring more awareness about such responsibility, in the absence of a global standard on AI?
The ethical standards for assessing AI and its associated technologies are still in their infancy. Companies need to initiate internal discussion as well as external debate with their key stakeholders about how to avoid being caught up in difficult situations.
Consider the difference between deontological and teleological ethical standards. The former focuses on the intention and the means, while the latter on the ends and outcomes. For instance, in the case of autonomous vehicles, the end of an error-free transportation system that is also efficient and friendly towards the environment might be enough to justify large-scale data collection about driving under different conditions and also, experimentation based on AI applications.
By contrast, clinical interventions and especially medical trials are hard to justify on teleological grounds. Given the horrific history of medical experimentation on unsuspecting human subjects, companies and AI researchers alike would be wise to employ a deontological approach that judges the ethics of their activities on the basis of the intention and the means rather than the ends.
Another useful yardstick is the so-called golden rule of ethics, which invites you to treat others in the way you would like to be treated. The difficulty in applying this principle to the burgeoning field of AI lies in the gulf separating the billions of people whose data are being accumulated and analyzed from the billions of potential beneficiaries. The data simply aggregates in ways that make the direct application of the golden rule largely irrelevant.
Consider one last set of ethical standards: cultural relativism versus universalism. The former invites us to evaluate practices through the lens of the values and norms of a given culture, while the latter urges everyone to live up to a mutually agreed standard. This comparison helps explain, for example, the current clash between the European conception of data privacy and the American one, which is shaping the global competitive landscape for companies such as Google and Facebook, among many others. Emerging markets such as China and India have for years proposed to let cultural relativism be the guiding principle, as they feel it gives them an edge, especially by avoiding unnecessary regulations that might slow their development as technological powerhouses.
Ethical standards are likely to become as important at shaping global competition as technological standards have been since the 1980s. Given the stakes and the thirst for data that AI involves, it will likely require companies to ask very tough questions as to every detail of what they do to get ahead. In the course of the work we are doing with our global clients, we are looking at the role of ethics in implementing AI. The way industry and society addresses these issues will be crucial to the adoption of AI in the digital world.
However, for AI to deliver on its promise, it will require predictability and trust. These two are interrelated. Predictable treatment of the complex issues that AI throws up, such as accountability and permitted uses of data, will encourage investment in and use of AI. Similarly, progress with AI requires consumers to trust the technology, its impact on them, and how it uses their data. Predictable and transparent treatment facilitates this trust.
Intelligent machines are enabling high-level cognitive processes such as thinking, perceiving, learning, problem-solving and decision-making. AI presents opportunities to complement and supplement human intelligence and enrich the way industry and governments operate.
However, the possibility of creating cognitive machines with AI raises multiple ethical issues that need careful consideration. What are the implications of a cognitive machine making independent decisions? Should it even be allowed? How do we hold them accountable for outcomes? Do we need to control, regulate and monitor their learning?
A robust legal framework will be needed to deal with those issues too complex or fast-changing to be addressed adequately by legislation. But the political and legal process alone will not be enough. For trust to flourish, an ethical code will be equally important.
The government should encourage discussion around the ethics of AI, and ensure all relevant parties are involved. Bringing together the private sector, consumer groups and academia would allow the development of an ethical code that keeps up with technological, social and political developments.
Government efforts should be collaborative with existing efforts to research and discuss ethics in AI. There are many such initiatives which could be encouraged, including at the Alan Turing Institute, the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, the World Economic Forum Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Royal Society, and the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society.
But these opportunities come with associated ethical challenges:
Decision-making and liability: As AI use increases, it will become more difficult to apportion responsibility for decisions. If mistakes are made which cause harm, who should bear the risk?
Transparency: When complex machine learning systems are used to make significant decisions, it may be difficult to unpick the causes behind a specific course of action. Clear explanations for machine reasoning are necessary to determine accountability.
Bias: Machine learning systems can entrench existing bias in decision-making systems. Care must be taken to ensure that AI evolves to be non-discriminatory.
Human values: Without programming, AI systems have no default values or “common sense”. The British Standards Institute BS 8611 standard on the “ethical design and application of robots and robotic systems” provides some useful guidance: “Robots should not be designed solely or primarily to kill or harm humans. Humans, not robots, are the responsible agents; it should be possible to find out who is responsible for any robot and its behaviour.”
Data protection and IP: The potential of AI is rooted in access to large data sets. What happens when an AI system is trained on one data set, then applies learnings to a new data set?
Responsible AI ensures attention to moral principles and values, to ensure that fundamental human ethics are not compromised. There have been several recent allegations of businesses exploiting AI unethically. However, Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft have established a non-profit partnership to formulate best practices on artificial intelligence technologies, advance the public’s understanding, and to serve as a platform about artificial intelligence.
When Malta-based construction and property enterprise Vassallo Group embarked on a company-wide digital transformation, it looked to CIO Carlo Aquilina…
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When Malta-based construction and property enterprise Vassallo Group embarked on a company-wide digital transformation, it looked to CIO Carlo Aquilina to build the entire infrastructure, operations and innovations at the group…
Walk through the streets of the
beautiful island of Malta and you will not be able to escape the work of the
Vassallo Group. Property, hospitality, education and healthcare, the Maltese
construction and property company completely reshaped Malta following the
devastation caused by the Second World War. Indeed, Vassallo Group embarked on
a mission to ‘rebuild the nation’ to its former glory and beyond.
Building on its strengths, the Group carries a legacy that is over 70 years old, and over the years has diversified its operations that have brought about expansion and investment. Today, Vassallo Group, stands at the forefront of several different sectors in the local market that include property and construction, furniture and interiors, elderly and disability care, catering, hospitality, architecture and education. The Vassallo Group is a large, complex enterprise and represents a unique challenge to its IT function, which provides technological solutions and support to all of the companies and their users.
Vassallo Group talks to Interface Magazine
Carlo Aquilina was approached to take on the
role of CIO at Vassallo in 2015, having spent a while building up an IT team at
a manufacturing enterprise. “When I started in manufacturing, IT needed lots of
work. We started from scratch. We built up the whole IT department and the
whole team. When Vassallo approached me, they offered me that challenge again
as they really lacked IT. It was a real challenge, but I built my team and we
started on what needed to be done.”
Vassallo Group previously had a shareholding in
an IT company and this sister company was providing IT, but the level of
support was not sufficient for their local clients, thus Aquilina was asked to
build the IT function that would serve the 1,900-plus employees and its
extensive client base. “When I joined, I was tasked with the project: to start
from scratch. I gave the board of directors a number of options. Should we go
on premise, should we go with another hosting company, should we go hybrid,
should we go cloud? The main ambition was very simple and I was given six
months to come up with a solution where we gave our clients, our clients,
meaning our users basically, a brand new environment with zero downtime. It was
all firefighting in that first year.”
Vassallo went 100% cloud with Microsoft Azure, which Aquilina believed to be the best short-term, and long-term solution. “We’re a Maltese company. We’re not an IT focused company. IT is here to provide service to the business. Our business is not IT. We’re not a gaming company. All of our products are Microsoft, and so it was an obvious choice to move to Azure.” Vassallo agreed to go 100% to the cloud, having drawn a blank against the large capital expenditure associated with on-premise. “With cloud, you don’t invest in anything and everything is top of the range. Of course, it also helps to be paying operational costs and not capital costs. That was the way forward and then they (the board) embraced it. There was a number of partners who approached us to do this, to help us with this migration. I chose CyberSift, which was a start-up, actually.” An advantage to working with a start-up is that they’re not encumbered by a large kind backend and can move audaciously and quickly and this was certainly an appeal to Aquilina and his team. “I knew one of the technicians; a brilliant engineer and that helped. Plus, the price we were given was also from a start-up perspective.”
Vassallo Group. A Maltese institution
CyberSift viewed the chance to work with
Vassallo with similar relish and the then start-up provided a specific engineer
to be onsite with the IT team at Vassallo for the full duration of the
migration. “Whatever I was asking, I was getting,” Aquilina explains. “‘Okay,
we’ll do it for you, but you’ll have to promote us, after.’ Now I’m promoting
them. So, we had engineers working for us and I didn’t need to grow my team. In
fact, we’re a very small team.”
The key thing Aquilina and his team built in
that crucial first year was ‘trust’. “I had the trust of the board of directors
because every time they asked me something, I satisfied their request. So,
there was trust. At the end of the day, it’s a family-owned company. Trust is
very important.”
Aquilina and his team were given six months to
deliver the project and took 2-3 three months to design and implement the
infrastructure. The following three months, they contacted suppliers, before
moving the software. “If it’s on premise or on cloud, there was remote access.
It was teamwork, everyone pulling the same rope. Whenever one of the suppliers
told us, ‘Listen, we’re not available this week. Let’s do it next week. We’ll
slot in someone else. We’ll set meetings. We’ll explain what we are doing.’ All
they needed to know is that we were moving from server A to server B. They did
it for us because it was their software, their app, their solution.”
With any large-scale technological transformation there are challenges although Vassallo seemed to evade many of the pitfalls through great organisation. “I don’t think we had actually the biggest challenges because it was all planned out. We used to meet every day with the engineer who used to work for us and my team. It was a case of ‘What happened yesterday, what happened today, what is going to happen tomorrow and why? Are we on track? Yes. If not, why? What can we do?’ We worked late at night so that we could achieve it. It was all based on trust and teamwork. It was a case of open-heart surgery because the business wanted to work. The business kept on working even though we were doing open-heart surgery. We had that support from everyone. Everyone understood that this needed to be done. We had support from everyone, from all the partners, from Microsoft, everyone.”
Even though digital transformation involves technical infrastructure, software, servers and cloud, people are still integral to a successful outcome. “Yes, they are extremely important,” Aquilina explains. “There are the users, the customers and the IT team. We are a very small team and that really helped, because a huge team would require lots more organisation and more hand holding. It was me who was both sponsoring and managing the project. I had the lead engineer who was doing the actual work, remotely. They had an assistant administrator who was assisting. People are so important.”
Vassallo Group holds an annual internal awards
and in 2016, the IT department was awarded ‘Best Customer Focused Department’
even though it had been, in Aquilina’s terms, firefighting. We were there
constantly, anytime, any day of the week. The team and I were presented with
this trophy, which proved my theory that the company had move to something much
more stable.”
Now Vassallo Group is reaping the benefits of
this transformation. “IT-wise, we are working on a business intelligence
project. Now we have the infrastructure ready and a solid base or foundation, I
want to give something back to the business. We implemented an ERP solution,
which Finance, Logistics and Operations are using. I don’t want the directors
to go into board meetings with huge amount of papers. I want them to go in with
just a laptop. The data is live. We’ve already done that for one of the
companies and it’s working. You can connect to the TV to project live data.
That is business intelligence. We’re working on the other companies too. Now
that they know what they can get, everybody’s bombarding us with requests. Of
course, we’re taking our time and that is ongoing.”
From BI, Aquilina wants to harness the power of
AI in board meetings. “I want to give them the facility to project live data,
but I also want to give them the facility to change the data accordingly. They
will see the results with AI.” Recruitment could be a big beneficiary of these
initiatives too. “What if we employ 100 people? AI will work out the costs,
work out the benefits of employing that many people. Then you can take an
educated decision. ‘Should we employ 100 or 200? Let’s put in 200 more
employees. What’s the cost?’ AI will work out the costs as well as the
benefits. That’s all in progress. However, these are very sensitive tools that
we need to use and if the tool gives you the wrong information, then you will
make the wrong decision. I explained this to the board and they gave me the
time needed to do it properly. We have to be very meticulous. They understood
and told me, ‘Whenever you’re comfortable, we can start using.’ The CIO has to
have 100% trust from the board of directors, because if there’s no trust, they
keep on asking, ‘But why and how?’ That is the way forward.”
Providing technological infrastructure, new
software and cyber security for such a large company means that Aquilina’s
hands are certainly full. “We support about 1,900 employees and 500 users. I
can afford to have a relatively small team because we have a solid base, and a
solid infrastructure. I have a wonderful team. I recruited everyone from
outside the business. I didn’t find anyone here, so they all respect me. We’re
all friends at the end of the day, although I am their manager. We talk about
anything and I help when needed. So, there’s trust from them and the senior
management, which I believe is extremely important. It’s a wonderful place to
work.”
As UK businesses look towards the cloud to enable digital innovation, more than half (58%) say the move has been…
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As UK
businesses look towards the cloud to enable digital innovation, more than half
(58%) say the move has been more costly than envisaged, according to new
research from Capita’s Technology Solutions division.
However, the
research reveals that cloud migration (72%) remains the top transformational
priority for most organisations, ahead of process automation (45%), big data
analytics (40%), and artificial intelligence/machine learning (31%). This is a
further indication that organisations see cloud as a core component to
effectively enabling these next-generation technologies.
The ‘From Cloud Migration
to Digital Innovation’ report, which surveyed 200 UK IT decision
makers, cites reduced cost (61%), improved speed of delivery (57%), and
increased IT security (52%) as the main reasons for organisations to move to
the cloud. However, 90% of respondents admitted that cloud migration had been
delayed in their organisation due to one or more unforeseen factors. Issues
such as cost (39%), workload and application re-architecting (38%), security
concerns (37%), and skills shortages (35%) all point to a process that is more
complicated than expected.
“Cloud adoption is a critical foundational step towards opening up real
transformative opportunities offered by cloud-native technologies and emerging
digital platforms and services. While some forward-thinking organisations are able to keep their eye on
the goal, the complexity of the migration and application modernisation process
tends to introduce delays and cost-implications that slow down progress,” said
Wasif Afghan, head of Cloud and Platform at Capita’s Technology Solutions
division.
A more
complex and costly migration than expected
On average,
those businesses asked had migrated 45% of their workloads and applications to
the cloud. However, this did correlate to organisation size as organisations
with more than 5,000 employees have further to go, with less than a third (31%)
of workloads and applications migrated. This could be the result of having
larger, more complicated systems.
Nearly half
(43%) of respondents found security to be one of the greatest challenges they
had faced during their migration. A lack of internal skills (34%), gaining
budget approval (32%), and progressing legacy migration solutions (32%) were
other significant challenges organisations had faced.
In fact, half
of respondents found their organisation had to ‘rearchitect’ more workloads and
optimise them for the cloud than they had expected. Further, only just over a
quarter (27%) found that labour/logistical costs have decreased – a key driver
for moving to the cloud in the first place.
“Every migration journey
is unique in both its destination and starting point. While some organisations
are either ‘born in the cloud’ or can gather the resources to transform in a
relatively short space of time, the majority will have a much slower, more
complex path. Many larger organisations that have been established for a long
time will have heritage IT systems and traditional processes that can’t simply
be lifted and shifted to the cloud straight away due to commercial or technical
reasons, meaning a hybrid IT approach is often required. Many organisations
haven’t yet fully explored how they can make hybrid work for them, combining
the benefits of newer cloud services whilst operating and optimising their
heritage IT estate,” said Afghan.
A platform
for innovation
Despite some of
the challenges outlined in the report, the majority (86%) of respondents agree
that the benefits of cloud are compelling enough to outweigh its downsides. For
more than three-quarters (76%) of organisations, moving to the cloud has driven
an improvement in IT service levels, while two-thirds (67%) report that cloud
has proven more secure than on-premise.
Overall,
three-quarters of organisations claimed to be satisfied with their cloud
migrations. However, only 16% were ‘extremely satisfied’ – indicating
that most organisations have not yet seen the full benefits or transformative
potential of their cloud investments. In addition, 42% of respondents currently
believe that cloud had ‘overpromised and underdelivered’.
“It’s no longer enough to think
of cloud as simply a way to benefit from initial cost savings or just another
place to store applications and data. Today, the move to cloud is driving a
spirit of innovation right across the enterprise, paving the way for advanced
digital services to be rolled out in a highly accessible, faster and more
cost-effective way – whether that’s AI, RPA, complex data analytics or machine
learning. Only through the alignment of IT and lines of business leadership –
in terms of goals, vision, direction and mindset – can organisations fully unleash the potential of cloud to
address their key business objectives, whether that is improving business
agility, delivering an enhanced customer experience or enhancing business
efficiencies.” said Afghan.
Mike Dargan, Group CIO of UBS, the world’s largest wealth manager discusses how UBS is shifting its digital strategy and…
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Mike Dargan, Group CIO of UBS, the world’s largest wealth manager discusses how UBS is shifting its digital strategy and transforming itself into a truly digital bank through agile transformation, engineering culture and how this is changing the way UBS is delivering technology for its clients.
Can you tell
me a little bit about what’s been going on within UBS’s technology division
when it comes to that shifting of team culture?
At UBS, the focus on the culture of our
technology team has been something that’s really been huge. We see culture as the
platform on which we ultimately do everything else. If we have the right
culture, we can deliver on strategy, we can innovate, we can execute. We can
therefore deliver great products and services for our stakeholders, and
therefore for our clients. Like any platform culture needs to be tweaked,
maintained.
What kind of
challenges come from cultural shifts? No two people will respond the same way
to any form of change, so how do you factor that into this transformation?
In some ways I wouldn’t call it a transformation. I think culture is something
that is precious. The culture at UBS is good and special, but I think we’d
always look to evolve a culture. So what we’ve done over the last couple of
years is we’ve stepped up the focus on our engineers. So we’ve designed
programs to raise that profile within firm. We’ve developed a technical career
track. We’ve given them much more responsibility.
g)
How does
that approach tie into a wider vision of UBS becoming something of an
engineering powerhouse?
We’ve launched a Distinguished Engineer Program.
It has three levels, distinguished engineers, distinguished fellows, and then
certified engineers, which really lets engineers progress along a technical
career path, if you like, rather than a managerial one.
It also recognizes technical achievements with
things like badges. In the first 24 hours of launch we were really overwhelmed
by the demands. We had 600 people register on the first day, and things like
that show us that there is massive demand by our engineering talent and that
they want to focus on building things and solving problems.
Technology at UBS is critically important. It’s
a very large part of UBS overall. Now the core of UBS is and will continue to
be banking, but I think banking will transform more and more to be digital
interaction, technology enabled, et cetera. So the importance and power of what
the engineers do directly and in the background will become more and more
important.
What does
agile mean to you, and what kind of things are you doing to take this agile
approach?
In some ways, I dislike the word, but in some
ways, I love the word. So we need to, as an organization move more and more to
being agile. But what does that mean? We want to have expedited delivery done
in combination with our partners and really having teams of engineers sit with
business product owners and really drive things together. So they need to sit
together under a shared vision for that product, understand the same challenges
and opportunities and then build the best possible solution for our clients.
Now, we’re doing that in different ways. In the
investment bank we’ve got hybrid pods, which is a model that puts
co-development with business and technology together. And really, I mean I
think the way this has been launched is pretty cool. So it does away with the
concept of us in tech and them in the business, but it’s really about shared
ownership to deliver products. It’s working. Teams are happier, outcomes are
better, new products are emerging faster and driven improvements are happening
effectively all the time.
In the digital factories, which we have across the globe, these are really well established across a lot of industries, but we’re seeing a lot of success with the adoption of this model in wealth management. And the proof point is, we’ve done almost a hundred thousand releases to prod through this year, which is over 10% more than last year. So we are getting more done, better, faster, cheaper.
Group CIO, UBS, Mike Dargan
I understand
that UBS took part in a hackathon event, can tell me what exactly a hackathon
is?
The hackathon here at UBS had a little over 600
global participants as people coming together over a very short time period,
focusing on the solution, bringing the solution together, spinning up a
solution overall. Now these are done in different industries, different
environments. They can be done for hiring, they can be done for just cracking
up a solution. But these are something that I think is a really cool way to get
people focused, involved, and bring that culture, if you like, almost back to
the day to day.
How are you
working to empower your workforce and prepare for the future workforce of UBS?
the most important piece around a culture is how
it evolves and how people learn and adapt. Now that I think it’s important
almost at any age. Empowerment I think is increasingly important.
We are due to see a lot of change powered by
technology within banking overall. I mean, we’re seeing it in all areas. The
banking landscape is evolving fast and we need to make sure that our digital
strategy enables us to stay competitive.
I think the onus for every individual, for every
leader, for every participant is evolving and learning. So I think there are
many aspects where the industry will change. There are many aspects we know
about, there are many aspects we don’t know about. There will be new
technologies and/or ways to use those technologies. So I think it’s also, you
know, not to get too buzzwordy, but being very nimble and flexible is the most
important.
On a
personal and professional level, how do you continuously challenge yourself and
challenge your way of thinking so that you stay ahead of the changes in the
market?
I’m lucky and privileged that I get to meet many
people. I get to listen to many people and learn from many people, both within
UBS and in the broader market. So I think recently we’ve been obviously hiring
a number of people who have brought in new perspectives and expertise. There’s
a whole bunch of people within UBS who I think day to day bring in that
expertise from what they do, and what they do day to day, as well as market
participants that we meet
What do you
think is the key to achieving success in a transformation?
I think there’s really two parts. The first is
be curious. Find out what you can learn, what you can experience, what you can
do or you can question about how you operate and how others operate and how you
can bring that into what you do. And the second, and I give this advice a lot,
is to understand how do you continue to be a better version of yourself? Not
someone else, but yourself. Challenge yourself to question how you can
continually self-improve the person you are, and the one you want to be.
Our cover story this month features an exclusive interview with Jon Davis, CTO of Village Hotel Club, who reveals how a digital transformation future-proofs a technology infrastructure. Village Hotels is currently undergoing a major digital transformation journey in order to better serve the modern guest and offer a digital ready experience like no other. Village Hotel Club operates 30 hotels across the UK and by its own admission, its hotels are “much more than a bed for the night – they are a place to meet, socialise, work and get fit” – a clear sign that the business understands that the guest experience has changed massively.
We also have a revealing interview with Bill
Barry, Vice President of Procurement and Sourcing at Access, one of the fastest
growing paper and digital
document services and storage providers in the world. Barry, upon joining the
company in 2018, was tasked with a vision of building out a best-in-class
sourcing and procurement function, developing and implementing the policies and
procedures in order to achieve that vision.
Elsewhere, we catch up with UBS CIO Mike Dargan
and Carlo Aquilina, CIO of Maltese construction giant Vassallo Group. Plus, we
list all the top events and conferences from around the world and highlight five
top tech innovators to look out for in 2020.
Peltarion, leading AI innovator and creator of an operational deep learning platform, today announced the findings of a survey of…
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Peltarion, leading AI innovator and creator of an operational deep learning platform, today announced the findings of a survey of AI decision-makers examining what they see as the impact of the skills shortage, and suggestions on how to overcome it. The research, ‘AI Decision-Makers Report: The human factor behind deep learning’, presents the findings of a survey of 350 IT leaders in the UK and Nordics with direct responsibility for shepherding AI at companies with more than 1,000 employees.
The
report finds that many AI decision-makers are concerned about the business
impact of the deep learning skills shortage. 84% of respondents said their
company leaders worry about the business risks of not investing in deep
learning, with 83% saying that a lack of deep learning skills is already
impacting their ability to compete in the market. These companies are exclusively
focusing on recruiting data scientists (71% of AI decision-makers are actively
recruiting to plug the deep learning skills gap), and this is already impacting
their ability to progress with AI projects:
Almost half (49%) say the skills shortage is causing delays to projects
44% believe the need for specialist skills is a major barrier to further investment in deep learning
However, almost half (45%) say they are struggling to hire because they don’t have a mature AI program already in place
“This
report shows that companies can’t afford to wait for data science talent to
come to them to progress their AI projects. The fact is, many organisations are
already starting to lose their competitive edge by waiting for specialised data
scientists. The current approach, which relies on hiring an isolated team of
data scientists to work on deep learning projects, is delaying projects and
putting strain on the talent companies do have,” explains Luka Crnkovic-Friis,
Co-Founder and CEO at Peltarion. “In order to solve the deep learning skills
gap, we need to make use of transferrable talent that can be found right under
companies’ noses. Deep learning will only reach its true potential if we get
more people from different areas of the business using it, taking pressure off
data scientists and allowing projects to progress.”
Less
than half (48%) of respondents said they currently employ data scientists who
can create deep learning models, compared to 94% that have data scientists who
can create other machine learning models. This shortage is having a direct
impact on teams: 93% of AI decision-makers say their data scientists are
over-worked to some extent because they believe there is no one else who can
share the workload. However, with the right tools, others can make a serious
impact on AI projects.
“Organisations
need to move projects forward by bringing on existing domain experts and
investing in tools that will help them input into AI projects. This will reduce
the strain on data scientists and lower deep learning’s barrier to
entry,” concludes Crnkovic-Friis. “We need to make deep learning more
affordable and accessible to all by reducing its complexity. By
operationalising deep learning to make it more scalable, affordable and
understandable, organisations can put themselves on the fast track and use deep
learning to optimise processes, create new products and add direct value to the
business.”
Companies undergoing digital transformation need to map out the path. Responsibility for driving digital transformation across the enterprise lies with the C-suite. The CEO, chief marketing officer (CMO), chief human resources officer (CHRO) and chief operations officer (COO), among others, must work together to make the transformation happen. However, this can be difficult to achieve as certain members of the C-Suite are more proficient with technology than others. This article will look at how to overcome resistance/challenges at a senior level to any digital transformation strategy.
I find the interesting aspect of the rapid development in technology is
that it has little to do with ‘digital’ but it is instead fundamentally driving
businesses away from linear based workflows to neural programs where all parts
are interconnected.
The challenge for any business embarking on a digital transformation
project is moving away from a business culture where siloed work streams could
deliver their parts of the project at specific points in a pre-ordained project
plan. This would be mapped out using
project management techniques such as the use of visual Gantt charts which gave
clarity over the breakdown of every item required for delivery within a
transformational project with the business owner and/or team members expected
to deliver this portion of the plan at specific times.
Digital transformation has taken this well-worn methodology and crumpled
it into a ball and created change where nothing can be done in isolation and
every action has consequences on all areas of business. The result of consumers becoming ever closer
to brands and brands striving for authenticity and purpose to deliver to their
consumers means production, sales, marketing, technology, finance, human
resources and any other function within a business all need to deliver with
‘joined up thinking’ or in real terms, the same focus and goals.
As such, companies have realised that their
processes, their products and even the reason for their entire existence needs
to change in order to survive this revolution. However, the C-suite are
struggling to adapt because this isn’t a clearly defined problem and there
isn’t a historical precedent to follow.
So, what does this mean for those C-Suite executives who had their
fiefdom, where they, with their teams controlled and implemented the strategy
in order to deliver the objectives of their sphere which would feed into the
wider business objectives?
In days of old, a business problem would have
been identified and a decision would be made to implement a technological
solution. With the recommendation
approved, the C suite, usually the Chief Technology Officer, would be tasked to
deliver the project. This suited all the
C suite members as it meant that the expertise of each member of the executive
were clear and there was a clear delineation between their roles and
responsibilities.
Now any change or decision has consequences that affects other areas of
the business and similar change in other areas of the business affects
them. The fourth revolution has bought
the historical business divisions closer together, technology has meant that
when discussing strategy or plans, the decision makers need to understand the
effect across all areas of the business.
Every business needs to operate as a single collective, it could be said
they need to operate with a start-up mentality, with entrepreneurial spirit
where the focus is the end goal not immersed in the process to achieve it.
The business needs to have that drive where everyone is focussed on the
overall strategy and interested in delivering it together for the benefit of
the business, not for the benefit of their specific expertise.
The C-Suite need to understand this doesn’t mean they need to know the
answers or become far reaching experts in areas they have limited to no
knowledge of. They have to have their
personal goals aligned with the right questions and be open minded to
understand their responsibility as leaders is to create the environment where
the people within the business can deliver for the success of the business not
for the betterment of the division they are part of.
This moves the discussion at a C Suite level
away from a technological based discussion, away from a place where there might
be reticence due to an individual’s relationship with technology to either be
part of the discussion or even worse, not commit to their viewpoints as they
defer to other who they view as experts.
It moves the transformation away from digital to strategic.
But digital transformation is nothing to do
with the build and delivery of the systems, it is nothing to do with the
evolution of the business processes to work with the new transformed business, but
it is everything to do with the strategic path that the company needs to
take in this new era.
The fourth industrial revolution, where change
is happening at an ever increasing pace, requires the C Suite to have a clear
understanding of critical milestones from a business perspective, with
diversity of business views based on expertise and experience, to ensure large
scale digital transformation programs stay on track to deliver the requirements
to deliver the survival, growth and success of their business.
Now in its eighth year, the Tech Trailblazers Awards, the first independent and dedicated awards program for enterprise information technology…
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Now in its eighth year, the
Tech Trailblazers Awards, the
first independent and dedicated awards program for enterprise information
technology startups, has revealed its shortlist of the most innovative entrants
and concepts in enterprise technology. The shortlists, selected by the Tech
Trailblazers’ panel of
leading IT industry experts, are now open to public vote to add to the
opinions of the judging panel and help determine the winners in all categories.
To view the shortlists, and
vote for your favourites, please visit http://www.techtrailblazers.com/shortlist
before 23.59 Pacific Time on Friday, 14th February 2020.
Tech Trailblazers Awards
comprises the best startups across a wide range of enterprise tech categories
including:
Artificial
Intelligence
Big Data
Blockchain
Cloud
Container
FinTech
IoT
Mobile
Security
Storage
Firestarter
Award
Female
Tech Trailblazer of the Year Award
Male
Tech Trailblazer of the Year Award
Rose Ross, founder of the Tech Trailblazers
Awards, said “Each year the judges are faced with the increasingly difficult
challenge of selecting shortlists in a wide range of tech categories from some
of the most innovative enterprise tech startups from around the world. Huge thanks
to our judges who, once again, have taken on this difficult task. The Tech
Tech Nation, the UK network for ambitious tech entrepreneurs, today reveals the 30 companies joining its prestigious Upscale programme for…
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Tech
Nation, the UK network for ambitious tech entrepreneurs, today reveals the 30
companies joining its prestigious Upscale programme for the UK’s most exciting
and fastest growing scaleup tech companies.
Now in
its fifth year, the Upscale 5.0 cohort reflects the maturity of the tech
landscape in the UK with considerable growth in key company statistics. Most of
the companies on the programme have already raised a Series A round, and the
average raise has increased from £4.2m in 2017, to £7.2m in 2020. Average
revenues have also increased by 64% from £1.1m to £1.8m over three years, while
the average number of employees when joining the cohort has grown by 48% from
31 to 46.
Some of
the biggest success stories of UK tech, such as Monzo, Bulb, Improbable and
Bloom & Wild, have been through the programme, and the 30 new companies
represent the next generation of digital household names.
This
cohort reflects just a small part of the UK tech scaleup ecosystem – in total,
there are almost 5,000 UK tech scaleups which add £17.2bn to the UK economy and
employs almost 200,000 people. UK scaleups outperformed their peers in 2019,
with companies raising £10.1bn, more than France (£3.8bn) and Germany (£5.4bn)
combined, and are spread right across the UK.
The
Upscale programme is designed to support the UK’s leading scaleups by tackling
the leadership challenge in UK tech. A recent report by Zenger/Folkman found that management and leadership skills are
lacking in just over half of all leadership teams, and organisations that
invest in developing leaders are 2.4 times more likely to hit their performance
targets and almost double their profits.
Upscale
sessions include addressing how to scale yourself as a leader, and how to scale
internationally. The programme aims to create a peer-to-peer network of
companies on their scaleup journey, and includes sessions led by tech
entrepreneurs from some of the UK’s most successful companies, including Nilan
Peiris, the VP of Growth at Transferwise and Will McInnes the CMO at
Brandwatch. Companies are selected through a judging process of tech
entrepreneurs and established VCs, including Anthony Fletcher, CEO of Graze and
Cherry Freeman, CEO, Lovecrafts as well as entrepreneurs who have gone through
the programme themselves, such as Aron Gelbard, CEO of London-based Bloom &
Wild.
30% of
companies joining the programme are from outside of London, and are based in:
Manchester, Cardiff, Cambridge, Leeds, Brighton, Belfast and Newcastle.
Companies hail from all different tech sub-sectors – showing the depth and
breadth of technology in the UK today. 17% of companies on the programme this
year are in the healthtech sector, 17% are in SaaS and 17% are in E-commerce.
Cloud computing, fintech, legaltech, AI, edtech, proptech, tech for good and
adtech are also represented on the programme. While E-commerce and SaaS are
evidently still pivotal to UK tech, the makeup of the programme also represents
the rise of companies applying technology to societal issues, including
healthtech, which has seen an increase in scaling companies of over 473% over
the last decade in the UK.
Nearly a quarter (24%) of UK IT companies believe their customers are less happy in January than any other month,…
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Nearly
a quarter (24%) of UK IT companies believe their customers are less happy in
January than any other month, according to new research.
The
survey, by quality assurance and improvement platform, EvaluAgent, also found that 24% of IT businesses
reported their lowest levels of customer service in January.
This
reflected the responses from tech sector customer service employees themselves,
with 43% confessing that their standard of service tends to drop around the New
Year and into January.
Worryingly,
the survey also revealed that 39% of customers have come to expect the customer
service they receive from companies to drop throughout December and January.
This annual slump in customer satisfaction can be directly linked to employee
engagement, which also falls in January.
According
to the report, 35% of IT businesses find their customer service employees are
unhappiest in January, while more than two fifths (43%) believe employees are
at their least engaged.
While
75% of customer service employees said they struggled to stay motivated
throughout the year, 40% admitted to January being their least productive
month, pointing to a huge opportunity for businesses to increase employee
motivation and customer service levels.
When
asked whether they thought their business could do more to increase staff
motivation during January, 91% of those surveyed agreed. This shows there’s
scope for employee engagement and motivation to be dramatically improved during
this crucial period, in turn driving higher-quality customer service.
Jaime
Scott, CEO and co-founder of EvaluAgent, commented: “It’s very clear from the
research that employee engagement takes a severe hit throughout January.
“This
can have a really damaging impact on employee performance and explains the low
levels of customer satisfaction reported by both businesses and their
customers.
“With
so many customers now having come to expect poor customer service levels in
January, there is a huge opportunity for businesses to break the mold and
properly motivate teams, improving customer service and gaining an advantage
over their competitors.”
It’s clear that technology is evolving across every business, allowing companies to become more productive and efficient. Computer systems, such…
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It’s clear that technology is evolving across every
business, allowing companies to become more productive and efficient.
Computer systems, such as CRMs and warehouse management
systems, can help you plan out your workload as efficiently as possible to
increase productivity of staff, while analytics allow you to judge what updates
are needed and when.
Bodysuits
It was announced in 2017 that line workers in the plant
would pilot exoskeleton suits — wearable technology that can help support a
worker’s arms while they undergo tasks above their heads. Ford’s Michigan plant
is also using innovative technological developments to help its workforce.
These suits can also be adjusted to support different weights, depending on the
wearer’s needs.
While such suits were more likely to appear on the big
screen in movies such as Iron Man
just a few years ago, the creation is having positive feedback from its users
in the real life world.
Printing techniques
In any manufacturing company, human error can be extremely
costly. That’s where 3D printing can come into play. While it’s still early
days for the technology, digital
printing has the potential to have a massive impact on practicality. It’s
expected that this invention will transform nearly every industry as it changes
how manufacturers will do business and will impact material costs, the
traditional assembly line and product pricing strategies.
They are particularly handy as automated printers, like
those used by Voodoo Manufacturing, don’t need to be manned anymore and can
continue working 24 hours a day. The use of robotics isn’t aimed at replacing
humans, but more so making employees’ jobs easier.
Drones
Drones can impact a company massively, saving almost 12
hours on each inspection and reducing the time it takes to check the equipment
from 12 hours to 12 minutes. Not only can drones provide a quick and thorough
inspection, but they eliminate the health and safety risk of someone needing to
scale up to 150 feet to look at gantries. They have started to use drones to
help perform risky inspections on the factory’s equipment in it’s Dagenham
engine plant. The company is benefitting massively,
Another advantage of drones is that they are particularly
good at providing the company with video and still footage that can be stored
to allow the plant to compare its findings over a period of time to monitor any
changes or patterns that are noticeable. This has become an indispensable tool
for the factory, with the drones greatly improving productivity and efficiency.
What does the future have in store?
The process of quality control can’t be too reliable, as
faulty parts may well be produced in a batch and slip through after the checks.
That’s why the ever-improving embedded metrology will continue to help
manufacturers produce a better product. This quick and convenient solution is a
lot more accurate and requires little human interference.
This process can traditionally be a very time-consuming and
expensive project. There would be randomly selected machine-made parts that
would be individually tested, and if they passed the test, the batch it came
from would be validated.
To summarise, it’s anticipated that this human aspect can be
removed completely, with technology helping to provide a fully integrated and
fully automated form of quality control. While some of the public are concerned
that jobs will be lost as it keeps progressing, it can only be a good thing for
manufacturing companies as it continues to help improve productivity and
efficiency. It will be interesting to see what we welcome to factories next!
Technology is continuing to amaze us in all walks of life.
The automotive industry is no different, either, taking
advantage of new inventions. It’s not only our cars that are benefitting from
technological advances, though — the manufacturing industry is, too. Lookers, who
offer a variety of cars such as the used Ford C Max, are
an example of this too!
New research suggests the UK is at risk of widespread ‘digital amnesia’, as it revealed 23 per cent of UK…
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New research suggests the UK
is at risk of widespread ‘digital amnesia’, as it revealed 23 per cent of UK
employees don’t know their own mobile phone number.
The research1 by
CRM specialist Capsule found more than two thirds (69 per cent) of workers
don’t know their partner’s number off by heart, whilst 63 per cent don’t know
their best friend’s birthday, and 73 per cent don’t know their booked holiday
dates without using tech to check.
Dependence on modern
technology to carry out everyday tasks in employees’ personal lives was further
highlighted in the survey, with two thirds (64 per cent) saying they rely on
tech for directions, 45 per cent for shopping, 39 per cent to access transport,
and 38 per cent for times and dates of events.
“In an increasingly digital
age, many people are using technology to store and access information instead
of memorising it,” said Duncan Stockdill, Capsule CEO.
“Those surveyed admitted that
they reach for their devices to carry out simple, basic tasks, such as maths
calculations and spelling.
“As technology has become
more connected, accessible and easy-to-use, we have become progressively more
reliant on it to help organise our lives and remember for us – giving rise to
‘digital amnesia’. Essentially, we are storing more information and
memories in the ‘cloud’, not our brains.
“With this in mind, it’s essential to trust the software you use and
ensure it keeps your data secure like enabling two step login and using strong,
unique passwords. We know passwords are easily forgotten though – around eight
per cent of our users reset their password each month. Tools like 1password are
useful as they’ll remember them all for you.”
According to the survey,
almost one in three (31 per cent) workers describe themselves as disorganised –
and 29 per cent said this has negatively impacted their performance at work,
such as missing deadlines and arriving late to meetings.
One in four (24 per cent)
have been late for appointments in the past 12 months, 23 per cent have missed
birthdays, 21 per cent have forgotten to pay bills, and 15 per cent double
booked or missed social events, respectively.
The link between technology
and being organised was clear from the research, with two-thirds (64 per cent)
of all respondents saying they use technology, such as online calendars,
digital to-do lists and reminders, to keep their lives in order.
Stockdill added: “There has
been a significant shift in how we function and operate, and the gulf between
the past and the future is set to become more pronounced as technology becomes
even more advanced.
“Reliance on tech is showing
no signs of slowing down and the business world needs to adapt to these changes
in order to stay ahead of the curve and help their employees reach their full
potential.
“Companies should consider
taking steps to ensure that their employees have the tools they need to support
well-organised and effective working practices.”
Capsule is a cloud-based Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) software platform. The system helps businesses stay
organised, in control of their sales process and build strong customer
relationships through its simple but powerful integrated solution.
1Research conducted among
2,000 permanently employed respondents
By Luca Ravazzolo, Product Manager, InterSystems The last year has seen a gradual evolution of DevOps as the approach has…
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By Luca Ravazzolo,
Product Manager, InterSystems
The last year has seen a gradual evolution of DevOps as the
approach has matured and continued to be adopted more widely. Since its
introduction, DevOps has changed mindsets, encouraging organisations to be more
agile and making concepts like continuous integration and continuous delivery more commonplace. A major
reason for the popularity of DevOps is that it allows organisations to capture
all processes in an auditable and replicable way. Further to this, it adapts
quickly, resulting in a low cost of change, and allows businesses to add cross-functionality
collaborations and results in working at a much higher speed.
Thanks to a similar
evolution in the cloud world, more intelligent tools are becoming available,
allowing developers to follow up DevOps processes with more discipline and
efficiency. This has led to the next iteration of DevOps: DevSecOps.
What is DevSecOps?
The issue of security is
one aspect of DevOps that, until recently, has been largely overlooked, often
due to the underlying pressure for the rapid creation of solutions and for
these to be deployed quickly. Consequently, this has meant that security hasn’t
always been a priority as including this at development stage hinders speed. Instead,
security tended to be retrofitted after a build – an approach that makes the
process more difficult. As developers and organisations have begun to realise
that this isn’t the most security-conscious or optimal way of going about it,
we are now seeing some integrate security into DevOps from the outset. This
approach means developers can alleviate any security issues at the time of
development.
Implementing DevSecOps
Currently, DevOps breaks
down any barriers between developers and operations teams, but adding security
into the picture requires there to be greater collaboration and
knowledge-sharing across the organisation. For DevSecOps to be successful,
developers and organisations must embrace a collaborative culture and recognise
that they require input from other individuals within the business with
different expertise. This requires organisations to adopt the right mindset in
which they realise the transformative power of security in the development of
solutions and collaborate with other departments. Traditionally, developers have
been focused purely on logic and algorithms, for example, and security is an
afterthought. So, if they are to embrace a DevSecOps approach, it is crucial to
involve security experts from the beginning and for the different parties to
collaborate on the development of solutions. By doing so it will be possible
for enterprises to create secure, stable and resilient solutions which will be
hugely beneficial for both the organisation and end-users.
Further to this, DevSecOps requires
continual security reviews covering everything from compliance monitoring for
PCI and GDPR to determining what the process is if security senses a threat.
Therefore, organisations should establish a review process from the moment they
think about architecting a new solution. Then they should also determine
processes for the ongoing monitoring and management of security as the code
progresses through every stage, from the developer desk to the building of the
solution and the testing of it. It’s also critical that developers receive
adequate training to ensure they are aware of security throughout the
development journey.
What’s next for DevOps?
While what the future may
hold for DevOps isn’t clear at this time, there are two prominent schools of
thought:
Firstly, it is thought
there could one day be NoOps. This is the idea that solutions will feature everything
they are required to from the outset, such as code standards, security,
libraries and legislation protocols, and that things will be completely automated,
therefore requiring people to just monitor and raise questions as they verify
the software. Technically, as everything would be automated within the software
provisioning pipeline, there would be no need for manual, human-based operations.
This could potentially guarantee a higher level of security and resilience as
everything would meet a particular standard.
The second prediction is
that instead of DevOps disappearing altogether, different types of Ops may be
developed. This could lead to the emergence of MLOps to form a machine
learning-driven operation that would be able to certify the standards that
organisations want software to be written with and even flag issues with it.
As demonstrated by the
introduction of DevSecOps, the evolution of DevOps is underway. In time, this
is likely to mean that DevOps will begin to encompass new technologies and multiple
aspects of building a new solution. Eventually, this will lead to all of the
requirements of development being brought together and an increase in
collaboration across departments. Ultimately, the end result will be new
solutions that meet the required standards and security from the outset.
Withers tech, working with experienced VC legal teams in France, Germany and Switzerland, has carried out the first analysis of…
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Withers tech, working with experienced VC legal teams in France, Germany and Switzerland, has carried out the first analysis of how venture capital deals are structured across Europe. The survey has identified that with more similarities than differences in deal structures between the jurisdictions, investors should have confidence about embarking on cross-border transactions.
Withers tech worked with Schnittker Möllmann Partners (SMP) in Germany, Viguié Schmidt & Associés in France and Wenger & Vieli in Switzerland to analyse active Series A deal terms used in each jurisdiction. The research identified 53 separate terms, which can be condensed into 14 key deal terms covering the categories of economic, control, and reps, warranties and remedies.
These three categories centre around future financing; exits and IPO to control terms like founders’ vesting, founders’ non-compete/solicitation; veto-rights; and control over the group of shareholders across the four jurisdictions. Any differences in these areas can often be accounted for by the different systems of Civil (France, Germany and Switzerland) and Common law jurisdictions (UK), which still remain key considerations.
James Shaw, head of Withers tech, comments: “The most significant message this survey sends is that we all speak largely the same language when it comes to transactions and legal documentation, so investors should have confidence in deploying capital across borders, particularly in these tech-savvy jurisdictions.”
“Of course, care and expert advice is still required though, as the difference between Common and Civil law approaches to deals can cause issues. In particular, governance structures in the UK are likely to differ from other European practices, including the structure and authority of different functions on company’s boards.”
“We decided to undertake this review due to the growing volume of cross-border tech VC deals within Europe. In addition, given the large volume of overseas capital looking to invest in European tech start-ups, we also felt it would be useful to explain the nuances of these four key jurisdictions to help overseas investors better understand the risks in each jurisdiction. Our next aim is to expand this review into other tech-active European jurisdictions.”
A copy of the report, including discussion of the 14 key deal terms found across all four jurisdictions, can be found here and all 53 deal terms are set out here.
By Alistair Laycock, Custom Solutions Director at Haulmont ‘Digital transformation’ has an obvious appeal. Invest in a technological solution that…
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By Alistair Laycock, Custom Solutions Director at Haulmont
‘Digital transformation’ has an obvious appeal. Invest in a technological solution that has the potential to streamline your business’s operations, reduce costs, and ultimately widen profit margins. What’s more, when your competitors are undergoing such a transformation, the pressure to invest in a solution to avoid being left behind is significant.
However, more so than the technology, and even the choice of technology partner, the main priority for business leaders looking to undergo a successful digital transformation can be found internally. In a word, it’s culture.
Many continue to invest in one-off, off the shelf solutions without putting technology at the heart of their business; a company whose board is open to consider and push technological change will be the one that separates itself from the pack.
People, partners and pilots
While throwing caution to the wind is the right approach, you needn’t strip out your legacy systems overnight. Before the implementation of new technology comes selecting the technology partner to deliver on the vision, and the right choice is paramount to achieving a successful digital transformation.
When choosing a tech vendor to deliver a digital transformation project, ensure that your business’s cultures are aligned. Their ambition, communication style, attention to detail and proactivity are all key indicators, and it’s paramount that you ensure that your team can work smoothly with theirs. In the worst-case scenarios, miscommunication on deliverables and expectations leads to an increase in costs and a poor end product, undermining your original objectives.
Do also plan for the future. The right technology partner will offer more than one solution, with alternatives proactively proposed in the long term. Propose that you begin by investing in a small project first. A pilot project – that is still bespoke and easier to develop – allows your potential technology partner to prove they understand your objectives and can quickly develop an appropriate solution. Critically, it also allows you to test the profitability of the solution and whether its success can be replicated at a greater scale.
A successful pilot project provides the basis to scale operations, including the replacement of legacy systems, safer in the knowledge that the new solutions will pay dividends. The final step is to work with your partner to carefully and methodically plan the implementation of these new systems.
Becoming a technology-first company
Once you’re settled with your partner, it’s paramount that you maintain the same risk tolerance that led you to this position; technology is a continuous solution, not a one-off investment. With new technologies come potential new customers – each with their own needs – and various new data points from which you can derive greater insight. To fully take advantage of this, be sure to invest in your staff. Look to retrain existing staff or employ a network of universally tech-skilled staff who are able to work in tandem with your technology partner, assess your own internal technology, and make suggestions on what other technological improvements would best serve the business moving forward.
When it comes to recruitment, don’t be afraid to invest in youth. A recent report* suggests that 73% of B2B tech buying committee members are millennials, while under-35s make up 40% of those making the final decisions on technology purchases.
Analysing the data is key in ensuring continuous success; it’ll tell you what to automate, what to cull, and where there’s scope for growth. Getting this right will ensure reduced costs and increased growth and revenue.
Tangible impact
At Haulmont, we’ve worked with various partners to assist in a range of digital transformation projects. The Keyholding Company, providers of keyholding and alarm response services, is a prime example of embracing change and thriving as a result. Answer times have reduced drastically, their entire service has been streamlined, and in the last year alone costs of sales are down 10%, while business growth is up by 15%.
The company has evolved from its specialism in security and is now a technology company first, with 98% of its 500,000 jobs each year handled by automation; previously, a human used to touch every job. As a partner, we’ve become an extension of the business, but it’s something that wouldn’t have been possible without the forward-thinking and risk tolerant approach adopted at the outset.
The right technology is important. The right technology partner is important. But the success of a project is at risk if the teams delivering on objectives are not on the same page. A willingness to embrace change must trickle down from the top if a digital transformation is to be truly transformative.
As existing technologies reach maturity and innovations make the leap from consumer applications to business (and vice versa), it’s imperative…
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As existing technologies reach maturity and innovations make the leap from consumer applications to business (and vice versa), it’s imperative that we constantly seek to find those that have the potential to add value to our own business and those of our customers. As we look ahead to 2020, Johan Paulsson, CTO, Axis Communications has identified five trends that will have an impact on the physical security industry.
The world on the edge We are seeing a growing momentum towards computing at the ‘edge’ of the network[1]. More of the devices that are connected to the network require or would benefit from the ability to analyse received data, make a decision and take appropriate action. Autonomous vehicles are an obvious example. Whether in relation to communications with the external environment or through sensors detecting risks, decisions must be processed in a split second. It is the same with video surveillance. If we are to move towards the proactive rather than reactive, more processing of data and analysis needs to take place within the camera itself.
Processing power in dedicated devices Dedicated and optimised hardware and software, designed for the specific application, is essential with the move towards greater levels of edge computing. Connected devices will need increased computing power, and be designed for purpose from the ground up with a security first mindset. The concept of embedded AI in the form of machine and deep learning computation will also be more prevalent moving forwards.
Towards the trusted edge Issues around personal privacy will continue to be debated around the world. While technologies such as dynamic anonymization and masking[2] can be used on the edge to protect privacy, attitudes and regulation are inconsistent across regions and countries. The need to navigate the international legal framework will be ongoing for companies in the surveillance sector. Many organizations are still failing to undertake even the most basic firmware upgrades, yet with more processing and analysis of data taking place in the device itself, cybersecurity will become ever more critical.
Regulation: use cases vs technology Attitudes towards appropriate use technology cases and the regulations around them differ around the world. Facial recognition might be seen as harmless and even desirable. However, when used for monitoring citizens and social credit systems it is regarded as much more sinister and unwanted. The technology is exactly the same but the case is vastly different. Regulations are struggling to keep pace with advances in technology. It’s a dynamic landscape that the industry will need to navigate, and where business ethics[3] will continue to come under intense scrutiny.
Network diversity As a direct result of some of the regulatory complexities, privacy and cybersecurity concerns, we’re seeing a move away from the open internet of the past two decades. While public cloud services will remain part of how we transfer, analyse and store data, hybrid and private clouds are growing in use. Openness and data sharing was regarded as being essential for AI and machine learning, yet pre-trained network models can now be tailored for specific applications with a relatively small amount of data. For instance, we’ve been involved in a recent project where a traffic monitoring model trained with only 1,000 photo examples reduced false alarms in accident detection by 95%.
Jim Marous, internationally recognised financial industry strategist, and the publisher of the Digital Banking Report and Sonia Wedrychowicz, an experienced…
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Jim Marous, internationally recognised financial industry strategist, and the publisher of the Digital Banking Report and Sonia Wedrychowicz, an experienced technology transformation professional of over 25 years discuss how digital transformation is more than merely technology while exploring the leadership and cultural issues surrounding digital transformation in banking.
How
do you feel the conversation around technology has changed? Are businesses now
driven more by technology and IT than ever before?
Sonia:
First, we need to understand that,
in the last couple of years, the way people consume, communicate and commute
has changed dramatically, and is increasingly being delivered using digital
channels. In today’s world, the vast majority of our daily lives are supported
by technology. So, by definition, all companies, including banking, are
becoming technology companies. That realisation, however, is not universal yet,
and in many organisations, I can still see the business and technology running
separately. The transformation efforts focus on modernisation of the platforms
on the technology side, and the digitisation of the customer experience on the
business side, while the two functions, in my opinion, should work as one team
with the common goal, driven by customer obsession.
Jim:
Financial organisations do know what
they need to do. They do understand the technologies that have to be embraced,
but the challenge is they’re not very far down the digital transformation
process. This is a concern, given that the industry is moving so fast in the
digital space. A lot of organisations have seen digital transformation as the
purchase of technology and the implementation across different initiatives.
This is opposed to an overarching perspective of digital transformation that
really starts from the inside out, and looks at processes and programs, culture
and leadership and then builds technology against that. We’re seeing a big
challenge with regards to leadership and culture, and without that, the
implementation of technology will probably never see its full optimal
implementation.
How
common is it that across different businesses in different industries, in
different capacities, digital transformation means something different to each
and every person and organisation? And how do you go about unifying it in a way
that makes sense to everyone?
Jim:
When you’re talking about digital
transformation, and you’re combining that with the financial services industry,
it’s more difficult. You look at organisations that are going to need to
embrace change, take modified risks, and actually disrupt themselves, and
that’s not in the comfort zone of financial institutions. It’s the opposite of
the legacy culture that’s been in play before.
Sonia:
There is a lot of misunderstanding
regarding the difference between digitisation, digitalisation and
transformation, and it comes to the old rule that people have the tendency to
always see these things as the same, although they are actually different.
There is a very common misconception of digital transformation, which is
disruptive, and challenging the status quo, with change management, or
restructuring, which is basically more of the same, but more lean and
efficient.
A good example of this is centres
around the difference between the process of digitisation versus digitalisation
itself. Digitisation is all about making the current process, or product,
digital without truly reimagining it. The same process can, however, be
digitalised, rather than digitised. The digital transformation is being
trivialised by being understood as bringing new technologies into place without
truly reimagining the customer journeys, the customer experience, and actually
making it much simpler and more transparent for the customers.
What
are some of the biggest challenges and barriers to embracing digital
transformation and embracing these new technologies?
Sonia:
The emergence of efficient fintech
companies offering different banking services, not only cheaper, but mostly
through an amazing, simple and friendly customer experience. The existence of
banks is under a serious threat. Interestingly enough, the threat level varies
in different parts of the world and so banks need to accelerate on the path of
reimagining themselves, in order to keep pace with the emerging competitors who
are, these days, coming from industries that were never associated with banking
before.
Jim:
I think the biggest challenge we’re
going to see, and the reason why banks right now are starting to rethink their
complacency, is not because of the revenue, but because of the threat, while
we’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen in the future, and what’s
going to happen in the fintech banks and the challenger banks. To the large
tech companies that is the biggest challenge.
The threat is real. The consumer’s
going to start demanding more and more of their financial institutions. A
consumer can now change a financial provider, invisibly. They don’t have to
come into the branch anymore. They can do it with a click of a button on a
phone and they can change their financial relationship. What we have to do is
realise that there’s a major threat out there to financial institutions that
sit back and hope that it’s going to be business as usual.
How
important is it, during a transformation and during change, that you are
keeping the customer at the very heart of everything you do?
Sonia:
Never focus on your competition.
Always focus on your customer. For years we’ve been completely ignoring the
customers and looking at what the competition was doing in order to keep pace.
By focusing on your competition, you’re always going to be one step behind
them. Technology-enabled tools are allowing us to be much closer with the
customers without seeing them and even talking to them, but just focusing on
how they behave, what they do, how they react to the different propositions we
are giving to them, and whether it results in increased business generation.
Jim:
I think part of the difficulty with
transformation is transparency. We get updates on our mobile apps from many
organisations, updating you that changes are being made. It doesn’t happen that
frequently in the financial services space because the communication isn’t
there. There are a lot of organisations that believe: if you build it, they
will come. The reality is, that’s not the case. We need to provide more
information upfront and do a lot more research to find out what the consumer
wants. What they’re looking for is simplicity and a lack of friction, and really
what they’re hoping for is that the financial institution is going to know
them, look out for them, and reward them.
Jim,
you mention that non-financial institutions are now dominating the payment
space, how is that impacting the decision-making and the approach to
technology?
Jim:
Financial institutions are looking
at the fintech companies because those companies looked at the digital
companies and asked, “How can we take customer insight, AI, and digital
technologies to make better experiences?” In every case twe’ve seen, what
the competitors and non-traditional competitors have done is built solutions.
They take data, insight, and technology to provide a seamless experience built
on a digital platform, and that’s a very important component, because being built
on a digital platform means that they’re not building on legacy infrastructure.
The tech companies have streamlined the application process for loans or for a
credit card because it builds on a tech platform.
The case studies that we see going forward are
coming from the fintechs, and I think traditional financial institutions are
going to build more and more partnerships, because bankers can’t get out of
their own way, and they really can’t build something that they’ve never done
before.
Sonia:
When I look at the big fintech
companies and companies like Amazon, I think they’re being watched closely by
the banks for their customer obsession, delivered by technology. When it comes
to small fintech companies; it’s very interesting. They are providing solutions
on untested but interesting technologies like blockchain or AI. Once those
technologies became more established, expertise will rise. So, they are not
using the fintech start-up companies to integrate those solutions any more, but
they want to have this expertise in-house.
Talk
to me about the importance of bringing people along on these journeys, and in
these transformations, and not necessarily equipping, re-equipping them with
these new skills and new capabilities in order to drive the business forward.
Jim:
This is probably the biggest
challenge that the banking industry is going to face. We do not have a large
knowledge space of digital mind-sets in the marketplace and that includes
everything from digital applications of AI, to just how the technology and
coding works. There’s a major weakness. But just as big is how do we reach for
the people internally, because when you talk about automation, robotics and AI,
there’s going to be, if not an elimination of jobs, a transformation of jobs
into new sets. So, we’re going to have to take it upon ourselves as an industry
to retrain people across the organisation, so they’re prepared for the future.
The challenge is, not many organisations right now are doing it.
Sonia:
I also think that a big challenge of
the traditional organisations today is to attract young people. The attraction
of the old conservative companies is fading away in favour of the Apples and
Googles of this world. People are joining the new technology companies not for
free food and gym on the premises, but for the ability to constantly learn new
things. The financial institutions need to develop the leaders of the future.
They need to reimagine, not only their equipment policies, but more
importantly, change their hierarchical structures within the organisation to
ones that are powered by people who are more willing to listen, with employee
empowerment that is bringing the customer experiences of change much closer to
where the customers are.
If
you could give one piece of advice on how to be successful in these disruptive
times as a professional in the financial space what would it be?
Sonia:
Keep reinventing yourself and have
the courage to unlearn what you learnt in the past. Constantly learn new
things. Brains change, so surround yourself with young people, as they will
become your bridge between the past and the future.
Jim:
We have an industry filled with
legacy bankers that have been in this industry for a very long time and have
done very well in most cases. What we need to do is to look and say, “How
can we, as people in organisations, build a culture that will make it so that
organisations can truly be part of the future?” The future will happen
very quickly, as will the impact of not making changes. We have to do better.
Peltarion, leading AI innovator and creator of an operational deep learning platform, today released a new report discussing AI decision…
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Peltarion, leading AI innovator and creator of an operational deep learning platform, today released a new report discussing AI decision makers’ understanding of deep learning versus other types of machine learning practices, and examines the barriers preventing them from taking deep learning from ideal to reality. The report, ‘The Peltarion AI Decision Makers Survey: Are enterprises ready to go deep with AI?’ presents the findings of a survey of 350 AI decision makers from the UK and Nordics with direct responsibility for shepherding AI at companies with more than 1,000 employees.
Despite each respondent having direct responsibility for AI
and deep learning within their organisation, only 60% of them were confident
about what deep learning is and how it works – compared to 90% for other types
of machine learning. Other key findings of the survey include:
AI decision makers see
the potential of deep learning: 99% of AI decision makers thought that deep learning
would transform their industry, with almost a third (32%) saying it will
‘totally’ transform it, compared to 26% who feel other types of machine
learning will totally transform the industry.
Commitment to deep
learning is set to increase rapidly. Although this year only 80% of respondents had budget
allocated to deep learning projects, up to 98% of respondents are planning
to start investing part of their R&D budgets on deep learning
initiatives over the next three years.
Data science expertise
and data itself remain key barriers to investment: 70% of AI decision
makers consider deep learning tools to be too complex to tackle and 41%
felt unable to collect and segment all the different types of data needed
for their deep learning projects to succeed.
“It’s clear that deep learning is a truly transformative
technology that has the potential to change the world,” explains Luka Crnkovic-Friis,
Co-Founder and CEO of Peltarion. “But the path to reaching that potential is
inhibited by lack of familiarity with deep learning. With investment growing,
we can expect to see more industries benefiting from this under-explored, yet
incredibly powerful subset of AI. However, the barriers to adoption must be
overcome before businesses can reap the benefits.”
The need to operationalise AI has never been clearer
When asked about the most common perceived issues standing
in the way of investment in deep learning, complexity was by far the most
common problem cited, with 70% of AI decision makers in accord. This was
followed by the need for specialist skills (44%), lack of scalability (43%),
with a lack of understanding around deep learning models (41%) and a lack of
data availability tied for fourth at 41%. Making things tougher are all the
existing IT solutions/services organisations are working with, with 36% citing
integration as a setback to deep learning investment. This issue shows no signs
of slowing though as the overall adoption of new digital technologies
increases. On average, respondents said they have approximately 191 different
IT applications, systems and services in use across their organisation, a
figure they say is likely to rise in the next five years.
“In order to increase adoption of deep learning, companies
need access to the right tools and skills,” Crnkovic-Friis concludes.
“Operationalising AI, and deep learning specifically, will be key in doing
this. Not only should experts offer guidance, spreading the knowledge of how it
can be used within their companies, but deep learning should be operationalised
to increase the speed of model development and experimentation, ease
integration and deployments and make deep learning more ‘AI Ready’. Once a few
of these projects are up and running, the costs, on-site skills and
infrastructure required to keep deep learning operational and launch new
projects gets lower each time.”
In a 2018 report, Forbes identified a trend that was sweeping the world. This trend is the rise of the…
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In a 2018 report, Forbes identified a trend that was sweeping the world. This trend is the rise of the multi-sector innovation hub. All over the world these hubs bring together business sectors and models, infrastructures and physical resources to enable and drive true innovation. Here, we look at 5 leading industries driving the innovation hub conversation.
Biotechnology
The biotechnology space is unique in that it is
a technology designed for the betterment of human life through DNA. As
technology has advanced dramatically over the last three decades, the
biotechnology space is one that has grown exponentially as a result of it.
Naturally, cities looking to create innovation hubs have identified
biotechnology as a cornerstone of the future of innovation and the betterment
of human life. Boston, San Diego and Copenhagen house just three of the leading
biotech innovation hubs in the world. In a 2018 report, biotechnology jobs have
grown 28% over the last decade, and Boston alone has seen more BioPharma
industry jobs become available over the same time period. Known as the Cambridge-Boston. USA biotech
cluster, the hub is home to firms that have attracted more than $14bn in
investments from venture capitalists.
ICT
The Information Communication Technologies (ICT)
industry seems almost like a cheat, for it is the very backbone of modern
technology today. Innovation in ICT defines our very existence, with tablets,
television, smartphones and even the internet.
As far as innovation hubs go, San Francisco, Tokyo and Beijing are
recognised as true world leaders. Beijing in particular, has seen more than
$70bn in venture capital funding since 2015 alone. At the heart of Beijing is
the Zhongguancun Science Park, China’s very own Silicon Valley. Zhongguancun
was founded nearly 30 years ago and has since become the key driver in turning China
into a technological powerhouse. It houses around 9,000 technology companies
from all over the world, including Google, Intel, Oracle and IBM to name a few.
Medical
Science
Not too dissimilar to Biotechnology, the Medical
Science industry is one that seeks to improve the prevention and treatment of
disease and health issues. Walking hand in hand with technology and innovation,
it is an industry that an increasing number of cities around the world are
focusing their efforts as they look to build their innovation hubs. Tel Aviv,
Eindhoven and Los Angeles are three of the major innovation hubs for medical
science. Tel Aviv in particular, is home to a burgeoning digital health sector.
At its internationally recognised Tel Aviv University (TAU) sits the BioMed
@TAU. This collective of biomedical Research Hubs at Tel Aviv University
performs a vast array of research, encompassing basic to translational research
spread across several faculties and hospitals. The Hubs gather together
scientists from across the university and TAU-affiliated hospitals that share
overlapping research interests. These collaborative groups host conferences and
events related to their subject area in order to highlight advances in the
field as well as in their own research. The Hubs also provide the opportunity
to strengthen collaborative research between scientists at TAU and leverage
opportunities for collaborative research, joint grant applications and external
funding.
Nanotech
Once upon a time, nanotech was known more for
science fiction than reality but over the course of recent history, nanotech
has entered the innovation conversation and transforming the way we use
technology. Singapore, Daejeon and Lyon are but three key cities in which
research into nanotechnology has established them as key innovation hubs. Lyon,
once dubbed the “Land of Innovation” has been ranked as 8th in the world for
nanotech developments. Home to the Institute of Nanotechnology of Lyon (INL) is
a joint research unit designed to develop multidisciplinary technological
research in the field of micro and nanotechnologies and their applications.
Founded in 2006, INL sits on the campus of Ecole Centrale Lyon and supports the
overall mission statement of ensuring that the education its students receive
aligns with the needs of industrial enterprises, so that the engineering
students of today can best respond to the scientific and societal challenges of
tomorrow.
Pharma
Frankfurt is a city that lives and breathes
pharmaceutical innovation. It is home to the FiZ Frankfurt Biotechnology
Innovation Centre, a market-oriented technology centre offering small and
medium-sized businesses in the life sciences field a unique basis for
innovation and growth. In recent years, FIZ has enhanced its reputation as a
true platform for innovation networks, having entered into a partnership with
CEDEM AG Germany, a pioneering company in the healthcare sector, as it expanded
its reach into the MENA region. FIZ is working to achieve a data-based
optimization of cancer therapies through genetic profiling as it looks to adopt
this innovative approach to more than 365.000 expected cancer cases in 2020.
Welcome to the Winter edition of INTERFACE Magazine, our biggest yet! Our cover story this month centres around Lutz Beck,…
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Welcome to the Winter edition
of INTERFACE Magazine, our biggest yet!
Our cover story this month centres around Lutz Beck, CIO of Daimler Trucks North America, who reveals its massive digital transformation into a totally connected company… Read the latest issue here!
Beck transformed Daimler Trucks Asia
– with its brands Mitsubishi Fuso and BharatBenz – into a truly connected
company, moving the IT function front and center of its operations. This work
paved the way for Beck’s move to head up transformational change in the US.
“I was given an open field to do a lot of
these innovations here within the Daimler Trucks North America Group because
they had started certain elements but there were still a few things lacking.
That’s the reason why there is a clear task: to push innovation and transform
IT into a business value adding and future oriented organization.”
Elsewhere in the mag we also speak
exclusively to c-level executives at BT, AXA Partners, SSE, ACC and KPN
in a bumper issue of B2B insight! We also feature interviews with Lisa Moyle
from VC Innovations and Digital Banking Report’s Jim Marous and Sonia
Wedrychowitz. Plus, we list all the top events and conferences from around
the globe.
Ivalua, a global leader in spend management, today announced the release of an enhanced third-party risk module, called Risk Center,…
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Ivalua, a
global leader in spend
management, today announced the release of an enhanced third-party risk
module, called Risk Center, available as part of its latest product release.
The latest innovations extend the existing strength of Ivalua’s Supplier
Management solution, which had already been recognised as a Leader by
Forrester Research Inc. in the most recent The Forrester Wave™: Supplier
Risk And Performance Management (SRPM) Platforms, Q1 2018.
Ivalua’s
Risk Center offers customers a holistic solution to actively monitor and
mitigate third-party risk and compliance. Customers are able to consolidate
real-time information spanning supplier performance evaluations, transactional
data, spend data, contractual information and external risk information from
major third-party data providers. This combined picture is visible in
actionable dashboards to provide a comprehensive and timely picture of risk and
the potential impact on the business.
“Organisations
are increasingly dependent on their suppliers, who can be sources of tremendous
value but also increased risk,” said Pascal Bensoussan, Ivalua Chief Product
Officer at Ivalua. “Ivalua’s Risk Center brings actionable data and insights
from across the supplier lifecycle together with complimentary external data so
our customers can effectively manage supplier risk. When combined with the
extensive supplier collaboration capabilities embedded in Ivalua’s platform,
our customers can unlock the full potential of their supply chains.”
Risk
Center’s ability to integrate with third party data providers in real time
allows it to meet the unique needs associated with various regulatory
environments, industries, and customer compliance models, in an automated fashion.
For example, Risk Center can aggregate data on supplier financial health,
sustainability, adverse media, sanctions lists, supply chain disruptions and
more. Ivalua maintains an open and rapidly expanding ecosystem, including new
and updated out of the box integrations with leading providers such as: EcoVadis – A long-time partner of Ivalua and leading provider of sustainability risk and performance ratings for global supply chains. Backed by a powerful technology platform, the industry’s most-trusted methodology and a global team of domain experts, EcoVadis sustainability scorecards provide insight and engagement tools to mitigate risk, drive improvements and create value across 198 purchasing categories globally.
EcoVadis – A long-time partner of Ivalua and leading provider of sustainability risk and performance ratings for global supply chains. Backed by a powerful technology platform, the industry’s most-trusted methodology and a global team of domain experts, EcoVadis sustainability scorecards provide insight and engagement tools to mitigate risk, drive improvements and create value across 198 purchasing categories globally.
“The global
supply chain is a breeding ground for hidden sustainability and CSR risks.
Our partnership with Ivalua enables procurement to see where they are
exposed and the steps they need to take to reduce their risk,” said
Pierre-Francois Thaler, Co-CEO of EcoVadis. “The integration of EcoVadis
Sustainability Ratings with Ivalua Risk Center brings our mutual customers a
powerful combination of insights to optimise procurement decisions, improve
supply chain performance and create value.”
riskmethods – A leader in supply
chain risk management, riskmethods empowers businesses to identify, assess
and mitigate supply chain risk. By using artificial intelligence,
riskmethods helps customers automate and accelerate threat detection,
enabling them to gain competitive advantage with a well-managed approach
to meeting customer demands, protecting reputation and reducing total cost
of risk.
“The
integration of holistic supplier risk information within the Ivalua platform is
a great opportunity for Ivalua customers,” says Heiko Schwarz, founder and
managing director of riskmethods. “With riskmethods available via the Ivalua
Risk Center, customers will be able to get a complete view of all types of
risk, giving them the tools, they need to avoid the cost of disruptions and
respond faster to risk events than their competition.”
Global Risk Management Solutions (GRMS)
– In an upcoming release, GRMS, a recognised leader providing innovative
supplier risk management solutions, will also be available. GRMS combines
highly configurable software, premium data streams, and continuous human
interventions to reduce exposure to global risk and liability. GRMS
delivers risk-management-as-an-integrated-service on fully private
networks and serves clientele covering suppliers across more than 120
countries.
Retailers know how important the customer experience is – and this can’t be forgotten around the busiest shopping period of…
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Retailers know how important the customer experience is – and
this can’t be forgotten around the busiest shopping period of the year. In
fact, in 2018 UK shoppers spent £4.75billion in Boxing Day sales and £1.4
billion on the last Saturday before Christmas, known as ‘Super Saturday.’ With research showing
that improving the customer experience and investing in new ways to engage
customers is critical to the ongoing success of retailers, the retailers who
are able to create a seamless, convenient experience for customers will have
the upper hand. To do this effectively, they’ll need to bring together physical
and digital while offering an amazing product selection that’s readily
available and can be delivered fast.
Philip
Hall, Managing Director Europe at CommerceHub, shares his top three tips to give
retailers an advantage during this year’s peak shopping season.
1.
Embrace the Physical and Digital for More Consumer Convenience
With the
adoption of cloud-based software and smart mobile devices, retailers’ ability
to connect their physical and digital presence has become significantly easier,
as shown by the rise of click and collect and more return options. Every
consumer has a different purchasing pattern – which is largely driven by
convenience – meaning that retailers need to focus on having the right products
in the right places.
Because
convenience plays a large role in customer satisfaction, retailers need to take
action. According to a recent survey, 68% of consumers said they preferred
click and collect when making purchases. When consumers elect to pick up their
purchases in-store, retailers are not only able to reduce their shipping costs,
but also to sell even more product, as 85% of these consumers tend to make
additional purchases once they come in-store to retrieve their orders –
something that could easily feed into holiday sale buzz.
2. Put
an End to Cancelled and Out of Stock Messages
“Right time,
right place” in today’s consumer speak actually means “right here, right now,”
– something that is only becoming more ingrained in retailers’ strategies. It’s
not uncommon for consumers to have experienced the frustration of hopping
online to purchase the perfect gift and getting hit with the “out of stock”
message – a challenge that typically ends in an abandoned cart and searching
for the product elsewhere.
Retailers stand
to miss out on nearly $1 trillion in sales because they
don’t have what customers want to buy. And while this problem stirs agitation
and causes stress for consumers, it is something that retailers can easily
avoid with the right approach. By tapping into virtual inventory enabled
through drop shipping and executing on proper resource planning and logistics
execution, retailers could potentially have no sell outs at all, enabling them
to keep customers happy and maintain their brand promise. And some retailers
are already recognising the potential, with research from CommerceHub showing that
46% of retailers value the fast shipping and delivery of drop shipping and over
a third acknowledging the better customer experience drop shipping will bring.
3. Meet
and Exceed Delivery Expectations
A final key to
success as we enter the UK’s busiest shopping period will be perfecting
shipping and delivery. Gone are the days when getting packages a week or longer
after an order is placed is acceptable. New and improving technology is giving
retailers the ability to strategically expand product ranges, fulfil
orders faster than ever before and track deliveries to better meet customer
needs and expectations. By implementing these advanced back-end processes,
communications between retailers and fulfilment/shipping centres have never
been more seamless.
Technology is
also giving retailers more visibility into fulfilment processes, which is
enabling them to create routine efficiencies and capture data to drive their
businesses forward year after year. What’s more, these insights can help drive
real-time decision making, allowing retailers to keep consumers aware of the
status of their orders and stay ahead of delays in ways that couldn’t be
managed before, which supports retailers’ growing need to stay ahead of customer
expectations.
Conclusion
Retailers need
to ensure that the customer, and their satisfaction, is at the core of every
strategy – especially in the coming months when the sales potential is so high.
Whether it is a newly implemented or enhanced approach, a retailer’s ability to
carry out a seamless crossover between physical and digital retail, minimise
out-of-stock cancels and meet and exceed delivery expectations is essential to
their success. And with this success comes happy customers, who in turn, will
only be coming back for more.
Becki Hyde, Practice Lead, Agile Practice Leadership Enablement and Sean Olszewski, Practice Lead for Agile Practice Leadership Enablement, Pivotal Software…
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Becki Hyde, Practice Lead, Agile Practice Leadership Enablement and Sean Olszewski, Practice Lead for Agile Practice Leadership Enablement, Pivotal Software
The benefits of a successful digital transformation project will manifest across entire organisational structures: teams make and act upon decisions faster than they have in the past, products and services are being delivered to users faster, employee morale is on the rise, operational costs are decreasing, and legacy systems are being upgraded or retired far quicker than many in the business can keep pace with. However, once change gets into full swing, it’s typical to see some employees begin to question their roles in the company, or whether they want to remain at the company at all. Things are changing fast—technologies, processes, expectations—and that can make for a difficult adjustment. Understanding why employees feel the way they do is crucial–not just to keep great people, but as a gauge to understand if the business is transforming in the right way.
There are different types of people within an organisation that are at risk of becoming alienated or otherwise unhappy during transformation periods. Here are some traits to look out for and some advice for keeping those people not just around, but also happy.
Frustrated converts
The frustrated convert gets exposure to a new way of working and is then forced to go back to the old way – to what is often perceived as cumbersome process, wasted time, dead ends, and a lack of autonomy. These blockers often occur due to senior leadership being bought into an effort but failing to cascade the intent and importance of this to middle management. Because of this breakdown in communication, middle management doesn’t allow individual contributors the flexibility they need to deliver effectively, creating frustration and ultimately causing them to leave.
To prevent turnover of otherwise engaged and excited employees, work toward support for the change at all levels of your organisation and provide air cover until that is achieved. Having one or two key allies at the manager, director, and vice president levels goes a long way toward preventing converts from ever becoming frustrated. By knowing they have direct leadership support, employees will be able to weather the challenges of introducing change for much longer than if they feel they are doing it alone.
High achievers
High achievers are employees who thrive in an agile environment, becoming so effective at what they do that they begin to be courted by other companies, or seek promotion opportunities elsewhere. Time and time again, we see this issue come up as companies undergo change, and the strongest way to combat it is to have a strong, protected culture of learning, with a fair and competitive compensation structure.
But supporting high achievers isn’t just about salary and benefits. The most engaged and motivated participants in change can become disengaged if they aren’t given opportunities that align to their interests and professional development – and have a measurable impact on the business. After seeing success on their teams, some employees naturally want to spread the principles and practices they’ve become so passionate about. This gives them an opportunity to grow professionally, and to have a larger positive influence on company culture.
Opt-outs
When people are asked to change the way they work, some will self-select out. This is especially likely in companies where employees stay in roles long-term and develop well-understood processes over years of experience. Opt-outs don’t like or aren’t convinced of how effective this new way of working will be. It’s not uncommon for people to have seen many attempts at changing their enterprise and are therefore sceptical of further change.
As you introduce change, think ahead to how you can support these potential opt-outs. Opt-outs are normally better suited for work which isn’t related to the company’s digital transformation efforts, therefore change may in fact represent an opportunity to become involved in other areas of the business. They can however prove to be effective advisors in their area of expertise, or perhaps there are other teams in the company that could benefit from their experience and knowledge. Regardless, if you don’t consider these employees’ concerns and manage their transitions, they can poison others who are interested – but nervous about the change.
Graduates
Some of your best team members will get promoted, perhaps onto a different team or into a new business unit. On the surface this is good news, however, if people leave early, or several leave in quick succession, the team leading the change may struggle to maintain maturity and momentum in their absence.
Because it is important to keep teams intact until there are people ready to backfill leadership roles, start succession-planning early — even down to the individual team level. While you can encourage people to stay in place for a period of time by providing them with interesting work and fair compensation, preparing for the future early ensures your efforts won’t stall out. When you are ready for people to move on, consider planning for graduates to seed new teams in pairs or small groups, so that they can support one another and have greater influence on others.
Final thoughts
While high turnover feels alarming, it can be a good sign. It’s evidence that you’re effecting change. Instead of feeling powerless, proactively preparing for and guiding changes in staffing can keep your transformation on track. While you may not prevent people from leaving, you can learn valuable lessons from the reasons they leave, which you can then leverage into actionable insights that help you on your journey.
Jay Weintraub, founder and CEO of InsureTech Connect explores the digital transformation of insurance, and what makes InsureTech Connect the…
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Jay Weintraub, founder and CEO of InsureTech Connect explores the digital transformation of insurance, and what makes InsureTech Connect the largest, most focused and relevant gathering of insurance industry executives, entrepreneurs and investors in the world. By Dale Benton
Walk us through your career journey and how you
find yourself as Founder and CEO of InsureTech Connect?
In 2008, I launched an event
series for a subset of the Internet advertising space, and it was there that I first
got exposed to the world of insurance. Towards the end of 2015, I met Caribou
Honig, who was a fintech VC in search of an InsureTech conference, and that
meeting could have gone really poorly or really well, and I’m happy to say that
it went really, really well.
What is InsureTech Connect?
We are the world’s largest
event that discusses the digital transformation happening in the world of
insurance. Insurance is one of these remarkable worlds. It’s worth trillions of
dollars in annual premiums, it connects our lives, it enables us to do everything
that we do at this moment and yet it’s something that is sort of invisible and
behind the scenes. In the last four years, the world of insurance has seen,
this groundswell of activity by entrepreneurs who are looking at this big world
and saying, ‘Wait a second, why does it work the way that it does? There has to
be a better way.” It is these entrepreneurs, the investors that fund them
and the global incumbent insurance companies that all gather at InsureTech
Connect in Las Vegas.
As technology has become more advanced, how are
the conversations surrounding tech, different today than they were say, 10
years ago?
It’s amazing how much the
conversation has remained the same, it’s the channels that are different. When
we think about customer acquisition, there are certainly going to be broad
shifts in how companies acquire customers as the access to channels. We must
remember, the core of having a great product that appeals to people may change,
but it’s the core of having something worth telling that really hasn’t changed.
Is there a challenge in understanding, and
defining, what digital and digital transformation means to business?
It’s both a challenge and
opportunity and it is what makes being in InsureTech such a fun place to be
because is it talking about product lines. How do we use insurance in a new
way? How do we take a classic product, break it into a way that is better and
necessary but also helps consumers? Digital transformation is going to depend
on what product line you’re in, what part of the value chain you’re in and what
technologies you think can actually help you serve your customers better.
There’s an immense amount of parallel transformation taking place.
What do you feel are some of the key barriers
faced by insurance, in embracing innovation?
I would love for the answer
to be technology. If we think about in the early 2000s when e-commerce was
becoming a thing and people knew that they wanted to buy online, it still took
15 years before it became mainstream, and that was a technology issue. It was
because mobile phones weren’t computers, there wasn’t connectivity, the cloud
computing didn’t exist, so the ubiquity of what could be done wasn’t actually
there. Today, we have consumers that want things and we have technology that
gets it to them. It’s a fundamental culture change in a lot of cases, and
insurance has been more incremental in nature. It’s an industry that is
hundreds of years old and thinks in terms of hundreds of years versus any
short-term trend.
How do companies stay on top of the new consumer
demands so as not to fall behind competitors?
We have a couple of
assumptions. We are assuming that over time, if it can be sold online, it will
be. We assume over time that everything will be sold and written directly. The
challenge for any business is, what is that time horizon? Personal lines are vastly
consumed both directly and digitally, but commercial lines will one day be far
more direct than they are. It’s why small commercial concerns are such a hotbed
of innovation.
You think about the next
generation of small business owner, it’s going to be somebody that has grown up
with a phone, and so when they look to purchase their insurance, they’re going
to want to start digitally versus maybe how the previous generation turned to
an individual. When we’re looking at insurance, it’s about locating the pain
point? Is the product going to be sold digitally no matter what? Or is it
something that is still going to be sold through an individual, most likely
with an advisor. How do you enable that advisor to do their job better?
How difficult is it to balance, move forward and
embrace this next generation without turning your back on the existing previous
generations?
I don’t think it’s a pure
split. I think everybody wants to speak on the phone at a certain time, and I
would say that there’s an ever-growing comfort with people who are happy to
speak on the phone or not speak on the phone. We look at Facebook, right? It
went from being students only, to almost getting a backlash for it becoming the
playground of the parents and grandparents, and it shows the comfort of people
engaging with a mobile phone as a device for consuming and inputting
information.
I think about chatbots and
other forms of conversational AI, and it’s a case of understanding how it helps
you to make the experience better versus looking at it as just a, ‘Oh the young
kids, they want to engage with their phone.’ We have to say, what does it help
us do better, faster, and at scale? We have to look at these things for very
specific performance enhancers and then always have an escalation process
knowing that if there’s a certain level of complexity, if there’s a certain
level of frustration, if there’s nuance, then there’s a trigger for people to
always speak to a human. People can be guilty of looking at tech as the box
that everything fits into. It’s like a hammer in search of a nail. Well let’s
make it a box for everything, and we see it ultimately leads to poor outcomes.
How do you work to ensure that InsureTech
Connect is relevant to the discussions of today in a time of never-ending disruption?
What is our role? Our role is
to convene. When we think about the goal of insurance, both to enable people to
live and take risks and to get people back to a pre-loss state faster, our hope
is to always keep an eye on what’s happening and look at how we reduce the
coverage gaps and say, what is actually making a difference? Who is actually
making a difference? How do we make sure they get enough time on stage? And
more importantly, how do we enable the attendees, via technology, to connect
with each other so that start-ups meet an investor they might not have?
What can organisations, and the industry as a
whole, be doing now to open the door to the next generation of skilled workers
that’ll be able to continue to innovate and continue to operate in these new
and exciting times?
It’s one of those great
questions that has horrible answers because the businesses operate at scale.
It’s about repeatable process and it’s about having the data and then acting.
What we’re talking about now is, no one knows the data. We wouldn’t have
guessed 5 years ago that having somebody who was really good with a mobile
phone and understood Instagram could be a person that is immensely valuable to
the largest organisations, and yet today, you think about some of these
competencies… People are saying, ‘Oh, we want you to know how to use social
because having our 10,000 employees engaged in social is actually one of the
best ways for us to get seen and get noticed.’ But a lot of these skill sets we
have are not obvious until they’re obvious.
The best thing is to look at
the younger generation and at how they engage. Study them as consumers first,
as this is how they consume and then look to understand what that means, every five
or 10 years. The hardest part is we can oftentimes see where the future’s
heading, but we don’t know how long it’s going to take. There’s a real
discipline that says, how do we separate out some of these new skill sets, new
future activities, how do we stay on top of it, without trying to either shift
the entire organisation or treat it as something that is not that important
today.
What would you say is key to remaining successful
in this time of opportunity and challenge?
Never underestimate the power
of relationships, because it’s the people who are ultimately the ones that are
creating the next thing and the closer you are to the creators, the closer you
are to the ecosystem itself. I think it is also being calm; you have to be calm
and stop listening to the noise as much. We think about the companies that have
dramatically changed our lives. I think about some of the big tech companies: Google,
Amazon, Facebook, Apple. There are thousands upon thousands of start-ups that
are doing interesting things, but the number of them that are going to
ultimately change the way we do business are slow in their growth, in a way,
before they fully change us.
Be a little patient and learn
about ecosystems and make sure that you have at least someone or a team that is
comfortable with these new platforms, so that when one of them becomes dominant
like Facebook or Apple there’s at least some embedded knowledge about how these
things work. Listen, but don’t overreact. Be patient. There’s usually always
time, even though it doesn’t feel like it in the get-go.
In early 2019, the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme (VHIS) was introduced in Hong Kong by the Food and Health Bureau…
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In
early 2019, the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme (VHIS) was introduced in Hong
Kong by the Food and Health Bureau to regulate indemnity hospital insurance
plans offered to individuals, with voluntary participation by insurance
companies and consumers. The VHIS was designed as a means of encouraging and
supporting customers to purchase private healthcare services and for Koh Yi
Mien, Managing Director Health and Employee Benefits at AXA Hong Kong, this
scheme represents a broader transformation of healthcare and insurance
services. “Currently, the demand on healthcare in Hong Kong in the public
sector is incredibly high with very long waiting times and waiting lists,” she
explains. “As a result, people just aren’t getting timely access to treatment.
The private sector in Hong Kong, which is world-class, has capacity. So, if we
can rebalance and shift some of the elective work from public to private, it
will free up more people to use the public service in a timely fashion.”
Yi
Mien also points to a global drive for greater transparency, accountability,
use of data and technology as well as promoting customer choice as key drivers
of change in the insurance space. “It’s no longer a case of simply providing
reimbursement to people when they need treatment,” she says. “It’s about being
the patient’s partner throughout their whole life so that when they need
healthcare, whenever and wherever they are, we are there to help and support
them in their times of need.”
The
modern-day insurance customer is very different from the customer of the past.
We live in times of greater access to information through the advent of social
media and the increasing influence of the Internet and this has resulted in
insurance customers being more knowledgeable about their conditions and asking
more questions of their doctors than ever before. As a result, the balance
between the customer and the healthcare provider is becoming more equitable.
“Customers and patients, as a result, are becoming more demanding,” says Yi
Mien. “Gone are the traditional ideas that doctor knows best. It’s not uncommon
for patients to see their doctor with a list of demands, while expecting to be
serviced.”
Running
parallel to becoming more knowledgeable and demanding is the use of smartphones
and how it has created a culture of service in an instant. When customers
purchase etiquettes or use banking services, they expect the ability to be able
to access and complete these transactions and services via their smartphone
devices. Fewer and fewer people are accessing physical bank branches and the
healthcare insurance sector, despite being still very traditional, is feeling
the effects of this instant demand. “Healthcare is a very traditional sector
sure, but asking patients or customers to book weeks in advance and telling
them they don’t really have any choice is becoming increasingly unacceptable
and so healthcare becomes a commodity,” says Mie Koh. “They, like any other
customer, vote with their feet and want 24/7 access to quality healthcare
without waiting directly from us as the insurer.”
The
informed customer and patient have also transformed the relationship between
customer and doctor. It is no longer a bilateral relationship and the entire
healthcare ecosystem works to provide services from prevention right through to
treatment. The result? Insurers like AXA work with customers before they are
sick and encourage them to maintain their health, but they also work with
clients during their illness and even afterwards AXA will continue to treat them
in their rehabilitation. “During their healthcare journey, customers want some
handholding in order to navigate the very complex healthcare system, to make
sure they get the right healthcare provider, doctor and hospitals that are best
for them in their time of need,” says Yi Mien. “This can only happen if we are
using digital so that it becomes more real time.”
AXA
has been embracing technology for a number of years to be able to serve and
effectively work with its customers. It achieves this by starting with the
definition of a product, because the product sets the rules. Yi Mien highlights
that the rules would often be how AXA would spell out the terms and conditions,
the provisions, but these rules also set the customer expectations. Throughout
late 2018 and 2019, AXA has invested in digital to enable its customers to buy
online, service online, claim online and check-up online. The company also
launched a servicing app called Emma, a ‘digital companion’ that enables even
faster service. Yi Mien describes this app as a true “health companion”. She is
also keen to highlight that the technology is only part of the story. AXA has
built a vast medical network with some of the leading hospitals and doctors and
customers simply having to log into their companion app to be able to access
this network at the touch of a button. “All they need to show is their digital
card, their e-card, and with the QR code, the provider just scans it. All of
the data is downloaded and all they need to do is sign, get their treatment,
and then when they discharge, just sign that they have received the treatment
and off they go,” she says. “The hospital will bill AXA directly so there’s no
out of pocket. The data is also transmitted to AXA which means that we have
more comprehensive and more reliable data.”
Comprehensive
and reliable data is crucial to the technology journey of AXA, but it is also
integral to the customer journey. With a customer’s entire electronic medical
records stored effectively and securely, as Yi Mien notes, why would they go
anywhere else? The data that an insurer handles is often complex in nature, but
this data is processed through artificial intelligence, with AI being used to
process claims more effectively and interpret the information to allow AXA to create
rules and algorithms to better serve its customers. AXA also utilises AI
through its companion app Emma. “Emma is our chatbot,” explains Yi Mien. “Emma
has been built up based on a multitude of Q&As that our customer services
team have recorded and collected over many months and years. As we continue to
build, and more people use Emma, then the quality of the responses she has in
her arsenal will improve.” In the first two months of operations, Emma recorded
an accuracy level of 50%. Yi Mien firmly believes that as more people engage
with Emma and as a result, the chatbot will evolve and become more of a
real-time navigator that can direct customers across the whole ecosystem.
In
the global discussion around AI, the topic of transparency is often a key point
of debate. With governments around the world shining a spotlight on exactly
what data is collected and how it is used, AXA ensures that it maintains an
open and transparent dialogue with its customers. As customers engage with Emma
and the companion app, they can at any time request their transcripts. Should
they choose to speak with a human adviser, all calls are recorded and again
they can access those recordings should they wish. Not only is this an example
of AXA complying with global governing laws, it also highlights that the
customer is at the very heart of every decision it makes and it maintains this
as it continues to implement new technologies. “If you look at banking as an
example, we all are so used to accessing our bank accounts at any time, be it
through our phones or online,” says Yi Mien. “If we want to speak to someone,
we can. If we want to go into a branch, we can. I believe this is the way to go
with insurance as well. We make it easy for our customers to contact us. We are
doing everything we can to allow that.”
“Healthcare
is quite personal, so we are doing what we can to allow customers to speak to
people, should they not wish to use our chatbot. These are very personal
journeys and digital is still in its early days, so we really have to provide
different avenues and channels for our customers to contact us.”
As
Yi Mien notes, AXA designs its customer journey by starting at the product and
going through all the way to treatment. The company makes every decision with
the customer’s perspective in mind. As a doctor by trade, Yi Mien sees that all
new products are designed by doctors because they understand how the patients
move throughout the whole healthcare ecosystem. When AXA designs new products,
it does not operate within a vacuum. It has a customer insight group, where
around 1,000 customers operate as a real-time focus group in which AXA can test
its products with. “When I think about future products, we will test with this
group of people and get feedback to see whether we are aligned with the current
customer need. So, it’s not just technology per se, but actually meets a
customer’s needs,” she says. “One other area to make sure that we are doing the
right thing, because technology also costs money, is to make sure that we are
very robust in what we do. AXA is unique in that we sell life insurance, health
insurance, employee benefits, and we also have P&C. So, being a multi-line
insurer, we have the opportunity of having one approach and cross-selling
across the business lines, which is a fantastic opportunity. We can only do
that through technology.”
Over
the course of her career, Yi Mien has been a champion of the transformative
effect of technology in becoming a greater enabler for healthcare and
healthcare insurance providers around the world. One area in particular that is
close to her heart is the mental health space. In Hong Kong, the waiting time
to see a psychologist is close to two years and if patients were to seek
private care, it is an expensive solution. “Look at a country like Hong Kong,
or Australia, they are so vast that there just aren’t enough practitioners to
cover the breadth of the geography. Digital is the solution,” she says.
“Digital enables people to seek, support and care at the time that is most convenient
for them.”
“In
the past two to three years, there has been a proliferation of digital tools.
Recent studies have shown that digital tools are as good as, if not better,
than in-person therapy because customers prefer to talk to a robot rather than
face-to-face because they feel that the robot is not judging them.”
Another
example that Yi Mien highlights is in the UK, where a VR program has been
developed by programmers that is therapy through gameification. The treatment
is consistent every time and because of its mobile platform, it is accessible.
“We can provide it where you work,” she says. “That’s just one example as to
how we can destigmatise mental health through technology.”
AXA
operates within a broad healthcare ecosystem, an ecosystem made up of partners,
providers and doctors and Yi Mien stresses that in the future of insurance, it
will be impossible for insurers to control the ecosystem. “I don’t foresee a
future where that happens,” she says. “Partnerships are incredibly important.
Things are moving so fast there’s no way we can catch up alone. We need to have
partners, collaborators, who are working together to ensure we are at the top
of our game and at the forefront of innovation.”
“Over the course of our lives, so many different
things can happen and so people will need better care and support. By having a
collection of data that represents our customer’s needs we are able to push or
suggest services that better meet those needs. In order for us to do that, we
need to have players collaborate in the ecosystem. It’s imperative.”
As
AXA continues this digital growth journey, the next few years will be defined
by improving the agility of the digital companion in order to improve the
interaction with customers. AXA will also be looking at developing a digital
marketplace in which customers can go shopping within an AXA owned digital
platform. For Yi Mien, though, the future is clear for AXA and in order to be
successful, she feels it’s down to one thing. “AXA has a clear digital strategy
for sure, where it will transform its digital system and build new IT
infrastructure to transform the customer experience,” she says. “But the
technology is only one part of the story.”
“Unless
we can transform the customer experience to deliver a service they truly value,
then technology doesn’t do anything. It’s important to recognise that
technology is enabling us to transform healthcare, to make it easier, faster,
and cheaper for people to receive care. That means in the long-term, sustainable
healthcare and health services, which fits into sustainable insurance.”
This month’s exclusive cover
story features an interview with Koh
Yi Mien, Managing Director Health and Employee Benefits at AXA Hong Kong. Koh
Yi Mien reveals how technology is only one part of the healthcare insurance
giant’s digital transformation journey.
Yi
Mien points to a global drive for greater transparency, accountability, use of
data and technology as well as promoting customer choice as key drivers of
change in the insurance space. “It’s no longer a case of simply providing
reimbursement to people when they need treatment,” she says. “It’s about being
the patient’s partner throughout their whole life… so we are there to help and
support them in their times of need.”
Elsewhere, we
have an absorbing interview with former Amazon exec John Rossman, Managing
Partner at Rossman Partners, who explores the concept of digital transformation
in his book Think Like Amazon. We also feature Jay Weintraub, founder and CEO of event InsureTech
Connect, who explains why it’s the largest, most focused and relevant gathering
of insurance industry executives, entrepreneurs and investors in the world.
Plus, we list the greatest events and conferences of the year ahead.
The uptake of artificial intelligence by industry will drastically change the UK job market in the coming years – with…
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The uptake of artificial intelligence by industry will drastically change the UK job market in the coming years – with 133 million new jobs expected to be created globally.
In the UK alone, up to a third of jobs will be automated or likely to change as a result of the emergence of AI – impacting 10.5 million workers.
Ollie Sexton, Principal at Robert Walters comments:
“As businesses become ever more reliant on AI, there is an increasing amount of pressure on the processes of data capture and integration. As a result, we have seen an unprecedented number of roles being created with data skill-set at their core.
“Our job force cannot afford to not get to grips with data and digitalisation. Since 2015 the volume of data created worldwide has more than doubled – increasing (on average) by 28% year-on-year.
“Now is the perfect time to start honing UK talent for the next generation of AI-influenced jobs. If you look at the statistics in this report we can see that demand is already rife, what we are at risk of is a shortage of talent and skills.”
Demand for Data Professionals
IT professionals dedicated to data management appear to be the fastest growing area within large or global entities, with volumes increasing ten-fold in three years – an increase in vacancies of 160% since 2015.
More generally speaking, data roles across the board have increased by 80% since 2015 – with key areas of growth including data scientists and engineers.
What has been the most interesting to see is the emergence of data scientist as a mainstream profession – with job vacancies increasing by a staggering 110% year-on-year. The same trend can be seen with data engineers, averaging 86% year-on-year job growth.
Professional Services Hiring Rapidly
The rise of cybercrime has resulted in professional services – particularly within banking and financial services – hiring aggressively for information security professionals since 2016, however since then volumes have held steady.
Within professional services, vacancies for data analysts (+19.5%), data manager (+64.2%), data scientist (+28.8), and data engineer (+62%) have all increased year-on-year.
Top Industries Investing in AI
Agriculture
Business Support
Customer Experience
Energy
Healthcare
Intellectual Property
IT Service Management
Manufacturing
Technical Support
Retail
Software Development
Tom Chambers, Manager – Advanced Analytics and Engineering at Robert Walters comments:
“The uptake of AI across multiple industries is bringing about rapid change, but with that opportunity.
“Particularly, we are seeing retail, professional services and technology industries’ strive to develop digital products and services that are digitally engaging, secure and instantaneous for the customer – leading to huge waves of recruitment of professionals who are skilled in implementing, monitoring and gaining the desired output from facial recognition, check-out free retail and computer vision, among other automation technologies.
“Similarly, experimental AI is making huge breakthroughs in the healthcare industry, with the power to replace the need for human, expert diagnoses.
“What we are seeing is from those businesses that are prepared to invest heavily in AI and data analytics, is they are already outperforming their competitors – and so demand for talent in this area shows no signs of wavering.”
We’re in the midst of an industrial revolution. Industry 4.0 is an umbrella term that covers a multitude of technological advances that are transforming the world’s manufacturing and production industries. This means that every individual machine, system and set of processes across the factory and throughout the enterprise will be integrated and connected to the internet. It’s as much an evolution of existing automated systems (like assembly line robots or packaging equipment), as it is a revolution. This unprecedented level of connectivity allows information to be captured at every point on the production process and throughout the supply chain. The resulting Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) data can then be analysed and managed to make every manufacturing sequence as fast and accurate as possible.
Simply put, the Holy Grail of maximum efficiency could be realised with Coding Automation. Adem Kulauzovic, Director of Coding Automation, at Domino Printing Sciences plc, highlights the five ways in which you can achieve this through coding and marking.
Defeating downtime through proactive monitoring
Manufacturers want peace of mind that their printers will remain operational at all times, and utilising Industry 4.0 concepts, such as Integration and Cloud Computing, makes this feasible. By using an array of integrated sensors to automate system monitoring and send data to the Cloud, engineers can use this information to monitor their printers and detect any reliability issues.
With this type of technology, this can be done remotely – there is no need for engineers to go to a customer site to diagnose a fault. If a fix is required, engineers can turn up on site prepared with the knowledge and any spare parts they need. Additionally, the use of the Cloud will ensure engineers are automatically alerted of any faults and potential issues with the printers which enable issues to be managed faster and resolutions sought before they impact the production line. The data collected by the Cloud can also be used to discover trends and provide root cause analysis that can be used to determine proper preventative maintenance in the future. A proactive approach and remote management is a powerful weapon in defeating downtime.
Empowering customers through Automation and IIoT
It’s not just support teams and engineers that can monitor printers; customers also have valuable insights into their printer operations at their fingertips.
With the use of a connected online system, a customer can check the status of their printers from any location, remotely diagnose faults, plan for refills and reorders by watching ink levels and usage. They can set alerts if, for example, ink levels reach a dangerously low level – and can take action before downtime occurs – all without physically needing to be at the printer’s location. By monitoring cleaning and equipment maintenance schedules, the longevity of the printers and their components is increased. It’s also key to remember that users don’t have access to this information for just one printer, production line, or plant. The IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) allows users to compare the performance across all lines, plants, and sites, enabling them to take a global approach to optimise production efficiency.
Eliminating recalls caused by operator error
When errors are introduced, the impact can be detrimental and significant. Consider that the average human makes one mistake for every 300 characters entered. Incorrect information entered on printers by operators results in costly recalls and reworks. It’s a significant cause of unplanned production downtime. Integrating printers with factory automation systems, such as MES (Manufacturing Execution System) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems enables labelling data to be coordinated automatically without the need for human input.
Switching from manually operating each printer to the centralised management and automated coordination of jobs, labels, and data removes the risk of human error and can prevent coding and marking errors and can provide essential production data on your factory floor.
Seamless interoperability through standardisation
Communication standards enable the seamless transfer of data between equipment and factory systems to reduce setup, support, and development costs. They provide a universal method to collect and share production information across production areas; measuring and adjusting production throughput while reducing the risk of data inconsistency across different pieces of production equipment.
If you imagine a production line in its entirety, data and instructions flow through a variety of equipment that is often supplied by different companies – devices like printers, check weighers, vision systems and PLCs, and whole packaging systems from OEMs. By adopting a common data language, setup times are reduced, and there’s no need to develop software to interface between equipment – reducing development time.
Protecting consumers through serialisation
There are several solutions for unique identification, aggregation, tracing, and verification of products to meet the challenges of serialisation. These serialisation products can generate encrypted, unique numbers, and enable multiple levels of aggregation and integration with Government databases, enterprise systems, and contract manufacturing organisations.
Online portals enable live tracking and authentication of products through the supply chain. If items are removed or changed during production, or damaged during transit, the associated serial numbers are decommissioned, and the data in the central repository is updated. Scanning products at the point of purchase gives assurance to consumers and retailers. For example, pharmacies can validate medicines before dispensing, and customers (via smartphone apps) can check food products are safe before they purchase them.
Don’t just survive – thrive!
Industry 4.0 is not just a revolution but an evolution of technology, attitudes, and techniques across every section of the world’s manufacturing and production environments. The benefits of the fourth Industrial Revolution are clear to see. From increased performance and profitability, to customer empowerment, to servitisation and serialisation, each advantage is working towards the ultimate goal for any production environment: maximum efficiency.
However, Industry 4.0 cannot be achieved overnight. Due to the breadth of changes, from both a cultural and technical standpoint, this transformation will require time to take effect. Yet this transformation is happening, and it is a truly unique opportunity for us not just to survive – but thrive as innovators and early adopters while the world’s latest Industrial Revolution steadily marches on.
Ian Moyse, EMEA Sales Director at Natterbox Limited outlines one of the most important skill sets in the modern age:…
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Ian Moyse, EMEA Sales Director at Natterbox Limited outlines one of the most important skill sets in the modern age: the need for acceptance and receptiveness of innovation and digitisation. The ability to be agile as a technology professional… By Dale Benton
How important is it to stay on top of, and to understand, both the speed of change and the increasing demands on modern technology?
One of the skill sets, and not just in sales or working in the tech sector, but across a lot of roles today, is the capability to be agile. Humans have this propensity to change and adapt. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here today, right? But you’ve got to be willing to do that. A valuable skill today is acceptance and receptiveness and the ability to change, and change again, and again. We’re seeing less and less of doing the same thing day in, day out, for 30 years or so.
So, what exactly is Natterbox?
Natterbox has built, from the ground up, a cloud telephony system, which was called VoIP. The real unique thing is we’ve built the system fully inside Salesforce. We’re the most integrated telephony platform for the Salesforce platforms, whether it is service cloud, sales cloud, force.com etc., on the planet. You could say it’s a niche market, but it’s a very big niche market, enabling customers who have invested in Salesforce to also put their telephony in the cloud, and put the two together. It’s using data that you have about customers, whether it’s opportunities, cases, support, tickets, to improve and transform both your customer and your agent’s experience with telephony. To do things that you couldn’t do with old technology, and old telephony systems. Simple example, if you phone in and you had a ticket with a customer yesterday and they didn’t call you back, how transformational would it be if when you phoned them, if the phone system dynamically recognised your number, had looked you up in their system and went, “Hi Ian, thanks for calling this morning. We detect, we didn’t call you back on that ticket yesterday, if that’s what you’re calling about, press one, and we will escalate you to the right person quickly. Two, for our normal menu.”
We’re using live relevant data about the customer to personalize and transform their experience over the phone. Exactly like you’ve seen on websites for years, where you go to a website, it remembers who you are from a cookie, and starts to personalize your experience and treat you differently. We believe you should be doing that on the phone, and that’s the capability we give to customers.
Can you explore the technology that sits at the very heart of that?
We’ve seen some players try and do this by buying components, underlying components in, but we wanted to own the stack because if you’re going to do this stuff, it’s obviously important to you.You can’t do this stuff and do half a job, it’s got to be extremely resilient, because you’re setting the customer expectation, you’re setting the bar high and you’d better deliver. We architected this ourselves, and we chose Salesforce purely because we wanted to be the master of one and do it well. We decided we are going to do this to the extreme we believe the market needs.
Everything behind this has to use efficient, speedy cloud systems, because it’s real time. You have a conversation, you have an electronic voice, you want it to sound as human as possible, and it needs to be instantaneous. The customer isn’t going to wait two or three seconds as you would on websites. Our expectations are set high. It is extremely complex under the covers, but one of our goals we achieved was to make it easier for customers, to hide all the complexity in the back end, and give them an interface where they can configure this, and manage it very quickly themselves. So if they want to make a change, it’s real time. Make the change and it’s live across your whole phone system.
Data is key to what you do, but how do you ensure that data is governed?
If you look at the press today, in the past number of weeks, at the point we’re speaking now, we have seen some of the impact of data breaches like we’ve never seen before. The consequence used to be, A, we wouldn’t always necessarily hear about the story and B, the impact and cost of that business was reduced; it didn’t get much news. It was, “there’s been a breach”. If you heard about it, great, but it has diminished quite quickly. Today we live in a different world. The rules have changed.
We’ve seen these large businesses now, they’re getting fines in the hundreds of millions. So the penalty should have been there before. I don’t think the threats are getting worse. They’re getting different, but the threats have been there for years. If you’ve got data, it is an incredibly valuable asset. When I speak at schools, it’s always interesting. A question that’s come up a few times is, “Facebook and these, how do they make money?” Because they see these platforms, that they recognize cost money to build and run. “How do they make money?” The money isn’t in the membership fees, it isn’t in the logins. It’s in the data they get, what they know about us, how they can market to us and sell us… We’re their commodity, we’re their product.
With technology continuously evolving, how can companies like Natterbox be ready for the next wave of digital transformation?
What I say to people is, what is your business? What is the product or service you sell? What’s the dynamic of your customer? Now if you’re a hairdresser cutting hair, you physically have to cut hair. So unless some incredible robot comes along in the future, that’s going to continue. It’s understanding what your business is, and what the persona of your customers are and how are they wanting to interact with you? It depends on generation as well. Millennials have been born into a world where social media has always been there, and all this tech we’re seeing, and Amazon, and apps on your phone for ordering is taken for granted. I would argue, however, all of us that haven’t come from that generation have probably been dragged into it anyway, and we take it for granted as well.
Our expectation bars have been set to a peaked level. The problem for any business that isn’t in that born in the cloud model, is that the customer expects the same of you, because someone else has raised the bar. And that’s why we’ve seen the likes of Blockbuster Video fall foul of Netflix and Amazon’s LoveFilm as was. There’s nothing wrong with Blockbuster, we’re hiring a video. But someone came along and presented a faster, quicker, slicker, more flexible model. It changed the dynamic of how the customer engaged or bought that product or service.
If you’re in a market that can be transformed, or you’ve got someone coming into it, you need to start now. You need to be the ones doing it, not waiting for someone else to transform you, and then you’re on the defensive. It’s harder for you as a legacy business to transform than it is for a newcomer. A new business will buy everything in the cloud. They’ll buy all the new technology, and apply processes that fit the new world that we’re now in, and the new buyer dynamic, and the new customer persona, and the new tech world we live in. Because they can.
If you’re in a business, forget what you do today. Go in a room with the people who understand the history of your business, or the dynamic of your market. Whiteboard, spend a couple of hours with some coffee and donuts, and just chat through. If we were starting this company again today, what would we do? Imagine that your company does not exist. You have all left and gone to a start-up. You’re going to start a competitor. What would you do? You would not build what you built historically.
The reason you did that is because it was the world you were in at the time you built it. So there’s nothing wrong with what you did. It’s the nature of the beast. But today, you would do it differently. And that’s how your mindset needs to start. Then you work backwards to, “Okay, so how do we get there? What, what’s the easy win? Is there anything of these 20 ideas we’ve come up with, where we can start to … This year we could do three of them?” That’ll be hard in itself. Right? But we can start to move along the journey of trying to move towards that. Because we’ve all agreed if we started the business today, that’s what we’d do to beat our own company. If you can think of it, someone else can as well, and someone else can do it, and they can potentially do it quite quickly.
By Alistair Sergeant, CEO, Purple Consultancy Businesses are increasingly having to create and modify their organisational capabilities to adapt and keep…
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ByAlistair Sergeant,CEO, Purple Consultancy
Businesses are increasingly having to create and modify their organisational capabilities to adapt and keep up with the ever changing and evolving digital technology which surrounds them.
For many, their digital projects are failing; the speed of digital transformation is alienating the essential human interaction and cultural change required to make the projects a success.
Bring back the humans
According to the latest statistics, 88% of digital transformation projects fail and there is a reason for that.
The speed of digital change is something that no business can ignore but most try relentlessly and largely unsuccessfully to keep up with. We are surrounded with disruptive business models coming to market with new technology rapidly changing and it is easy to get so wrapped up by technology that we forget to consider that without the human element, the transformation process will fail.
This rapid change has resulted in a serious skills gap from a business and technology prospective for most UK organisations. As a result, both large corporations and SMEs UK wide are not as agile as they should be, not only affecting growth, but also impacting customer experience and employee engagement.
We know that (most) cars, no matter how technologically advanced they are, need a human to drive them and this is just the same when implementing digital change in your business.
Meaningful change starts with people, not technology. Your team needs to adapt to keep up with the pace by making changes to the way they have worked in the past but none of this can work successfully unless we encourage a chance in culture.
The role of the leader
To implement an effective digital transformation strategy, leadership is not only vital but critical for success. In so many cases, those implementing the strategy haven’t taken the time to understand what needs to be changed, what the strategy should aim to deliver and when, and more importantly how to correctly communicate change with staff or other company stakeholders.
It’s time to remove the digital-first approach as this method requires your entire team to buy in to it and almost forces them into a corner. To work on a new team culture in the business, which encourages your staff to embrace the changes and understand the reason for the changes, takes time. As a digital leader you need to guide and support your employees, encourage them and give them time to grow with the transformation process.
Understanding how they work, how they think and playing to their strengths is time consuming but will ultimately help to grow your successful ‘human-first’ approach.
Get to know your customers
Customers are human too. They are not just numbers on a sheet. It is vital you get to know them, get to the bottom of what they like, what they want and also what they don’t want. You are aiming to promote a human-centric approach so that you give them the solutions they actually want and not what you assume they want.
You can maximise the success of your product or brand by taking the time to get to know who your target market is and allowing them to see that there are humans behind the brand who actually care about what they want and are prepared to talk to them and listen to them.
No matter how advanced technology is becoming, in certain situations there is simply no replacement for the human touch. Empathy plays a large part in positive company and team growth as well as social skills, the power of persuasion and negotiation, and these are all done better by humans and is what your customers will relate to.
Be patient
Building a system within your business, where humans and technology can work together with more of a balance, is where successful digital transformation will be most successful. One can’t work without the other but in your quest to beat off the competition, don’t overlook the heart of your business, which is the human element and ensure you invest as much in them as the technology you use. Take time to let a new company culture evolve and ensure that your employees understand the new structure and most importantly your vision as you are the ‘human’ who is implanting the change.
Borislav Tadic, Vice President BMS & Transformation DRC, explores how a major digital transformation of Deutsche Telekom has enabled greater…
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Borislav Tadic, Vice President BMS & Transformation DRC, explores how a major digital transformation of Deutsche Telekom has enabled greater customer experience and significant technological advancements.
Tell us what
your role is and how it fits into the wider Deutsche Telekom strategy?
I’m Vice President at Deutsche Telekom, responsible for board member support and transformation of the board area, data privacy, compliance and legal, working here in the Bonn headquarters of Deutsche Telekom Group. We as Deutsche Telekom Group are present in 50 countries and I would say are definitely a leading European telecommunications brand. We hope, after our mergers and acquisitions in the United States that we’ll become an even bigger player on a global level.
How
important is it in your position to continue to learn?
That’s a fantastic point. One thing
I try to do is constantly improve on an individual level. That includes formal
education. I have at least 10 internationally recognised certifications and I’m
currently working on my PhD in parallel to my work and I use numerous
non-formal opportunities to expand my knowledge, both in the formats offered in
the company and outside as well as through reading and keeping up to date with
the latest developments every day, every morning.
That attitude is something I try to include in our transformation programs. For example, during the past two years, we’ve up-skilled more than 1000 employees off this board area, both in Germany and internationally, in several ways. First, offering them online learning content on our intranet platform, creating awareness about the different digital courses we have in the context of Deutsche Telekom, which are focused on their profession. We also continue to learn about global technological developments, so they can understand the new trends and developments in the industry so that they can better advise and/or support their customers.
From there we went a step forward and decided not only to offer them in a digital format, which is easy to implement and easy to offer and cost-efficient but also to enable a knowledge transfer. This is through our Digital Future Campuses in Athens and here in Germany. Several hundred people and experts from different functions of our board area were brought together and we educated them in areas such as broadband development, 5G, agile working, international collaboration, diversity and many other topics which directly or indirectly contribute to their performance and to their daily jobs. Satisfaction rate on the company level was one of the best in the recent history of Deutsche Telekom, with 96 to 99% participant satisfaction with the program.
Deutsche Telekom AG
A
transformation of any kind breeds challenge, what are some of the challenges
you have faced?
It is a challenge indeed. The first aspect of the challenge is that you have to give or convey as much knowledge as possible in a relatively short time and of course to make the knowledge current because if you prepare a course around blockchain and you prepared it two years ago, today you would need a completely different base. The pace of change with regards to the content, which you create to educate someone, is very high. It’s important that you stay up to date in the preparation and delivery of these courses.
Even that aside, you have a limited budget and this limited budget has to be approved and/or aligned with our human resources area. We are working with them closely because of course they have way more transparency about the needs of every individual employee and we have of course our professional view and vision where we want to be as a group. We basically worked with our colleagues from HR and with our expert groups in identifying which areas we need to focus on because you have hundreds of areas, especially in our fast-changing, fast-paced business around digitisation and technology.
After we finalised that, we created a program and then the next challenge was how to get the best possible lecturers and best possible experts to share the knowledge, because of course, their time is limited. There are of course budget limitations and numerous other restrictions including language barriers. We tackle that by trying to find the best in-house experts in some areas and external partners for others. They have more experience in some domains that are relevant to us. Then there is the delivery.
Even if you organise a format that consists of online courses as well as the physical presence of a course for several hundred people, that’s not an easy task. It sounds like an easy task; it’s just an event with a couple of hundred people but no, this is multi-partner, multi-party interactive session with numerous choice options because not everyone gets the same program. The people choose the modules and you have to fit all of that together. These are some of the challenges we’ve hopefully successfully tackled.
How
do you ensure that your transformation is done so with the customer experience
in mind?
That was the essence of our program and it’s a great question. First, we understood that we cannot only assume what the customer wants, we need to know what the customer wants and the only way to do that is to talk to the customer. As a governance function, we went and talked to the customers. We went out and spoke with actual private customers and business customers of Deutsche Telekom and asked them: what can we, from security, from privacy, from legal, from compliance, do differently in order to make your life better and easier?
We got our feedback. It was extremely good feedback, in the sense of many concrete, actionable points we can implement. For example, one of them was to simplify terms and conditions. When you sign a contract anywhere, for any mobile service, TV service or anything else we offer, you need to read through the pages of the contract documentation. This document is written mostly with the small letters, small font, explaining what will happen in case of some emergency escalation or conflict etc. It’s written in a language that no one understands but it was always the intention of Deutsche Telekom to make it fully understandable to our customers. We were doing our own efforts but when you speak directly to the customers, he can explain to you, which paragraphs are not easily understood or interpreted.
We used that feedback to simplify the terms and conditions for our major products. We did that within a couple of months and now we have one of the best, if not the best terms and conditions document, which is now standard. This raised the trust with our customers because they know that Telekom is fully transparent and wants them to understand what they are signing and what they are changing with their contract situation. This is only one example of numerous changes we did to the direct discussions with external customers.
How
important is transparency to a company like DT?
When you look at how you can make it more transparent and when you simplify the processes and the policies, the documents, when you’re directly communicating your goals and why you are doing certain things, this raises the trust of the customers. But of course, many digital tools can also help you to raise that transparency. For example, you can do it for ethical reasons. We have been very successful in advancing customer demands through a chatbot. It became so good that some of the customers didn’t even know that they were being served by the chatbot. Because it answered all their questions in the manner that they would expect from a live person, but we still, from an ethical perspective, decided to include the sign notification saying: “You’re speaking with our digital assistant, not with a real person.”
We’ve also introduced specialised
tools both internally and externally. As an example, we have a data privacy
cockpit that enables you to log in as a customer of Deutsche Telekom and
basically see which data you have approved or are sharing with both Deutsche
Telekom and you can also click and approve or disapprove with us sharing that
data with other parties. We are very strict with that. This is one of the parts
of our unique selling proposition; we’re extremely careful with the data of our
customers. What we want to achieve is for customers to no longer need to call or
send an email to understand which data of theirs is in the system and which can
be shared, but they also can log in with their mobile or fixed device and look
and choose and change the categories at any time, through a very useful and
user friendly interface.
Around 10 years ago, through internal experiences, we realised that this could become something we are known and recognised for, and so we decided to really invest internally into data privacy, security, compliance to strengthen our legal functions, to strengthen our audit functions. We did this in order to create a system that not only gives assurance to our shareholders but also to all of our customers. We don’t do it because we must; we believe that there is clear value in data being handled in an ethical and responsible manner for our customers.
How
difficult is this with regards to DT’s presence across 50 countries?
First is that we look at all of our footprints holistically where, if we have a high standard which is not producing a significant change in the product pricing or service pricing, we look to apply it throughout the whole footprint. In the area of compliance, security, privacy and risk management, we are applying the highest standards worldwide.
The challenge here is that you have certain local changes which happen and which of course demand us to stay on the ball in that we are always in contact with our local counterparts which are responsible for these areas where the board area is active and not only upscale them, not only to make them aware of the customer demands both locally and internationally, but also to always make sure that they’re applying the latest, leanest standard and the process to keep the high levels of these services.
How
will you continue to grow and transform? Can a transformational journey ever
really end?
There is no endpoint. You’re absolutely right; the transformation will never stop and should never stop. It’s a process of continuous improvement of the organisations and individuals and customers’ demands, markets. Everything is changing, so we need to keep changing constantly. I think it’s very important to say in the sense of the role you mentioned is that you also lead by example, not only me but also my colleagues and other senior executives. They need to be aware that if we are promoting a tool to be used or a process to be simplified, we have to start with ourselves.
They’re extremely important, these change processes, because it’s not sufficient only to upscale, to implement the customer demands and to digitise and introduce digital tools. If you want the whole organisation to have a sane and a good mix of agile projects and waterfall projects, I need to show that some of my projects in the digitization context are being run agile.
What do the next 12 months look like for DT?
We’re going to focus on new skills. Let’s say that we are going to further explore what the blockchain is bringing. We are going to further explore what the changes are, not only technologically, but also the social changes related to 5G. In addition to that, we want to further explore AI and also further explore digital ethics. We are going to be active in the corporate digital responsibility domain where we, as Deutsche Telekom, are very much pioneering some of the elements here in Europe, so this is definitely going to happen.
What
makes a successful CTO?
I would say surround yourself with extremely diverse people because diversity is not only diversity in the context of having different people with different backgrounds around yourself or different religions, different genders, different ages, etc., but also diversity in the opinion context, and the context of thoughts. And when you’re surrounded by such people, try to be like a sponge.
Try to take as much input as you can to process this and put it into the context and to continue changing because if I would apply what I learned at let’s say in the university or what I’m learning now for my PhD, that might be okay for a certain period of time, but the world, technology and the market is changing with extreme pace. So, you have to be fully aware that this will continue changing so your adaptability is the key. Your curiosity is the key and if you keep that, I’m sure that you’re basically ensuring that you’ll be successful today and tomorrow.
Welcome to a packed August issue of Interface Magazine! This month’s exclusive cover story is with a telecommunications giant. We…
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Welcome to a packed August issue of Interface Magazine!
This month’s exclusive cover story is with a telecommunications giant. We caught up with Verizon Consumer Group’s Executive Director of Sales Experience John Walker to discuss the telco’s transformation of its customer journey…
The largest wireless provider in the US, Verizon, with its 4G LTE network, covers approximately 98% of the States. The company has transformed its customer journey, while boosting revenue in the process, in an omni-channel offering that has reshaped its sales strategy.
Verizon Consumer Group’s Executive Director of Sales Experience across those channels is John Walker and it’s his job to examine the shopping path and the process of shopping in a bid to provide a greater experience for both the customer and the sales team. “We’re moving on,” Walker explains, “from having a channel-focused distribution strategy to a customer-journey focused one. It’s a big change…”
We also speak to Neil Williams, Director of IT and Digital Transformation
at the University of Derby, who has overseen massive changes at this
progressive tech powerhouse. Plus, we have an exclusive interview with Frank Konieczny, CTO at the US
Air Force and Borislav
Tadic, Vice President BMS & Transformation DRC at Deutsche Telekom.
All the best tech events and conferences are also listed, as are
the Top 5 companies deploying blockchain.
Experts have been predicting for some time that the automation technologies that are applied in factories worldwide would be applied…
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Experts
have been predicting for some time that the automation
technologies that are applied in factories worldwide would be applied to
datacentres in the future. Not only to improve their efficiency but to help
gather business insights from ever-increasing pools of data. The truth is that
we’re rapidly advancing this possibility with the application of Robotic
Process Automation (RPA) and machine learning in the datacentre environment.
But why is this so important?
At
the centre of digital transformation is data and thus, the datacentre. As we
enter this new revolution in how businesses operate, it’s essential that every
piece of data is handled and used appropriately to optimise its value. This is
where the datacentre becomes crucial as the central repository for data. Not
only are they required to manage increasing amounts of data, more complex machines
and infrastructures, we also want them to be able to generate improved
information about our data more quickly.
In
this article, Matthew Beale, Modern Datacentre Architect at automation and
infrastructure service provider, Ultima explains how RPA and machine learning
are today paving the way for the autonomous datacentre.
The legacy datacentre
Currently,
businesses spend too much time and energy on dealing with upgrades, patches,
fixes and monitoring of their datacentres. While some may run adequately, most
suffer from three critical issues;
• Lack of consistent support, for
example, humans make errors when updating patches or maintaining networks
leading to compliance issues.
• Lack of visibility for the business,
for example, multiple IT staff look after multiple apps or different parts of
the network with little coordination of what the business needs.
• Lack of speed when it comes to
increasing capacity or migrating data or updating apps.
Human
error is by far the most significant cause of network downtime. This is
followed by hardware failures and breakdowns. With little to no oversight of
how equipment is working, action can only be taken once the downtime has
already occurred. The cost impact is much higher as the focus is taken away
from other things to manage the cause of the issue, combined with the impact of
the actual network downtime. Stability, cost and time management must be
tightened to provide a more efficient datacentre. Automation can help achieve
this.
‘Cobots’ make humans six times
more productive
Automation
provides ‘cobots’ to work alongside humans with unlimited benefits. The
precisely structured environment of the datacentre is the perfect setting to
deploy these software robots. There are many medial, repetitive and time
intensive tasks that can be taken away from users and given to a software robot
with the effect of boosting both consistency and speed.
Ultima
calculates that the productivity ratio of ‘cobot’ to human is 6:1. By reviewing
processes that are worth automating, software robots can be programmed, and
once verified, they can repeat them every time. Whatever the process is,
robotics ensure that it is consistent and accurate, meaning that every task
will be much more efficient. This empowers teams to intervene only to make
decisions in exceptional circumstances.
The self-healing datacentre
Automation
minimises the amount of time that human maintenance of the datacentre is
required. Robotics and machine learning restructures and optimises traditional
processes, meaning that humans are no longer needed to perform patches to
servers at 3 am. Issues can be identified and flagged by machines before they
occur, eliminating downtime.
Re-distribution of resources
and capacity management
As
the lifecycle of an app across the business changes, resources need to be
redeployed accordingly. With limited visibility, it’s extremely difficult, if
not impossible, for humans to distribute resources effectively without the use
of machines and robotics. For example, automation can increase or decrease
resources accordingly towards the end of an app’s life to maximise resources
elsewhere. Ongoing capacity management also evaluates resources across multiple
cloud platforms for optimised utilisation. When the workload is effectively
balanced, not only does this offer productivity cost savings, it also allows
for predictive analytics.
The art of automation
These
new, consumable automation functions are the result of what Ultima has already
been doing for the last year when it found itself solving similar problems for
three of its customers. It was moving three customers from their end of life
5.5 version of VMWare and recognised that it would be helpful to be able to
automatically migrate them to the updated version, so it developed a solution
to do this. Where once it would have taken 40 days to migrate workloads, the
business cut that in half, resulting in a 33 per cent cost saving for those
companies. It then moved on to looking at other processes to automate with the
ambition of taking its customers on a journey to full datacentre automation.
Using
discovery tools and automated scripts to capture all data required to design
and migrate infrastructure to the automated datacentre, Ultima’s infrastructure
is used as a code to create repeatable deployments, customised for customer
environments. These datacentre deployments are then able to scale where needed
without manual intervention.
The journey to a fully
automated datacentre
The first level of automation provides information for administrators to take action in a user-friendly and consumable way, moving to a system that provides recommendations for administrators to accept actions based on usage trends. From there automation leads to a system that will automatically take remediation actions and raise tickets based on smart alerts. Then you move to a fully autonomous datacentre utilising AI & ML, which determines the appropriate steps and can self-learn and adjust thresholds.
AI-driven operations start
with automation
Businesses
are adopting modern ways of consuming applications as well as modern ways of
working. Over 80 per cent of organisations are either using or adopting DevOps
methodologies, and it is critical to the success of these initiatives that the
platforms in place can support these ways of working while still keeping
efficiency and utilisation high.
In
the not too distant future is a central platform to support traditional and
next-generation workloads which can be automated in a self-healing, optimum way
at all times. This means that when it comes to migration, maintenance,
upgrades, capacity changes, auditing, back-up and monitoring, the datacentre
takes the majority of actions itself with no or little assistance or human
intervention required. Similar to autonomous vehicles, the possibilities for
automation are never-ending; it’s always possible to continually improve
the way work is carried out.
Matthew Beale is Modern Datacentre
Architect, Ultima, an automation and transformation partner. You can contact
him at matthew.beale@ultima.com and visit Ultima at www.ultima.com
The recent Maze Group report outlines that if the UK’s 237,000 adults’ nurses in acute, elderly and general care were to work in innovative productivity-enhancing hospitals, they would gain back a total of 25 million hours of time back every year. This equates to adding 13,500 full-time nurses to the NHS workforce. This is due to the current hospital facilities hindering optimum productivity. The report outlines that four in 10 public sector workers stated that they were unproductive for more than two hours every working week because of their workplace environment
The NHS is a recurrent issue in the UK, shown by its
centrality to the Brexit campaigns and the current conservative leadership
election. However, the NHS is facing severe staff shortages, and
resources to fund public services are scarce. Tax rises to boost budgets are
politically unattractive, but due to the UK’s increasingly ageing population,
there is an urgent need to find a solution.
One new solution now being discussed is innovative productivity.
At the moment, more than 95% of data on a building site is lost or not even recorded, meaning contractors are building new facilities from scratch, over and over again. New construction technology means going forward structures will be created by a standardised set of components that incorporate significant amounts of feedback from end users into the next iteration of the design. New digital blueprints can lead the construction process by ensuring collaborative access to current plans, documents, appointments, and contacts for the whole of a project team, as well as providing sight of far more of the supply chain, manufacturing process and on-site requirements from the outset. Subsequently, this means going forward hospitals can be manufactured following the same interactive blueprints. The standardization of hospitals should enable trained health care workers to perform effectively in any new facility.
PlanRadar co-founder, Sander Van de Rijdt, believes the tech
revolution finally happening in construction means ideas about how structures
and buildings are built will be different in the future, designed instead
around the user and optimised for how people use their spaces and environments.
This revolution will change how our public services are delivered and tap into
the hours of unlocked productivity in UK hospitals.
PlanRadar is designed to tackle productivity issues. Their
users already realising time savings of seven working hours per week on
average, which is roughly around 18% of their working time and leads to reduced
costs of up to 70%. It’s one of the new construction technologies that will be
pivotal in building the next wave of innovative productivity-enhancing
hospitals and improving the future delivery of the NHS.
Alan Gibson, Senior Vice President, EMEA at Alteryx It’s no secret that data and analytics play a key part in…
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Alan Gibson, Senior Vice President, EMEA at Alteryx
It’s no secret that data and analytics play a key part in
every organisation’s digital transformation efforts. Data science has become a
rapidly progressing field thanks to the crucial role it plays in understanding
big data.
Although data has become a real game-changer harnessing
it is not always straightforward and many global corporations are struggling to
leverage their data assets. These strategies generate an overabundance of data
– and even more questions, requiring more analytics than most can possibly
imagine. They also require continuous analytic breakthroughs in order to
achieve a true digital transformation.
This pressure to exploit data in new ways and the
increased emphasis on digital transformation is also causing a tremendous
amount of strain on organisations’ analytics teams. Although many are investing
heavily in data technologies to transform their organisations, quick access to
information and insights can be impossible – and many are still failing at
putting this data in the hands of the business people who must make use of the
insights.
A key tactic for improving data access and providing
insights involves bringing the two elements of data and data science together. For many organisations unifying these in order to
drive digital transformation continues to be a challenge. Every vertical and
department has a need for ingesting disparate content and performing complex
analytic processes against it to drive value from the massive accumulation of
’dark data’ stored by organisations. Unlocking the value of such data through
data analytics is key to guiding leaders make more informed decisions.
One of the principal ways in which organisations can unify
data and data science is by changing the status quo and developing an analytics
culture across the business. Analytic teams serve as the backbone to digital
transformations, but more often than not we find that analytic teams are
starting from an insufficient position, attempting to innovate with legacy
holdovers of analytics processes, technology and team alignments. Holding on to
these relics are the biggest barriers to analytic alignment and innovation.
Leaders focussed on digital transformation should targe
both cultural and technology strategies that help to create an analytics
competency to fuel digital innovation. This is no small task. With data skills
in short supply and demand for data-related roles set to continue to rise
within the next four to five years, this is either exciting or intimidating
depending on what side of the analytic effectiveness spectrum you’re sitting!
Linking up data insight to people with vital business
knowledge is paramount to organisations wanting to make the most of data
analytics. Not only will it enable the organisation to understand data
analytics at every level it will also create an army of ’citizen data
scientists’. Uniting departments that otherwise would have been siloed while
generating more insightful and valuable analyses. Empowering these burgeoning
citizen data scientists is a unique opportunity for organisations to compete in
today’s digital economy. These individuals are eager to learn and develop new
skills to improve their personal development and contribute to the business,
but they can only be harnessed with the right enablement, support and
self-service tools. What’s more, according to a survey conducted by Forbes Insights in
collaboration with EY organisations which have an analytics strategy central to
their overall business strategy are approximately five times more likely to
achieve revenue growth and operating margin greater than 15 per cent, as
compared to organisations lacking an analytics vision.
With the hyper-focus on digital transformation, it’s
important to keep it in perspective. It isn’t always about new ‘things’, it’s
about new value. Harnessing the networking effect of data, people and
technologies paves the way to creating a sustainable cycle of analytic
innovation that drives digital transformation.
ENDS
Alteryx offers
an end-to-end analytics platform that empowers data analysts and scientists
alike to break data barriers, deliver insights, and experience the thrill of
getting to the answer faster. Organisations all over the world rely on Alteryx
daily to deliver actionable insights.
By Amyn Jaffer, Head of Intelligent Automation, Ultima Most businesses now recognise they will need to embrace intelligent automation to…
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By Amyn Jaffer, Head of Intelligent Automation, Ultima
Most
businesses now recognise they will need to embrace intelligent automation to
gain competitive advantage. From improving business processes and customer
experience, to using ‘cobots’ to work alongside their workforce, AI offers companies
huge scope to improve their business efficiency and drive innovation.
Yet,
while many companies are excited about the potential of this new technology,
the very concept of AI often evokes fear of the unknown for others – especially
for businesses that, understandably, don’t know where to start on their Intelligent
Automation journey. As with most daunting tasks, the best approach is to take
incremental steps.
RPA: a good place to start
An
ideal first step on the road to digital transformation is the introduction of
RPA (robotic process automation), which uses robots to handle high-volume,
repeatable tasks that previously required humans to perform them. These tasks
can include queries, calculations and maintenance of records and transactions.
As
well as being relatively simple to implement, using software robots is both
affordable and effective; and the potential benefits are impressive.
As
an example, RPA can be used by HR teams to ensure each company department has
the same information about every employee without the typical challenges of running
multiple system records and repetitive re-entry of information. It can also be
used for absence management and for processing applications, saving time for
your employees to focus on more strategic work. As a second phase,
organisations can then make HR information more accessible by implementing
chatbots.
Any
large-scale activities or groups of repetitive tasks that draw on or feed
information into multiple systems are also candidates for intelligent automation.
In practice, this could mean using cognitive services such as text and
sentiment analysis to process and respond to natural language text within
formats such as emails, documents and live webchats. The aim is to extract data
from these sources without the need for human intervention.
One
training provider which takes up to 400,000 first line calls annually is using
speechbots to answer calls and leverage RPA to verify the caller. This has
resulted in reduced operational expenditure in the call centre by 50% and
increased efficiency.
Similarly,
cognitive services can also be used to improve business efficiency through visual
recognition. One company is using this technology to tag information in
photographs – a task that would take hundreds of man-hours to do, but just
seconds with cognitive services.
At
Ultima, we have been using RPA technology to automate our own back-end operations
and we’ve seen productivity rise by a factor of two since implementing the
technology across five processes. For example, we automated our forecasting and
planning tasks. Software robots collate real-time sales and marketing
information and process all the information they collect during the day to
produce detailed forecasts and business intelligence for the next morning.
Usually this took eight to ten hours per day of staff time. As a result, the
business has improved business intelligence to plan with, and staff have more
time to spend on customer service and strategic thinking.
The next level
Taking
care of mundane tasks, RPA frees companies to explore more complex AI-based
automation – using visual and cognitive intelligence that draws information
from multiple sources and interprets it to deliver improved business
intelligence.
By
automatically collecting and sifting through vast amounts of data and then
training robots to make sense of the data by asking the data pertinent
questions, businesses can start to solve the problems that have been keeping them
up at night. For example, analysing customer data to establish insights into
how different things affect their purchasing decisions can give real business
benefits and drive innovations in how a business might supply and market its
goods.
However,
before taking this next step, it’s important for any organisation to look
practically at their infrastructure, workforce and security, and consider what
might need to change to enable their businesses to be set on a positive path to
digital transformation.
Ready for the future
Ultimately,
we’re all likely to have a ‘virtual worker’ by our sides helping us to do our
jobs, cutting out mundane, repetitive tasks and freeing us up to be more creative
and focus on business goals and innovation. To reach this stage the right
foundations need to be in place, and the adoption of RPA is the best place to
start.
Automated
machines will collate vast amounts of data and AI systems will understand it.
By coupling two different systems – one capable of automatically collecting vast
amounts of data, the other that can intelligently make sense of that
information – individuals and businesses will become more powerful.
Take a deep breath,
jump in and get ready to realis
Mike Bohndiek, Managing Director of PTI Consulting and Eric Solem, Head of Business Applications speak exclusively to The Interface on…
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Mike Bohndiek, Managing Director of PTI Consulting and Eric Solem, Head of Business Applications speak exclusively to The Interface on how the company helps sporting organisations unlock their stadium technology transformations to enhance the fan and customer experience
When we
look at the current Stadium Technology Transformation landscape, what are some
of the cultural differences between the approaches in the UK and those in
Italy?
Eric Solem, Head of Business Applications
and Commercial at PTI: The
fundamental difference concerns the ownership of the grounds. Here in the UK
the rights holders (the teams) actually own the grounds or have some major sort
of participation in ownership whereas most grounds in Italy, except for a few
cases, are owned by the local councils. And so, therefore, they’re
fundamentally rented facilities. They’re not necessarily facilities that have
had the experiential strategy piece built around it, and that’s a real struggle
most Italian clubs have. AS Roma is a great example where they play out of a
shared Stadia (Olympic Stadium) between arch-rivals (Lazio) and on match day
everything has to be quickly loaded in and then taken out (pre and post-match).
Along with this you don’t have the added benefits of stadium tours, etc. This
all adds up to the stadium not being designed the exact way you want them to be
designed and you lose that sense of home, of it being the ‘Club Stadium’.
How does that impact the way that the club
makes their decisions on where they invest in the technology infrastructure
across the Stadium?
Eric: Well, the majority of the clubs across Italian
football are considered to be well behind the rest of Europe’s top leagues,
mostly due to the lack of investment in stadia. I think that’s mainly due to
the difficulty of just getting things done in Italy, especially the financing
laws of certain criteria. There’s a long history around why this hasn’t
happened, but in the case of Juventus, they managed to rebuild a new modern
stadium within their old stadium. Now, they’ve won the title eight years
running and are one of the most successful teams in Europe and have new revenue
streams from having their own stadium.
Most of the
clubs want to follow this model and AS Roma are looking at the approval of a
big project. There are other examples of clubs like Sassuolo and Udinese who’ve
done smaller redevelopment projects. There are a lot of other ones that are in
the rendering phase, but I think it’s a well-known and documented issue that
Italian football revenues have been in decline since the late 90s when it was
considered the Premier League across Europe.
In the
UK, you can look at Arsenal as a great
example in 2006 with their new stadium and then there have been a lot of other
redevelopments after that…all leading up to Arsenal’s friends across north
London with Tottenham Hotspur’s state of the art brand-new stadium.
Mike Bhondiek, Managing Director, PTI: The challenge is about who owns the customer
journey and that fan experience. It’s the hot buzz phrase right now and we need
to look at what are clubs doing to drag people back off the sofa, back out of
the bars and back out of watching broadcast TV into having the real stadium
experience.
The real
challenge across the last six/seven years is that broadcast packages have
become cheaper and more accessible, whilst ticket prices have gone in the
opposite direction! Consumers now have the ‘game’ choice between the stadium
experience or whether they prefer the experience at home! Which takes us to the
connectivity with your device/technology. At home, the fans have more
configurability of their surroundings and are connected to quality Wi-Fi. They
can look across the statistics, they can be on their device orchestrating what
they want, something they’ll struggle to do across almost every stadium.
On the
opposite end of that scale is the American-style whole day experience that some
clubs have started to move towards in the UK. In nearly all cases the stadiums
are owned outright by the club, therefore you’ve got full control of everything
that goes on around the stadium (the very opposite of the Italian model of
leaseholds of the ground) and with the charge of the digital agenda and social
media, you’re able to drive awareness and engagement with what you’re doing
around the stadium.
However, it
doesn’t always flow through into reality and most people just take that digital
experience in isolation. Clubs are
looking to take more control of that end-to-end immersive experience, and that
starts with the ticket purchase and runs through to the post-match survey,
providing a real competitive advantage for those clubs who are doing this well!
Eric: I think that’s a very
good point. For a lot of fans, it doesn’t feel like going to your home ground,
much more of a temporary rented stadia experience. All of which makes the
competition of getting people off the couch, back into this connected area a
big challenge for Italian clubs. If a fan doesn’t feel like they’re coming to a
place where they belong (and part of the club experience) that whole journey
sort of breaks down.
From a
technology perspective, are there any differences between the average Roma fan
and the Arsenal fan…or are they both looking for very much the same
thing?
Eric: No, I don’t think there is any difference at all. The passion of fans is
the same, they want to know everything about the club, so who trained on that
day, who’s injured, what are the prospective new players coming into the club,
etc. They want as much access as possible and with digital media broadcasting
(YouTube) that is here together with social media, that has allowed that to
happen. I think fans feel a lot closer to the club from that aspect, but you
need that stadium piece to complete the circle.
Are there
any differences in how fans interact with the stadium? Do they arrive earlier,
and do they spend differently across food/beverage and merchandise?
Eric: Again, it comes back to the challenge of not owning your ground. For
example, in Rome, we were restricted by security as to how we could operate the
building and there wasn’t much possibility of a pop-up fan zone on match day to
engage with the fans. I think you’ll find at some clubs like Juventus and
Sassuolo there is more of an improved fan experience, but it’s still way behind
the UK and the US model.
Mike: The fundamental difference when we talk about
culture is more interesting when we compare the US versus UK/European models.
The PTI Consulting trip to the US was interesting to compare the ticketing
model, especially in baseball where there’s little scarcity and it’s a far
greater number of matches than there are in football. Casual transient
supporters who might come only a handful of times a year can get a ticket when
they want, whereas the model in England is very much seasonal.
Typically,
85% of the top English football clubs
tickets ever sold is on a seasonal basis. West Ham sold 47k season tickets in a
52k capacity stadium and Arsenal sold 47k out the 60k Stadium when they moved
into Emirates. The model is built around banking money up front and then
creating engagement on a different model.
A lot of
clubs have evolved over the years, which has bred a match day routine that has
now become a challenge for the club to change. People tend to do the same
things they’ve always done, regardless of whether you change the experience for
them because it’s their habit/superstition and has become part of what makes
match day for them.
So, you’ve
really got to be focused to not only match the experience that those people
have always had, but beat it, make it such a draw them to leave their usual
pubs/restaurants and come back to the stadium. The US model is different
because it’s built for around 30% being seasonal with the rest being more
transient. That new fan comes for the first time, they’re arriving at the ground
early and they won’t have a preset routine. They want to engage with the fan
part. They tend to spend across secondary revenue through retail, through food
and beverage and create that big experiential day. Some fans want to lap up
every last moment of this match day. How early could I get there? And how late
can I leave?
People
coming to have a great experience is one thing, but how do you create value to
that season ticket holder that’s been going for many years and ensure they’re
still getting the most value out of their match day? That includes the
operational experience, so I can go to the pub until 14:55 and still be in my
seat by kick-off. Then you wonder, can you make access control a seamless
experience?
What can the UK and European Clubs look to the
US for in terms of what they’re doing from a technology point of view?
Eric: In the US there’s a pretty constant rate of a refresh and that is
actual physical experiential refresh. You see big arenas and stadiums in the US
now moving away from suites and putting lounge seats in. For example, we
recently visited Madison Square Garden, which has gone through this complete refurbishment of the club
spaces to the lounge model.
I know that
Roma/Italian/French fans, they want that new modern stadium experience. They
want those experiential pieces to add to the match day excitement. But after
that first season of the new stadium, how do you keep those same fans engaged?
And how do you keep them coming back for more and not falling into the old
habits of showing up half an hour before kick-off and leaving immediately after
the game? The solution for this is through the creative use of technology.
Some of the
experiential pieces can have the ability to plug-n-play different types of
experiences when you have a new building, as it has the infrastructure built in
to allow you to do that. So, you’re not ripping down walls and pulling out
cables every time you want to do a new experiential piece. I think part of it
is how clubs and the stadia usage evolve over time and refresh constantly maybe
every three to five years or even at a greater rate of change. You need to
provide something new to compete with the wide variety of entertainment choices
that the casual fan has. So, the rate of technology change is going to continue
to increase.
Mike: The UK in many
ways has this technology challenge. In the US they tend to build the stadium
within a greenfield site. It will generally be an out-of-town building, with
the infrastructure designed to do this well from the ground up.
I’ve
reviewed a lot of UK stadiums and for the most part, they have a pre-existing
technology legacy that is way out of date. There was a wave that was built in
the 1970s, another in the 1990s and the last wave the early 2000s. Today
they’re all starting to get to that point where they simply don’t meet the
technological needs of the modern fan. So, we’ve seen some clubs decide to do
that refresh by rebuilding a stand, some do it by moving the whole stadium,
others do it just by overlaying new technology services, all in an attempt to
try and improve that fan experience.
So, yes
“I’d like to use that fancy new club app” but you’re letting me down with the
1993 technology infrastructure unable to cope with the new app sitting on top
of it. Whereas, if you’re getting the US model, and you’re building from the
greenfield, you’re building the infrastructure up from the base. So, starting
with a really strong pyramid base and you’re on the way to better understand
the full journey. You’re also building in some headroom for the next ten years
and future proofing fan behaviour and expectation.
We see a lot
of clients attempt to unpick their technology to try to get to that same
position. However, if you’re in a stadium that was built in the early 1900’s it
becomes more difficult to fully understand how technology can fit into this
environment and as such creates a real challenge.
What is the key thing that clubs need to look
at to create engagement to drive commercial growth through fan engagement?
Eric:We talk about the pyramid of technology, data,
applications and connectivity. So, everyone feels the need to have a robust fan
app. Yes, everyone falls in love with these apps, but I think clubs need to
step back and understand how this application works within your building, by
looking at the infrastructure and looking at your connectivity.
Those three
things need to be looked at holistically because at the end of that journey
they’re going to produce the data that provides commercial growth or
operational efficiency, which is what all stadia and all clubs should be
looking for when they’re investing in technology
Mike: My number one
piece of advice is to look at your connectivity. The rate of change is
increasing and services from the cloud are the type models your fans want from
your infrastructure. Also, the ticketing platform and access control systems
are the sorts of key items that
surround your customer touch-point, so it’s fundamental that these systems work
every single time!
Over the
next two years, 5G will slot into view with a chance to commercialise this
across Europe. New stadium projects will need to factor that future piece ahead
because you need to decide whether it is Wi-Fi handing off to mobile data or
create a spot for mobile data.
You also
need to factor the connectivity needs of your match day experience for the
back-of-house operations (such as scanning stock, retail warehousing, store
replenishment) so the customer experience is amazing at half time and at the
end of the match. Fans expect the food & beverage tills to be built on
cloud platforms and use contactless payment solutions.
The fan
experience is always changing, and we will see mobile with augmented reality
very soon, so how will you deliver that without connectivity?
This month’s cover features Gary Steen, TalkTalk’s
Managing Director of Technology, Change, and Security, Gary Steen regarding the
telco’s commitment to thinking, and acting, differently in a highly competitive
marketplace…
TalkTalk is an established telecommunications company that fosters a youthful, pioneering spirit. “I like to think of TalkTalk as a mature start-up,” says Managing Director of Technology, Change and Security, Gary Steen. “We are mature in terms of being in the FTSE 250, with over four million customers, relying on our services every day through our essential, critical national infrastructure. But that said, I definitely think we start our day thinking as a start-up would. What can we do differently? How do we beat the competition? How do we attract great talent? We’ve got to come at this in a different way if we are going to succeed in the marketplace. We are mature, but we think like a start-up.”
Elsewhere we speak to Natalia
Graves, VP Head of Procurement at Veeam Software who reveals the secrets to a
successful procurement transformation. Graves
was tasked with looking at the automating, simplifying, and accelerating of
Veeam’s procurement and travel processes and systems around them, including
evaluating and rolling out a company-wide source-to-pay platform. “It has been
an incredible journey,” she tells us from her office in Boston, Massachusetts.
We also feature exclusive interviews with PTI Consulting and cloud specialists
CSI.
Plus,
we reveal 5 of the biggest AI companies in fintech and list the best events and
conferences around.
Digital transformation is making it easier for procurement organisations to “do more with less,” according to newly-released Procurement Key Issues research from The Hackett…
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Digital transformation is making it easier for procurement organisations to “do more with less,” according to newly-released Procurement Key Issues research from The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT). But there is still significant need for procurement to address its critical development priorities for 2019, including: improving analytical capabilities, aligning skills and talent with business needs, leveraging supplier relationships, enhancing agility, and achieving true customer-centricity.
Digital transformation is beginning to have a significant impact on procurement organisations, The Hackett Group’s research found, with 30-40 percent saying it has had a high impact in achieving enterprise objectives, enhancing performance, optimising the service delivery model, and addressing roles, skills profiles, and needs. Over the next two to three years, procurement organisations expect the impact of digital transformation to dramatically increase, with key areas like robotic process automation and advanced analytics seeing particularly high adoption growth rates (2.3x and 60 percent, respectively). Broad adoption of e-procurement technologies is also expected to grow by nearly 2x.
Procurement expects its budget to grow at a much slower pace this
year than in 2018 (1.3 percent, versus 2.7 percent last
year). Procurement staffing shows a similar trend, with 0.9 percent
growth expected, versus 2.8 percent in 2018. With revenue growth expected to
increase from 5 percent in 2018 to 5.7 percent for 2019, this creates
significant productivity and efficiency gaps
that procurement organizations must overcome.
A complimentary version of the research is available for download,
following registration, at this link:http://go.poweredbyhackett.com/keyissuespro1902sm.
Note – The full research piece includes 7 charts containing more than 60
complete metrics.
Procurement has aggressive plans to increase its use of digital
tools and procurement-specific technologies over the next two years, the
research found. Procurement will invest heavily in cloud-based
business applications along with several data management technologies: data
visualization (where adoption rates will rise by 24 percent), master data
management (57 percent adoption growth), and advanced analytics (60 percent
adoption growth). Spend optimization analytics and dashboarding adoption rates
are expected to grow by 61 percent. Broad-based adoption of
e-procurement technology is expected to grow by nearly 2x.
Use of mobile computing and robotic process automation (RPA) are also
expected to rise dramatically, indicating a focus on more efficient, agile
processes across the procurement lifecycle. RPA sees the highest
adoption growth rate among digital technologies, at 2.3x. While RPA is
primarily being used for procure-to-pay processes at present, there are a range
of other procurement areas that can benefit from automation of
repetitive work, including updating of vendor master files and electronic auction
setup.
Procurement-specific technologies are expected to become far more
broadly adopted over the next two years, with nearly universal adoption of
e-procurement, spend optimization analytics, and supplier relationship
management systems, and just slightly lower adoption rates for e-invoicing and
contract lifecycle management. This represents a major shift toward
customer-centricity, designed to enable organizations to simplify and
streamline processes, and improve agility.
The research found that procurement’s 2019 actual transformation focus is poorly aligned with what should be its critical development priorities; i.e. areas identified as of critical importance, but with very limited ability to address. Among those, development of analytical capabilities is a transformation focus for about half of procurement organisations. Modernising application platforms is another top transformation focus, and is a key way to achieve simplification due to the complexity of many legacy environments. Consolidating multiple legacy systems is also a critical step towards to improving data management and analytics.
But of the other critical development areas, less than a third of
all procurement organizations have a major initiative in place to
improve skills and talent with business needs, and even fewer said they intend
to work on agility or focus on improving customer-centricity and supplier
relationship management capabilities.
Procurement is also focused on its role enabling the enterprise in
2019, with an array of priorities that include elevating their role as a
trusted advisor, continuing to reduce purchase costs, improving stakeholder
satisfaction, and enhancing agility.
“Procurement organizations are clearly making investments in
digital transformation and are seeing real benefits. The focus on improving
analytics for 2019 is particularly encouraging. But the laundry list of
critical areas where they have very limited ability to make improvements is
very disconcerting,” said The Hackett Group Principal &
Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader Chris Sawchuk. “Despite
the fact that procurement knows what it needs to do, it’s simply not
fully translating into an effective plan of action. Procurement must
become fully dedicated to advancing its capabilities in analytics,
customer-centricity, agility and more, while also investing in the right talent
to help lead those changes.”
According to The Hackett Group Research Director Laura Gibbons, “Failing
to address the five critical development areas poses a significant risk. For
example, we see skills & talent as a particularly critical risk
factor. Procurement has begun to truly invest in digital
transformation, but if it doesn’t have the right people in place, digital tools
could end up being misused or wasted. You need the right people, with the right
skills in place, to take full advantage of what digital transformation can
offer.”
This same issue holds true in several other of these critical
development areas,” explained Gibbons. “Agility is critical if procurement
is to be able to respond to market changes. Without a focus on
customer-centricity, procurement can miss significant opportunities
for improving efficiency, simply because they don’t effectively know what the
business needs. And without supplier relationship management, opportunities for
innovation can be missed.”
Sawchuk explained that the potential impact of digital transformation
in procurement is powerful. “Advanced analytics can enable companies
to become less reactive and more predictive, more quickly and accurately
identifying and avoiding risks. It can drive dashboards where anyone can log in
and get real-time data. Dynamic discounting is another area that can be
very challenging for many companies, but can be easily enabled by digital
transformation.”
“Smart automation can reduce operating costs, and eliminate
transactional work, freeing up staff time for more value-added efforts,” said
Sawchuk. “Even if procurement can simply focus on a larger percentage
of the spend base, the value is very significant. And digital tools can
streamline and improve the experience of internal customers and suppliers.”
The Hackett Group’s 2019 Procurement Key Issues research,
“2019 CPO Agenda: Building Next-Generation Capabilities,” is based on results
gathered from about 150 executives in the US and abroad, most at large
companies with annual revenue of $1 billion or greater.
Neill Hart, Head of Productivity and Programs at Computer Systems Integration (CSI), speaks exclusively to The Digital Insight about how…
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Neill Hart, Head of Productivity and Programs at Computer Systems Integration (CSI), speaks exclusively to The Digital Insight about how the company has moved beyond simple systems integration and helps customers find and exploit a ‘perpetual edge’ in technology innovation and digital transformation. Click here to listen to the full podcast!
“As Head of Productivity and Programs at CSI and the head of enablement, I am the middle ground between strategy and execution. We take the company strategy, which is very much centred on digital transformation, and using utility or cloud computing, we take it to the market in a way that makes sense for our client base.
Companies will have three or four desired outcomes; grow the business, save money, innovate faster and to protect (data, reputation etc.). Traditionally it’s to save money. On-premise data centres require capex investment, you have to buy equipment, run it in a data centre and pay for electricity and power, operations etc. The offer of cloud or utility computing is that use what you need and only pay for what you use. You don’t pay a lot to the water company if you don’t turn the taps on. That’s the dream of utility computing or cloud computing is that you break away from the capex investment. It’s inflexible. If you run out of capacity with an on-premise data centre, you have to buy some more equipment and that takes weeks or months to arrive. With cloud, if you need some more you pay for more…”
It’s no secret that data and analytics play a key part in every organisation’s digital transformation efforts. Data science has…
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It’s no secret that data and analytics play a key part in every organisation’s digital transformation efforts. Data science has become a rapidly progressing field thanks to the crucial role it plays in understanding big data.
Although data has become a real game-changer harnessing
it is not always straightforward and many global corporations are struggling to
leverage their data assets. These strategies generate an overabundance of data
– and even more questions, requiring more analytics than most can possibly
imagine. They also require continuous analytic breakthroughs in order to
achieve a true digital transformation.
This pressure to exploit data in new ways and the
increased emphasis on digital transformation is also causing a tremendous
amount of strain on organisations’ analytics teams. Although many are investing
heavily in data technologies to transform their organisations, quick access to
information and insights can be impossible – and many are still failing at
putting this data in the hands of the business people who must make use of the
insights.
A key tactic for improving data access and providing
insights involves bringing the two elements of data and data science together. For many organisations unifying these in order to
drive digital transformation continues to be a challenge. Every vertical and
department has a need for ingesting disparate content and performing complex
analytic processes against it to drive value from the massive accumulation of
’dark data’ stored by organisations. Unlocking the value of such data through
data analytics is key to guiding leaders make more informed decisions.
One of the principal ways in which organisations can
unify data and data science is by changing the status quo and developing an
analytics culture across the business. Analytic teams serve as the backbone to
digital transformations, but more often than not we find that analytic teams
are starting from an insufficient position, attempting to innovate with legacy
holdovers of analytics processes, technology and team alignments. Holding on to
these relics are the biggest barriers to analytic alignment and innovation.
Leaders focussed on digital transformation should
target both cultural and technology strategies that help to create an
analytics competency to fuel digital innovation. This is no small task. With
data skills in short supply and demand for data-related roles set to continue
to rise within the next four to five years, this is either exciting or
intimidating depending on what side of the analytic effectiveness spectrum
you’re sitting!
Linking up data insight to people with vital business
knowledge is paramount to organisations wanting to make the most of data
analytics. Not only will it enable the organisation to understand data
analytics at every level it will also create an army of ’citizen data scientists’.
Uniting departments that otherwise would have been siloed while generating more
insightful and valuable analyses. Empowering these burgeoning citizen data
scientists is a unique opportunity for organisations to compete in today’s
digital economy. These individuals are eager to learn and develop new skills to
improve their personal development and contribute to the business, but they can
only be harnessed with the right enablement, support and self-service tools.
What’s more, according to a survey conducted by Forbes Insights in
collaboration with EY organisations which have an analytics strategy central to
their overall business strategy are approximately five times more likely to
achieve revenue growth and operating margin greater than 15 per cent, as
compared to organisations lacking an analytics vision.
With the hyper-focus on digital transformation, it’s
important to keep it in perspective. It isn’t always about new ‘things’, it’s
about new value. Harnessing the networking effect of data, people and
technologies paves the way to creating a sustainable cycle of analytic
innovation that drives digital transformation.
Digital transformation has established an almost universal
presence in the boardroom in recent years. As with many tech trends, the term
has become overused to the extent that it has started to become somewhat vague
and ill-defined, with many companies devising their own ideas of what digital
transformation means and how it should be implemented.
Whatever approach is taken, at its heart digital
transformation is all about using technology to implement a fundamental change
in the way businesses operate. When implemented successfully, a digital
transformation project can deliver powerful benefits to an organisation,
including improving efficiency, reducing costs, enhancing user experience, and
even establishing entirely new working practices and revenue streams.
These potential benefits mean that digital transformation has
become firmly established as a top business priority. Gartner’s 2018 CIO Agenda
Industry Insights report surveyed more than 3,000 CIOs around the world and
found that all respondents ranked digital business as one of their top 10
objectives. While some industries have more to gain than others, any business
sector is able to reap the rewards of going digital. 11 of the 15 industries
participating went as far as to rank digital transformation as one of their top
three priorities.
Digital
transformation is the go-to top-line strategy for any organisation
looking to demonstrate innovation in its field. However, in the race to gain a
reputation as digital trend-setter, many companies make the mistake of rushing
in and throwing budget at new technologies promising to deliver
a digital solution to long-entrenched problems.
Less digital, more
transformation
Real digital transformation cannot be achieved by simply
buying in the latest shiny tech solutions.
A successful transformation
strategy comes not just from product, but from process
and – the most overlooked aspect of all – people. A company needs to start its
digitalisation project armed with a thorough understanding of the relationship
between people, process and, finally, product. This takes a level of insight
and patience that many firms unfortunately do not feel they can spare in the
breakneck race to stay ahead of the competition.
Attempting
to implement a quick-fix approach to digital transformation without going through
a process approach will often result in a poorly established and disjointed
system full of automation siloes. Users will often end up simply bypassing
these solutions, leading to them reverting to older inefficient working
practices – or even creating new ones.
Bill
Gates once summed the issue up perfectly: “The first rule of any technology
used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will
magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient
operation will magnify the inefficiency.”
Incoming IT headaches
While
everyone in an organisation is likely to suffer a headache under the issues
caused by a failed transformation project, it is the IT service team that will be
forced to endure the real blackeye.
Many IT teams have historically had their hands full fighting
fires – helping to resolve issues around technology not functioning correctly
or fulfilling time sensitive user requests such as password resets. Digital
transformation has the potential to change this status quo both by creating a
more efficient and reliable IT environment, and by implementing new processes
that will enable them to respond much more quickly and efficiently. In this
scenario, the time spent fighting fires is drastically reduced and IT personnel
are able to devote more energy and resources to long-term strategic
improvements instead.
However, this IT nirvana is only possible when a
transformation project has been completed successfully. When the project is
rushed or overlooks fundamental elements around processes and user experience,
the IT support team will instead be forced to fight more fires than ever. Indeed,
in the worst-case scenario, these fires can turn into a full-fledged
conflagration that must be tackled at the expense of all other priorities.
Breaking down silo
walls
While most companies are rushing to demonstrate what cutting-edge
digital innovators they are, many will focus on the digital aspect and forget
about the transformation. Unless there has been a fundamental shift in the way the
company operates, it cannot be said to have genuinely achieved digital
transformation.
One of the biggest barriers to digital transformation is the
siloed structure that most organisations are built around, with departments
such as IT, facilities management, human resources (HR) and finance generally having
their own distinct processes and software solutions. In most cases, these
working practices have been developed with little regard to interoperability
with other departments – despite the fact that many processes and user requests
require cross-departmental support. As a result, users must often endure a
tedious process that involves them being passed between different departments, each
of which is hindered by their working practices not meshing with the others. Attempting
to implement new digitally driven processes without removing all existing silo
walls will generally do little to fix these issues.
Most companies have made strides in implementing improved
processes under the guidance of ITIL and other standards to make the IT
operations service desk more productive. However, these efforts rarely go
beyond the siloed walls of the IT department. Organisations that are able to
apply these same digitalisation efforts in a universal, cross-departmental way
will be able to achieve new levels of efficiency and vastly improve the user
experience.
Employee onboarding provides a good case for how departments
can be unified under new digital processes. Onboarding is driven primarily by
HR, but requires involvement from IT, finance, facilities and security among
others. All these workflows can be automated into a single value stream, saving
a great deal of time and effort for each department involved.
From ITSM to ESM
Applying the concepts and technology behind IT service
management (ITSM) to the broader organisation will see the company moving
towards enterprise service management (ESM). This approach holds great
potential for both automating key functions in different departments and, more
importantly, for establishing set of automated workflows that integrate across
business functions. A huge number of work processes can then be united under a
single ESM platform, enabling users to access any kind of service and support
they need from a single location. Alongside the improved efficiency and user
experience, uniting most of the organisation’s processes under a single digital
system will also provide an unparalleled strategic overview that can be used to
assess progress and inform future decisions.
In isolation, going digital will do little to transform an
organisation. But by properly assessing their current working practices and
being bold enough to tear down silo walls and build from the ground up,
organisations can unlock the true potential of digital transformation.
This week’s exclusive podcast features SAP Ariba’s Chief Digital Officer Dr. Marcell Vollmer who examines the integral elements to a…
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This week’s exclusive podcast features SAP Ariba’s Chief Digital Officer Dr. Marcell Vollmer who examines the integral elements to a successful procurement transformation and how it aligns with, and helps steer, a company’s strategic aims
With any revolution,
there are revolutionaries, and SAP’s Chief Digital Officer, Marcell Vollmer is
one such figure. Vollmer has helped to forge a new identity for the CPO during
his time at SAP. Vollmer’s current role at SAP, the
global advisory and strategy, is helping its clients define and execute
digital transformation strategies, including the procurement and supply chain
functions. “Digital transformation is about focusing on a vision for the
future,” he explains.
So, where does a
procurement transformation begin? “I think the most important thing for digital
transformation is to focus on the structure, the organisation, the process
side, and then finally on the systems,” Vollmer tells us, from his Munich
office. “Oh, and don’t forget the people and the change
management on the journey, who are key to the overall success.” It’s no
surprise that many businesses are preparing for the future as everyone wants to
understand, learn and adapt to a constantly shifting landscape. And although
procurement is emerging into a progressive role, Vollmer is quick to point out
the volatility of technological change. Our CEO Bill McDermott says: ‘Change
has never moved as fast as now, and it will never move as slow as today.’”
“Part of my role is
helping them to cluster a little bit and structure the agenda because the
change is so fast. 50% of all the companies on the Fortune 500 list for the
year 2000 are no longer on that list. The speed (of change) is tremendous.
Change has never moved this fast, and it will never move this slowly again, and
so everyone is currently concerned a little bit and wants to prepare for the
future.”
Vollmer is passionate
regarding the massive potential of strategy-driven procurement as part of an
overall transformation and is very much engaged in client-facing work within
the procurement space. “Purchasing was not necessarily seen as a value
contributing function and was viewed as the operational side, transacting,
getting what the business needs,” he tells us. “And this has fundamentally
changed. Procurement today has a more important role in the business, to make
procurement awesome.”
The user experience
The user experience is
absolutely key amid a digital transformation. Modern procurement systems have
provided CPOs and their teams with the tools to transform the operations and
function of their department, but there’s more to making procurement than just
the tools. “Everyone expects an ‘Apple easy’ or a ‘Google fast’ experience when
you interact with a system,” Vollmer explains. “(Procurement) needs to be an
awesome experience and it needs to have a great user experience, but it also
needs to provide all the insights needed, that you can get from the spend
data,” he explains. “You have to do the demand planning and aggregation to
really get everything for the best possible price depending on the quality and
timings you need. The golden time in procurement can be optimised and is a
great experience for everyone engaging and interacting with the procurement
function.”
Many procurement and
supply chain strategists and consultants are seeing a massive sea-change in the
CPO’s role, which is seen by many as a stepping stone into the role of CEO.
This is something Vollmer also endorses. “Look at Tim Cook (CEO Apple); he was
a chief supply chain officer,” says Marcell. “Procurement was reporting into
his function, and what has he done? Not only is he now
the CEO, but he has also contributed by inventing the Gorilla Glass for the
iPhone to a great product experience. In the meantime, we have more than
2.2 billion iPhones sold. So, wow, there really is something that comes after
procurement.”
Indeed, Vollmer was a
CPO. And a chief operating officer. Currently, Vollmer is a chief digital
officer. As Vollmer has demonstrated, procurement is evolving into a talent
pool. “It’s a place where people want to work, because that’s my experience.
When I talk to other CPOs, it is the most beautiful place you can be. You
understand the business model and really know what the business is doing. You
can see areas of the business that represent opportunities. ‘Oh, that’s an area
where I want to be next in my career.’”
For procurement to
fully transform the increasingly redundant perceptions it creates, it needs to
work a little bit better on the marketing side, according to Vollmer. “Starting
as a trainee buyer, to potentially make it to a CPO, is a model which will no
longer exist in the future,” he explains. “The number one reason is that we are
tending more towards project-based work, a gig economy, to use this term.
Millennials and Generation Z want to get more experience. They are not
necessarily saying, ‘I want to work for a great company and procurement is a
good spot for me to start, and most likely end, my career.’”
Vollmer is clearly
excited about the future and sees procurement sat at the forefront of business
transformation. “We are at the very beginning of the fourth industrial
revolution. We are also at the beginning of a lot of technologies and machine
intelligence is the most disruptive technology. I believe that this is a time
of change and we need to prepare ourselves. And I believe procurement will have
a seat at the table of modern businesses. Artificial intelligence is changing
the world in the same way the steam engine or electricity did. And machine
learning is basically a part of artificial intelligence. What’s currently
becoming part of the business is internet off syncs and connected devices,
which are being implemented more and more on the business side. Everything is
related to automation in a broader sense and to analytics, including big data
and predictive analytics. But then also bridging it back to the machine
intelligence; the prescriptive guidance, using not only descriptive
information, not only predicting something based on historical data, but also
using other sources like weather forecasts. We have seen, for example, that
Ferrero was heavily impacted one year back, a little bit more than one year
back, when the hazelnut was impacted by the dry weather. And this is really
where you see the connection between the different technologies, being
absolutely key.”
When it comes to
procurement transformation it’s vital to have a vision. What is the future for
your function? Vollmer has a very distinct notion of what that vision should be
“And this is not limited to procurement,” Vollmer explains. “I would say that
this is part of all discussions regarding the future of the back office.
Therefore, the digital transformation starts with a vision. What do you really
want to do with your function? How do you want to create value? On the
procurement side, as in finance, HR, or IT, you can see what’s coming with
cloud, with the hyperscalers, and the change in IT and how we consume software
using cloud solutions. It’s a new business model. And therefore, I believe that
you need to think about how you want to define the future for your function.”
A transformation is
all well and good, but how do you create value? According to Vollmer, this
follows on from the vision. “You start with the structure,” he explains. “Start
with the organisational side. What do you want to do? Which functions might you
need? Which functions do you have already and might get impacted by automation
or by machine intelligence and other disruptive technologies? And therefore,
derive from that; think about the process side. How can you really help the
business to be faster, to have fewer hours in the different processes, to be
predictive in what is needed and also manage risk and secure a sustainable
supply chain. This will really drive value for your organisation.”
Connecting with
internet offsyncs and certain parts of the production of the supply chain is
definitely adding value. “When you see automation with robotic processes
helping your transactional processes become more automated, you can see the
next level of machine learning. So, it’s not only the robotics process
automation, which is just comparing a with b, and then if b is correct, going
to c, and then to d and so on. It is also learning, ‘Oh wow, there is a lot
that is happening when I see this in d happening. Basically, here are the root
causes and this is something that can be done, that is most likely happening,
and can be already integrated.’”
Vollmer is a big fan
of concrete use cases to get quick wins during transformative processes. “You
are not joining a journey for the next two, three, five years. In the past, big
IT implementations were lasting. I think that time is over. You need to be much
faster today as the change is very rapid and you need to prepare yourself for
it. A lot of people fear the change, the speed, and the disruption and what
might come and how their jobs might get impacted. I always say: ‘Yes, there is
a high risk that your job will be changing. But look back at the past 10 years.
How many times has your job already changed?’ At the World Economic Forum in
Davos, this January, it was reconfirmed that until 2022, artificial
intelligence will create 58 million additional jobs. Disruptive technology will
change your job, but on the other side it will also provide great new
opportunities. So many new jobs are getting created and there will also be a
big shift from task. So technical operational tasks might disappear, but
strategic value-adding tasks might show up, including everything related to
analytics.”
Change management
The biggest challenge
of any transformation involves the people. Change management represents a
massive cultural shift in the workplace and it’s vital you get it right. “I
always say, don’t forget the people. Because we all know we have limitations in
the team science we have today. Even as procurement creates hard savings for
example, more people could
potentially save more money. But is
procurement in the situation where it can get new resources or new talent? Most
likely not. Whatever you do, people are the most valuable assets in your
organisation. So be careful in how you define and drive your transformation,
because you need the people to be successful. No one is smart enough to run
everything on her or his own. It’s a team approach and so think about the
people.”
So, what makes for a
good CPO? “A really good CPO, understands the business model and can
collaborate with the right groups as a business partner to really create value
and gets a seat at the table of the business by providing everything that is
needed, including all the new innovative solutions or products the company can
use to be successful in the future. It is also about creating and developing a
great team, which can contribute and drive the value-generating activities. So,
good leadership skills are absolutely mandatory. That’s what a CPO needs, to be
successful in the future.”
Welcome to the May issue of Interface magazine! Our cover story this month features FWD Philippines’ CTO Rogelio ‘Nooky’ Umali,…
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Welcome
to the May issue of Interface magazine!
Our
cover story this month features FWD Philippines’ CTO Rogelio ‘Nooky’ Umali, who
gives us the lowdown on disrupting the life insurance sector. Umali
and his team put the customer experience at the very centre of its innovations:
“We ensured that every single leg of a customer’s journey was assessed and then identified which
parts were the real pain points. The solutions were
then focused on resolving these pain points.”
Elsewhere, we feature Ed Clark, Chief Information Officer at
the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, the guys behind innovative EV chargers
Andersen EV, Cranford Group’s Rachel McElroy and ‘CIO of the Year’ Vennard
Wright…
Digital skills shortages blight UK jobs market for 20 years A lack of technical expertise has fuelled skills shortages across…
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Digital skills shortages blight UK jobs market for 20 years
A lack of technical
expertise has fuelled skills shortages across the UK for the last two decades.
That is according to comparative analysis of the professional jobs market by
The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), which is celebrating its 20th
Anniversary this year.
According to a 1999 report
from University College London, almost half (47%) of all ‘skill-shortage
vacancies’ that year could be attributed to a lack of technical expertise. For
‘associate professional and technical’ roles, the need for ‘advanced IT’ skills
was responsible for 31% of vacancies, while a lack of ‘other technical and practical
skills’ were responsible for a further 49% of all open
roles.
A separate report
published the same year by Computer Weekly revealed that C++ developers were
the most in-demand professionals with Java the second most sought-after skill
in the IT recruitment market.
Today, research
from The Edge Foundation suggests that around half of all employers (51%) have
been forced to leave a role open because there are no suitable candidates
available, and that tech job vacancies are costing the UK economy £63 billion a
year. LinkedIn data
indicates that cloud and distributed computing is the most valued skill among
employers, with user interface design, SEO/SEM marketing and mobile development
also featuring in the top 10.
Commenting on the analysis, Ann Swain, Chief Executive of APSCo, said:
“While the specific skills
that employers are seeking have changed dramatically over the past two decades,
the fact that talent gaps continue to be aligned with technical competencies
suggests that we need to do more to boost Britain’s digital capabilities.
“Our members have long
reported shortages of talent across the IT and digital fields. For this reason,
it is crucial that we ensure that we retain access to the STEM professionals
that businesses need in the short term – through maintaining access to global
talent and retaining our flexible labour market. However, perhaps more
importantly, we must pipeline the calibre and volume of skills we need for the
future so that we break free from this perpetual skills shortage. As this data
indicates, for the past 20 years we have been playing catch-up – and we must
break the cycle if individual businesses, and the wider UK economy, are to
fulfil their full potential.”
“One answer to the skills gap in UK tech? Women.” This week, the Digital Insight is joined by Rachel McElroy,…
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“One answer to the skills gap in UK tech? Women.” This week, the Digital Insight is joined by Rachel McElroy, Sales and Marketing Director at cloud specialists Cranford Group, who discusses how women could provide the answer to the skills shortage in the UK’s technology sector.
Dr. Sandra Bell, Head of Resilience, Sungard Availability Services Organisations are built upon complex and diverse networks of interconnected players;…
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Dr. Sandra Bell, Head of Resilience, Sungard Availability
Services
Organisations
are built upon complex and diverse networks of interconnected players; no
business is an Island. However, the technology that has enabled these players to
work together can also make them vulnerable. On one hand the globalisation of
information systems has provided the means for organisational growth and
economic prosperity through the easy access of highly available information. On
the other it has facilitated the democratisation of the cyber threat by making
the skills and knowledge to exploit information systems widely available. Likewise,
disruption, of any type, at one end of the chain can reverberate throughout the
entire network. For example, the so-called ‘NotPetya’ attack originated from a
single implementation targeted at Ukraine, but ultimately spread well beyond
its borders along supply chains to affect numerous companies globally, causing
hundreds of millions of dollars of damages.
But
organisations do not have a monopoly on these communication structures and social
media has enabled highly public two-way conversations between those at the root
of the disruption and those impacted by it, providing a platform for the latter
to voice their grievances. Unfortunately for organisations, this can have
potentially devastating consequences for their relationships with stakeholders
and the reputations on which they are built. Competition is fierce, and these
stakeholders can, and will, take action to cut businesses out of their global
supply chain if they are considered a risk.
Mitigating
supply chain risk
Business
Continuity teaches us to minimise our supply chain risk by having multiple
suppliers for key products and services. It has also become common practice to
try to further reduce risk by arms-length contracting and “incentivising”
supplier performance with hefty fines for non-delivery. These are both
excellent strategies if all you want to do is “survive” a disruption. However,
the modern consumer, who has access to the global marketplace, is no longer
satisfied to wait for an organisation to execute a heroic recovery and will
vote with their feet at the first sign of trouble.
Organisations
therefore need to be able to “thrive” despite uncertainty and disruption. To do
this, they need friends.
Best
practice for networked operations
There
are three key ingredients to being able to thrive. First, businesses need to be
adaptive, knowing when to change and optimising operations according to the
outside environment. Leadership is also crucial – with leaders instilling in
people the will to succeed during challenging times. The third and final area –
one which is frequently neglected by organisations – is their network. Forging
and maintaining effective relationships with stakeholders, customers and
suppliers is a key component not simply to being able to maintain successful
operations, but also to maintaining a competitive advantage and achieving
profit and growth. This is where an IT can really help. We saw earlier that globalised
IT systems facilitated growth and how it has been used against us to create a vulnerability.
But if organisations have resilient IT both internally and with their partners,
they can also use it to ensure that relationships do not crack under pressure.
Using
IT resilience to promote trust agility and collaboration
How
can organisations move from arms-length adversarial relationships to one where
they are mutually supportive without placing themselves at undue risk? The
first thing to do will be assess the value of each relationship. For example,
if value is measured simply by the commercial contribution that each person
makes, the relationship will only be safe when hard value is being provided.
In
contrast, closely coupled networks – where parties help each other out when
things go wrong – will be more resilient. Highly collaborative relationships
where knowledge and insights are shared mean that people will think twice about
dropping you like a stone when things go wrong.
Here are
five ways organisations can use IT resilience to create collaborative
relationships and boost resilience:
Aim
for flexible business relationships – Flexible relationships
facilitated by regular information exchanges are mutually beneficial and
supportive rather than adversarial. The marker of a resilient organisation is
one that is not totally averse to taking risks, and look instead at how the
risks of the entire value chain can be best shared among its players
Build
strong communications – Shared resilient IT will provide multiple
channels through which you can have a constant dialogue with your suppliers,
vendors and customers. It will also allow you to talk to them at the earliest
stage possible when something goes wrong demonstrating foresight, agility and
integrity which will help businesses to avoid grievances being shared on social
media
Show
commitment to the relationship – Work together to build
resilient connections. Businesses that have a vested interest in working on
joint future products and services signal to the rest of the network that they
are investing for the future rather than just in it for the profit
Ensure
that relationships are a strategic issue – IT resilience is often seen
as a cost or an insurance for when something goes wrong. However, relationships
can be existential. Therefore, if you want the attention of the board make
corporate resilience your driver for IT resilience
Practice as a team – When
multiple organisations respond together, things get complex. A football team
wouldn’t enter into a tournament where the first time the players meet is on
the pitch. Organisations should therefore use their IT infrastructure
connection to wargame their responses to different scenarios and learn how each
other responds before it has to be done for real
Weathering
the storm
A
simple software glitch somewhere in your supply chain is all it takes for you
to experience disruption. While most organisations will invest time and money
drawing up contingency plans to get the business back on its feet in as short a
time as possible, attention must also be paid to the impact a disruption can
have on the networks in which they are embedded. A robust and agile IT
infrastructure can not only be used for transactional purposes between customer
and supplier but can also be used to ensure that key relationships with other
components of the supply chain are nurtured. A truly resilient organisation
will invest in building strong relationships “while the sun shines” so they can
draw on goodwill when it rains.
By Asma Bashir, CEO of Centuro The start-up phase of a business is a challenging but exciting time. As the…
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By Asma Bashir, CEO of Centuro
The start-up phase of a business is a challenging but exciting time.
As the Founder you will have no choice but to balance
core responsibilities of Accountancy, Sales and Operations, before you find and
can afford the right people to fill these vital positions, in many cases
preventing scale and growth.
Despite being in its infancy, where decision making
processes are quick and resulting action is immediate, the start-up phase of a
business is definitely the most difficult, but with some key strategic changes,
you will be able to accelerate your start-up into a scale-up in no time:
Establish your role in your specific market
When creating a
successful business, you need to offer a product or service that solves a
problem for your target audience, does it better than current market solutions
or is something completely new and innovative.
If you’re still sitting in the start-up medium, you’re still likely to be
experimenting with and refining your target audience, developing your true
market and value proposition and establishing a baseline for your key business
metrics.
However, a business in scale-up mode has guaranteed to have mastered their market position, confidently
executing everything on a larger scale, without sacrificing their current niche
for the sake of growth.
To achieve this, your
business needs to have everything confidently laid out, whilst being able to
maintain a strong sales strategy, knowing exactly what your product or service
offers and how it is set aside from key market competitors.
It sounds simple
but clearly defining your market position can really make a difference to your approach
and resulting business growth.
Embrace online opportunities
The digital world is crammed with opportunities for
your business, and sadly with the limited time constraints start-ups have, it
can be a factor that just doesn’t get utilised.
A strong website with
articulate branding and an original message can go a long way, particularly
when you consider it only takes about 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) for
consumers to form a positive or negative opinion about your website.
Your business needs
to have an online presence, there’s no question, but the way you deliver your
business on these platforms can be make or break for a consumer.
With social media,
powerful blogs to drive your message, and even the use of video to document
your journey in building your business and your brand, can really give you an
edge over your market competitors, as long as you are consistent in your output
and approach.
Secure funding and generate a steady revenue stream
Starting a business can be an expensive venture, where
a lot of start-ups dive in head first with limited funds.
Since they are still building a concrete
product/service and a steady revenue stream, start-ups are often dependent on
some sort of outside funding — whether it be provided from a venture capitalist
or a bank.
Though a clear marker of success, organic growth can
be slow, where a start-up in receipt of funding drives that shift to scale-up
by enabling them to invest in key job roles, an increased marketing strategy or
greater production, which simply wouldn’t have been possible during start-up
phase due to cash flow constraints.
Ultimately, with an established product or service offering
and concrete funding, start-ups can shift into a bigger operation – enabling
the brand to grow and develop at scale.
Implement automated or replicable systems
In order to fully
transition from start-up into a scale-up, the concept of automation cannot be
overlooked.
It is very common for
new businesses and their employees to be bogged down by simple and repetitive
tasks, which can be better placed to driving business growth.
Whether this is
marketing automation through scheduling tools or automating the lead generation
process, there is a host of tech platforms that you can implement into your
business that will allow your operations to aid and adapt to growth and scale.
This can funnel into
all areas of your business, from integrating cloud accounting software to
cloud-based storage systems to ensure all team members can access all
documentation to fulfil their job role from any computer or mobile device.
It can be tough in the initial growth phase to find the staff to share your dream and
want to pursue the growth for your business. When taking on new hires, start by
instilling your passion in the business from the get-go to ensure they can add
value and fuel your growth from day one.
ENDS
Asma Bashir is the CEO of Centuro, a leading
London-based Consultancy agency, helping businesses and entrepreneurs thrive in
their chosen career industry.
Asma is a legal professional and philanthropist with
over 20 years’ experience within the legal services industry.
Two providers of temporary internet and Wi-Fi to the UK events industry Simpli-Fi and Noba have merged to create NobaTech….
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Two providers of temporary internet and Wi-Fi to the UK events industry Simpli-Fi and Noba have merged to create NobaTech.
Effective
immediately, NobaTech will act as the umbrella company with both Noba and
Simpli-Fi retaining their existing brands and customer base. The joint venture
will see Noba maintain its position as the event Wi-Fi and temporary internet
provider. Simpli-Fi will focus on three strategic growth markets: education,
leisure and construction.
NobaTech
has already signed some notable and high-profile clients. These include Venue Lab, the company
behind Printworks and Magazine London and a three and a half year exclusive
partnership with The
Saatchi Gallery – an event space used by brands such as; Google, Glamour,
Rolling Stones Exhibition and Rolls Royce.
Commenting
on the merger, Gary Exall, Director, Simpli-Fi said: “There are a small handful
of event Wi-Fi companies in the UK with no clear market leader. We want to be
that company within the next three years and see no reason why that can’t be
the case. This venture brings two companies together that share the same vision
when it comes to delivering premium events and the same values in terms of consistently
exceeding client expectations. It’s a perfect fit and win-win scenario.
Financially, NobaTech will see considerable savings by combining accountancy,
marketing and sales functions. From a customer service perspective our combined
methods and company structures will provide an even better service to our
clients, which is the main priority.”
Despite
NobaTech launching today, Simpli-Fi and Noba have been working in partnership
for almost two years. During this time, they have been sharing resources and
hardware to service the increasing demand and customer base, particularly in
the field of live events – an area of considerable growth.
The
formation of Nobatech will see employee count double. It will also fuel a
recruitment drive in account management and sales. The new company will be
based in West London, currently the Simpli-Fi head office. The events,
warehouse and logistics team will be based in Tring, Hertfordshire, currently
the Noba office. The move will also see a wireless internet networks team
created in Cannes, France. This is a new office built to cater for the demand
for temporary events in this region.
The
merger is the latest in a series of moves from Simpli-Fi to expand its offering
to the UK market and follows news last year regarding the appointment to the
board of events industry heavyweight, Mike Kershaw.
With
over 15 years’ experience servicing the education sector, the ambition is now
to establish a leadership position in this particular market. The other focus
industries are leisure and construction, driven by a need for temporary
connectivity across larger sites. This follows recent clients wins by Simpli-Fi
including; 22 Bishopsgate and Battersea Power Station, Phase III.
Commenting
on the merger, Nick Taylor, managing director, Noba, said: “This is the right
move, for the right companies at the right time. At Noba, we have seen
consistent organic growth for over a decade but more than doubled in size in
the last two years alone. Merging with Simpli-Fi means that we can realise the
synergies of both businesses in terms of people, skills and infrastructure quicker
and more efficiently than any other way.”
Coeus Consulting, an award-winning independent IT consultancy, has announced new research revealing that although the fate of many organisations depends…
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Coeus Consulting, an award-winning independent IT consultancy, has announced new
research revealing that although the fate of many organisations depends on
their ability to implement strategic change and to adopt disruptive
technologies, a reported lack of business and IT alignment, coupled with a
corporate fear of risk, means they risk losing out on crucial revenues and
market share.
Just 21% of those surveyed stated they seek to implement new technology as soon as possible, with some of the main barriers to adoption being: fear of disruption to core business (30%), lack of budget to adopt new technology (21%), and poorly planned adoption strategies (19%).
“While it is reassuring that
organisations are at least attempting to keep up with disruptive technologies,
it is somewhat concerning that they are not doing more. Monitoring advancements
is the first step on the road, but only three in ten organisations make
technology decisions in the boardroom. With technology now playing a vital role
in every industry, organisations need to increase their understanding of
technology and be prepared to take more calculated risks in order to reap the
benefits and execute successful strategic change”, Keith Thomas, Head of IT
Strategy Practice, Coeus
Consulting commented.
Successful implementation rates
are low among respondents which could explain these fears, with only seven
percent noting that all of their organisation’s strategic IT change projects
have met initial objectives over the past two years. The good news is that, of
those from organisations that have a test and learn culture, and also set
objective success or failure criteria for initiatives in advance, almost sixty
percent report that their organisation investigates or adopts a different
approach when initiatives don’t meet objective success criteria. “Organisations
are blinkered to the market and must be willing to tread the fine line between
adopting technologies quickly and rushing the process by investing in the wrong
technology, otherwise they risk being overtaken by their competitors and will
see declining revenues”, commented Ben Barry, Director, Coeus
Consulting.
Aligned and informed
organisational leadership is clearly an issue within organisations where at
least some strategic IT change projects have not met initial objectives, with
just over seventy percent admitting one of: business plans changing, senior
management not buying into the change, or not taking enough risks as a reason
for failure. “This is disconcerting, if those at board level are failing to see
the benefits of strategic IT change, then implementation, adoption and
deployment of new technologies is destined to fail. Businesses need to ensure
board-level understanding of the importance of IT, as well as building stronger
strategic IT change capabilities”, added Thomas.
“Consumer demand for new and
improved offerings, paired with demand for digitalisation from the business,
means that organisations not only need to increase the speed at which they are
doing things, but must also match, or stay ahead of the offerings from
disruptive and agile competitors”, Thomas noted.
Seeking to discover how
organisations view the next wave of disruptive technology, almost a third (29%)
of respondents believe artificial intelligence represents the most significant
innovation set to impact their industry in the next two years, with data and
analytics (18%) next in line. Despite their predictions on the next generation of
technology, only 38% of respondents say they operate with dedicated teams
monitoring the latest advancements. This suggests sixty percent of
organisations could be operating with little knowledge of innovations taking
place outside their four walls.
Despite the current economic
climate, funding seems to be a secondary issue. Last years’ research found that
just over six in ten (62%) of respondents predicted an increase in the size of
their budget for the coming year. In actual fact, only 50% of respondents from
the survey this year reported an increase.
However, just over 50% of
respondents reported that digital services are being funded from the IT budget
in their company, and additional funding is also allocated from elsewhere. Indeed,
approaching six in ten (57%) are anticipating an increase in their budget for
the financial year 2019 to 2020. This indicates that business leaders
appreciate the need for IT in their current and future operations to the point
of allocating funding, but not always to the point of consistently aligning
with their IT counterparts.
Increasing operational efficiency
(49%), customer satisfaction (32%) and increasing revenues/sales (31%) top the
list of drivers of strategic IT change projects, demonstrating the expectations
around the business value of IT change are not being effectively driven.
Businesses need to recognise the
consequences that slowing IT spend, and ultimately, stagnating progress, could
have on their business prospects. Taking unnecessary risks could lead to the
downfall of an organisation, but in reality, spending on technology and taking
a fail-fast, calculated approach to IT risk is now a necessity.
