digital transformation

Anyone with a little bit of experience in business has heard of the Pareto (or 80/20) “rule.” And this principle drives how organizations are targeting their efforts towards areas that would maximize results. With limited (finite) resources, it is logical to focus them on activities that have the highest impact/value.

Procurement is no stranger to this approach. Focusing on the 20% of the supply-base that makes 80% of an organization’s spend is a strategy and method that is very common, and that also makes sense from a pure “economical” standpoint.

The traditional role of the CISO is changing.

It is being challenged by emerging new regulations such as GDPR, which are impacting all industry sectors, and the arrival on the scene of the new role of the DPOin many firms.

Much has been written about current middle management roles becoming increasingly irrelevant,ANZ's Digital Chief Maile Carnegie a few months ago famously referring to the 'frozen middle' who "have graduated from doing to managing and basically bossing other people around and shuffling Powerpoints", who also "resist change like death." Carnegie highlighting the importance of distributed leadership and del

Digital is all the buzz today. You need to have a mobile app, be agile, invest in startups, move to Office360 & Yammer, do sprints, have scrum masters, use AI, build IoT, add BlockChain, ... BUT the dirty little secret of the innovators is that you will not be one. You might actually be putting lipstick on a pig!

At a function level, what Procurement does (buying goods or services from external sources) hasn’t changed much and will not. What does change is the world that Procurement operates in? Procurement does not operate in a vacuum so how it does the job has to reflect his times (and continuously do so). Also, it has to take into account with/for whom it does it. It is about addressing expectations, serving stakeholders, attracting talent, and much more.

The first challenges are cutting through the noise and getting to the heart of the matter. The IT sector pretend transformation is all to do with technology (usually the box of tricks they’re selling). They frequently publish blogs and articles to convince you to “transform your business by moving to the cloud”. Most mainstream IT advice will create operational efficiencies at best, but not transform the organisation.

Our technology and devices are becoming increasingly interconnected, creating the Internet of Things (IoT), but our interaction is no longer device bound it involves a substantial amount of voice interaction, which has created what Google refers to as the 'ambient internet'.

Our partners IQPC and TEX have conducted an interview around the ambient internet and the future of technology with Google's Director of Strategy and Operations, Craig Fenton.

Our Top Tips and Takeaways from this interview:

In an era where HR is frantically struggling for a seat on the bandwagon of data-savvy, data-driven business functions. An era where HR is yet to come to terms with the data value chain; where data culture is practically non-existent; data visualization remains a dark art; and BI stands for Brain Injury ... Is HR ready for Big Data?!

WHERE DO WE BEGIN?

The investment in recent years by large organisations, including the Big Four, has resulted in advanced technology that is changing many aspects of traditional accountancy and tax advisory. They now have technology that can cut the manhours needed on complex audits, do away with the need for sample testing and conduct a more insightful analysis of trends and risks.