digital transformation

I’m currently giving some thought to the team culture I’m going to need in my latest project. When you think about culture change, it always seems a bit, well, MASSIVE. It’s knowing where to start. But in fact, sometimes it needs no more than a sharp tug on a piece of string….

Years ago, I started on a programme where the client told us that IT was hindering rather than helping the organisation. Systems were complicated, the technology was something of a Dark Art and the IT team was remote and unhelpful.

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, banks have been fined over $300 billion for regulatory misconduct that includes extensive mishandling of customer relationships. Most banks rue that keeping up with taxing regulations amid shrinking margins has affected their focus on innovation.
 

I was reminded yesterday that in 2020, the World Wide Web will be 30 years old. That’s all. Only 30.

And look what it’s already achieved! Just in the last few years it’s blown our minds with digitisation; Big Data; artificial intelligence; the Internet of Things; cloud-based everything…. It’s changed everything we do in IT, usually on an annual basis.

 So in preparation for the Big Three-Oh, how will our jobs have to change? Here’s my take on the job description we’ll all need in just two and a half years’ time….

As discussed earlier, digital disruption affects all aspects  of the the Employee and Talent agenda . However, the challenge facing every organization is to also find the right balance between return on investment and cost involved in using technology .

How does deployment of Emerging AI digital technologies improve Costs and Productivity?

We have been talking about the impact of disruption on the Employee and Talent agenda. Today, everyone is used to being treated as a ‘Customer’ and the same expectation carries through when people enter an organisation. The growth of technology organisations (the world’s 5 biggest businesses are all technology based) and the benchmark they have set around how employees get treated (flexibility, free food & drink, personal perks, great decor & design etc) have raised the bar for other organisations.

The subject I’ve learned most about in the last couple of years has centred on dealing with suppliers. I cut my IT-teeth in the Nasty 90s world of screw-em-down-then-kick-em-out contracts, but that won’t work for me these days. First, my programme doesn’t need that; and second, the big wide world doesn’t work like that anymore. So, to stop anyone else wasting time on old-school pointlessness, here are my best three recent lessons:

The GDPR is not just about Security, but it has been dominating the life of many CISOs since last year.

Cybersecurity is rising as a key issue on the radar of virtually all organisations. According to a recent AT Kearney report, cyber-attacks have been topping executives’ lists of business risks for three straight years. This concern is also driven by security and privacy becoming increasingly valued by customers, and by regulators stepping into the topic (GDPR in Europe, California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018).

For the last few weeks, I’ve been vigorously wrestling with the changing nature of IT and the role of the CIO. I seriously believe IT is in some sort of mid-life crisis. Or possibly, it’s just about to grow up and get some long trousers.

Recently, The Business Transformation Network hosted an event on “HR TechOps - Bridging the Gap between HR Tech and Operational Excellence”, which is a topic of growing importance in business today. The main questions the conversation revolved around were:

1.     What HR Technology platforms are being implemented and how is the implementation process going?

2.     How can HR technology be used to improve efficiency and employee experience?