Closing the customer experience (CX) gap

June 27, 2017June 28, 2017 / Datacom / Leave a comment

Photo / GraphicStock

People worldwide are finally waking up to the importance of customer-centricity. Forrester estimates that 84 per cent of organisations aspire to be CX leaders and Gartner says that for the third consecutive year marketing budgets are on the increase in a bid to improve it

Mercedes-Benz USA President and CEO Steve Cannon described CX back in 2015 as ‘the new marketing’ and every year Gartner report that it is increasingly on people’s agendas.

Hundreds of CX events are popping up worldwide and they are attracting all of the C-Suite – not just the marketing teams.

Unfortunately there is a gap between customer expectations and what they are actually experiencing. Famous research by Bain and Company in 2005 highlighted the staggering difference – 80 per cent of companies believed they were delivering a ‘superior experience’ whereas only 8 per cent of customers agreed with them. This gap has closed slightly but there is still a long way to go, particularly as nowadays customers expect to be able to interact with a brand via multiple channels.

But why does CX matter?

Forrester defines customer experience as ‘how customers perceive their interactions with your company’. Tony Hillson, chair at Auckland’s recent Customer 3.1 Summit said the industry has changed a lot over the past few years due to a shift from focussing on traditional service design and delivery towards what was described by keynote speaker, futurist Anders Sorman-Nilsson as a ‘transformation economy’’.

This transformation economy has been born out of a steep rise in the number of digital disruptors, e.g. Uber, AirBnB and shopping apps such as Wish. Digitalisation is making the world smaller – another example is US retailer Amazon who is expanding across Australia and rumoured to hit New Zealand soon too.

These disruptors raise the bar for more traditional organisations who will need to enhance their CX to keep up – and that’s not just B2C but B2B too.

By implementing CX principles into strategy, technology, processes and people management, it is possible to keep up with disruptors, reduce costs and increase revenue. Forrester estimates that companies who excel at CX grow a staggering 5.1 times quicker than those who don’t.

And how do we improve it?

Here are ten top tips to taking your customers on a journey across mulitple channels:

Plot the customer journey and work out where the most value can be added. Forrester says customers are willing to pay 4.5 times more for excellent CX. Look for ways to give them an memorable experience which makes them feel special. This doesn’t necessary mean the experience is bespoke but rather personalised on a large scale, e.g. Google remembers details such as where you visit frequently so it can provide you with updates and information relevant to you.
Hone both the left and right brains. Left is the logical analytical side and right is the creative side. Both are needed to solve problems and communicate with everyone, e.g. when Benji Karsch first started working at US healthcare company, Cigna, there were no metrics relating to any CX initiatives. This meant they had no idea what was successful and what wasn’t – so the board didn’t value them. As a result he worked on a left-brained solution to impress the board and ensure buy in to future initiatives.
Don’t spread yourself too thin, focus on one main metric, e.g. the net promoter or customer satisfaction score and link it to financial metric, e.g. 10% increased revenue if it is achieved.
Work on two levels of buy-in. Start at the top with metric-based business cases for the decision makers, e.g. we will lose $5m if x happens. Have case studies from previous projects worked on and use storytelling to evoke emotion. Sign up at least one senior person to help drive CX initiatives and make sure their buy in is visible.
Accenture report that 89 per cent of customers want a consistent CX across all channels, a seamless omnichannel. As soon as there is senior level buy-in, push to make CX and digital experience part of the same strategy. Hamish Nuttall, founder of the Naked Bus said ‘digital is just how we do business nowadays.
Now it is time to get everyone else involved. People are more engaged when they come to the project early. Forrester say that companies with engaged employees have operating margins 4.1 times larger than those whose employees aren’t. Also CX initiatives should come from all departments, particularly from frontline employees who are interacting with customers on a daily basis. Encourage an experimental and adaptive culture. Benji Karsch, started a successful internal marketing campaign for employees at US healthcare firm, Cigna, called ‘Go You’. It challenged employees to go above and beyond with customers. To help foster this, they were allowed to choose specially branded t-shirts and decorate their name tag to express their individuality.
Benchmark regularly so progress is visible and get feedback at different points of the customer journey so gaps can be found. There are lot of mechanisms for feedback including pulse surveys, forums and social media. Jason Delamore, Marketing GM at Auckland Airport said an impressive 400,000 people have given feedback via a tablet in the airport in the last year.
Boost customer trust so you can collaborate and innovate together. Rod Moynihan, Director of Sales at Zendesk says customers value empowerment, transparency and responsiveness above anything else so look at developing these traits. Once trust is formed, test the water with some small CX changes, e.g. a stripped-back, low cost prototype on a small section of people so there is little impact if it goes wrong and then expand from there.
Panel discussion: Lto R: Benjamin Karsch, EVP & Chief Marketing Officer, Revlon David Hughes, ‎General Manager e-Commerce and Customer Insights, Briscoe Group Moderator: Kat Hardisty, Design Lead, Optimal Workshop Roxanne Salton, Head of Digital Strategy and Delivery, Mercury. Photo / Scott Clegg/ Conferenz
Balance innovation, analytics and common sense. Although it is important to listen to customers, don’t just implement their suggestions blindly. Get to the root of whatever the pain-point is and work out the most efficient way of solving it. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your solution has to use new technology such as blockchain, artificial intelligence or machine learning – technology is just a means to an end.
In some cases it can work really well, e.g. When Lowes Innovation Labs showed people how to do DIY with a Hololens it resulted in 36 per cent better recall than when they watched an instructional video, but often you can be better off sticking to more tried and tested technology. That said, consider the analytics opportunities that are available with Internet of Things devices – just be sure that are completely secure and enhance CX too.
And finally never underestimate the importance of getting insights firsthand from the customer – it is much easier to empathise with them this way. David Hughes, ‎General Manager e-Commerce and Customer Insights at Briscoe Group has access to the customer feedback inbox from his email account. Natalie Kerschner, Senior UX Specialist at BNZ made whole teams of people go into branches posing as real business customers and Roxanne Salter, Head of Digital Strategy at Mercury had once worked where senior people had to do a monthly shift on the shopfloor. It was important, said Roxanne, not to be afraid of asking stupid questions – since this is how issues were picked up on.

The Datacom Digital Experience team works with organisations to discover which CX strategies are best for them. We have a wide range of tricks in our toolbox from alignment workshops to journey mapping to concept testing.

Interested in knowing more? Email digital@datacom.co.nz.

To smartcities and beyond – 10 steps to get your public sector organisation ready for Digital Transformation (DX)

June 2, 2017June 2, 2017 / Datacom / Leave a comment

By Caroline White

Technology is moving fast in today’s world. Every organisation is expected to know about – if not use – things such as the Internet of Things, blockchain, and artificial intelligence. Every city or town is now expected to aspire to be a smart city.

As newer types of technology emerge, this pace will only start to quicken. Brett Roberts, Associate Director of Datacom Auckland’s Digital, Customers & Collaboration Group likes to use Heraclitus’s quote – ‘‘the only constant is change’ so keep up or get left behind!

Digital Transformation (DX) is not just a catchphrase – technology is being employed successfully by the public sector worldwide to address important safety and security concerns and improve processes.

Body-worn cameras can protect parking officers when out in the field, sensors can be used to highlight buildups at traffic black spots and drones can be used to check tall buildings when people apply for building consents.

Compared with other countries, New Zealand has been slow on the DX uptake. PwC New Zealand say that just 50 per cent of Kiwi organisations are integrating digital and corporate strategies compared to 70 per cent worldwide. Steffan Schaefer lists the areas where great improvements can be made: air and water quality control, environmental monitoring, energy saving, renewable energy solutions, and the prediction and prevention of natural and man-made disasters. Gartner also says councils could become a hub for technological innovation as they have access to swathes of data which could be valuable – if collected and analysed properly.

You know your organisation needs to start digitally transforming. But what about the other people in your organisation? How do you convince the decision-makers? Here are ten tips for implementing change in a public sector organisation.

1. Evaluate the pros and cons of digitising processes
The most common blocks for digital transformation are lack of budget, a lack of time or resource, reliance on legacy systems, a lack of technological skills and “siloed” data. However these problems will only get worse if action isn’t taken to move into the digital space.

Product Manager, Anthony Sidwell recently presented Antenno, Datacom’s new mobile app at PCA Smart Cities Conference 2017. One of the key messages of the conference was that DX isn’t just about implementing technology – it’s a way for councils to improve people’s lives as well as reduce costs and increase efficiency.

It’s an iterative process – so start small and work up. Look at where current issues are and where customer feedback can be improved. Then work out where technology can be used to solve them, e.g. does your team face a battle when dog licensing comes around as it is still done on paper rather than online?

In most cases, the pros far outweigh the cons and the sooner implemented, the sooner improvements can be made.

2. Actively look for and find solutions to any roadblocks
Once you know where the areas for DX are, look for any roadblocks – these could be change resistant or non-tech savvy members in the top team – or holes in your own rough ideas that you hadn’t thought of. Find the five most problem-focussed people you work with and ask them to pick holes in your rough plans – according to research just five people will pick up 85% of issues with a product, service or idea. Find solutions to those issues raised.

3. Impress with stats and bust myths
So now you’re armed with a reviewed rough plan, it is time to wow decision makers with some great ideas. It is important to work out how to sell it to them – find out what problem they would most like to solve, e.g. are they sick of all the complaints that the customer services teams are getting? Then find their preferred communication style so you can frame your ideas in a way that works for them. Prepare a ‘mythbusters’ pack of stats and common questions, e.g. why moving to cloud is safer and better than on premise systems?

4 . Set up a change management team
Once you have support from the decision makers, it is time to set up a change team of like-minded people to help you on the road to success. Each area of the organisation should be represented by a ‘change champion’ – someone to voice concerns for their area, make sure their requirements are covered and generally aid the change process. These people should be fully committed to the idea of change and ready to cajole those more risk-averse members of their team that change is necessary.

5. Foster an innovative culture
In his keynote at the DX2017 summit in March, Brett Roberts stressed the interlinkages between innovation and DX, advising companies to drive an innovative and adaptive digital culture at all times – it’s not just for the top team. Now is the time to reach out to the whole organisation, not just your change management team and let them know that DX is afoot. Encourage all generations and levels to get involved – particularly digital natives. You may find extra skills, expertise and ideas to add to the mix, along with new ways to problem solve.

6. Investigate different options and budgets
As a team, look into the problems you are trying to solve. Refine the requirements identified in step one, add some rough metrics and prioritise. Once the list is complete, seek outside advice from a reputable DX expert who will be able to discuss the different options and give advice on the best possible digital strategy to fit your needs.

Don’t be afraid of speaking to people who don’t fit the normal council mould – it’s important to know what other councils are doing and where money could be saved via collaboration but it is also important to think outside of the box.

There is no reason why the public sector can’t do this too. Antenno was born out of a need to solve communication issues between local government and their communities. Councils needed new ways of reaching people. At the same time, their customers were complaining of information overload and wanted to only have access to relevant information.

7.Write a plan with metrics
Once all options have been evaluated, it is time to write the DX plan. Datacom’s Head of Digital Experience, Fiona Monks, recommends that this should be a guiding vision or a ‘north star’ for the next three to five years with only the first six months described in detail. Every six months the team can get together and assess whether the organisation is on the right track.

Don’t forget to…

Include the metrics stating where you are now, where you want to be and how frequently you are going to measure them.
Consider all stakeholders and situations. Make sure all workflows have been reviewed and mapped – there is little point transferring archaic paper process to digital.
Include a disaster recovery plan – it shouldn’t be needed but as calculated risks are needed with DX it is best always to be prepared
Invite as many people to review it as possible before finalisation.

8. Get communication right
Communication is often cited as a reason for failure from DX projects. Plan meticulously and far in advance, working out what the best mediums for reaching different stakeholders are. Go interactive via social media aiming to build enthusiasm, excitement and confidence. Make sure there are clear avenues for feedback so worries can be quickly addressed before they fester.

9. Look out for people resistant to change
However much communication is done beforehand, there will always be some people who are resistant to DX – particularly frontline employees who have not been involved with the decision- making process. Anticipate who these people are and make sure they feel safe and comfortable. Plan onboarding sessions for new technology and listen to them.

10. Have fun
A recent study by Gallup found that just 29 per cent of government workers are engaged in their job. Use DX as a time to turn over a new leaf and boost engagement levels. Share metrics and celebrate successes as a team. Have change champions at each site to drive changes forward and consider some sort of gamification, e.g. prizes for teams who adopt the new ways of working quickest. Points system with league tables and weekly updates can foster some healthy competition.

Ready to transform your organisation? If you need some inspiration, email us at digital@datacom.co.nz or find out more about our local government products including some impressive case studies here.

Datacom kicks off Microsoft’s Global Integration Bootcamp

March 31, 2017March 31, 2017 / Datacom / Leave a comment

By Tim Nelson

It started in Auckland on Saturday, then followed the sunrise across the globe.

Dawn on Saturday 25th saw Datacom stop the countdown clock on the Microsoft Global Integration Bootcamp website.

Starting at 210 Federal Street in Auckland and following the sunrise across 12 locations across around the world, the Global Bootcamp brought the Microsoft integration community together for an intensive day of interactive labs using the latest Azure technology.

With a dual opportunity to lead and learn alongside co-hosts Adaptiv and Theta the team added hospitality and plenty of coffee to create a warm collaborative atmosphere for everyone in attendance.
MicrosoftBootCamp.Presenter

Photo / Datacom’s Craig Haiden presenting at the weekend’s Microsoft Global Integration Bootcamp.

Independent consultants and integrators from both vendors and corporates turned the café into a hub of concentrated activity, augmented by a constant flow of online appreciation from around the globe as successive centres kicked off their day.

Plenty of knowledge was shared and new skills were learned. Hands-on labs covered the full Azure integration stack: enabling hybrid integration scenarios to surface data to the cloud; setting up Service Bus and Logic Apps to orchestrate data flows; configuring API Apps and API Management to present and secure data access; and working with IoT Hub, Stream Analytics and Power BI to provide both deep insight and responsive control of data and devices in real-time.

A big thank you to the dedicated team of organisers and presenters who made it happen: Craig Haiden, Mark Brimble, Mahindra Morar, Mike Howell, James Corbould, Morten Velling and Abhishek Kumar. Literally world-leading…

Check out more about the Global Integration Bootcamp here.

Digital Transformation 101: Insights from DX 2017

March 29, 2017March 31, 2017 / Datacom / Leave a comment

By Caroline White

Business leaders from across New Zealand came together to discuss their challenges at the Digital Transformation summit in Auckland this month. The key themes were:

Understanding innovation and transformation and how they work together
Unlocking value by leveraging technology and new business platforms
Understanding changing audiences for customer-centric digital transformation
Recruiting and retaining the right talent and unlocking real competitive advantages

The Datacom sponsored event saw Brett Roberts, Associate Director of Datacom Auckland’s Digital, Customers & Collaboration Group, take to the stage for his keynote advising companies on how to drive an innovative and adaptive digital culture. Digital Transformation means companies need to act fast to ensure they aren’t left behind.

BrettRobertsDX2017CloggCloseup Brett Roberts speaking at DX2017. Photo / Scott Clogg: Conferenz

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital Transformation is the latest hot phrase to be bandied round in offices across the world – but it is also a commonly misunderstood term. Basically, it’s the act of transforming businesses digitally from end to end – from operations to infrastructure, meshing together technology, processes and people.

DX2017 featured 24 speakers in total, each offering advice that can be loosely packaged into five C’s: competitive pressure, the confluence of ideas, customers, culture and continuous learning, and finally the biggest C: communication.

Competitive pressure

Firstly, why do businesses have to digitally transform? Technology and innovation is moving at a faster pace than ever before. We live in an uncertain world – A study from the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University estimates that 40 percent of today’s F500 companies on the S&P 500 will no longer exist in 10 years.

Foxtel’s Brett Cooper said digital disruptors are everywhere – the most well- known one for his company being being Netflix.

Competition has come from leaders who have shunned traditional business models and dared to do things differently – Uber, Amazon and Airbnb are just three examples.

Nicki Raistrick, Head of Digital at Fletcher Building looked at the same issue, raising concerns about traditional businesses making assumptions they shouldn’t. You may know the names of your customers and their likes and dislikes, but what do they really know about their customer’s customers – is there a new disruptor just around the corner?

Andre Guyer, Head of Digital Transformation for the Zurich Insurance, believes companies need to use money and experience as leverage against new entrants to their industry – to attack, rather than defend their market share.

New Zealand companies need to look at their products and services and work out where they are adding value to their customers – which enable them to innovate and provide a better service, and thus larger margin than foreign counterparts.

DX2017Audience The challenge of digital transformation – Brett Roberts speaks at DX2017. Photo / Scott Clogg: Conferenz

Confluence

At the heart of Digital Transformation is a triad, a confluence of people, business and process. It’s not possible to change one without considering impact on the other.

People – Robotics will feature heavily in the future, but nothing can substitute for the human brain. Algorithms are not the solution to all our problems.

Digital leaders still have a tough job in shaping the workforce of the future. Traditional roles such as system administrators, operators, programmers, and help desk employees will decrease in demand and these people will need to be retrained and moved elsewhere.

New people for jobs which haven’t even been dreamt up yet will need to be sourced and an organisation is only as good as the people who work for them.

Quote of the day: “Never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER compromise your hiring.” Hire diverse people with good attitudes who are ready to slot into an innovative environment. And don’t be afraid to hire people who don’t fit the mould – the best innovations don’t tend to come from when people stick to the mould.

Business – Transforming to digital can often unearth all sorts of issues that weren’t apparent beforehand. Go back to basics, make sure the company vision is clear, and map out all your processes to how they would work in the real world.

Technology – Big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence were all discussed prominently – and will need to be a part of any future plans.

Lots of companies are using all of these technologies already. Google Maps combines AI, robotics and big data. Starbucks and Amazon are teaming up for an AI, chat and voice app.

Trevor Delany, Head of Information Technology & Services for BP New Zealand said that customers had even arrived at its petrol stations asking to pay with bitcoins. It’s impossible to commit to all of the good ideas out there, but the smart people are those who see how this could fit into existing business models in the future.

Customers

Customers should be first priority for every organisation; but for many busy organisations, they are often the last. Every speaker at DX 2017 called for companies to be more customer- led rather than focusing strictly on products. Customer centricity was frequently discussed, especially innovation labs and collaborative programmes.

Culture and continuous learning

The one fundamental kickstarter is having an innovative culture. Allow everyone in the company to get involved and have their voice heard.

If staff feel are empowered in an innovative culture, they will rally and try to solve issues themselves. They certainly won’t sit by and let disruptors take over. Encourage staff at all levels to be curious and ask questions. You need to accept that you’re not always going to get it right – as Brett Roberts puts it ‘experimentation’, rather than ‘embracing failure’.

Don’t get complacent – embrace constant learning. For example, millennials often have a different way of looking problems compared to other generations. Don’t disparage that, encourage it. Datacomp, Datacom’s yearly hackathon has been so successful that it has become a blueprint for hackathons at other companies, such as Genesys and ASB.

And finally, the big C, communication

The overwhelming message from DX 2017 is to start focussing on people. A major part of that is communication.

Digital transformation is terrifying. Frontline employees can feel hopeless and removed from the decision making process. They’re often wondering: What is going on? Is my job safe? I’ve been here for 20 years – what are all these crazy decisions that the company is now making?

There will always be resistance to DX, said Gerard Smith, Senior Digital Manager for Teachers Mutual Bank.

You need buy in; to get your employees to embrace the model you’re trying to adopt. You need to educate and reassure them, and offer the appropriate training to enable them for the new model.

There is a human being behind every change the business makes, and they need to be engaged – help them celebrate successes, actively promoting your digital projects and highlighting the importance of the change.

My three takeaways:

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Start with small changes and then work up. Review your legacy systems and grade the changes needed into levels of urgency and importance before implementation. If there is kick back from the top team, ask them what else they’ll spend their money on if it isn’t DX.

DX is the whole package, not just the tech – people and business processes are just as important

Uncertainty is a certainty – Organisations need to be agile, nimble and ready to experiment or else they will die

What do you think? If you’re looking for some ideas on transforming digitally please email us at digital@datacom.co.nz.

Main photo/ Brett Roberts speaks at DX2017. Photo: Scott Clogg: Conferenz

Tourism NZ intranet – built with Datacom – recognised as one of the world’s best

January 12, 2017January 31, 2017 / Datacom / Leave a comment

Tourism New Zealand’s staff intranet has been named one of the top ten in the world. International user experience firm, Nielsen Norman Group announced the award this week with Tourism New Zealand the only Australasian winner.

As well as winning the Nielson Norman group award, earlier this year Datacom and Tourism NZ were named winners in the Microsoft Partner Awards for Content and Collaboration for the same solution.

tongarirocropped

Photo: Tourists on the Tongariro Crossing – one of New Zealand’s most popular vistior attractions. Wikimedia Commons user Yogi De

“We have staff based around the globe and staff who travel internationally working from mobile devices so it’s really important as an organisation to keep our people informed and connected to our global whanau. The intranet was redesigned with these principles in mind so it’s great to see the site being recognised for being accessible and easy to use,” says Deborah Gray, Tourism NZ’s General Manager Corporate Affairs.

“The site was also praised for its use of plain English and social interactive features. We made sure to integrate the ability for staff to post photos and have conversations, it’s been really successful in helping staff engage with each other and share information.”

The redesign project took around six months to complete. The work included the review all content on the site, rewriting it to make it more accessible and more visual, as well as removing unused and old content.

The intranet site was delivered by the Datacom Office 365 team, helmed by Matt Swain.

Datacom’s view is that an intranet is based on 5 key pillars:

• Communication
• Content
• Collaboration
• Culture
• Doing Work

Evaluating where customer’s currently rate in each of these pillars, and what they are trying to achieve with their intranet is critical in driving successful, measurable outcomes.

Datacom believes that each phase of an intranet build should typically only focus on one or two of these pillars, with a light touch to the others. Having clear goals set against each pillar then allows organisations to clearly prioritise and deliver against each phase, while still gathering requirements for future phases.

It is important to keep in mind an intranet cannot be fairly judged as successful on day one, but needs to look at 6, 12, and 18 months in the future. Constant evolution is needed.

Datacom spent considerable amounts of time working with Tourism New Zealand to clearly understand their goals before work started. As such, the intranet was focused on social interaction to enable workplace collaboration, as well as the construction of valuable content. This allows the intranet to feel fresh and lively, a place where people want to work together, and utilises information well suited to the medium.

Jakob Nielsen, Principal for Nielsen Norman Group describes Tourism New Zealand’s site as having “A clean design, rewritten content, and well-integrated social features turned Tourism New Zealand’s new responsive intranet into an essential tool for communication and collaboration, regardless of location or device.”

See more here about Datacom Social Intranet.

Daniel Thurston and Matt Swain

Cloud Breakfast – Learning from early adopters

November 17, 2016November 17, 2016 / Datacom / Leave a comment

If you attend almost any IT conference these days, you could be mistaken for thinking that every serving of The Cloud comes with a free side of business transformation. Can our clients achieve complete business transformation simply by migrating their IT systems to The Cloud, or is there more to it than that? We were recently treated to a breakfast briefing from two clients that have already made the journey to The Cloud and helped to answer this question from first-hand experience.

Datacom’s Cloud Insiders Breakfast was held at Pilkington’s in Auckland last month, during the Microsoft Ignite conference. “Insights from early adopters” was the theme of the breakfast and Kotahi CIO Neville Richardson and Zespri Global Manager of Information Systems Andrew Goodin presented to a packed room of Datacom clients.

Datacom assisted Zespri to migrate their IT systems into the Azure Cloud in 2014 and now provide ongoing Managed Services to monitor, automate and support the platform. Kotahi’s journey to the cloud began with Datacom’s annual Datacomp hackathon in 2015, which produced a unique logistics solution using Azure PaaS (Platform as a Service) software. This has since become a mission-critical business system for Kotahi, who are now migrating their legacy systems into Azure also.

richardsonkotahibreakfast
Kotahi’s Neville Richardson describes how Kotahi made its Cloud migration.

Michael Farrell – Datacom’s BU manager for Microsoft Managed Services and ALM opened the breakfast by sharing his view that a move to the cloud doesn’t guarantee transformation. In his experience, if clients don’t create or correctly apply a cloud strategy, most are simply consolidating and reducing their total cost of ownership (TCO).

“Azure enables transformation. It doesn’t guarantee it. “

Some key points made by Kotahi’s Neville Richardson:

Kotahi’s IT strategy supports differentiation by delivering “cloud as a service”, an integrated platform utilising familiar technologies
Choosing the right platform is key, including geo location, sizing to requirements, platform flexibility, value for money, implementation and management expertise, utilising data for new insights
Richardson said it was important to start small and test the environment, select a good partner to support and don’t try to make all workloads fit. He advised creating a “cloud first” culture for all new applications.

Andrew Goodin had a different, more tumultuous story to tell – the first steps towards cloud migration for Zespri began at a dark time for the kiwifruit industry – a time of retrenchment and fear for the future, brought on by the arrival of the PSA virus in New Zealand.

The PSA virus was ravaging Bay of Plenty orchards and the company was investigating ways of easily scaling down operations. But now – with PSA beaten quickly and record export volumes flowing out of New Zealand – the Azure cloud is proving to be the perfect framework for innovation and flexibility.

“But the cloud is not for everyone”, said Goodin. He advised other potential cloud users to make a migration decision based on the facts, not emotions. “I built this, I look after it – it’s often at the heart of it.” he said, describing the emotional attachment some IT staff had to buying and managing their own infrastructure – even when it could be done more efficiently and effectively at scale – by a partner on the public cloud.

goodincloudpic Zespri’s Andrew Goodin shares his Cloud migration story

Some cloud lessons from Zespri:

Partnerships are essential when you embark on this journey – since not everything will go to plan
Test your platforms against performance and cost models
The cloud opportunity should be considered for driving innovation and scalability, and not just for cost savings
Not every workload is suitable for the cloud – but always challenge that assumption!
The financial benefits are real, but that’s not the only reason to move to the cloud.

There’s nothing better than shared first-hand experience when you’re about to embark on tough, demanding journeys. This is a key part of the value Datacom brings to our client partnerships; our breadth of skills and experience as the leading enterprise IT solutions provider in NZ is unrivalled.

cloudgraphic

We don’t just migrate our clients into the cloud and leave them there to try and optimise it themselves either. Our services cover the entire lifecycle of a client’s Cloud journey; from creating a clear and structured cloud strategy to managing and supporting the cloud platform and products that run on it.

We would like to say a big thank you to our friends at Kotahi and Zespri for sharing their experiences with us and those about to take the first step to business transformation on the cloud.

James Stainton

Datacom’s female leaders take centre stage at Microsoft Ignite 2016

October 20, 2016 / Datacom / Leave a comment

– By James Stainton

Datacom are proud to have a record number of 11 speakers at this year’s Microsoft Ignite in New Zealand. Our market leading experts will be discussing a wide range of topics, from the Internet of Things to Microsoft Azure Site Recovery.

Datacom continues to go from strength to strength with Microsoft in New Zealand. I’m proud of the calibre of speakers we are putting forward, and welcome anyone attending to join us at our sessions.

Reiterating the importance of growing female voices in IT, Datacom is also pleased to announce we are the official ‘Women in Technology’ sponsor for Ignite, and have three female speakers on stage.

Business Manager Kaye Harding will be hosting the official Women in Technology lunch panel discussion, which will focus on the importance of diversity. Mixed teams make better decisions, better products, and produce a better bottom line, and she will be discussing how to encourage more women to join, stay, and achieve highly in the tech industry. Her guests for this panel will be: Sonia Cuff, co-founder of The Missing Chair, Damian Sharkey, Workstream Director at Westpac, and Nuwanthie Samarakone, Founder and CEO of ICE Professionals.

Datacom’s Emily Wang, a solution architect, a cybersecurity enthusiast and a gadget lover will also host a session discussing the hidden dangers of going mobile ‘The hidden dangers of going mobile and how to mitigate them with Intune’, with solutions advisor Owen De Mooy.

Software developer Girisha Arora will also be on stage with our Microsoft I&AM Identity Architect Rory Braybrook, for ‘A lap around Azure AD B2C for developers (Business to Consumer)’ which will cover to discuss Azure Active Directory – Business to Consumer and ‘Identity Management as-a-Service.’

The other eight key Datacom speakers include:

Joshua Fenemore – Practice Lead & Software Consultant – Xamarin vs Native vs Hybrid vs Web – Haven’t we had this argument already?
Daniel Bowbyes – Innovation Lead – Implementing Azure Site Recovery for on premises to Azure DR and Designing Azure Compute and Storage to optimise for cost and performance
Mark Brimble – Principal Integration Architect – What’s New in BizTalk Server 2016?
Rory Braybrook – Datacom’s Microsoft I&AM Identity Architect – Integrating OpenID Connect / OAuth2 with Azure AD and ADFS
Arun James (Business Transformation Consultant) and Joe James (Sharepoint Consultant) – Stop Developing and Start Flowing
Mahindra Morar – Principal Integration Consultant – IOT, Machine Learning and Power BI deliver advanced analytics for Auckland Airport

To read about each session in more detail, including locations and session times (and a grid timetable) – click here. We look forward to seeing you there.

Process Automation is poised to disrupt your workplace: how prepared are you?

September 30, 2016 / Datacom / Leave a comment

By Kerry Topp

“Over the next 10 years, the work of 110 million to 140 million knowledge workers around the globe may be handled by cognitive robotic process automation systems.” Cliff Justice, KPMG

cyborg

This quote is attributed to KPMG’s Cliff Justice, who was citing research from McKinsey Global Institute earlier in September this year at the World BPO/ITO Forum’s Global Sourcing & Cloud Summit held in New York. Justice was commenting on the significant impact that Robotic Process Automation or RPA will have on our society and economy in the coming years.

It’s a chilling statement I know, but I personally believe it needs to be said and repeated over and over again – we need to wake up, sit up and take action, New Zealand!

Most people globally are asleep, blissfully unaware of the potential impact RPA will have on the economy and society we know today. New Zealand, we have an opportunity to capitalise and leap ahead of our global competition, IF we are awake and bold enough to take action, now.

“Staying economically-relevant in the digital age requires sleeping with one eye open.” Ade McCormak, Futurist

This might sound alarmist, but I personally believe from a New Zealand Inc perspective that it is incumbent on the people and organisations who are awake and ‘get it’ to lead the way in order to stave off the potential social unrest predicted by economists as a result of robotic process automation.

To do anything but provoke and stimulate open debate and awareness that there is, in our very imminent future, a significant ‘seismic shift’ in New Zealand’s global productivity and economic health if we don’t rapidly move to doing things differently, can’t be stressed enough.

So why do I believe we should be both worried by the threat, but also, excited by the opportunity of RPA?

What is RPA?

Firstly, let’s explore what RPA actually is, and why it offers significant opportunity – but also threat – for New Zealand, and why we must be vigilant, awake and prepared as a nation.

RPA is the use of software with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities to handle high-volume, repeatable tasks that previously required a human to perform. According to Blue Prism, leading developers of RPA software, “Robotic automation refers to a style of automation where a machine, or computer, mimics a human’s action in completing rules based tasks.”

Essentially RPA is the novel application of analytics, machine learning and rules-based software to capture and interpret existing data input streams for processing a transaction, manipulating data, triggering responses and communicating with other enterprise applications.

According to many it is not a question of “if” RPA will impact us anymore but a question of “when.”

toyrobot

Why?

What distinguishes RPA from traditional IT automation is RPA software’s ability to be aware and adapt to changing circumstances, exceptions and new situations. Once RPA software has been trained to capture and interpret the actions of specific processes in existing software applications, it can then manipulate data, trigger responses, initiate new actions and communicate with other systems autonomously.

Companies of all sizes can potentially benefit from RPA which has the ability to expedite back-office and middle-office tasks without the need for human intervention. This has the potential to positively impact a wide range of industries – including; finance, insurance, manufacturing, media, telecommunications and transportation as examples, but also a variety of functions performed by people within companies today – functions including; sales, marketing, contact centres, supply chain, procurement, accounting, deliveries, transport, customer relationship and human resources, to name a few.

The three classes of RPA technology each have the potential to be transformative for our work, our workplace and thereby, our companies competing on the international stage. Let’s explore RPA, In more detail;

Class 1 – or basic process automation – includes sophisticated macros, screen scraping and business workflow technologies that are not traditionally integrated into the IT systems;
Class 2 – or enhanced process automation – are technologies that use Natural Language Processing (NLP) and can, for instance, understand unstructured data and apply that understanding to the process automation; and finally
Class 3 – or cognitive platforms – is the most transformative class as it provides autonomic/cognitive platforms that have the ability to parse context and understand meaning. As that technology merges with robotic task automation, you have a whole different class of digital Labour. You can see why this is so transformational and why people need to be aware of what is hear now and what is also just around the corner.

What are the benefits of Robotic Process Automation?

If your company has many different, complicated systems that need to interact together seamlessly, then RPA represents an opportunity for you to be more efficient, drive cost out and differentiate your business – not just locally, but also globally. RPA is rapidly being applied across a range of industries to improve speed, quality and consistency.

In general, the best projects for robot automation are bulk repetitive rules based procedures. Process automation can expedite back-office tasks in finance, procurement, accounting, customer service supply chain management and human resources, including purchase order issuing, creation of online access credentials, data entry, or business processes that require access to multiple existing systems.

RPA can:

Automate data and rules intensive activities like HR, procurement, invoicing, billing;
Enable workflow and process automation for efficiency;
Learn from natural language interactions in order to solve customer problems and respond easily to a wide range of queries;
Orchestrate other application software applications through existing APIs or user interface;
Replace clerical Labour with software.

In the very near future we’ll see ‘Human Only’ workloads, like call centres as an example, facing significant upheaval as voice recognition software, intelligent assistants and natural language processing, retrieve information and structure basic content in ways that provide answers to self-service customers rapidly and effectively, all without human intervention.

“The real issue facing us in the job market today is not the lack of employment, but a critical skills shortage. There should be conversations about how we can help the global workforce through this digital transition period and arm it with the skills required to lead the way and seize opportunities within these new trends in employment.” Daniel Burrus, Futurist

In addition to this, other ‘Human only’ processes will reduce as machine learning and data-driven decision-making evolve. Activities like fraud and risk monitoring will also change. As will automated processes in remote management, audit, security, and other risk and compliance-related areas. With RPA these processes can consistently be monitored, flagged and exception-handled faster and more efficiently, than with human interaction.

The imminent next frontier

This is truly the next frontier of business process automation and enterprise cognitive computing.

But don’t take my word for it, according to the Everest Group, a consulting and research firm, RPA can yield incremental cost reduction in healthcare payer business process outsourcing (BPO) ranging from a low of 15 percent for offshore operations to a high of 47 percent for onshore operations.

“Cognitive robotics advancements will have a major impact on the Labour market, shifting the knowledge worker framework from one of Labour arbitrage, which reduces costs for relevant functions by anywhere from 15% to 30%, to one of Labour automation, which reduces costs by 40% to 75%,” Cliff Justice, KPMG

Hopefully, this video by Automation Anywhere, another leading developer of RPA software, conveys what that future of RPA – an imminent future – looks like.

“Cognitive technology like IBM Watson, Google Deep Mind and Microsoft Cortana and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology have been largely separate. After all, they’re meant to perform different jobs for different situations. But what happens when you combine the two, bringing together the cutting-edge capabilities of cognitive and the practical, powerful abilities of RPA?” Jordan McMahon, Senior Manager, Automation Anywhere

People need to be awake to the threats but also the opportunities that this class of technology represents. Process automation via automated software robots — e.g. Apple Siri, IBM Watson, Google DeepMind, Microsoft Cortana — are now mainstream. What most people are not aware of the rapidly advancing area of enterprise robots to create a “virtual FTE workforce” and transform business processes by enabling automation of manual, rules based, back-office administrative and escalation processes.

As Cliff Justice of KPMG says, “You have technology that can understand your customers [and] run queries against rules engines. [If the response] falls within parameters, [the technology] can inform the robot to carry out a transaction and actually do things that in the past required decisions.”

Conclusion

RPA offers enhanced scalability, greater accuracy, improved compliance and reduced cycle times to respond and act — as these improve, RPA adoption can only take off and expand within and across industries. This can only impact large employers like call centre and Labour intensive white collar jobs (e.g., compliance monitoring) in a big way over the next decade. So if you use Labour on a large-scale for general knowledge process work – where people are performing high-volume, highly transactional process functions – then there are significant benefits with implementing robotic process automation software. If you are a person employed by these type of organisations, performing these functions, then I suggest looking at retraining, quickly.

“Can – or should – businesses do anything to stave off the social unrest predicted by economists as a result of robotic process automation?” Sue Troy, TechTarget

coloureye

A recent study, entitled The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence, stated;

“Contrary to the more fantastic predictions for AI in the popular press, the Study Panel found no cause for concern that AI is an imminent threat to humankind. No machines with self-sustaining long-term goals and intent have been developed, nor are they likely to be developed in the near future. Instead, increasingly useful applications of AI, with potentially profound positive impacts on our society and economy are likely to emerge between now and 2030, the period this report considers. At the same time, many of these developments will spur disruptions in how human labor is augmented or replaced by AI, creating new challenges for the economy and society more broadly. Application design and policy decisions made in the near term are likely to have long-lasting influences on the nature and directions of such developments, making it important for AI researchers, developers, social scientists, and policymakers to balance the imperative to innovate with mechanisms to ensure that AI’s economic and social benefits are broadly shared across society.”

The study then went on to say, “If society approaches these technologies primarily with fear and suspicion, missteps that slow AI’s development or drive it underground will result, impeding important work on ensuring the safety and reliability of AI technologies. On the other hand, if society approaches AI with a more open mind, the technologies emerging from the field could profoundly transform society for the better in the coming decades.”

At the moment, many individuals and organizations are guilty of putting their heads in the sand. Pretending this digital transformation isn’t happening and hoping it will go away are not going to help anyone. Many aspects of how we live, work and play are almost unrecognizable now when compared with how they were only 15 years ago, so we must expect the employment landscape to move with the changes in lifestyle and outlook. Daniel Burrus, Futurist

In my view it’s incumbent on the people and organisations who ‘get it’, those awake to the opportunity and the threat that RPA represents, to lead the way in order to stave off the potential social unrest predicted by economists as a result of robotic process automation.

To do anything but provoke and stimulate open debate and awareness that there is in our very imminent future a significant ‘shift backward’ in New Zealand’s global productivity and economic health if we don’t rapidly move to doing things differently, can’t be stressed enough.

The work that folks like Frances Valintine, Tech Futures Lab and the Wynyard Innovation Neighbourhood (WiN) are doing to raise awareness of this impending global exponential shift – driven by artificial intelligence, automation and quantum computing – must be amplified and supported in my view.

So, please NZ – particularly board members and company executives – it’s imperative you listen to a message that will only grow in its volume and intensity in the coming years. Act now, actively explore RPA’s potential in your business, and ensure your people and companies are in the best possible position, locally & globally, to excel. New Zealand’s future wealth and place as companies and one country in tomorrow’s world, depends on it!

References

Cognitive robotic process automation poised to disrupt knowledge worker market(Sue Troy, TechTarget)
Robotic process automation (TechTarget)
How Technology Is Destroying Jobs (David Rotman)
Robotic Process Automation and Analytics (Ravi Kalakota, LiquidHub)
Changing the world with automation (Jordan McMahon)
Scientists look at how A.I. will change our lives
Robotic Process Automation Yields Cost Savings as High as 47 Percent—Everest Group Research (Everest Group)
The Next Industrial Revolution (Derek Thompson, Senior Editor, The Atlantic)
Robotic process automation: A path to the cognitive enterprise (David Schatsky, Craig Muraskin, Kaushik Iyengar)
The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence
Technological Unemployment Changing Future Work (Daniel Burrus)

New Zealand: creating new value and gaining competitive advantage with IoT solutions

September 9, 2016September 12, 2016 / Datacom / Leave a comment

By Kerry Topp

Globally the Internet of Things (IoT) is getting a lot of attention for its potential to transform major industry sectors such as agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, construction, and technology. It’s also projected to be a market worth US$7 trillion or more by 2020.

In addition, the number of connected things, from computers to household monitors to cars, is projected to grow at an annual compound rate of 23.1 percent between 2014 to 2020, reaching 50.1 billion things in 2020.

“80% of organizations have a more positive view of IoT today compared to a year ago. This reflects greater levels of attention from the C-suite and a better understanding of how the many different elements of the IoT ecosystem are starting to come together,” Computing Technology Industry Association

OECD figures show that New Zealand is positioned well to take advantage of IoT transformation, however, these figures also suggest that smart cities, homes and consumers are only just emerging here. Whilst it would be harsh to call New Zealand a IoT adoption laggard, the evidence is that we are not quite leading the way either. We need to do more, and here’s why.

Firstly, what is the Internet of Things?

The truth is, there is no standard definition for the Internet of Things. If you have heard or read about IoT, chances are you’ve come across a number of different perspectives. Despite how complex IoT seems, it essentially comes down to four areas:

Physical ‘things’ such as line of business assets, including industry devices or sensors
Those ‘things’ have connectivity to the internet, to each other, and/or to people
Those ‘things’ collect and communicate data—this may include information gathered from the environment or inputted by users
Analytics are then performed on that data that enable people or machines to take action.

In a recent study by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), a non-profit IT-focused trade association, it was found that in the minds of business and IT executives, IoT is associated with “ever-greater levels of connectivity; more intelligence built into devices, objects, and systems; and a strong data and applied learning orientation.”

The image below captures some key words business and IT executives associated with the term Internet of Things.

iotwordassociations

During Datacomp, we had teams hacking chairs, assembling doors and pulling apart beehives. The results, well, they were spectacular. But most importantly, we learnt that IoT, amongst other things, can;

Unfortunately, this statistic often leads to claims that our wonderful country is an IoT leader, but as Shane Minogue, Senior Market Analyst at IDC, points out in his insightful article entitled, New Zealand is a leader in IoT but is not leading the way, it is worth digging a little deeper.

“We are too easily led by a headline grabbing statistic, that means we miss the truth that lies beneath. We are all familiar with the clickbait strategy in media and with statistics like this, research is at risk of going in the same direction. It’s important to look past the headline numbers to determine if New Zealand is truly an IoT leader.”
Shane Minogue

The OECD data shows that New Zealand has over one million M2M SIM cards, and as Minogue points out, with our population being less than five million people, the per capita ratio looks pretty favourable. Unfortunately, per capita measures do not reflect absolute size.

Minogue continues, “…the New Zealand IoT reality is very different from what the OECD figures suggest; smart cities, smart homes and smart consumers are only beginning to emerge in New Zealand. While it would be unfair to call New Zealand a laggard in IoT adoption, evidence on the ground is that it is not quite leading the way either.”

So why is New Zealand reported to be a leader?

Simple: smart metering.

Electricity company, Vector, has over one million smart meters in New Zealand (and each, or most of these represent a machine to machine connection). Minogue points out that, “This means that over 80% of M2M connections in New Zealand today are related to the smart metering use case.”

Minogue believes that, “Over the next four years, globally, the number of IoT connected devices is expected to balloon to 50 billion, and 250 million of those will be connected cars. But the growth of connected cars and M2M connections is just one aspect of the larger Internet of Things market, of course.”

But the future is bright.

Encouragingly, there are many innovative applications for IoT in development across many sectors in New Zealand. This activity suggests that New Zealand has a place in the IoT world and can become a world-leader in areas that match or domain expertise, like agriculture, horticulture, boat-to name a few.

Bold IoT steps being made in New Zealand

IoT is a fast growing market and its future growth will be supported by industries where New Zealand organisations already have clear points of difference, experience and expertise. Not surprisingly, IDC has identified the agriculture sector as one area for growth in IoT in New Zealand.

There are a number of businesses creating innovative solutions in IoT in the agri-tech industry, already. Ballance Agri-nutrients, a Tauranga-based fertiliser and agri-nutrient company, utilise IoT for farm mapping and precision automation. The system, known as AgHub, provides farmers with an online farm management system that automatically collects and displays farm data, so that they can gain a deeper understanding of what’s happening on their farm.

Another example is Tru-Test, a farm management system provider. Tru-Test have recently released a smart Vat Monitor that updates farmers of issues, in real-time, with the storage of their valuable milk.

The expertise that New Zealand has in technology and agriculture (NZ’s Tech Sector is the third largest export sector behind dairy and tourism) suggests that New Zealand can become a leader in niche areas like farming and other core competency areas like horticulture, aquaculture etc.

iotbenefits

As the CompITA results indicated, “While the expected benefits are roughly split between existing operations and new products or revenue streams, a majority of businesses (61%) report having their IoT initiative as “enabling and extending” technology as opposed to regarding it as a separate and distinct activity (37%).”

The benefits of IoT were also confirmed by Bain & Co who identified high expectations of the potential benefits of the IoT, including improving the quality of products or services, improving the productivity of the workforce, and increasing the reliability of operations.

Typical Use Cases

The typical types of use cases that we at Datacom see on a regular basis, are;

Agriculture – for monitoring and remotely feeding livestock or crops to optimise health and reduce costs, or to adhere to government standards and regulations,
Logistics – for tracking valuable objects (loss, theft, damage etc), estimating delivery times, real-time routing for traffic conditions etc,
Field services – for monitoring worker health, machinery servicing etc,
Public sector – for things like smart traffic lights, power/water meters etc,
Retail – for retail store management and customer tracking solutions.

Security – a big concern

Unsurprisingly, when the research company, Forrester, surveyed 232 companies developing IoT products it found that 38 percent of respondents anticipated security to be the biggest challenge to IoT implementation, more than any other issue. 64 percent cited data and device security as the most important capability for their IoT product.

In a recent survey of 220 security professionals by Tripwire it was found that only 30 percent of respondents felt their organisations were prepared for security threats related to IoT devices.

Security around your IoT play is not an area to be overlooked and working with reputable brands in this space is the only way to go.

Conclusion

A 2015 study by investment bank Ocean Tomo calculated that in 1975, tangible assets—buildings, equipment, and so on—comprised 83 percent of the combined value of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. By January 2015, that number had fallen dramatically to 16 percent, meaning that today, 84 percent of the S&P’s value is made up of intangible assets—things like a company’s intellectual property, its customer relationships or its proprietary way of doing things.

The conclusion? The average company’s value today is largely the sum of its ideas and solutions. And those solutions increasingly come from harnessing digital technology to do things better and faster along every link of the value chain—delivering more convenience, providing supply chain transparency, shortening cycle times, and other intangibles that build stronger and enduring customer relationships.

Regardless of the promise of IoT, applying technology for technology’s sake is unsurprisingly, not recommended.

Rather, applying a strategic lens to your core activities and understanding costs and returns, is absolutely recommended.

It’s important to recognise that not every dollar is equal – to make intelligent and sustainable decisions, executives must understand which activities are critical to the health of the business and which are expendable because they don’t add value. Successful companies have a clear picture of what the core capabilities that deliver maximum value.

Where does your business stand? Can you afford not to be actively looking at IoT?
For more information on Datacom’s IoT practice or how to quantify which activities are critical to the health of your business, please email kerryt@datacom.co.nz.

Creating Bold New Opportunities with Augmented and Virtual Reality

September 9, 2016September 9, 2016 / Datacom / Leave a comment

By Kerry Topp

Augmented (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are hot, in fact, they are damn hot right now.

And it is for good reason.

Firstly, according to the international research company, IDC, total revenue for VR and AR is projected to increase from US$5.2 billion in 2016 to over US$162 billion in 2020.

Secondly, if you mentioned the words augmented reality to anyone outside of the tech industry more than three months ago, they would probably have stared at you blankly. Then came Pokémon Go. Remarkably, that app has been downloaded by 100+ million users and thanks to it’s viral success, the possibilities of AR are now clear for everyone to see.

What is VR and AR?

VR is a 3D computer-generated simulation of real life, which the user is deeply and digitally immersed in.

AR, on the other hand, is sometimes termed Mixed Reality (MR) and it overlays digital information or holograms on to the physical world around us. With AR, users are able to interact with virtual contents in the real world, and are able to distinguish between the two.

Beyond fun and engaging games like Pokémon Go, reality experiences are currently used in a range of industries, including entertainment, medicine, education, construction, architecture and government.

In my view, reality experiences have now reached the point where humans can interact with it in completely natural ways, from visualisation to gesture and speech recognition, which allows us to be much more efficient and do things we could never have done before.

Over the course of our 51 years of operation, our people have seen many technologies come and go – some successfully and some not so. Because of this, we are very careful about jumping on ‘bandwagons’ – perceived or otherwise. Our approach here is simple; to assess the technology with direct customer input and feedback.

glasses

Microsoft HoloLens

Datacom has led the way locally, by bringing the first Microsoft HoloLens development unit into New Zealand earlier this year. We then quickly followed that up with the establishment of the first HoloLens practice in the country.

HoloLens is a headset that projects high-definition 3D holograms into the wearer’s field of vision, in order to create a mixed reality of both the “real” and “virtual” worlds around the user.

Microsoft has been working on this ground-breaking technology for years and has recently made it available in North American markets only.

Since landing the first HoloLens development kit in New Zealand we have seen strong demand from customers wanting to know more about augmented, virtual and mixed reality. We are seeing widespread and surprising uses for this new technology across our customer base and predict it will become even more mainstream in the coming years based on IDC’s projections. Datacom already has some of our own customers actively prototyping and encouragingly, we have more in the pipeline.

Demonstrable AR Use Cases

Our first real-world project in New Zealand is with Auckland Museum and the University of Auckland’s Information Systems and Operations Management Department (see image below).

In Australia, Datacom has built a concept app that demonstrates how HoloLens can be used to support the motor vehicle industry. The app could allow retailers to sell cars without the need for a single vehicle sitting in a big expensive yard.

As a result, users can interact with a life-sized holographic car, from sitting in the front seat and walking around it to opening the doors and listening to the engine (see image below).

The AR/VR Garage

On Friday, 2nd September 2016, Datacom became the first corporate partner of The AR/VR Garage – an augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) development facility in Auckland’s Eden Terrace.

The AR/VR Garage is a community-led test bed for one of the globe’s fastest growing technology sectors. The facility provides:

Co-working space for start-up companies with a focus on AR/VR;
Project space for stand-alone short-term projects;
Incubator and accelerator services through our on-site operator Industry Connect, and hub resident Lightning Lab Auckland;
A technology showcase featuring the latest prototypes from Auckland’s world-leading AR/VR sector.

Datacom’s involvement in the AR/VR Garage is again a direct response to the significant interest and desire we have seen by our customers to get hand-on with the experience.

In our view, The Garage is an excellent way to develop a safe environment to test potential AR use cases and to use the strength of GridAKL to tap into new groups of early adopters to engage with the AR ecosystem.

The AR/VR Garage’s working alliances were also firmed-up by Friday’s announcement that it will be the Oceania HQ of the US-based VR Society, joining chapters in Beijing and Canada. Last year, the society netted about US$170 million in VR projects for its global members.

The VR/AR Association, a New York-based organisation with satellite sites in London, Amsterdam and Singapore, is also setting up a New Zealand chapter in the AR/VR Garage to help accelerate industry growth in the region, and the International Game Developers Association will also have a presence in the Garage.

arvr

What this all means is that the AR/VR Garage – with Datacom’s support – will fuel Auckland’s growing AR/VR community, which includes game developers, screen and film producers, animators, educators and digital storytellers, and help grow New Zealand’s global digital industry footprint, jobs and investment.

New Zealand Inc

Being a home grown New Zealand business that employs 4,700 employees across 32 countries, growth is not something we at Datacom take lightly. Far from it.

We have worked hard to get to number one in the New Zealand market and we are now challenging international businesses offshore in places like Australia, Malaysia, Philippines China and the US, for a place in their markets’ hearts. Our reach and size now means that people expect more from us. They want to see thought-leadership from us. We know this and we are up for the challenge.

As Daniel Burrus, bestselling author, global futurist and innovation expert, recently pointed out in a post entitled Why Augmented Reality Is Much Bigger Than Pokémon Go, “Businesses are about to be faced with both challenges and opportunities to bring their products to life. The Sephora mobile app is already utilizing augmented reality to “apply” digital makeup and lipstick using the user’s smartphone camera.

“Over 100 million users are also using another form of AR every day with Snapchat geofilters. Seamlessly merging the real and the virtual in photographs is proving to be a phenomenal hit for the social network.” Daniel Burrus

This is an exciting time for technological advances and I’m pleased to be a part of a refreshed and rejuvenated Datacom that is positioning for the significant potential of local and global growth in this incredibly exciting and immersive space.

Our goal in committing to reality experiences is simple; to help grow world-recognised capability, know-how, products and businesses to take New Zealand to the world, just as Datacom has done and will continue to do.

In our view it’s incumbent on us all to work together to uncover more New Zealand businesses growing internationally and taking on the world.

We’re looking forward to the (ad)venture.

For more information on Datacom’s AR/VR practice or the AR / VR Garage, please email kerryt@datacom.co.nz.

Resources

For more information on the Datacom AR / VR Practice refer to: https://www.artificialintelligenceonline.com/17993/%E2%80%8Bdatacom-leaps-into-augmented-reality-with-trans-tasman-hololens-practice/
For more information on the AR / VR Garage launch refer to: http://idealog.co.nz/tech/2016/09/augmented-reality-reality-aucklands-arvr-garage-opens

Video References:

A Microsoft video of a university in USA that created an education app for medical students https://youtu.be/SKpKlh1-en0
A “Virtual Museum” app we created as a demonstration to Auckland Museum using their actual 3D artefact scans, to show how people could interact with artefacts like never before https://youtu.be/uhMt4AK9_kQ and https://youtu.be/x1ZWGs-zmtM
A game demonstrating how holograms can interact with real objects in our boardroom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBMSNzX2J6k

References:

The virtual and augmented reality market will reach $162 billion by 2020 http://www.businessinsider.com/virtual-and-augmented-reality-markets-will-reach-162-billion-by-2020-2016-8?IR=T (BI Intelligence)
Why Augmented Reality Is Much Bigger Than Pokémon Go https://medium.com/@DanielBurrus/why-augmented-reality-is-much-bigger-than-pok%C3%A9mon-go-32e2df61b5fb#.eq9nvvb92 (Daniel Burrus)

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