Datacom is now a certified Agile training provider!
We recently received our accreditation from the International Consortium for Agile (ICAgile). Our fresh new approach to Agile training combines classroom theory with hands-on experience gained from using Agile in real-world projects every day across NZ. In addition to this new generation of certified courses, we also offer upskilling and refresher training, Agile coaching and mentoring, project facilitation, project health checks and organisational maturity assessments.
ICAgile is the largest accreditation and certification body in the industry. ICAgile works with corporations and training organizations to accredit courses based on their comprehensive and proven learning objectives. ICAgile’s rigorous accreditation process ensures that every ICAgile-accredited course will help people acquire the knowledge they need to build agile competence in a specific discipline.
Datacom’s new Agile training, coaching and consulting services create a unique and pragmatic approach that can be applied both in a classroom, and on the job with live projects.
The demand for a new approach to Agile training came from both inside our organisation, and via feedback from our customers. They struggled to find professional development for our project staff that was more than just rigid classroom theory.
Customer feedback also showed they were also unsatisfied with the current training options on offer, and wanted a more hands-on experience that could be delivered in conjunction with trained developers that could “lead the way” for their staff on live projects. Having actual developers and consultants on hand helps them bring that knowledge back into their businesses and embed it into their daily working lives.
A Datacom scrum team discussing their project during an Agile standup
Datacom’s specialist Advisory team worked closely with ICAgile to create a certified training course, that could be offered as part of an end-to-end suite of services alongside their consulting, assessment, coaching and development services.
These are now available to Datacom staff and customers in all of Datacom’s 21 locations across Asia Pacific:
• Certified Agile Professional (CAP) – ICAgile-accredited training course, resulting in the ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP) certification (2 days)
• Agile Refresher, Customised Training & Upskilling Courses (0.5 to 2 days)
• Agile Project Kick-off Facilitation (0.5 to 2 days)
• Agile Team Health Checks & Organisational Maturity Assessments (0.5 to 2 days)
• On-the-job coaching & mentoring of Agile teams, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Managers (POA)
What Is Agile?
Our world is constantly changing. The Agile development approach adapts to changes and manages uncertainties, by discovering and learning. This is achieved through iterative development, where the outcome and the solution to implement it are evolved through collaboration among self-organising, cross-functional teams. Agile has now moved beyond software development, making impact to the business and the entire organisation.
Find Out More
If you or your teams are not confident about what Agile really is or how to get the most out of it as a team, the Datacom CAP (Certified Agile Professional) course has been designed with you in mind.
Our goal is for your teams to feel comfortable holding Agile discussions with others, and to confidently and effectively take part in an any Agile projects. This is not “lecture-style” training; it’s fully hands-on and involves real-world applications to enhance the learning experience. We believe that Agile is best learned through ‘doing’, not just classroom theory.
If your organisation is already practicing Agile, but you’d like to learn how you can better streamline your development pipeline, then Datacom’s Agile Health Checks & Organisational Maturity Assessments are designed specifically for this scenario.
For customer training, consulting or coaching services, or for more information on any of our Agile services contact:
Ming Yii, Datacom Agile Practice Lead
Email/Skype/Yammer: Agile@datacom.co.nz
Phone: +6421533977
Course registration: Datacom Agile training web page
VP of the Australian Smart Cities Association, Brook Dixon travelled the world as a Churchill Fellow last year, studying the drivers of digital transformation in leading global cities. In this extract of his report, which he has curated and prepared for Datacom, he looks at the principles, which need to be applied to be considered a smart city:
The digital revolution is ablaze in cities around the world. The fires of big data, open government, smart city, digital innovation, cities 4.0, and the internet of things, burn bright.
But what is the object? How can cities most effectively engage with digital? And what lessons from international experience are there for Australasian cities?
These questions I explored last year as a Sir Winston Churchill Fellow, visiting eleven leading smart cities – Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Seoul, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Stockholm, New York, Raleigh, Lima, San Francisco and San Jose.
This study trip was a remarkable journey of digital city exploration and discovery. From the evolution of civic democracy in Seoul, to partnerships in New York transforming 7,500 old pay phones into new digital hubs (unlocking billions of dollars in new value), to portable digital labs made from shipping containers for schools in Lima.
However, the key lessons relate less to such wonderful digital projects, which are specific to each city, but to the principles of purpose, planning and process, which can be applied in any city.
Principles such as – be a digital democracy. Easy to say. Much harder to do. But in Seoul, they are making real progress with initiatives such as mVoting. This digital platform (smart-phone app and website) allows rapid polling of citizen opinion through votes on policy and municipal matters. Polls can be targeted by various demographic factors and citizens can set preferences for areas of voting interest. mVoting has been used for hundreds of polls with direct influence on city policy, and enshrines Seoul’s philosophy of participatory democracy and ‘the citizen as Mayor’.
A second principle, and oh so important! Get a smart city plan! The digital cosmos is vast, its philosophy and technology concerns every part of the city – people, processes, services, administration, economy, and places. It covers infrastructure, networks, data collection and analysis. It can be applied to health, education, municipal services, utilities, justice, transport, the environment, and more.
Facing such breadth of scope, and depth of opportunity, without the focus and direction of a digital plan, digital actions will easily be fragmented. To plan is to examine the particular circumstances of each city, and to concentrate attention where digital transformation can make the most difference.
Beyond planning is dynamic reality, and the principle of innovation – being open to change, redesign, new ideas, doing things differently, and connecting things in fresh ways. So to be a digital city is to embrace innovation, and to be innovative embraces digital. This symbiosis is well understood by leading smart cities. And their efforts to encourage, promote and support innovation are a pillar of smart city plans the world over.
Barcelona has a beautifully expressed innovation goal of “creating a dialogue and experimentation agora” where anyone can progress smart city innovation and research.
This goal is epitomised by the Barcelona Urban Lab, which facilitates use of public space to trial innovative products and technology to support commercialisation and improve municipal services for the community. Pilot projects to date have included traffic lights adapted for the blind, remote utility meter readings, and smart street lights fitted with presence, vibration, temperature, humidity, sound and pollution sensors, GSM aerials, Wi-Fi Mesh access point and webcam for video surveillance functions.
Another principle, oh so important, but too dry for much attention here, is establishing strong leadership and governance. Leading cities universally attested the value of this principle; and where it lacked, it was lamented, and where it was sound, it was lauded.
Now a final principle for those with smart city aspirations, and much more exciting than governance: to leverage new business models. Think beyond the old paradigm of government spending and taxation, to new models of asset regeneration and shared value.
In San Jose for example, the Council recently partnered with Philips Corporation to upgrade 800 street-lights to modern LED luminaires, with big energy, financial and CO2 savings, and zero cost to Council. How? Because Philips installed micro cell equipment on 50 poles, and sold this data capability to the telcos. And so we see improvements to lighting amenity, public assets, energy efficiency, commercial opportunity, mobile connectivity, and budget sustainability. New value, created, captured and shared by leveraging a new business model and partnership.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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 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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 paneldiscussion, 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.’
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.
“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
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.”
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
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!
Brett Roberts speaking at DX2017. Photo / Scott Clogg: Conferenz
The challenge of digital transformation – Brett Roberts speaks at DX2017. Photo / Scott Clogg: Conferenz
Zespri’s Andrew Goodin shares his Cloud migration story
