Climbing the transformation mountain

Two years have passed since someone suggested to me to work with them on transforming Telstra’s B2B business.  In those two years we have been on an amazing journey of understanding what it means to perform a heart and lung transplant on a patient running a marathon while also leading the pack.

 

In two years, we have not only established a set of end-to-end integrated systems, from product definition to customer billing, we have also launched what is one of Telstra’s most holistic offers to market as a true paperless proposition –it has been awesome to see the positive impacts to our customers and partners.

To many of the team, delivering all of these aspects in our transformation program has felt like we have climbed a mountain. That said, we have a long way still to go to realise the scale of change that will ensure a sustainable change for the business.

 

There have been many examples of change that our transformation program is bringing, including the automatic flow of information between systems without any human intervention. This might seem obvious, but any business or IT person involved in managing system handoffs, will appreciate that it’s these integrations that are the hardest. Hearing from one of the team how data is now populating automatically between systems without any need to request it is music to my ears.

 

One of our key realisations is that while a digital transformation is enabled by software, it is very much a business transformation and not just a technology transformation.  Digital transformation needs to guide a business to actually change the way it works - the support of all of these new capabilities will be the real validation of a sustainable change.

 

This was reiterated by Telstra’s recent Disruptive Decision-Making report, which found across the globe businesses are too focused on the role of technology in digital transformation programs. 

                                                                
Transformation does not mean only internal business change, but also change in the way a business engages with its customers. It is interesting to see the way we embrace digital interactions for our personal needs, but when it comes to businesses, we are more comfortable in using traditional channels of calling or emailing someone from a service desk. It has been inspiring to see what teams have achieved in the past two years in building our first native business app, co-developed with customers to realise a new digital-first strategy to serve their customers.

Why on earth am I talking about these achievements, though?

Simply put, for us, these achievements were more of a realisation that we tend to be so focused on what is next that we don’t pause to learn from what we have achieved, struggled with, or missed delivering.

It is very easy to forget about accomplishments to date as we reflect on how far we still have to go. Recognising these outcomes both within our program and in the broader organisation are important - it highlights that progress is being made toward the top of the mountain, and acknowledging and reviewing progress, ensures continual learning and improvement as we move closer to the summit.

As we start with the next phase of our climb, there are three key challenges that now arise: scale, customer migrations, and data.

 

Scale in the form of ensuring the majority of the business’s transactions to support B2B customers are enabled on a new digital stack. Without this volume of transactions, the efficiencies targeted to be realised through this new capability won’t materialise. The work to date has demonstrated the scale of change that is possible, but our business won’t feel it until volumes are reached that result in true business change. 

 

Customer migration might sound obvious, but when a business engages with its customers in a certain way for a long period of time, introducing a new way of working can be disruptive - collaborating on that journey with customers to understand the value of the change for their businesses is critical. 

Data is the most critical element of any transformation program. I always find it interesting when people talk about data scientists or big data, but for me personally, I would just be happy with a single source of data that ensures our teams are not having to double or even triple check that data between systems is consistent. As we learned with our first orders, without accurate data we create unnecessary work for ourselves and we lose the value from the integrated systems we have established.

 

On the flipside, where we know data is accurate, teams can quickly focus on high-value tasks with customers. Workflows can become highly automated from opportunity through to in-life service management, driving efficiency to levels previously not seen.

Of course this is in the future - to achieve these next wave of outcomes we need to climb this mountain, bring all of our people, partners and customers into this new world of integrated and digitised capabilities.

 

Sometimes that new world can seem challenging given how high we need to climb, but it is the diversity and strengths of a team that can achieve the outcomes a business is looking for - just like those climbing the highest mountains. With the right team in place, any peak is possible.  

Disruption Starts at Home

The word “Disruption” has become a powerful concept of many executives across all industries today as they seek to lead their businesses to growth in what is an increasingly competitive and ever-changing market for us all. However, what is interesting is that for many businesses it tends to be about the outward facing disruption – to disrupt key competitors with innovative services or commercial models, introducing new technologies particularly with a focus on digital.

As such, many businesses can be left frustrated because in their attempt to disrupt the market they can actually have hit the “destruct button” on themselves. Let me explain why….Disruption just sounds exciting right? Think about your next meeting and starting with, “Okay team, we need to disrupt the market to drive our next phase of growth!” I sincerely doubt there will be one person who will tell you that it sounds like a bad idea. Compare this with the concept of an alternative start to a conversation – “Okay team, we need to run some efficiency programs to cut costs and drive our next phase of growth!” Now if you are managing that team you may have people worried about being the target of that efficiency and, as such, you may end up with only a few murmurs of support.

Being disruptive relies on our employees

So why not turn that disruption initiative to be internally focused to drive employee satisfaction, business efficiency, margin improvements and who knows perhaps even customer growth? We tend to forget sometimes that it is the people of our organizations that actually makes it a business, who determine the culture of the way we work and most importantly, represent the business to our customers. If they cannot be positive about their place of work and products or services they offer, then what chance does your business have in seeing sustainable growth?

We are in an era of rapid innovation, where many aspects of our business can be digital in the way we work whether that is for collaboration, building products or solving customer problems. Many people look at their path to digitisation as simply being the next step of the evolution of their business, build an application, put more documents online, provide collaboration tools to staff and customers. However, these elements are more like the partial ingredients of a cake, and if the ingredients are not complete nor added with the right measures, the resulting changes can actually prove to be of detriment to the business.

A shift in how we operate

The path to digitisation within a business therefore needs to be looked at from a business disruption perspective, what will be the impact on people, processes and existing systems? A disruption in fact is where the digitisation can be the agent of change, but actually represents a fundamental shift in how the business operates. A disruption agenda in the market seeks to drive competitors to figure out how they will adapt to catch up with this change and the same can be said for an internal disruption – however positive it may be. Leaders will need to consider the broader impacts of this change on the way a business operates today and how digitisation will require a change in the way teams work as well.

This is where I believe it will be smaller businesses that will succeed at internal disruption faster as part of their path towards digitisation. The reason being is that smaller businesses can’t afford to customise, request developers to change their software or build something from scratch that fits their needs. Smaller businesses need to leverage available functionality and if that means a change in a process or the way a business operates then so be it. Smaller businesses are like speed boats. They may not have the scale to impact an industry as much as large businesses can, but it is a lot easier to change speed, direction and possibly even the shape of their business.

A large business on the other hand is more like an oil tanker as any decision taken will have an impact on the waters around that vessel and the wake it leaves can result in faraway beaches being impacted by unexpected waves. However the time it takes for decisions to actually have an impact can be a lot longer and therefore much like an oil tanker the route needs to be planned, impacts understood and the action plan to realise that outcome.

Digitisation of a business is no different and like an oil tanker many large businesses will believe they can simply use their weight to push for outcomes they are looking for so that the digital components they select work within their existing business model. This is much like asking a ship engine provider to simply strap the new engine into place where the old one used to be. We already know it wouldn’t work as the new engine will probably have different controls, interfaces, locking mechanisms and so on. Asking an engine provider to change all of these elements to simply fit in with the needs of the ship will most likely result in the engine not delivering the same output as was originally hoped and could actually mean the ship is worse off. You will therefore have simply paid for an expensive piece of hardware with no benefit to the business. Digitisation is very much the same, there are some exciting capabilities out there, but the more a business forces changes of the tools it uses the lesser the benefit that it will bring.

Digital disruption requires organisational change

Digital disruption can be a powerful tool for a business, as long as it is considered simply as that - a tool –  the broader change within the business needs people to engage in changing the processes, ways of working and evolving the culture of an organisation.

If your vision is delivering customer excellence that of course doesn’t change, but your goals as to how that is achieved may need to evolve. There are many partners that a business can work with in driving its own digital disruption, but I would recommend you consider for a moment that the functionality they are developing is based on understanding the needs of many businesses across our increasingly connected world. As such, if there is a feature or functionality that you are looking for that doesn’t exist, consider first if it is the  way you are running your business that needs to change BEFORE trying to customise the software thousands of other companies have been able to work with as is.

Now of course if we follow this journey on its natural course many will say “well, that’s all fine and good Nathan, but actually you have just found another name for business efficiency”. Efficiency which will still result in roles being lost or teams being made redundant. Of course this can always happen, but I believe this can actually be reduced, by digitising the workforce.

A shift to digital

A shift to digital doesn’t mean roles simply disappear, it means different types of roles are required, I am sure there will always be some roles that are made redundant, but that isn’t about becoming digital those are more to do with efficiencies within a business that most likely already needed to be changed. We live in a world where we have three unique working generations; those for whom email and mobile was the biggest development of their time, those for whom social media was a significant change and our youngest workforce where the perceived challenges are more about reverse integration into a business that doesn’t seem as technology driven as their personal lives.

Collaborating with different generations

I view these different generations as an exciting time because it will require all three groups to make any digital disruption possible, for the moment one of these groups doesn’t embrace the change then the disruption is doomed to fail. We need to ensure that we have diverse groups helping to define and evolve the digital capabilities of a business so as they are usable by all, for both internal and external customers. We need these groups to aid in the coaching and guiding of others in how to make the change from a user’s perspective and lastly we need to ensure we have the cross-functional engagement that no one is left behind. For this reason I view that more roles will be created and with training and encouragement it becomes more a change of role than an outright “your job has been replaced by a computer!”

Disruption remains an exciting concept and I believe when brought into the business and adopted as part of a change vehicle on the path to digitisation, it can drive significant business value. We tend to associate disruption with something that can have a market impact, which it definitely can, however having a business that can disrupt itself into driving change, that will lead to sustainable growth will ultimately establish a business that is then set to disrupt the market with a business able to support. This will be executed through creating a culture of collaboration, understanding and most importantly employee pride, because an organization that sees the value in the disruption it brings to itself will quickly become your biggest sales and marketing engine when it comes to disrupting beyond your businesses home.

News Flash – Innovation is dead!

This is a theme I have heard a few times in the last few weeks, at a technology forum recently, in a BBC article and on a tech forum. So have we become so comfortable with our technology these days, that we are no longer pushing ourselves to innovate? Have we reached the peak of our technological achievements? Is the supposed tech bubble finally going to burst? Well it sure got me thinking, especially when I have set up this blog to understand the impact of people and technology on each other, I mean if it really is the end of tech I might need to close my blog … (dramatic silence). Shock! Horror!

Seriously though, it did get me thinking about what is driving this growing theme of technology stagnation? In the amazing world we live in, why would people feel we have reached a period of innovation stagnation? I learned from a development coach recently that there is 10% truth in anything someone says (yes you know who you are!) and hence felt that this was a good place to start. We have had some amazing technology developments over the decades; The Mobile Phone, Putting a Probe on Mars, The Internet – and I am sure many more I could mention, but are these really representing the end of our recent technology improvements? I mean if people are saying it, some aspect of it has to be true, because as we have also learned in our increasingly connected world, perception can quickly become reality.

I have seen some amazing developments recently, but it is not so much the developments themselves. Rather, I find something amazing has happened in the realization of these developments; they are no longer referred to as ’technology innovations’ but more simply as ’industry innovations’. The ability for doctors to operate using a virtual operating room, using robotic hands and cameras as if they were really there. Or for Manufacturers to now use 3D printers for manufacturing, or my personal favourite to have driverless cars on our roads – despite some of the recent incidents. Now these are all quite recent innovations – in my view anyway – but there are two things happening in our society that we need to be aware of.

1. Technology has now reached a point where it is infused in every industry, whether traditional or new, to the point that new jobs exist within these industries that are no longer ONLY about the core discipline (whether that be Medicine, Manufacturing or Engineering), but about how technology is being embedded into that industry. I love for example that IT managers in a hospital are not there to make sure the network remains connected, but to ensure the systems directly supporting Health Care services are running at peak performance. Or the Programmer working on self-driving vehicles, who needs to ensure the code used to speak to the ‘road aware devices’ are running properly. I believe this development has moved forward so much that the jobs of the future, for those seeking roles in the technology space, will rapidly evolve into multiple specialisations across industries. For example, you could become a Medical Engineer or a Manufacturing Programmer. I have previously talked about the concept of the changing profiles of roles, but that was merely from within an IT perspective. Where we are headed with cross disciplines - with technology and innovation playing a lead role, is even more exciting!

2. The lifecycle of innovation is actually now moving so fast that we are no longer seeing the leaps that we have in the past, in fact in many areas the life cycle of innovation is now occurring in months and no longer years, which could have led to the perception that innovation has simply stagnated. Technologists now have access to platforms and tools which help to rapidly reduce the cycle of innovation from the drawings on the back of a beer coaster, to a working model - whether software or even these days hardware. Many innovations failed to see the light of day, because our ability to promote those innovations was limited to what we can see - and the era of social media means that our world has never been smaller. What I mean by that is Innovations are no longer successful based merely on who has physical visibility of them in the real world, but now they are successful based on who can view them in our digital world. Platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo are creating the funding enablers for people, anywhere in the world, who share a common interest or a belief, to connect. Kickstarter alone has supported over 100,000 creative projects raising over two billion US dollars to date a figure which I am sure would have some VC's envious! This to me, raises the view that innovation is being realised faster, broader and with a greater chance of success, because these crowdfunding platforms are not only bringing in funding, but also evidence that there is interest in that creative idea, whether it be technology based or Fashion or even food! I share this with you as I believe this growing crowdsourcing trend is accelerating our innovation journey - and businesses are starting to catch on that crowdsourcing is not only a great source of ideas, but when an idea is supported it can immediately translate into customer demand, as Lays found out when developing a new chip (Hmm Cheesy Garlic Bread)!

These two factors of technology now being embedded in everything we do, along with the speed with which new ideas can be realised are in my view, key drivers for this perception of innovation stagnation. In fact I think it is the speed with which we now see innovation occur, that gives us this perception that it has become stagnant, much like looking at a wheel that is spinning so quickly that it appears to be standing still., Technology innovation is occurring so often that we are now forced to filter out what is relevant to us. I spent an evening looking through some forums and came across some exciting products such as Evadrop, Seatylock and Phree (I should note these are ones I picked out at random, but there are many more). These are exciting innovations, which on the surface can seem small and without the impact that the arrival of the mobile phone did, however if these innovations realise their ambitions, they could change the world we live in and hopefully encourage others to open their minds to the possible.

So to answer the question ‘is Innovation dead’, well in my view… no, but I can understand why people would see that it is. The era of huge technology leaps has past and the era of constant innovation has arrived - an era where technology is embedded in every industry and where the speed with which concepts and ideas can be realised, is faster than ever. So fast in fact, that it can seem we are viewing simple development steps. Yet it is the development platforms now available, that are creating the opportunity for innovations to be developed quickly and either realise their potential or fail fast and avoid the risks of high cost failure.

Ultimately we have entered an age where we are embracing a greater appetite for risk - in trying out new ways of working or other concepts, knowing that if it doesn’t work the first time we can try, try and try again, as we continue to refine our innovations in an iterative process across days or weeks instead of years. I look forward to the next era where innovation merely becomes a class you take in school and where you learn to create new concepts and new ideas with the platforms that start-ups and other businesses are using today, so that Innovation doesn’t die, far from it, it simply becomes a way of life.

Who's watching now?

With recent news topics covering the “standoff” between the FBI’s ask for access to `the San Bernadino Killers’ phone and Apple seeking to stand up and protect the privacy of its customers with concerns this could quickly become a default ask for all devices, ironically, I am getting a sense of déjà vu from almost 15 years ago when operators were facing the same debate.

15 years ago, governments and their security agencies were asking telecom operators to share their voice and data information for people deemed a security risk or to investigate a person’s activities prior to an event that happened - criminal or otherwise. At that point, the world was up in arms as to what this would mean for personal security or for that matter privacy as  governments were able to track what people were doing and where they were going.

However, over the years this has become a norm and, although not always accepted, a balance has been established where the operators report to the public on how many times they are asked to share information by the relevant government agency. What is interesting here is that this data is quickly becoming irrelevant as we move to digital and start to reduce our use of mobile platforms like traditional voice and SMS. With these traditional platforms, operators have had visibility of the activities of individual’s voice and messaging communications, whilst in our digital world all communications are increasingly moving to IP or Internet based services. This makes it incredibly difficult for operators to keep track, if they can keep track of the information at all.

I recognize that it is not only telecom operators being asked for end user information, but also the over-the- top players like Google, Apple and Facebook among others, and that they report on these regularly to the public. However, we need to recognize that there is increasingly ony one common source when it comes to telecom services, over-the-top services and other applications and that is simply our mobile phone. A little like our wallets used to be with our ID, credit card information, loyalty cards, receipts etc, with all of this now digital it is the mobile phone, which will increasingly become the centre of security discussions.

It is therefore not surprising that in recent surveys when people are asked what they would be most worried to lose the “mobile phone” is becoming increasingly prevalent[1], versus a decade ago when it was their wallet. The simple reason for this being we store more of our lives in our phones and online that anywhere else these days. Government agencies can approach credit card companies or operators and even online providers to ask for data about an individual, but the one area they are still trying to gain access to remains the phone. The documents, photos, message exchanges all have a common source instead of trying to debate access rights with all of the individual platforms.

I raise this because at some point the “national security” card will get played by government agencies and businesses could end up being forced to comply, similarly with what telecom operators have been through already. I would like to suggest to these handset manufacturers and over-the-top providers to start collaborating together about how they can protect the majority and isolate any handset access to be limited to individual cases. Perhaps there is a unique code that is created based on mutual compliance between the vendor and a government agency for an individual handset, that is to say avoiding sharing access to all phones through a generic override code or similar, which governments could then gain access to whenever they should so choose. In combination with this, then provide visibility to the public as to how many devices the government agency requested access to and how many devices they were given access to. Now this is just a suggestion and the important point here is for the digital community to think through a proactive approach of how they want to engage government agencies rather than being forced to comply with some all-encompassing banner of national security.

Our world continues to change and we need to remember that our lives, which were once paper-based, followed by analog and mobile, are now quite simply digital. Combine this with many governments that continue to fear what they don’t understand, the result is raising concerns on information that they believe exists, but are unable to see or control. In a digital world, where the data we create and store is growing exponentially every day, of course it is impossible to track absolutely everything. However, perception can quickly become reality, as governments and their associated agencies will continue to want to gain further visibility of our digital lives. So, we either act proactively and educate through defining an engagement model which protects the majority of people and addresses data sharing when only absolutely critical for the protection of society, or digital businesses will rapidly become the victims after a few cases under the banner of “National Security” become common place.

I appreciate this is a fine balance and many people will be unhappy with the idea of giving up privacy of our personal items, some will say this must be defended at all costs, but there are precedents already and I fear simply defending will result in a outcome none of us are happy with. I for one would rather know there is an understanding between digital providers and governments as to how this will be managed in the future before it becomes a case of turning on my phone or tablet and asking myself the question “Who’s watching me now?”

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[1] http://blog.zixcorp.com/2014/09/survey-says-individuals-would-rather-lose-wallet-than-mobile-device/

Lost in Translation

I love technology, but if there is one thing I have learned over the years, it is that it is really irrelevant how much you know about the functionality of a particular widget.   The decision to buy a service is no longer about how “shiny” or “rich” a service is, but how it can be relevant. We have reached a tipping point where the traditional buyers of procurement and IT are no longer front and centre in the buying decisions.  These individuals are being replaced by the Business Unit owners and customer facing functions, a shift which requires a fundamentally different type of conversation and one which is causing many challenges for numerous ICT related industries.

“Big bets”, or big changes, are increasingly a thing of the past, especially as ICT services become more on-demand. This change gives customers the ability to transform much easier than in years past. Therefore, businesses need to evolve their thinking toward a new approach of differentiation…one towards relevance as it pertains to the business and the new decision makers.  We need to shift our language from the bits and bytes to understanding the challenges and opportunities that exist and what it can mean for the business. As businesses start to become more granular and focused, on tracking outcomes from individual initiatives, their expectations from suppliers equally change.

One of the things I love about my job is the opportunity to listen to business owners regarding their ambitions for their business, their key challenges and where they would like help.  In speaking with them, I begin thinking about the role I can play for that person in translation and/or understanding of what he/she is trying to achieve and the solutions out there that could help to solve their business challenges. If you are going to be meeting new business people there are three key tips I would suggest you do ahead of time. First, learn about who you are meeting with, what are their priorities and key goals? Secondly, how do they actually measure success for their business and industry? Finally, how can you help them to bridge from your understanding of feature and functionality with the insights of the above?

Let me be more specific, I am not talking about simply writing a script to accomplish what I’ve suggested above. You need to truly embrace and understand these questions and make them part of your approach to doing business. If you are able to do this and can then change the way you have a conversation, this will leave you feeling like you have had a positive impact on someone’s life and or business. Now this is not to say I will stop talking about technology. I simply love technology, but I love it for the same reason I write these blogs. I want to know the impact technology can have on people and to understand how we as individuals can influence and shape the evolution of technology. Technology plays a growing integral part of our daily lives, from the watch on your wrist to the self driving car; our lives will continue to be impacted hence the need to understand how we want technology to add value versus trying to make the functionality of a new widget work for us.

 I am reminded by a great Simpsons episode (stay with me now) where a techie is attracted by Homer Simpsons offer of fast internet but when the techie asks: “I'm interested in upgrading my twenty eight point eight kilobit internet connection to a one point five megabit fibre-optic T-1 line. Will you be able to provide an IP router that's compatible with my token ring ethernet LAN configuration?” – Now you could be forgiven for thinking and those things are what? - but in basic terms he is looking for an internet upgrade and one that will not require him to change any hardware at his home thus keeping his costs low so as he can visit the comic book store and buy more magazines (seriously!). Now of course the obvious question is, “well then why not say that?” I often find myself having to remind people that functionality is great but unless it has relevance to the person you are trying to sell to (or in the case of this Simpson episode – buy from) then there is not much point in starting a conversation.

In the case of Homer Simpson and similar for many businesses, there is a need for a new type of translator – one which can help people and businesses translate features and functionality to demonstrable business benefits, in the language of the customer or partner. This is something that I love to do and moreover enjoy seeing that “light go on” when the translation has been successful and everyone around the room gets excited about the outcome they are then working towards. Without these translators of the future, it is going to be akin to a meeting of two foreign countries, where gestures and pictures is all that is able to be used to explain anything which will ultimately result in a loss of translation moment and leave many people with that Homer Simpson expression as their only answer … “Can I have some money now?”