Strategies for successful transformation
Gareth Humphreys, chief executive of Solution Performance Group (SPG), has many years’ experience of digital transformation.
Humphreys – one of the expert speakers at TheBusinessDesk.com’s free one-day Disruptors conference on Thursday 30 November – recalls digitising health records in the NHS, persuading GPs of the benefits internet access would bring
“There is another digital transformation in the offing at the moment. It pains me to say AI, because it’s a buzzword, marketing that has come to prominence in the last 12 months.
“But the reality is that moving to single source of truth for customers, the ability to interact autonomously with those customers, is the next Holy Grail.
“From a procurement and digital enablement perspective, how we buy and how we service has changed massively. The problem we’re having now – and this is why I think we’re seeing AI – is being able to quickly and accurately understand the history of a transaction, and being able to quickly answer a question asked – and to be able to do that without human interaction.”
Humphreys believes AI is not the only disruption we’re likely to see in the next few years. He predicts a growing focus on decentralisation, including a resurgence in cryptocurrency and blockchain, in the growth of the metaverse, and in augmented reality.
“I think we’re not just going to have the big, open AIs of the world, and the Googles. I think were going to have lots of open-sourced and lots of decentralised flavours of AI that just could be an everyday part of our lives.”
The greatest challenge of digital transformation not cultural or organisational, he said, but technical and financial.
“Digital disruption is great in a green field. But when you try to disrupt a long-established business, with archaic and long-established processes, ultimately underpinned by unintegrated technology, that is the biggest challenge.
“Unless all those systems are all talking together, it doesn’t matter what cultural changes you make.
“There’s a cost and investment challenge there because most organisations don’t see the value in digitising or integrating their legacy systems. They keep thinking that one day in Nirvana all that stuff’s going to go away and be replaced by this magical new thing they’ve just heard of.
But that magical new thing isn’t going to be around for five years, and you need a bridge to get from where you are now to where you’re going to be.
“That discussion, the investment commitment to do the integration, to get you on the road, for me it the biggest challenge.”
Once committed, firms still need to manage integration. Humphreys has a clear formula for success.
“Start small, be really clear on what the outcome is, iterate often, and be prepared to move, change and pivot. Don’t get caught up in the dogma of how these things should be done. You have to be a little bit free thinking in this stuff.”
You can hear Gareth Humphreys speak at the free, one-day Disruptors 2023 conference at Leeds Nexus on Thursday 30 November. The conference is sponsored by BHP, Clarion and SPG. Visit the conference website for the agenda and speakers and registration.
