Adapting to Change: Engaging Business Users, New Tech, and Operationalizing Growth | BMC Connect 2024

Hello, I'm Mike Ard, and we're with six five on the Road again, and we are here in Las Vegas at the BMC Connect event with my good friend or at least brand new friend Chris from Raymond. James. Chris, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I appreciate you having me. Uh, great to have a conversation with you.

Okay. One of the things that we are gonna discuss here is the pace of change and how to absorb it and manage it. And I guess the first question I would have to, it seems to me at least that the pace of change is faster than ever in the land of it, but I don't know from your perspective, are you seeing the same thing?

Um, lightning speed would be an understatement. Um, to be frank, I mean, just from our growth internally, it's, uh, we've just been from a control M perspective of where I sit. Uh, we've seen 10, 15% increase in what we're executing each year for the last three years, and we see that continuing to grow with additional technologies coming into place.

Uh, I think ai, everybody heard of that, uh, that's gonna have some play there as well. Uh, but integrating with all the new technologies, I, I, the word disruptor used to be used a lot. I don't think that's the case.

That's just the natural flow. Um, and it's across the entire IT ecosystem. So I think it's very interesting, challenging, but that's what keeps us going.

Yeah, as the man said, if you're not current, you're falling behind, right? That's 100%. So, and we're always trying to just take advantage of every, uh, opportunity to serve our customers the best we can put them in, uh, their goals, uh, as first that's how, that's really what Raymond James is about, uh, putting the client first and then our advisors first, putting them into position to meet all their goals.

Is there any kinda consistent, quote unquote magical framework for absorbing emerging technologies? Or is each case kind of slightly different or what? I think we're always striving for that.

Um, and what every business is a little bit different on what their goals are. Um, we try to have that framework. Uh, I think standards we're talked about a lot earlier, uh, in the session I was at, and that couldn't be true.

Or for any automation you're doing, you've gotta stick to your standards or you're gonna lose yourself. So you, we have that kind of structured blueprint to a degree, but as things emerge and change, we, we have to, uh, be agile and that's something we, we continually strive for as well. Be agile so we can integrate with new technologies and not put ourselves in a bad position.

Right. You of course cannot walk down the street these days without somebody leaping out to tell you about their great new AI thing. Um, from your perspective, um, is ai, uh, an existential threat to the existence, transforming it for the better or somewhere in between?

What's your, what is the mood of AI at your organization? Um, I think where we're looking at is where we look at every technology is where does it make sense for us to fit that into our business model? How is that gonna be, uh, beneficial to us and our customers?

I mean, that's really always the priority. Uh, being more, uh, always continuing to improve. Um, I think we, we managed to get our SLAs, all our critical business SLAs over 98%.

So we're not gonna stick with that, right? So we're looking for emerging technologies. I think AI is something that's definitely gonna play into everybody's world, uh, one way or the another.

Obviously there are some threat pieces, um, but we wanna f you know, we wanna understand that. And I think you have to be careful as you introduce that AI into your business model, uh, to understand exactly what the impact's gonna be and understand the values and the problems that it's gonna solve for you. Yeah.

You know, I was talking to some IT folks about this and they were pointing out like last year everybody was having this kinda like reaction, little fear and loathing, and now they're kind of sitting around going, I'm not sure I wanna do this job without some help from ai. It's getting too complex. It's too hard.

A hundred percent. I, I, I don't think we're seeing complexity, uh, go away. It's gonna becoming more complex and it's another tool in the toolbox ultimately, uh, that's gonna help simplify some of these more complex tasks at a great faster rate.

You're able to achieve these goals, uh, whatever that is for your business. And that, that's kind of, like I said, I have, I look at it as a future tool that's gonna grow, evolve, but that's also what we want to do. So it aligns with what we wanna do.

So How do you have this conversation with the business side? And I know we've all kind of experienced this thing where, um, you know, some exec somewhere is on an airplane reading a magazine, and then some great idea comes flying down the pike and everybody's supposed to react, and, but it takes a while to kind of work something into a system. So how do you manage the expectations?

Right. I mean, it, I, I think you have to understand your problem and what the, what AI's gonna do for you. Uh, there's always that fear, oh, it's gonna take these jobs, it's gonna do that.

It's, no, we have to fold that in to our current processes, um, and what we're doing today to help make them better. Continuous improvement is really a theme, and I think that plays into it for everybody. Yeah.

You talk to your colleagues all the time. You met a few of them here at the show. Um, what are they, what are you guys talking about amongst yourselves?

Um, it's a lot of the continuous improvement, uh, looking for opportunities to, to spark that idea. It might not be out of a magazine on the airplane. Um, but I, I think that's one of the stuff like this.

We really get a ton of value outta coming into this, uh, and conferences. 'cause it's not always necessarily what you're hearing in those sessions. It is having those conversations with colleagues to understand maybe they're doing something a little different, uh, that may spark an idea in what you're doing, uh, in your world that'll help bring you to another level.

Um, I think that collaboration doesn't have to just be in your house. Uh, talking to others across the, uh, and across the board is just super important If you take a minute back. Mm-Hmm.

What do you know now that you kind of wish you knew a year ago, a year and a half ago when you were doing some of these journeys? I guess, you know, what have you learned in the last year or so that you go, Hey, this has done me well? How much time have we got here?

Um, you know, I, I think that's, uh, you know, really sticking to your standards is such an important thing. Their standards for a reason. It keeps us all in a good space and, and stable.

And, uh, I think anyone that I talked to, they know stability is number one. You can have as many shiny toys or new video games, but if they don't work, All right folks, you heard in here, it's not only important to have standards, but you gotta keep them. Hey Chris, thanks for being on the show.

Thanks for having me. Thank you all for watching this latest episode of the six five on the road at BMC Connect. We have a ton of these episodes now.

We invite you to check them all out and we'll be back in a minute.