Day 2 is Now | Predict 2023

Hello and welcome to digital transformation day two is now I'm your host Mike vizard and we have pulled together. Three no less than three digital transformation officers to talk about what's coming in the year of 2023 gentlemen, welcome the show. We have Paulo Rivera from Pure Storage.

And good morning. We have Sanjeev sahu from Ingram Micro. Good morning, everyone and finally Nick Parada from Harmon.

Good morning. Excellent. Let's just jump into this but I feel like in my memory.

This is the year that has the most amount of uncertainty in it. So if you guys don't mind, I'd appreciate their first you would kind of give your sense of 2023 and then tell us a little bit about the company you work for at the same time follow. Let's start with you.

All right. Thank you so much Mike, so I'm probably about I'm the chief digital transformation officer for Pew storage and a few storage is a leader in all flash storage for for companies worldwide and we help companies with their storage needs in their data centers in the cloud as well as in the hybrid environment. Now coming to to your questions on 2023 yet.

2023 is definitely is a year with a lot of uncertainties we The microeconomic situations the climate situation Wars are this certainly a lot of uncertainty there? but at the same time there was a lot of opportunities no in in uncertainment that's from from our perspectives as always the case in this what we are seeing in the market the moment there is also Opportunities to highlight not your separation. To your competitors, right?

Whether whether you are providing a better technology in terms of performance in terms of cost or in terms of energy consumption reductions, like it's the case for us. These are the times where companies that are paying more attention to not the return on their Investments the the value that they're getting from from the project that the investing. These are the times were desperation becomes a lot more important.

And therefore we are very bullish. We are very optimistic that in times of uncertainty in terminal disruption. There's also opportunity to to gain market shares to gain and to differentiate from your competitors.

um Internally, however, there's also puts a lot of puts a lot of pressure on organization like nine. Like I assume nickens and G and I would love to hear their perspective as well. But no when you talk about digital Transformations is about changing the way the company does business in an uncertainment.

Operational efficiency agility the ability to respond very very quickly to a change in environment to change in customer needs is is very important. And so this is going to be a very challenging here for All Digital transformation officers and at the same time. An exciting year because it's showtime for all of us.

All right, Sanji. What's your crystal ball telling you from the coming year? Yeah, absolutely.

Look, there's no secret that 2023 is going to be a tough year challenging year and and we can only predict and hedge how good or bad is going to be because we're friendly things are changing every day, you know the macro situation, you know, everything is changing, but I think As a company of Ingram Micro, you know we are. One of the largest technology Distributors, we are the business behind one of the bigger technology Brands, you know operating at 54 billion dollar Revenue scale in 59 countries operations and more than 170,000 customers. So we have a larger footprint across the globe and we do think that the channel will always be important to support the economic, you know and the growth of the whole world and but at the same time we cannot predict the volumes that there will be some softening of the volumes there is softening or Supply chains.

But what we are doing is instead of hedging we are getting prepared, you know and making sure that the best we can do to service our customers listening to the customers what they needs are and and being ready now. It's also focuses the The switch, you know, it's like instead of figuring it out the investments in technology. I think the the focus that you will see switching is more towards the value coming out of Technology because we got to be all very, you know prudent in where the Investments are going and the same is an Ingram Micro as well.

He was in my two cents. You'll see everywhere that there's a lot of talk about how much spend in Tech and digital. I think it should be more about how much value are we getting?

Because this is the Year. Everybody will need more value. We will see to see that the investment that you're making in digital technology.

Is it really generating an operating income? Is it giving you the Leverage? True automation.

Is it really giving you the revenue coming in? And that's where I think it's important for us to focus you know on this year. All right.

Thanks and Nick. What are you saying? Well, Mike, thanks again for the invite.

What what I would say is it's going to continue to be business as unusual. No question, you know as I look at our our challenges internally as well as you know talking with customers and I couldn't agree more with Sanji. You know, what we're really focused on is driving value creation through technology.

So if I step back say, you know Harmon is a Sam song company or a holy on subsidiary and we we have 30,000 employees around the world that have a passion and a purpose to deliver immersive experiences both in the automotive space and in the lifestyle consumer audio space, but also in the technology space so you know, what what people may be aware of is, you know, we we take a design letter approach. build sophisticated software using artificial intelligence and analytics and Cloud In cyber, we embed that in in Hardware including the car and in concert venues and also smart audio products and then we give a really immersive enriching experience to our end consumers. What's well known as of course our automotive and audio Brands Mark Levinson JBL Harmon Card and being it Olson what's lesser known as we also have a business that I run called digital transformation solution.

So we take all of that knowledge and experience in our automotive and consumer audio products and we do the same for customers in the industrial Healthcare. And communication space and so you know what we're preparing for both internally as the chief digital information officer as well as externally is making sure that we're using those design-led experiences the the sophistication that we have in software that's embedded in a hardware and really driving value creation and better outcomes for customers. And so, you know the outlook for 23 as I mentioned is businesses unusual continued volatility into supply chain continued geopolitical challenges and risks continued cyber threats and and I've ever growing complex landscape and also the continued competitive Talent marketplace where we've got to compete for talent and make sure that we become the employer of choice through through a fantastic culture and keeping that culture connected across the company when I look at the technology that we're using to to get all these uncertainties.

Will continue to make important Investments on areas where we want to grow whether that's in the Commerce space or the artificial intelligence and and intelligence and predictability space where we're really using our day large data sets across the company and making sure that we're using it in a way to drive better demand forecasting inventory optimization even combat cyber cyber threats through through artificial means all those are what will help us navigate an Ever growing uncertainty in the marketplace. All right. Thanks for that.

Sanjee. What is your sense of our people post covid if I think back in that era they were you know, let's throw everything and we can do at digital transformation and we had a million projects. Do you think people are doubling down on those projects where they trying to pick the three or four or five maybe that are really gonna make a difference and focusing their efforts on a smaller number of projects that they hope deliver more value.

So that's a great question, you know, Mike. We have to think about digital transformation a little bit differently many times. We think digital transformation is okay.

We modernize our applications to cloud or your building something an AI or working on some data. I mean, it sounds great. But I go back to the real point about where is the value in my books in the company?

So we have to start with the customer first, you know, like okay focus on the customer experience and the customer Journey. And that will tell you the art of possible. Then operationally figure out what is the art of feasible like okay from these use cases in this initiatives, which actually has the highest return highest value and a prioritization that we have to do because there's always you know temptation to do my thousand things but you have to focus with the lens of achieve value officer forget digital officer.

I think everybody should be achieve value of his about where is my value and what is my investment and how quickly we can actually get to that value. Once we do that prioritization then in the background, we also have to keep our architecture ready. For example, the time to Market is very important if your legacy application is prohibiting you to go faster you have to do both you have to keep on performing while you transform right?

So there is some Investments required to constantly improve your legacy which is required, but you have to untangle value quickly for Your customers your business do that. So I think what you see, you know, my thought process is figure out the three or four initiatives that truly Drive the incremental Revenue the incremental operating income and which really in conjunction with the business and the operational leaders and it has to be done in tandem like many times. We think we do the transformation build the technology and wait for adoption by the operations.

It really doesn't work. So we introduce a concept for DG Ops where the operations group and the Technology Group. Is in my area as well where we focus on metrics every single measure is not about the next application moving to Cloud, but about the next dollar that you're bringing in terms of operating income and prioritizing them.

So it's all prioritized mic or the focus of value creation and the results and I think that's where we'll get us there because otherwise we'll we always do modernization, you know Enterprise, you know digital transformation, but we have to really prioritize with the focus with value. All right, Paula, do you agree with that? Do you see something different or is it do we just need I I couldn't I definitely couldn't agree more than on that I think is not very very important to focus on value or no.

We call it business outcomes in in our case. Now when you talk about digital transformation what digital transformation really are there are in my mind. There are two aspects one of it is is continue to optimize your existing process your existing businesses.

And that is about modernizing your infrastructuring improving things. And there is a lot of value that can be that can be in love that ties to operational improvements continuous improvements lean lean processing Ma and all of that where you focus on what you do every day you just improve it relentlessly so that you can unlock further value from from what you do. The second aspect of this transformation is perhaps not the most glamorous that is adding Revenue at the not creating new products unlocking new markets and and leveraging through the Technologies to to do that.

And and I think it's on digital transformation is both. Being in the coffee there are going back to your not to your question. I think in the coffee, there are there was initially kind of a certain a drive to survive in many ways.

Right? There was no digitally digital Technologies were were seen as a way to continue to operate in an environment where people couldn't be physically together. but then not that initial that initial wave as unlocked a lot of creative thinking of new business model new ways of doing things and there is trust being a bit of a glutton of that and I think that we are seeing what we're seeing is a bit of going back to balance between these two not these two interactive of continuously to optimize your processes and then at the same time unlocking unlocking new markets and unlocking your revenues, but always with the business value using sanjee's terms of the business outcome in mind, but this is value business outcome is not necessarily in my mind always translator input dollar or at least not translated direct link to into the extra dollars or Revenue.

It could be another another metrics. It could be the customer satisfaction. It could be reductions of frustrations for employees.

It could be many many things but is always a business outcome. It's never just AI executed this project I delivered this new click about capabilities. I moved this application from on-premises to the cloud that is not good enough is always it always has to be related to a specific business outcome.

Nick Polo kind of outline the two tier approach and I want to get your sense of not only just had a maybe apply more discipline. But while we're at it So much what you do? See that's called digital transformation is somebody stuck a mobile device in front of a paper-based process and call it good, you know, do we lack a certain amount of imagination or is it just simply that you know, the projects that really going to make a major difference that have a cultural impact on the company or just take more time to implement and two tears a good idea.

What's your thought? So for my perspective, there's still no shortage of imagination. There's endless number of great ideas.

The reality though is to be able to go from a concept to Creation to commercialization is still for many companies as struggle. And so having that discipline having that experience on how you take a good idea and make money with it is is still very difficult process. So I think part of it is the way that you approach that process.

So using an agile approach and using minimum viable products doing proof of Concepts doing all the things that help you get to a point of, you know, the concept to the creation and using tool chains to do that. And again, when you look at the low code no code capabilities that many companies are instituting now like we are reducing that speed of innovation Cycles extremely in Valuable and important and then determining whether you want to persevere through that process or pivot to something important again, it takes a lot of discipline and a really clear methodology and how you do that. But there's no shortage of great ideas.

I think it's a matter of prioritization as well having a really robust to me and management process and making sure that everyone's lined up and understands what the with the end goal looks like and then rallying around that making sure you have the right Resources with competency the right the right support across the company and you're engaging the customers early on in that process is extremely important, you know problem pointed out a really good, you know kind of approach on making sure you're run is optimized so that you are getting the most value out of your operations and your infrastructure and your cloud and your compute and your endpoints but taking some of that optimization and reinvesting it into the grow spaces around Commerce platforms, and again, including really unique experiences. com site, you can see what a unique experience on a Commerce platform might look like where you have really strong virtual personal assistants where you have the ability to personalize the products, but providing a level of experience is really important with with customers, but listening to your consumer both internally and externally on what they're looking for. And how quickly to get there is is really important but the growth side of things again, we see a significant amount of investment especially around artificial intelligence analytics, you know, really allowing the the machine learning and the algorithms to help us drive better insights around customer preferences behaviors and designing a continuous Improvement and design process.

So taking what we're hearing around our products in the the consumer and Automotive spaces through that that consumer, you know, continuous Improvement continuous design process incorporating your back into the life cycle. The product is extremely important. So again, I think you you'll continue to see significant demand around all things digital but having a really disciplined process and and making sure you're not losing sight of what matters which is value creation and unique experience and the best Outcomes for customers is something that is absolutely critical if you want to continue to grow your business.

And Sanjeev, we kind of live. Maybe in the post code video maybe not because we're still seeing the next wave come how is covid kind of changed you your mindset about how you think about digital transformation and we have people who are more as part of the time all the time some or in the office but very few were in there full time. So what's your sense of how should digital transformation officers think about covid these days?

The other few lessons from covid mic on digital transformation. In covid we did 10 years of transformation into years. Imagine if covid didn't happen.

You need to have a program. Everybody should work from home security and there will be lots of questions about how we cannot do it versus how we can do it. So one thing covid has taught us is To have more focus on the art or possible versus focus on the art of impossible, which is very important for digital transformation because when you are changing a company or transformation culture, you'll have a lot of people who will say.

No, it's not gonna work. This is how we have done it for many times. So but covid has shown the doors of what is possible when there is actually a need and there is no other alternative.

So that's a big big lesson. I think that and what is also taught is short the importance of technology Readiness infrastructure with the eyes of business and it is actually if the way for more digital enablement in the company everybody realizes that we have to be up to this Mark, you know to be operational successful because anything can happen anytime. coming back to the workforce and and hybrid, you know, I mean, obviously we all live in a hybrid world, but I think we still boil down to instead of measuring what we are delivering.

How many hours you're working the focus if the focus is more on. The value creation the results the bias for results and what you will not actually be measuring about you know, how is the engagement? What are they working?

So at least what we focus in us we have if you look at your design thinking and Pi planning, we have measurable deliverables tied to the value and every quarter every every two weeks. We are doing releases now every week, you know, moving fast, you know, and what happens there is that it really doesn't matter how we have a distributed Workforce and of people are all over the world. It is actually made it easier now to all combine together because we focus on measurable metrics and value.

It has pushed us to be much more metrics and results driven versus who is there so you don't have to always be together and FaceTime to do the work have a agile work with I'm good example. I was doing one-on-one with one of my direct reports instead of facing I said, okay send me all your questions. And I'm writing in teams one this question.

I said yes to no three. So it's agile collaboration. It has taught us and what you thought before we have now much more precise at grip so might take Mike is that the the switch is more on actionable deliverables measuring through metrics analytics versus where the workforces that has that we have learned right now.

All right Paolo going into 2023 for a lot of folks who were watching this who were aspiring digital transformation officers. What do you know now how that you kind of wishing you before you took this job? Well, you know, I think it's not the the focus on on the need for driving value.

I think is is the things that I that I kind of I know now and perhaps I knew it before but I think is the coming into this year into this year of as we said of uncertainties. I think that we we really need to drive a lot more discipline and a lot more. Yeah a lot more be more a lot more selective and and disciplining in the way we choose to to tackle problems in Prior years both cannot prior to the pandemic or or kind of coming out of the pandemic as there were a lot of a lot of resources a lot of needs and over trying to do try to do everything and try to do everything at the same time.

and and it's not just a matter of Not just the method of kind of not diminishing resources or perhaps external constraints is a matter of how fast can an organization absorb the change. And so that that is is one of the the things that is to miss has been striking in the past in the past year that is there is a lot of a lot of different needs and a lot of different directions all of them. If you look at that individually are atop priority a top needs and something that should be done immediately, but cannot be cannot be executed all of the same time.

And so it's not the need of identifying what are the top areas of investment the top priorities the the most impactful areas of investment is is of Paramount importance and I think is going to become increasingly important in coming here coming years and and that goes back to the principle of discipline that we discussed before. All right. We got two minutes.

I mean give you the party word with your best advice to your transformation officer. Should I get more about technology or should I just Find a good therapist. What's your thought I would say first is remained adaptable and resilient things will continue to change and your ability to adapt to those circumstances are incredibly important.

The second is Surround yourself with really great talent and you won't be able to do it all on your own and the best Assurance of success is by surrounding yourself with people that you can rely on and Trust the third I would say is deliver, you know, you earn the right to do more be strategic be a partner be at the table and have a voice because of your delivery. So say do means everything and then the last piece is culture culture matters. It's the it's the biggest differentiators.

So, you know, making sure that what you think and what you say and what you do with respect to how you deliver on the culture or commitments and values that the company has is incredibly important. So if your culture is a teamwork and excellence and diversity equity and inclusion and commitment to deliver unique experiences for customers, then you need to live that every day. And so I think those are the things that I would advise to those that continue to To to be on a career path to be a cdio.

All right, folks, you're heard it here just like the theme Stand and Deliver. I want to thank our panelists today for sharing their knowledge and insight. Thanks guys.

That was great. Thank you you thank you. All right, and with that, I want to thank you all for watching this episode, and of course you'll be able to find this and everything else from today's event on strong groups website.

Thank you all and have a great day.