Here at Pivotal’s SpringOne Platform conference, much of the conversation has been around the appropriate use of technology. For Silicon Valley companies and employees alike including me (who grew up in Silicon Valley and lived in the region for 27 years), the conversation is important since many get caught up in the development and its associated hopes and dreams rather than the use and how customers benefit.
This morning, I attended a breakout session that touched on just this. Led by a technology leader at a leading insurance firm and titled “No Time Like the Present: Establishing Technology as a Core Competency”, the speaker highlighted the frameworks and principles all technology organizations need to consider when launching and maintaining solutions in a world where customers are demanding extensions beyond the experiences they are used to.
The following were my takeaways from the session:
Takeaway #1: Technology as a Core Competency Offers an Opportunity for Reinvention
The speaker offered three forces driving industry transformation:
- Digital convergence – The convergence of product, customer, and data. What can organizations do to serve their customers better while providing better products?
- Customer expectations – The elevation of customer experiences that go beyond paying premiums. What do customers want now that provide a positive experience?
- Pace of change – The acceleration of digital transformation. How do organizations adjust?
Each of these presents an opportunity for organizations to reinvent themselves and develop new product lines, according to the speaker. Though not an easy task to take on and requiring a tremendous amount of heavy lifting, being able to acknowledge and execute upon these three elements results in positive business results, especially when similar tasks are being taken on by the competition.
Takeaway #2: The Framework for Change is Three-Fold
Change is not easy, especially in industries like insurance where there is a long tradition of doing things one way. For this particular firm, affecting change meant transforming three different areas: Technology, business model, and talent/leadership. Each contributes the following for the organization:
- Technology – What are the capabilities provided by the organization and how do they change the culture of our company and the industry beyond simply being a new technology?
- Business Model – How does the new technology impact the processes of the company?
- Talent and Leadership – How do employees and leadership deliver the results demanded by customers and lead to retention?
This part of the conversation reminded me of our Innovation Lab, where we take our customers through each and every part of the cloud and technology adoption process by asking the mission-critical questions that ensure success. In this part of the conversation, the speaker affirmed to me that none of this is easy, but organizations take the risk because they know that digital transformation is absolutely necessary to adjust to new industry paradigms.
Takeaway #3: Ultimately, it’s about shared results
The speaker ended their session by highlighting the cultural changes necessary for cloud adoption to succeed. These may seem familiar:
- Seek and share context – Transform the way that the company serves its employees. No longer can leadership simply give orders; conversations must be pursuant to each unique situation.
- Understand the art of possible
- Quest for excellence – Ensure that employees are engaged and that organizations are building impactful products. Mediocrity cannot be tolerated whatsoever.
- Remove functional blinders – Create opportunities for collaboration.
- Create the support necessary for success – Work outside the box
What Do You Think?
Ultimately, this session re-affirmed to me the culture shift that cloud brings to organizations. At the end of the day, no one can do any of this alone, and success requires all hands on deck.
Is this something your organization has been seeing as well? How have you strategized for the shifts of cloud? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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