Digital Leader Thoughts 2016 vs 2022

Back in 2016 I interviewed 10 of Australia’s most prominent Digital Leaders to gain insight into how they were thinking about technology, and how they thought IT professionals should best position themselves for success in 2016 and beyond. A link to this article can be found here.

6 years later in 2022, 4 of those Digital Leaders have been generous enough to provide us with their thoughts today on the exact same questions posed 6 years back, to give us an interesting look at how things have changed and progressed over that period. We hope you enjoy.

Leader 1: Faheem Shah – CIO at ABB Australia

Question 1: What are you currently doing or have most recently done with technology?

Faheem in 2016: We developed an intuitive iPad application for visitors to sign in and out at our major sites, replacing manual entry in a ledger.

Faheem in 2022: Implemented MS teams for online learning and Interactive smartboards for in classroom learning for a NFP private school that I am a board member of.

Question 2: What do you think is the most important consideration CIO’s have to currently make in terms of their technology strategy over the next 1 – 3 years?

Faheem in 2016: Is your IS strategy aligned and fluid enough to change with times to ensure your business always stays a step ahead of the competition ?

Faheem in 2022: Is your technology strategy a business enabler and will it improve user experience? These two are key elements to ensure business success through technology.

Question 3: What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge for Technology Professionals over the next 3 – 5 years? Why?

Faheem in 2016: Providing the workforce with mobility tools to enable them to work from anywhere but at the same time safeguarding the organisation with the ever increasing cyber threats.

Faheem in 2022: Convincing your business leaders that there is a need to revise technology at least every 2 years. Technology is rapidly changing and to have a competitive advantage, businesses need to embrace new technology sooner. Therefore, payback for such investments will have to be short term, which may be unrealistic. Does that mean business leaders will have to prioritise technological edge over financial payback in their decision-making process?

Question 4: What do you think (and hope!) we will be able to do with technology in the year 2030?

Faheem in 2016: App Driven cars, smart homes that cleans itself, mind reading apps (way too hopeful!)

Faheem in 2022: Be able to record thoughts (e.g., via smart watches or digital wristbands). Wouldn’t it be cool (and perhaps controversial) to be able to play back thoughts from a day, week, month or even a year ago?

Question 5: What #1 piece of career advice would you offer somebody who has recently embarked on a career in the Technology industry?

Faheem in 2016: Technology is no good if it’s not adding any value, either to you or your customers (internal & external) so always think in value add terms regardless of your job title.

Faheem in 2022: Whilst theory and classroom training are important, focus more on learning from different types of situations and scenarios. Observing and learning from your peers, leaders and sub-ordinates can be invaluable. Seamlessly adapting to different situations is a key leadership trait and one that will advance you further in your career.

Leader 2: Jeromy Joseph – CIO at Volkswagen Group Australia

Question 1: What would you implement if you were given an unlimited budget for the Technology department? Why?

Jeromy in 2016: Well, if I am given an unlimited budget then, I will initiate a project called business data project. The purpose of the project is to ensure that the key data of the business is consolidated, mainly the customer, the product or services, all touch points of the data is identified, validated, proper business rules will be in place, and the necessary quality checks are in place so that it can be used by all sub systems for business usage. The output of this project will then make sure that we have a central repository of key business data which is the master for all systems and business processes, and all the data flow to multiple systems are built on a business logic which makes sense from the master repository. Once it is done, other systems can be placed over this solution. examples; 1. feeding data to a data warehouse, 2. Integration with all systems will make it easier.

Jeromy in 2022: There are few things to consider when answering this question.

People: Currently it is getting extremely hard to source and retain good IT resources. I will focus on to retain & hire the right IT human assets that we need for future. Investing in the right people will ensure the continuity of the operations, strategies and roadmap.

Technology as whole: Focus on the key technology platforms to reduce workload for IT (example: Cloud platform, SaaS, etc.) and to improve the overall productivity of the Organisation. The specific examples are, replacing old legacy platforms, modern integration tools and rationalisation of the current IT landscape to reduce the complexity to a manageable size for the organisation – both for business & IT. Most times, this requires heavy lifting including a significant investment.

Question 2: What do you think will be ‘trending’ over the next 5 years in Australia technology wise? why?

Jeromy in 2016:  There is a lot of focus for digitalization and analytics everywhere today. I believe that Australia is also not different to the rest of the world. Digitalization is a very broad term to provide the best and simple customer experience through web technologies, mobility and social technologies, with the usage of cloud technology. Organisations are focusing in these areas to have the competitive advantage over their competitors. In a similar way, BI and analytics are also trending in Australia. Globally there is a lot of focus on data scientists, data labs, data lake, data warehouse, etc with very competitive data analytics and reporting tools available in the market. In addition to these 2 areas, the cloud and IT security also will trend upwards as with the digitalization and data analytics, there will be focus around how easy and scaleable the IT infrastructure can be and also how secure the IT architecture and systems can be.

Jeromy in 2022: Cloud Platform migrations will continue to be focus for majority of the companies. Most software companies are already in this space or moving in a SaaS model or a cloud platform model. As we know companies want to get rid of the overhead with on-prem Infrastructure management & utilise those budget and resources for other IT value adds.

Organisations will require better Data consolidation and analysis tools. The business is never happy with the reporting or data analysis that they are getting out of any tools. Often there is a gap between the demand and the delivery of Data analytics provided. Companies look at how to store the magnitude of Data that they have, how to use advanced analytics tools, how to leverage AI & ML to better utilise the insights. All these areas will continue to evolve in the next years to the maturity levels.

As Cloud and Data makes the headline tags in any organisation, it needs to be followed with the IT Security topics, whether it is related to the Data, IT Infrastructure , Cloud , etc. We hear a lot of terms such as Data Security, Information Security, Cyber Security etc. and all these “Security” can lead to different interpretation depends on whom you ask. However in general, as much as we open up the IT Applications and Data to the Cloud and through to the mobile devices, there is a strong focus on how to protect these Applications, Data and Devices through the right tools in the right way on a timely basis. This needs to continue for most organisations as the threats are at rise, and organisations could face significant damages & penalties as a result due to security breaches, in addition to the reputational damages.

Question 3: In terms of IT decisions, what are the biggest mistakes you are currently seeing organisations make?

Jeromy in 2016: Technology is growing and changing so rapidly, so the organizations need to involve IT much more today in all technological related investments. There are so many IT solutions available in the market, where business units may be convinced to invest in their solutions. By involving internal IT, the business units will get the benefit of consulting through which the external service providers are asked and assessed about the best possible way before the commitment by the business. The reality is that the business units need a solution as soon as possible, and they may commit to a solution based on what they see in the paper or in a presentation, however the internal IT teams can provide additional quality checks and add value, provided they are competent. This also means that organisations must see competent and skilled technology staff as a strategic investment and not a short term solution only to be used for support tasks.

Jeromy in 2022: This is a tough one to answer as it varies between organisations and sectors, I don’t want to call it out as mistakes but the below are the points or areas where IT decisions can be challenging.

Focus on problems statement/scope/requirements: Sometimes the focus is more on a technology platform or solutions before getting the scope or problem statement or requirements clearly articulated and aligned with all stakeholders.

Having right people in the team: It is important to have access to the right people & use them to make the critical decisions for IT. Decisions may depend on the business and technical skills, expertise, knowledge and experience.

Budget constraints: Sometimes IT decisions are made to satisfy the budget or funding requirements , which may not help in the longer run.

Professional, Skilled and reliable partners: It is getting extremely hard to find and retain the right technology partners.

Question 4: In terms of technology innovation on a world wide scale where do you see Australia? How do we improve?

Jeromy in 2016: Without going into the details or results of any research, I believe Australia can be improved in here, even though we are doing well based on the mass population that we have when compared to other countries. There are many technology start-ups happening here in Australia and there are many technology companies providing multiple solutions. However we also hear stories of successful Australian technology companies based overseas.

We have to encourage technology education in our schools, we have to attract our kids to be more interested in maths and science, where we have a lot of opportunity. We have to develop technology related drive in kids and younger generations to take on technology topics and units across schools and universities. We need to encourage and promote technology start-ups even more than today, especially if we compare the number of start-ups happening in here and then in China, US and also in other European countries.

Jeromy in 2022: Although it was hard for me to find a specific report or index for technology Innovation, it seems that Australia is not one of the top ranked countries on Technology Innovation. In the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Technology and Innovation Report 2021, Australia is ranked 31st under the readiness for the Frontier Technology Index. As per the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) Global Innovation index 2021, Australia is not placed among the top countries in the region when compared to Korea, Singapore , Japan etc.

However, Australia being the lucky country as we are in, there are few things that we can do. Special focus for STEM right from early education/schooling as a foundation is the key to drive technological innovation and skills. Our educational system should attract students to do more technological studies. Skilled migration as an opportunity to be used to get high demand technology skilled migrants. Business should be incentivised to do technology innovations, and government should do better to incentivise technological starts ups.

Question 5: What #1 piece of advice would you offer somebody who has 5 – 10 years current experience in the Technology industry?

Jeromy in 2016: The best advice I could give to any of my technology colleagues is to engage much more with the business users than today. Technology professionals are often very good in doing their technology related tasks, and what I have seen is that their biggest weakness is to have a non-technical and user friendly dialogue with the business users. All technology professionals must improve their business consulting and communication skills so that the business users will get the confidence to talk to the technology professionals in the same level and therefore the business will see the value. We have to also remember that today; the users themselves have a lot of knowledge in technology through internet and other social networking/media. So we need to understand the environment we are in and we need to drive the discussion with the business, create the confidence in the business that we are not a cost center anymore and we are here to value and drive revenues and bring efficiencies.

Jeromy in 2022: The number #1 piece of advice that I can provide is to “keep investing time in developing your skills” as so much is happening in IT/Technology. It is important to develop the technical skills as well as the soft skills, to advance your career. With so many disruptions and transformations happening across all industries (some planned and few unplanned like COVID), Technology will play a huge part across all industries. Australia’s Universities may only supply limited technology resources, in addition to the less focus on STEM.  Technology migrants will have more choices these days to select their destination especially with hybrid working model. There will be always a huge demand for highly skilled technology resources across all industries here in Australia.

Leader 3: Peter Smith – CIO at Mission Australia

Question 1: What are you currently doing or have most recently done with technology?

Peter in 2016: I recently tried to setup a fancy new router to boost the wireless signal across my house, coupled with some additional monitoring so I could find out which one of my kids was taking all the data. I set it up but in typical Mgt fashion I could not get it stabilised sufficiently and had to call in the intelligent to do it properly.

Peter in 2022: As always we are concurrently doing a number of things, finishing off a large project building out the Case Management System on a Dynamics365 base, we are focused on continually strengthening security, recently attaining ISO27001 and currently rolling out stronger Information Protection to protect our data we are also investigating some automation options as well as looking to sharpen up our internal measures and reporting while at the same time working out how to improve capability without spending too much money always a perennial challenge in a Not for Profit.

Question 2: What do you think is the most important consideration CIO’s have to currently make in terms of their technology strategy over the next 1 – 3 years?

Peter in 2016: An important consideration for CIO’s at the moment is how to position their strategy so that it can continue to rapidly evolve and in some cases radically shift in a natural manner. With many organisations needing to fundamentally shift components of their business, technology is often a critical enabler and it needs to be able to change and respond with fluidity while maintaining it’s planning and preparedness.

Peter in 2022: How to find the right balance, security is always going to be an increasing element but we cannot just focus on security so we need to balance it with driving digital evolutions that will support the business purpose. In our case its “ending homelessness” so how do we create opportunities to support our people achieving this – technology itself will not fix homelessness - so we need to make sure we understand what we can do to support our people in this space.

I think understanding the user journeys and working out how we can wrap technology around and reach in and support when appropriate and stay out of it when not, is one of the ways we will do this, along with tools to help our staff and reduce distraction.

Managing that process in an environment where funds are never keeping pace with requirements, where there is rapidly increasing security and compliance requirements and a lack of recognition from many on just how much additional cost some of this compliance will add, is challenging and will continue to be so. So cost efficiencies will always be a big part of this as well.

Question 3: What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge for Technology Professionals over the next 3 – 5 years? Why?

Peter in 2016:  I think the biggest challenge will be keeping pace with sufficient breadth and depth of the technology changes, developing areas of interest and ensuring you understand how they fit together within an industry, business in general and the broader society. This is a challenge now but it’s getting harder with ever increasing volumes of data

Peter in 2022:  Finding that balance, making sure we stay part of the team and the solution, listen more and work out how to challenge gently and effectively, perhaps slowing down sometimes so we can speed up later.

Avoiding being dragged down the compliance hole , ensuring we actively engage with it and determine how we manage it will be critical because in the face of increasing negative cyber activity, stronger and increasingly more rigorous compliance there is a very real threat of it dominating our focus.

The other one is the perennial digesting of all the changes and new products, trends etc while working out how to filter and simplify critical elements for discussion at Executive and Board levels and then across the broader business level as the change is discussed.

Question 4: What do you think (and hope!) we will be able to do with technology in the year 2030?

Peter in 2016: By the year 2030, I think wearables will be “insertables” or something similar and we will be able to pool all the data together from what we eat, activity, exposure to UV, posture, genetics, medical history etc etc and using a combination of predictive analytics, medicine, bioscience, chemistry etc to provide early lifestyle adjustments, perhaps earlier diagnostics and improve the quality of life for everyone, allowing them to live longer and more enjoyable lives.

Peter in 2022:  I hope it will be removing (automating) some of the more monotonous and mundane activities, I hope we are managing it well enough to ensure it improves our lives and lifestyle not destroy it. I think issues around ethics, trust and privacy must be handled well, with good robust discussions across Boardroom tables to make sure we do. We cannot blindly accept negative impacts we really have to make some choices sometimes and perhaps be saying the cost (or negative impacts) to society and our stakeholders outweigh the benefits to our shareholders and we cannot in all good conscience pursue this.

I do hope I could be cruising along on a road trip, enjoying the scenery while the car drives itself, recognising when it needs to top its battery up and finds a charging station with a nice little café beside it so my wife and I can have a leisurely lunch while it recharges.

I hope that we have created many of the tools to help combat climate change that will help us make sure our kids and grandkids can enjoy the same beautiful country that we do. I really want technology to live up to its potential and not remain part of the problem.

Question 5: What #1 piece of career advice would you offer somebody who has recently embarked on a career in the Technology industry?

Peter in 2016: Don’t forget how important soft skills are and work out early the habits you will use to keep yourself up to date. Don’t neglect your networks, people contact matters.

Peter in 2022: Ensure you take the time to get well qualified, don’t be afraid of doing the hard yards as there is definite benefit in going through tough lessons often only found in the hard work.

Listen more and as technologists, particularly if you are more engineer than sales or HR make sure you spend time working and training your soft skills, this is going to become more and more important over the coming years and too often we are seen as not being good at that - and many times we aren’t. Work on it.

The final thing is don’t be afraid to take a chance, life is one big risk and taking a carefully considered one, working with strong focus and good collaboration is going to be critical going forward.

Leader 4: Dr Vladas Leonas

Question 1: What would you implement if you were given an unlimited budget for the Technology department? Why?

Vladas in 2016:  I actually don’t like the notion of unlimited budgets – far too often this approach creates waste with minimum business outcomes for the organisation. Having said this, I would focus on three aspects – immediate migration of provision commodity ICT services to “as-a-service” model, accelerated replacement of legacy systems (again – ideally in “as-a-service” mode) and growing maturity of the business to make the business “agile-ready”. In my view this “three-legged stool” is going to deliver maximum “bang for your buck” in today’s environment.

Vladas in 2022: I would have undertaken an initiative to re-architect ICT ecosystem with the view to simplify and shrink it to minimise potential number of attack surfaces

Question 2: What do you think will be ‘trending’ over the next 5 years in Australia technology wise? why?

Vladas in 2016: I can see a couple of definite trends happening today – one is a re-birth of “build” and software development, the other one is “cloud” … I do believe that “cloud” (a horrible term, by the way as everyone has a different interpretation of it) will be overtaken by “as-a-service” model. Why? Well, as a customer I am not interested whether my plumber is issuing DeWalt or Makita power tools – I am interested in timeliness, accuracy, quality, price, warrant, responsiveness, advice etc – e.g. in the business outcomes, rather than in architectural debates. Having said this – yes, I acknowledge the need for an architecture review, leaning probably more towards the independent one, rather than an in house one.

Vladas in 2022: At the moment it is cloud and digital. I expect that the latest developments on the cybersecurity front and realisation of high cost of public cloud (with minimal ability to manage these costs) will change this trend; we are already seeing a number of cloud repatriation projects.

Question 3: In terms of IT decisions, what are the biggest mistakes you are currently seeing organisations make?

Vladas in 2016: In my observation there is still a lot of “old school” thinking, ranging from in house (box-huggers) to traditional outsourcing. This thinking (as well as lack of real understanding of the pace of the change happening at the board level and Board’s key focus on traditional risks, rather than disruptive ones) does not allow early embracing of the new models of ICT provisioning and creates potentially risks that may be very difficult (and costly) to deal with later.

Vladas in 2022: Putting all eggs in the cloud basket and not enough understanding and focus of the risks associated with poor cybersecurity posture…

Question 4: In terms of technology innovation on a world wide scale where do you see Australia? How do we improve?

Vladas in 2016: Unfortunately over the last 25 years, in my observation, Australia has significantly lost its traditionally strong place in the innovation game… In the early 90s there was a real opportunity to create an “innovation continent”. Unfortunately, the “clever country” approach was not implemented to its full potential – for a number of reasons. Today, unless some really well thought through and complex multi-prong approach to support innovation/R&D/commercialisation is put in place – there is no chance for success in this area. Sadly enough, Government run NICTA and CSIRO are not demonstrating a lot of success in this area. I suspect that instead of direct funding creation of a truly supportive environment would help a lot. Requires a lot of thinking and maybe stealing and borrowing from, for example, Israel’s approach?

Vladas in 2022: Unfortunately, I am not overly optimistic about this… We often generate great ideas, but are rarely able to commercialise them.

Question 5: What #1 piece of advice would you offer somebody who has 5 – 10 years current experience in the Technology industry?

Vladas in 2016: There is only one thing that is permanent – it is change and the pace of change is constantly increasing. Be prepared for change, embrace it and exercise maximum flexibility. There are no “sacred cows” left anymore and 30 year old wisdom of “nobody has ever been fired for buying from IBM/Microsoft/etc.” does not work anymore. The other advice is around developing the “soft skills” and collaboration skills, especially for geographically distributed collaboration – importance of those keeps growing.

Vladas in 2022: Keep learning and maintain your own integrity

What were your thoughts on the above insights? Did anything stand out to you?

What are the main changes you believe we’ve seen in the industry over the past 6 years?

Please feel free to leave your thoughts below.

A big thanks again to Faheem, Jeromy, Peter, and Vladas.