As digital takes off; a successful journey depends on adaptability

Published by: Chris Gabriel on April 11, 2019 in News

A recent report featured in TechRepublic claimed that 41% of business leaders thought their ‘digital transformation programme’ had been a waste of time and money.

Reasons for this near 50% failure rate in delivering on business expectations were varied, from a lack of engagement with front line colleagues (63%) to a lack of engagement with business analysts (39%), and strikingly 79% of executives saying they had failed to analyse existing business processes and assess where improvements could be made before striking out on transformation.

Given those responses, it wasn’t a surprise to find that 42% of senior business leaders had no idea where to start in finding areas of their business where some sort of digital intervention could deliver improvements.

On the face of it, it all sounds a bit of muddle, and clearly, this article points out some rather obvious gotchas.

Never start a major investment without a clear reason for doing so

Unlike in the old-world (BD – Before Digital), the challenge today is there is always a moving end-goal that organisations will only ever get to in stages. Digital is not an overnight sensation. Digital takes time and time is an organisations biggest advantage and greatest enemy.

Imagine being a UK bank that announced a major branch opening program in the heady days of 2006? Within a year or two the economic crash, change in customer behavior and the launch of the iPhone meant that online and mobile banking would become the norm. That first banking app was pretty basic. Now you can transfer money to friends on the fly, pay for a coffee through tap payments, and save the change from a transaction to an investment account. But that took 10 years to develop; and who could have guessed right back then how mobile banking would pan out?

I have some sympathy with those executives who do not know where to start or feel they have wasted time and money because their first attempts to ‘go digital’ have not returned all they expected.

But, being sympathetic is cold comfort to those embarking for the first or second time on a delivering some new business outcomes through digital investments.

So, when the CEO, CFO, COO and CIO sit down around a table and discuss digital and ponder the time it may take or the destination they may reach, I think there is a key word they should all keep in mind, and that is adaptability.

As a famous US general once said, there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. The best thing you can do is assume that during a transformation initiative they will all happen, so try to plan accordingly.

**Think adaptability as your new value proposition back to your business**

Build adaptable operational models, adaptable platforms, and a new set of skills that can adapt what you invest in not only to the immediate business need, but also to the changes that will inevitably come over time.

Application developers have been agile and scrumming for a while now; that’s how that banking app keeps on adapting to changing consumer behavior and industry changes. So, let’s scrum down on platforms as much as we do on the applications that use them.

Cloud is a great example (or should be) of creating adaptable into the model.

Remember when the rule was no cloud, but the business moved CRM there anyway? When owning the largest data center in your sector was a badge of honor? Adaptable IT Departments now use cloud services as adaptable resources, consuming services as they make sense to their business, and ensuring they can wrap security, governance, integration, cost control and workload mobility around those services. Now they are seamlessly connecting their internal compute and storage resources to public cloud services, so they can adapt workloads to the most appropriate location and maintain full governance and control.

Remember when you bought a firewall and you were told to a) put some rules in to protect your business and b) never ever touch the thing again without a 3-month sign off process from the business. In the world of static threats that was sensible model. But in a world of social change, hyper-connectivity and mobile working, and a changing threat landscape, the smart CISO is building an adaptable intelligent security operating model that protects their organisation far more effectively than the static firewall ever could and delivers on the flexibility the business demands.

If the digital initiative happens to be IoT the network must be ready to adapt many times over; in fact, it will never stop. That very first POC of a connected home to deliver health and social care in the NHS will likely involve 1 central location and 10 homes, but will if successful soon be 100, 1000, or 10,000 homes and is going to need a network that can adapt quickly and securely.

So, to those business leaders who are starting out on the digital journey, do your homework, gather your evidence, engage with your people, and get into those business processes to ensure you know why you are starting. But, don’t be concerned if you cannot pick the day and time of the first benefits accurately, or if you have to change course as new evidence appears and fresh opportunities present themselves.

Adaptability is your friend; you have time on your side.

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Data Analysis: Insight to action

Richard Simmons
July 30, 2019

Guest blog. Data has become a fundamental tool in decision making for big businesses. Data analysis, along with the entire process that moves it and shapes it, has become a strategic asset that helps improve and evolve large organizations.

I’m delighted to introduce a guest to our Digitally Speaking blog – Sergio San Martín, Head of Data Analytics at Ferrovial Services. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Sergio for a number of years as the global IoT team here at Logicalis had the privilege of helping Ferrovial Services create the intelligent city waste collection system he references in his article. Sergio is hugely experienced in supporting businesses to build the right culture and approach to maximise the value of data and I found his blog extremely interesting. Everyone is always quick to highlight the value of data and the risks associated with not implementing data management strategies but very rarely do you hear how this should be approached. To hear from Sergio some practical advice though on how to actually implement such a strategy and take a business through the transformation is fantastic.

This article was originally posted on 5th July, 2019 on the Ferrovial blog and was written by Sergio San Martín, Head of Data Analytics.

Sergio San Martin Ferrovial Services — Sergio San Martín Head of Data Services, Ferrovial Services

I firmly believe in the power of data. I believe in its unquestionable impact and influence on the strategic decision-making process, when based on empirical evidence. But I question its influence on business transformation when more importance is attached to data per se than to the processes for guiding and governing it and transforming it into knowledge.

There are success stories that show how brave companies understood data as a strategic asset and created the necessary ecosystem to ensure that it was governed and guided to its full extent. These are companies that revolutionized their industries, turning conventional wisdom on its head and leaving other companies that were incapable of seeing that everything had changed in the dust.

Netflix is a case in point. It’s obviously a classic, but it’s nonetheless a clear case of how a company that was in the business of renting DVDs by mail saw that the conditions were ripe (digital screens, bandwidth, streaming technology) to transform the TV industry, and it became a giant in the world communications industry. All of this started from an age-old principle that is deceptively simple: “You must understand your customers.”

I think that the key to Netflix’s success was not only its ability to acquire, integrate, and analyze all sorts of data related to how its customers use its platform. They succeeded by taking data as the starting point, focusing on governing it, and developing processes to turn it into knowledge. I can’t ignore its latest move into interactive content, where the user chooses the plot of a chapter in a series. That is simply brilliant. Did they create this interactive content to satisfy the user, or is it a way of extracting more data from the user while entertaining them at the same time? I have no doubt what the answer is: it is a new way of gaining deeper insights into user tastes and preferences focused on ad hoc content creation.

This dynamic strategy denotes a high degree of maturity

During my career, I have had the good fortune to work in a range of industries. In recent years, my current company, Ferrovial Services — which operates in infrastructure and services for cities — has developed a range of projects and initiatives in the area of data analytics, some based on traditional statistical methods, others on new analytical techniques such as artificial intelligence. All these endeavors had a clear goal: to promote data-based management, so as to reduce energy costs in building maintenance, understand the dynamics of a city through urban data, optimize routes and propose dynamic approaches to waste collection, keep our workers safe, perform predictive maintenance for assets, and use image recognition techniques to analyze the status of critical infrastructures.

Generally, based on my experience, I believe that if you want to incorporate data-based management into a company, you have to start with a diagnosis. In particular, a company that does not have data in its DNA must calibrate its transformation in terms of its actual ability to adopt and change. It’s like the process by which a child moves from solving basic jigsaw puzzles up to completing ones with thousands of pieces:

When a 3-year-old starts with jigsaws, they use a trial and error method that involves trying out every single piece until they find one that fits. Little by little, they develop simple strategies that enable them to group pieces by color or picture and, in this way, they can build fragments of the puzzle — little victories that keep up their morale and enable them to advance towards new challenges.

As the puzzles become more complex, the old techniques no longer work. There comes a time when new strategies are needed, based on more complex methodologies. This happens because, as the child plays with jigsaws, they mature cognitively. They develop problem-solving abilities, learn to draw up strategies and follow them, and acquire spatial and visual skills.

The key to success:being able to identify the child’s degree of maturity throughout the process of playing and learning. This way, when we see the need, we can introduce the most appropriate techniques and methodologies for addressing more complex challenges so that the child can move toward the final goal: having fun and finishing the puzzle.
Learning: if we get ahead of ourselves and adopt a strategy that is too advanced, that curtails the learning mechanisms and demoralizes the child, eliminating the dimension of play and fun. On the other hand, if we are not capable of gradually elevating the maturity level of the child’s game with new techniques and methodologies, there will come a time when they cannot solve complex puzzles and, as a result, will feel frustrated and lose interest in the game.

An organization must ensure that it constructs and uses processes and methodologies for guiding and governing data that are in line with its degree of maturity. Ferrovial Services, a multinational company, is addressing the challenges arising from the complexity and variety of data in its business units and the services it operates. In recent years, we have acquired skills and honed our abilities, supported by implementing scalable, sustainable data analytics projects.

If we extend the previous analogy, we face a global, multi-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. To this end, we have equipped ourselves with a strategic data plan and a program to promote data-based management of the business. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that, at all times, appropriate processes are applied to guide the business on this journey, which seeks to transform data into knowledge, and that knowledge into decisions. Decisions that are better informed, and often more judicious.

Prior experience in industries where data-based knowledge is already a reality shows that there is no one formula, no predefined path. This shows us the power of data to its fullest extent. A power that has transformed industries while sinking companies that failed to appreciate it. A power that must be used and cannot be ignored. A power that will exist only if the right processes, at any given time, are created to guide and manage data.

Category: Analytics

Industry 4.0. What’s taking so long?

Richard Simmons
June 26, 2019

In the world of manufacturing Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), flooring is a great visual metaphor for two, often-conflicting, sides of the business. The carpet tiles of the office – governed by IT, versus the epoxy resin floor of the factory – governed by operational technology (OT). Business needs, procurement cycles, downtime allowances; everything is different. And here lies the first, and often biggest, challenge in the journey towards the ‘digital factory’: harmonising two separate worlds.

Like the interchangeable carpet tiles, the IT equipment in the office is refreshed during relatively short investment cycles. But with costs running into the tens of millions, the plant, machinery and assets of the industrial side, like the long-wearing resin floor beneath, are expected to perform for decades.

With such colossal differences, it’s often difficult to get IT and OT to work together and consider each other’s business needs. But if the two can unify, there are real savings and improvements to be had, in terms of efficiencies, data and business insight, cost reductions and productivity.

What is a ‘digital factory’?

Industry 4.0. It’s the latest buzzword in IT and manufacturing and is generating lots of noise. But away from the chatter most manufacturers are actually focused on business as usual. Aside from the difficulty in breaking down the barriers between the office and factory, the term ‘digital factory’ itself has been a source of confusion.

When you delve further into what is required to deliver a digital factory, it quickly gets complicated. A manufacturer would have to build capability in a number of different areas to get to the point of maturity needed to achieve ‘digital factory’ status. They’d need to be generating data about what’s happening on the factory floor, driven by centres or actuators; things that are either generating data or that you can pass messages through to act based on your data.

Then comes the need for networking and connectivity – both within the plant environment and industrial areas as well as within the IT areas. Next, you’d need data and analytics platforms, enabling you to bring that data together and then run analytics, which would then move into areas like machine learning and AI. And then the most valuable element: how you build out the business process, creating workflows to start automating these processes.

While there is some value in having a dashboard that shows if a machine is working as effectively as it should, the real value is to be able to start tuning that machine in real time using your data.

A true digital factory is made up of many layers. At the centre are devices, connectivity, data and analytics, and automation. And, as you can imagine, that’s quite a complicated mix for manufacturers that might be early-on in their digital transformation journey and may not have the platforms in place or the in-house skills to manage them.

While IT equipment is refreshed every few years, the opportunity to update and upgrade plant equipment, machines and assets is hampered by eye-watering capex costs and downtime – a very real challenge. Machinery and equipment will run constantly for months and even years, so maintenance periods are few and the ability to install new technology is limited. Digitising and automating this environment is a long journey, and many OT teams simply don’t know where to start.

For those just setting off, it’s common to see small pilot projects. Perhaps a few sensors to condition and monitor the health of machinery, or to generate data for understanding machine efficiency. We’re talking small-scale, relatively inexpensive pilots to test and learn. But that’s still a long way from manufacturers investing millions to refresh entire operating environments, fully-integrated with IT, and used to make tangible operations savings.

So how can we get closer?

The first step is getting the two sides talking and working together. What’s needed is a unifying, cross-departmental manager who can engage the OT and IT sides of the business to develop a strategy whilst taking ownership of the delivery. Mythical though it may sound, little by little, the role of Head of Digital or Head of 4.0 is actually starting to appear in a handful of manufacturing firms.

The Head of Digital will be the architect of change; their role absolutely critical to the success of digitising the factory. Just having that view across the business; having the responsibility to integrate IT and OT without a bias in either direction, could help elevate projects above the common roadblocks, and see successful pilot projects move through to production.

Unifying people, culture and entrenched processes are key challenges that this role will have to manage. Change brings the greatest resistance, so, along with technical know-how, the Head of Digital will need impeccable people skills to break down the silos between the office and the factory.

For manufacturers just starting out on the journey to design a digital factory, the destination must feel like the summit of Mt. Everest, viewed from the foot. It’s a long, steep climb and not to be embarked upon lightly. My money would be on the Head of Digital to cut the best path to the top without leaving anyone behind.

Category: Information Insights / IOT

While Autonomous Operations have cool factor, the big money’s on progressive digital platforms

Chris Gabriel
June 13, 2019

The world is awash with digital transformation excitement.

Digital is happening around us all day, every day, in the way we work, socialise, learn, purchase goods, entertain ourselves, live in our cities and receive treatment by the health service. And in large or small ways, digital is changing, augmenting or transforming the way things are done in every industry.

Some of those digital things delight us and we adopt them with speed and passion and never look back. And many of those digital things are foisted upon us and take a while for us to accept or enjoy our lives being digitised for us.

In digital the spending between business innovation and digital platforms is balanced

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), global DX (Digital) spending will reach $1.18trillion in 2019, an increase of 17.9% over 2018. Over the next four years, an additional $4trillion will be spent by organisations on digital initiatives that they hope will give them a competitive edge or, in the case of government, better serve the needs of their population.

So, with just over £5trillion of investment in the next few years, where is all that money going? IDC’s research paints a picture of the business and the CIO having shared responsibility to use this growing pot of money to drive digital transformation.

What’s getting the businesses investment? Spending in autonomous operations ($52billion), robotic manufacturing ($45billion), freight management ($41billion) and root cause technologies ($35billion) show that digital investments are systemically changing industries. Boards are clearly realising the potential of making the world a smarter, more efficient, more productive and more reliable place.

But, according to IDC, it’s the CIO who is being given the lion’s share of this investment pile, building and operating the underlying infrastructure that digital businesses will now rely on.

In fact, hardware and digital services to develop, integrate, and support digital will grab 75% of all digital spend in 2019.

Connectivity ($102billion), IT Services ($154billion) take 25% of all spending, and enterprise hardware from cloud infrastructure to enterprise servers, storage, and end devices will devour $253billion between them.

Adaptable and progressive – innovation will power the best digital platforms

If one thing jumps out at me from the IDC survey it is that the stuff being invested in by the business sounds a lot cooler than the connectivity, IT services and hardware that the CIO is building to support new digital business models. It feels big on ideas and big on business impact. It feels full of AI and machine learning, autonomous and automation. If you pardon an old man trying to sound cool – it sounds dope.

If the business stuff sounds transformational; the IT stuff sounds transactional.

But, while the names for the near 75% of digital foundations purchased by IT sound the same as they ever were (we have been buying connectivity and servers for decades), the new generation of platforms that will support digital initiatives are just as progressive as the autonomous, AI, predicative, smart machines and things that will rely on them.

Today’s networking engineer must be as familiar with automation as their autonomous factory colleague. Today’s data centre server specialist must be adept at automating the provision of applications and their container services to any location as their AI enabled supply chain colleagues. Today’s security specialist will be using more AI to secure their business than their colleagues developing the next intelligent health screening system.

And of course, in a world where DevOps is creating a flood of new digital applications, your networking, data centre, cloud or security engineer of the future will also be disruptive developers.

Cisco, the company that connected the world through the internet, has over 600,000 members of their development community DevNet; pushing the potential of digital platforms as much as any Apple or Android games developer community ever has on those funkier platforms.

And while IDC classifies lots of spending in hardware, today there is really no such thing as a hardware driven IT strategy. The network switch, the physical server, the security appliance, are now hosts for software that is transforming once static IT hardware into a new generation of highly adaptable digital platforms.

We live in a world of Software Defined, where digital platforms can be integrated, automated, developed and adapted to the exact requirements of every part of the digital business model. And of course, in the digital world it is crucial that they can.

If 75% of the investment companies are making into digital business models is being directed at the underpinning digital platforms, the pressure is on those platforms to support transformation over time. In the old world, big technology platforms support static business models, and were complicated and slow to change. In the digital world, in the application world, agile is everything.

That $800billion of investment must provide a perfect digital service in a changing world, from the first sensor or robot installed in the autonomous factory, or connected asset, or intelligent building to the last. There is no room for the status quo in the digital world; change is a given.

So, CIO’s will use their money wisely and become the hotbed for progressive digital platforms that will ensure that £1.18trillion delivers maximum economic return for the organisations and the society that will be transformed not overnight, but over time.

Category: Hybrid IT

Drowning in data? Swim in the data lake!

Team Logicalis
August 16, 2019

Data, data everywhere but not a drop to use, that’s how the poem goes, doesn’t it? Something like that anyway…. Is a data lake the answer to the challenge of making the most of ever-growing data volumes? Organisations we’re working with are increasingly exploring this approach to address demands for an agile yet secure and well-governed data environment.

What is a data lake?

A data lake is a shared data environment that comprises multiple repositories and capitalises on big data technologies. Unlike a data warehouse, a data lake uses a flat architecture that keeps data in its native format until it’s needed. It allows rapid landing and storage of data, and it provides ready, unfettered self-service access to data for analysis. Comprehensive governance capabilities help ensure data can be easily found, understood and stored without duplication.

For more information on the difference between a data lake and a data warehouse, we like this ‘super simple data lake explanation’ from Forbes.

How might a data lake address some of your data challenges?

A well-governed data lake will:

Enable swift access to a full range of data in a timely fashion for business users, analysts, data scientists and developers, so they can generate accurate, meaningful insights
Accelerate analytics and data preparation to keep up with the speed of business
Facilitate collaboration between knowledge workers, data scientists (when deeper analytic capabilities are required) and data engineers (when it’s time to deploy data lake–based applications to line-of-business users).
Ensure data quality, security and governance to provide users with trusted, understandable data while protecting privacy and maintaining compliance with regulations
Accommodate a rapidly growing collection of data with a scalable approach to storage that supports fast-growing data volumes cost-effectively while maximizing existing resources.

Download our infographic to see how a data lake could help your business

Considering taking the plunge into the data lake? Sign up to one of our Data Services Workshops where our data experts will get to grips with your current data environment and infrastructure, your business challenges and data goals, and then give you practical advice and achievable milestones to help you meet your data aspirations.

Find out more

Category: Information Insights / IOT

Data Analysis: Insight to action

Richard Simmons
July 30, 2019

This article was originally posted on 5th July, 2019 on the Ferrovial blog and was written by Sergio San Martín, Head of Data Analytics.

This dynamic strategy denotes a high degree of maturity

The key to success:being able to identify the child’s degree of maturity throughout the process of playing and learning. This way, when we see the need, we can introduce the most appropriate techniques and methodologies for addressing more complex challenges so that the child can move toward the final goal: having fun and finishing the puzzle.
Learning: if we get ahead of ourselves and adopt a strategy that is too advanced, that curtails the learning mechanisms and demoralizes the child, eliminating the dimension of play and fun. On the other hand, if we are not capable of gradually elevating the maturity level of the child’s game with new techniques and methodologies, there will come a time when they cannot solve complex puzzles and, as a result, will feel frustrated and lose interest in the game.

Category: Analytics

Women in Channel Awards 2019 – four nominations

Jen Molyneux
July 25, 2019

The Women in Channel Awards, hosted by CRN, recognise the achievements of the leaders and exceptional employees who act as role models for young women considering a career in IT.

The shortlist has just been announced and we’re very proud to say we have four finalists!

So, who are the Logicalis UK employees who are influencing, challenging and reshaping the tech industry in 2019, and what have they been nominated for?

Amanda Nelson, Head of Sales Support – Manager of the Year
Kate Dadlani, Chief Information Security Officer – Rising Star
Reg Bluman, Marketing Programme Manager – Rising Star
Sarah Pidgeon, Sales Operations Manager – Sales Employee of the Year

The award ceremony takes place in London in October, so we have a little time to wait before we know if we can repeat the success of last year when Wendy Paine was crowned Technical Employee of the Year and Natalie Matthews was awarded Role Model of the Year.

Congratulations to Amanda, Kate, Reg and Sarah – we’re all very proud of you; and good luck to everyone who has been shortlisted!

Category: News

Drowning in data? Swim in the data lake!

Team Logicalis
August 16, 2019

Category: Information Insights / IOT

Industry 4.0. What’s taking so long?

Richard Simmons
June 26, 2019

In the world of manufacturing Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), flooring is a great visual metaphor for two, often-conflicting, sides of the business. The carpet tiles of the office - governed by IT, versus the epoxy resin floor of the factory - governed by operational technology (OT). Business needs, procurement cycles, downtime allowances; everything is different. And here lies the first, and often biggest, challenge in the journey towards the ‘digital factory’: harmonising two separate wo...

Category: Information Insights / IOT

Gourmet student experiences for the price of a flat white

Chris Gabriel
May 17, 2019

Why Higher Education CIOs have to manage exceptional expectations through adaptable investments. Imagine being an IT Leader working for a firm that replaced 25% of its workforce every year with new employees who were paying you to come to work and who were of a demographic that demanded the very best in technology services, then being surveyed constantly with the results published to the world about how well you met their expectations. Not a job you would imagine a queue around the corner fo...

Category: SDN / Mobility

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