A wakeup call for executives!

Professor Henk Volberda describes the double shock of Covid on top of the ongoing digital revolution (Financial Dagblad, 21 October 2020), forcing organisations to go digital and reskill their workforce. The illustrious World Economic Forum’s October 2020 report “Resetting the Future of Work Agenda”, calls for reskilling the workforce with data and digital skills.

Against this urgent imperative, Computable highlights the abject failure of so many organisations to drive value from data and attributes this to a breakdown between business management and the data analytics team.  Most AI models fail to progress beyond the data analyst’s laptop!

Why are so many traditional organisations struggling with the shift to new data, digital and platform-oriented business models that are transforming our world and critical to their survival?

To answer this, we must consider that we are in a change of era – a fourth industrial revolution – and this is being accelerated by Covid-19.  There is an overwhelming imperative to reskill the workforce to work together with data and AI driven machines, recast the business model and develop digital leadership capability at the executive and senior management levels.

Creating Digital Leadership to become Fit for the Future

Many sectors of the economy were already being disrupted by data driven and platform businesses before Covid caused the double shock.  The data driven businesses already enjoyed an order of magnitude higher productivity and value generating potential before Covid-19.  During 2020, many of these digital leaders have doubled in value whilst traditional businesses on average have declined by 17%.

The growing market power of Big Tech has attracted regulator attention.  In Europe and the US, regulators are looking at whether Big Tech has become too powerful.  The US announced an investigation into Google and its market practices in October.

Governments look to AI as a national strategic capability for post Covid growth.  With an expected shift in employment opportunity foreseen post Covid, many governments are viewing AI as a strategic capability and stimulating the re-education of people to work with data and AI in the future.

It is therefore imperative to transition to a future proof business model duringthe Covid pandemic.

How we are helping to create digital leadership

We have evolved a number of new services which help you win in the digital world:

  1. Data Driven Business series helps you set the digital agenda
    We have helped a range of clients to understand the new business environment and the changes it requires to their business model. This includes helping managers to view data as a key resource, understand current trends in the use of data and AI, avoid a silo approach to data and explore how to operate in ecosystems. We add data management including basic building blocks such as designing your data driven approach, creating a data architecture for interoperability and developing BI and AI applications.
  2. Our AI and Blockchain learning paths are now accredited by Exin
    We are delighted to announce that both our AI and Blockchain learning paths have been accredited by Exin – a leading certification and examination institute. The AI learning paths now also meet the international BCS standard for AI.  Whilst the Essential programmes raise general awareness, the Foundation programmes equip your staff with the skills needed to work with blockchain or AI.  Participants can now learn how to apply these new technologies and gain a recognised professional certification at either Essentials or Foundation level.
  3. Risk Management Foundation launched to advance Non-Financial Risk Management
    We have also launched the Foundation level of risk management learning to underpin the existing “Fit for the Future” service.
  4. Managing Digital Assets and Decentralised Finance in Ecosystems masterclass
    We have launched a new advisory service using a combination of virtual consulting and an eLearning to help clients understand and realise the potential of new digital ecosystems.

We can discuss how you can apply the above services to help you prepare yourself or your organisation to be fit for the future.  We work in line with Covid-19 restrictions offering an integrated range of webinar, eLearning and in person support to achieve lasting change.

New additions to our team

We are delighted to welcome Arie Hakemulder to our team. Arie has 30 year’s experience of digital and IT strategy, with a focus on working with data. Arie is helping the expansion of our data management services including LinkedData and FAIR data. We look forward to introducing Arie to you soon to help further your approach to managing data.

And we continue to share our thinking on a range of platforms

We continue to deliver our thinking via our education and industry partners (as you can see on LinkedIn). We have largely switched to running webinars for inspiration and key note presentations given the Covid developments with eLearnings for the in-depth knowledge transfer. This includes facilitating creative discovery and vision development via webinar!
We hope you remain healthy and look forward to talking again soon.

Alex Dowdalls
Partner