COVID-19: Message in a bottle, our priority and what’s next? The Great Kiwi Digital Revolution...

Covid-19 is once in a lifetime event and I have seen a number of people documenting their thoughts on both Linkedin, Facebook and the gram for them to reflect back on these times in years to come with a view to sharing how they’re thinking, feeling and reacting.

So I guess, here’s my equivalent time capsule of COVID-19, alongside our immediate priorities as a business and whats next, which I believe is going to be the GREAT kiwi digital revolution!

Like many business owners and executives across Aotearoa right now, here at The Instillery, intimacy with our own famz, clients and even board of directors have reached dizzying new heights as dig in hard and focus on:

• Our WHANAU and ensuring they are safe, happy & healthy (in body and mind) and there to respond when they aren't. It's always, always been about the people, our people!
• Our clients & partners - doing everything in our power to support them through their own unique COVID journeys
• Precision Execution and doubling down on our core business of Cloud, Security + Modern Workplace
• Delivering consistent & real-time communications to everyone, staying ahead of the curve and co-creating the next evolution of The Instillery alongside a very exciting mix of existing and long term clients as well as new ones
• Ensuring that as a business and as a team, we are finely tuned, leveraging every opportunity to level up and ready to scale to support kiwis in the “bounce.”

Firstly, our decision 4 years ago, to commence an M&A strategy as the foundation for ensuring our business was geared to the delivery of recurring business value and impact for our clients in the form of a Modern Managed Service Provider business to support our extensive cloud consulting and professional services engine has us uniquely positioned to not only weather the storm and survive but thrive during these unprecedented times.

But.. this does not mean we are immune to impact! We are however committed to ensuring we are continuing to make intelligent investment decisions with sustainability in mind while continuing to challenge the status quo and ruthlessly focus on execution for our own whanau and customers.

The Instillery is in a healthy and sustainable financial position, having been around for a collective 30+ years (through M&A activity of Origin - 19 years and Vo2 - 11 years) and we have a desire to be around 100 more but aligned with the governments reason for the stimulus, our ability to provide the confidence to both our whanau, continuity of service to our customers as well as our below the line scramble to support massive inbound demand to support essential service workers during the lockdown would of been significantly more difficult (and potentially impossible) without the the support of the NZ governments wage subsidy plan included in their Covid stimulus package.

Like sand through the hourglass, these are the COVID days of our lives

As shareholders and as a leadership group our No#1 priority is supporting ALL members of The Instillery whanau, their respective families and the communities they live, work and play.

This means a commitment to:

• 100% retention of all Instillery team members during the lockdown
• 100% pay for all team members including those who workloads have dropped as a result of Covid - although the majority are working harder than ever...
• No "forced" annual leave
• Continued strategic investment in training, education, independent certification and general up skilling of our whanau, partners (yes we believe this is important - aye @Andy Mann) and customers
• Continued investment in NZ’s top talent to join The Instillery across our 3 core pillars of Cloud, Modern Workplace and Security
• Leveraging COVID-19 as an opportunity to challenge our own operating model, reframe, evolve and continue to focus energy on how we make The Instillery easy to do business with for both the public and private sector working in lock step with key partners such as Microsoft, Zscaler, AWS, GCP and the New Zealand Governments DIA.

There is no doubting the impact of Covid-19 in our communities with dizzying reports of increases to unemployment (including a scenario released from the reserve bank which worst case has us hitting north of 20% unemployment) alongside nightmare cases of domestic abuse and an uplift crime in general - including those dumbasses who continue to deny the basic instructions of "stay home, stay safe" over the weekend.

From our b2b perspective the impact of COVID-19 is currently isolated to discrete market segments, for example, the obvious tourism and retail verticals have taken a MASSIVE hit and I believe will never be the same again - with many closely working alongside their banking partners, private investors and strategic partners like the Instillery in addition to making some very tough calls as evidenced by Rob Campbells (Chairman of Tourism Holdings et al) interview with Robett Hollis yesterday to ensure they have a business to run coming out the other side and embarking on large cost out initiatives right now while also genuinely using as an opportunity to pivot and transform.

In the small / medium sector we have seen a downturn or at least a "pause" on variable professional services engagements as businesses on the whole "hunker down" to ride out the Covid impact as re-asses their own priorities i.e. there is no point rolling a modern workplace program to support 500 users, when in 90 days you business might only be required to support 150 users.

At the large end of town including both the private and public sector; it blows my mind just how many organisations weren’t ready for the requirement to work from home (let alone securely) and or their solutions were largely untested at scale, meaning their unique COVID-19 lockdown experiences have driven one of the following program accelerations coming into April 2020:

• Rapid migration to hyper-scale cloud - hybrid + public
• Activating and Embracing the full force of Microsoft 365 including the must-have teams + my analytics while also ensuring security is not sacrificed for productivity supporting secure remote worker technologies including Zscaler (https://www.zscaler.com/resources/solution-briefs/zscaler-for-office-365.pdf)
• Ensuring that where they have sacrificed security for productivity in the past 3 weeks, they rapidly re-establish enterprise-class security posture, visibility and control and move towards a genuine SASE - zero trust architecture.

All the while The Instillery are FLAT OUT and working closely with a diverse range of clients from DHB’s to councils, central govt agencies, utilities, banks and super funds to deliver on the above-mentioned outcomes.

The Great Kiwi Digital Revolution

Until COVID-19, my belief was that we could absolutely learn from the past to inform our own future. 

However, unless you've been hiding under a rock you would of heard the media and our country's leadership state “we are in unprecedented times” (1 trillion times over) which suggests that there is actually nothing in our history that provides guidance for how we could, would or should respond....

I have read countless historical quotes, opinion pieces, research papers from world-renowned scholars, accredited authors and internet content creator ‘hacks’ - I include myself in the latter category so I thought to save you the hours of reading yourself, I hope there is an interest in me sharing a summary of these views.

Professor Nicholas Agar from our very own Victoria University of Wellington suggests that forecasting in a post-COVID-19 world calls for “imagination first.” Stating:

“we can’t begin to confront the challenges of an uncertain future unless we first try hard to imagine them - beyond the comfortable yet dangerous certainties of the past.”

One american Author, Leonard Mlodinow points to the “peril of hindsight biases” in the way we think about the past. Citing that:

"we don’t learn the right lessons from history if we imaginatively credit historical actors with what is obvious to us now."

In any case, I now personally subscribe to the fact that COVID-19 has changed the business world we operate in forever and has definitely influenced the way myself and my leadership at The Instillery are looking to our evolution and where we should draw inspiration from to influence, learn to elevate our own future, not only as a business, but as a country.

There is no doubt the publicly available data points confirm we need to ready ourselves for a recession and there will be catastrophic consequences for the NZ economy which will require even deeper investment from the NZ government as evidenced by this mornings announcement of additional support via the "tax loss carry-back scheme" to fast forward through the recession to NZ’s new normal.

However, I share a common view that in parallel to fighting the health crisis, we need to focus equal energy on the economic crisis and where possible there is an additional responsibility of the private & public sectors to "get back to business" and refocus on smart investment decisions.

It is only then that we will be able to leverage COVID-19 as fuel for our Digital transformation as a country. And I encourage real debates including tech as an export, how we reframe the discussion around NZ media/content and the roles the likes of Spark/Voda/Sky will play and of course UFB vs 5G with local RSP's/LFC's/Chorus, Crown Fibre and of course a new generation of Cloud Native Connectivity and Edge Compute enablers that will forge a path forward to genuinely work to close the digital divide.

Which brings me to a sharp realisation after reading the below quote appear in one of my colleagues LinkedIn pages this week originally courtesy of Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman; 

“Only a crisis-actual or perceived-produces real change. When the crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.” 

In response to COVID-19 as business leaders in the digital economy, I believe it is our responsibility to ensure that the “RIGHT IDEAS are LYING AROUND.”

This means we must turn our focus to the future i.e. not just during lockdown but beyond 2020 and collectively work to develop and potentially even test, iterate + prove viable alternatives to existing policies, firstly by sharing them, making them public and engaging the community to then keep them ALIVE until the politically impossible becomes impossible to ignore.

I genuinely believe that as individuals, families, communities and businesses we will be a shitload more resilient in a post coronavirus world!

So to get you started, here are a couple of my more obvious predictions for the post-COVID-19 world alongside a few of my favourite "futurist" observations where I absolutely share their sentiment (along with some commentary) and would love to see how we can enable this in Aotearoa together to elevate our own future:

Mike Jenkins - Late night digital spectator

Tech Everywhere but at what cost? Tech will be even further entrenched in our daily routines and rituals. Remote working, virtual meetings and digital conferencing will become an everyday habit, smashing together our work and home lives like we’ve never seen before. 

This means we need to take a serious look at our usage. Whether in your own home or in business there is a debate to be had and clear ground rules set for ‘Too much of a good thing and how we continue to create and establish the rules of engagement in lockstep with the rate and pace of change in tech.

This flows into unchartered territory of social contracts for the use of tech - expanding from toddlers and teenagers to mums and dads ;-)

My vote is for humanity on-top of technology than by exception agree on which “better planet” use cases should we enable or allow tech to transcend human limitations?

Closely tied together the importance of teaching EQ must be increasingly more important than logic & data because this is relatively easy for a human and likely impossible for a computer.

Pushing Mute on "COVID-19 Capitalists" & Political Leverage If I hear of another COVID-19 response team "advertorial" or "Free" Coronavirus Professional services offer - I’m going to vom! 

I fully understand business attempts to hustle their way out of the current dire position but as a country, we need to push mute and say NO to this generation of “COVID-19 Capitalists” and in particular those seeking to use this epidemic as a political bargaining chip or campaign agenda item. (too early to point fingers here yet...)

I am hoping that on the back of COVID-19 a new generation of leaders both in business and government will come to the fore and re-establish a “ministry of common sense” approach for the greater kiwi good. This would need to include more inclusive and sustainable economic models.

In parallel we need to keep an eye on a few of the more dictatorial regimes around the globe and have a role to play in ensuring these global leaders don’t “overreach” using their power over their citizens and in particular surveillance measures for evil.

“Bubble” Sustainability - notwithstanding the continued importance of Primary industries leading the fight out of COVID-19, the way we manage our agricultural and primary industry supply chains will change dramatically from paddock to plate, with a new emphasis on self-sufficiency, local supply and YES - even variations of vegetarian diets sourced, bagged and tagged locally.

To enable this the NZ government will need to double down investment in local communities, suburbs and regions similar to the regional growth fund of the past, to ensure that even in isolation local businesses are sustainable.

The COVID-19 experience will claim a large % of small/local organisations. This has to change if we are to continue to release pressure from our rapidly growing metro centres and create genuine and sustainable work opportunities in regional NZ.

Bernard Marr - American Economist - Forbes Magazine

Strengthened Digital Infrastructure - COVID-19 caused people to adapt to working from home and in isolation. By forcing our collective hand to find digital solutions to keep meetings, lessons, workouts, and more going when sheltering in our homes, it allowed many of us to see the possibilities for continuing some of these practices in a post-COVID-19 world. 

MJ’s perspective: In 2019, I was away from home or leaving home 100+ days out of 230+ days working. I’m definitely a little bit old school in terms of face to face is bloody important for human interaction but travelling to other regions or countries just for a meeting or 2 to the detriment of a couple of hours or days “lost productivity” isn't always essential, and I have learned that video calls for all kinds of meetings (internal, clients or even board meetings) can be equally effective as long as the preparation is adequate, its a safe forum for direct comms and the objectives and upside is clear for all parties.

But also we are very blessed in NZ with the network infrastructure we have and we need to continue to invest in this to breach the digital divide.

From a whanau perspective, my son Kobe has weekly virtual “mediation” classes over video thanks to our social distancing requirements, and it went surprisingly well - pretty flash for a country school in the Waikato aye ;-)

The Death of Touchscreens and rise of contactless Interactions - There was a time not too long ago when we were super impressed by touch screens and all they enabled us to do. COVID-19 has made most of us hyper-aware of every touchable surface that could transmit the disease, so in a post-COVID-19 world, it’s expected that we’ll have fewer touch screens and more voice interfaces and machine vision interfaces. 

With the increase in people wanting to limit what they touch, an option to pay for goods and services that do not require any physical contact is likely to gain traction. 

Machine vision interfaces are already used today to apply social media filters and to offer autonomous checkout at some stores. 

MJ’s perspective: Beyond this, we have to expect there to be an expansion of voice and computer vision that recognise faces, gestures and behaviour throughout several industries to limit the amount of physical contact. However, even more so, we must ensure we have sufficient enforceable digital policies and legislation to police this.

Increased Reliance on Robots - Robots aren't susceptible to viruses. Whether they are used to deliver groceries or to take vitals in a healthcare system or to keep a factory running, companies realise how robots could support us today and play an important role in a post-COVID-19 world or during a future pandemic.

MJ’s perspective: NZ is way behind our global counterparts, so this is an exciting opportunity to accelerate the development of these robotic technologies whether that's software or hardware and move beyond trials/proof of concepts to production instances.

In the example of processing or manufacturing, I have seen examples first hand from Box in Australia and Amazon in the USA whereby through the use of robots, manufacturing can be completed completely in the dark - imagine the impact on manufacturing power bills alone alongside the ability to genuinely produce products 24 hours a day.

Gerd Leonhard - Global Futurist and commentator

Healthcare - no#1 Priority - Healthcare will once again become a public matter and responsibility, and the spread of privatised healthcare will be reversed. 

Investments in healthcare, particularly in biotechnologies will skyrocket. 

Millions of new jobs will result. Complex ethical challenges will continue to evolve and emerge, related to ‘big data’, tracking & surveillance, AI/IA and genome editing.

MJ’s perspective: There are so many small boutique “health and health tech businesses + consultants” with complimentary ideas but also underlying commercial agendas that I can only feel that operating as a collective would not only provide more focussed and productive use of capital but also deliver more measurable and immediate impact but the importance of success here is establishing ego-free public / private boundaries. The reality is today on the ground - local While touting “better patient outcomes”, the reality is DHB’s do NOT WANT more patients. Testing for more health issues i.e. identifying more patients is in direct conflict with their desire, so what is their real motivation to actually deliver this unless it's mandated.

Impact on Travel - New global travel rules will include the medical vetting of long-distance travellers and the enforcement of carbon taxes. 

A belief that we will see the requirement of international arrivals that do not have a permanent kiwi address to track their movements via a digital solution for a minimum period of 2 weeks - to enable local authorities to contact them immediately if there is an issue.

Global businesses will move many of their upcoming meetings, events and conferences to increasingly sophisticated virtual platforms (including Augmented & Virtual Reality and even holograms).

MJ’s perspective: While I love our ‘open to all’ attitude - I'm going to channel my inner Winston Peters and say we have to protect NZ’ers and our residents first - so naturally supportive of tougher arrival laws and longer-term border restrictions post the level 4 lockdown.

I do however also believe that the solutions do not need to be developer from scratch, a number of h&s/tracking/wellbeing already exist in the likes of kiwi (but ASX listed) company Vault - Solo that could literally be rolled out overnight to existing mobile devices and smart watches.

Regarding global conferences going virtual - this is awesome news for kiwis! By moving virtual we will have more ready access for a larger group to the biggest technology releases at the same time as the rest of the world on mass. Typically a trip to the US for a week could cost upwards of $10K kiwi, but digital means that cost alone will ensure we are able to upskill on a scale never seen before.

On the other hand, this also provides an opportunity for kiwi businesses to showcase their 'wears' on the global stage for a significantly reduced cost when compared to landing dedicated teams or even signing local distribution partnerships.