Day two at the Gartner Symposium

Another full-on day, with multiple sessions all centred around the key topics, sustainable IT, economy, workforce, leadership, and cybersecurity. These key topics were re-enforced at a session which talked about the “CEO concerns 2022-2023” and I guess not a surprise, growth was still a CEO’s number one priority, followed by workforce (the talent crisis); but the concerns around the impact of inflation were off the chart.

What was a surprise was the usual “productivity and efficiency” had fallen off the concerns and priorities list and I certainly don’t think it was as a result of any CEO being happy that their organisation had achieved optimum performance in both areas. I have a strong suspicion that the focus on productivity and efficiency, powered by digital technology, will make a swift return especially if the current economic challenges continue over the next two years.

Working predominately in the Public Sector it’s already clear, particularly in Government (& Education), that difficult choices will have to be made to balance the books. Unfortunately, Healthcare, while likely to be protected in my opinion, will also have similar challenges. I do believe some of the answer is to replicate what happened in the last crisis, the Pandemic. I think it’s likely the economic crisis will generate another acceleration in digital transformation, and I predict another busy two years ahead for CxO colleagues responsible for digital and technology. But why does it need a crisis for us to act?

Exploitation of digital! I don’t believe we are anywhere near realising the full potential and as such, focusing on the “right” digital capabilities is what will be important over the next 2-3 years. The “Next Generation, Digital Government” is what Gartner predicts will be the next thing.

During the day, I had a chance to look into their predictions and what was going on in Healthcare. This session was very much focused on the “heroes” who we all rely on day in, day out, aka, everyone working on the front line. The key theme was around “empathy” and I found it really interesting that there seems to be a real push on “employee experience” as well as “patient experience” in Healthcare. I also picked up two new words, “digital sensitivity” and “empathetic digital”, I didn’t know digital could be empathetic! My sense of it all was simple in the end, the “heroes” continue to be under immense pressure, so let’s leverage digital capabilities which support them and make their lives easier. It reminded me of our own guiding principles at Delt, “The customer will be at the heart of everything we do”, which of course it should be. I got a sense that maybe this hasn’t been the case and maybe technology folk have forgotten about their purpose? Or maybe not?

?In summary, my top takeaways for day 2 [with my own interpretation and opinions]:

1. The economic concerns will continue to be a top Board concern and CEO’s will re-prioritise investments into digital capabilities which will drive incremental productivity and efficiency. In my opinion, choose carefully and learn from others who have succeeded and failed.
2. Don’t spend lots of time on producing a 50+ page IT strategy which will be out of date before you have finished it. Additionally don’t fixate on just the ‘plan’ as, in the current climate, your plans are likely to change. I found the following quote on this subject resonated best “no battle plan ever survives the first encounter with the enemy” often attributed to Colin Powell. In Gartner’s view, over 50% of organisations don’t fail as a result of bad planning but fail on an inability to execute. Yet more time and focus seems to be spent on the planning phase, rather than the execution phase. My posts from day one at the Symposium provides some helpful tips [I hope!].
3. Sustainable IT, Sustainable IT, Sustainable IT – what more can I say – look at Environmental, Social and Government scores.
4. Cybersecurity was again a key theme over day 2 and continues to be a big concern for the Board. This isn’t surprising given the level of threat that continues to grow and becomes more sophisticated.
5. Empathy popped up throughout the day from leadership and talent retention, right through to the Healthcare session. I feel I am an empathetic leader and certainly try my best when talking to customers around problems but I did learn a few compelling things. It was crystal clear that empathy was an important element of a customer centric culture. A few months ago, we had someone from a GP Surgery (we support the IT for many Devon GP practices, commissioned by NHS Devon ICB) come and talk to our staff. We didn’t have a material problem, it was driven by a thirst to do better. It was a really powerful session, hearing about the “day in a life” of a practice and the pressures on staff when things go wrong with IT. Knowing your customer and being able to understand the WHY with genuine empathy is crucial if you want to achieve high levels of satisfaction. We have a CIO from a Mental Health Trust presenting this month to do the same. If you haven’t done this before, I would strongly advise that you invite your customer in to talk about “Moments of Truth”, it will be hard to hear I suspect, but very worthwhile.

Today I’ll be taking a look at the digital opportunities in Education, another area of focus for us as we continue to support our Education customers.?