The Digital Talent Challenge in Manufacturing 4.0

Management Events Aurora network Tech Talk 11. September 2024.

Interview between the host Jeroen Baardemans and the guest Pete Nieminen

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Understanding the Talent Gap:

• "Pete, can you describe the specific digital talent challenges Kempower faced as you embarked on your digital transformation journey?"

Kempower journey has been very interesting from the start. We parted from 50 years old parent company, but started as a small-town technology manufacturing start-up, soon coming to unicorn and growth rocket. At the start, our challenges were getting enough talented people as fast as we could, but soon we realized that the culture was even more important than the tight-fit right talent. Being a small company at a small town, we had challenges of finding the right people for cyber, cloud and project management.

• "How critical is the cybersecurity talent gap in the context of Manufacturing 4.0, and what are the immediate risks if it's not addressed?"

It is more critical than before. OT and IT gap is closing and many of the industrial equipment are now closer to IT than OT. We have more realized threat vectors due the geopolitical situation; we have more industrial espionage and more digital information (and twins) than ever before. On top of the threats, the manufacturing business is not the most interesting working environment for the cyber professionals.?

Strategic Approaches:

• "What strategies has Kempower implemented to bridge the cyber talent gap, and how have these strategies evolved over time?"

We started by creating our own very agile governance model for the IT two years ago. After that, we either recruited our cyber people or started training them. Very soon we started to build our own Information Security Management System (ISMS), we got PCI certified, NIS2 compliant and now actually today going for the global ISO27K. At the same time, we build our partner and technology ecosystem to match our business and working requirements.

• "Can you share some successful methods or initiatives that have helped in attracting and retaining top digital talent in your organization?"

Top talent is the one capable of learning and the one suite you culture. Focusing that has been our greatest success. Everything else you can build afterwards. Most of the best cyber experts?in the world are self-learned, utilizing people with the right motivation and background, adding todays training possibilities and encouraging people gets great results and very fast.

Technological Solutions:

• "In your experience, how can technology itself help mitigate the talent gap in the manufacturing sector?"

It really cannot. Technology is always just the tool. When we are talking about the cyber, people are both the strength and the weakness. Good technology mitigates the risks, minimizes the impact and raises the awareness, nothing really substitutes the personal and industry specific experience.

• "Are there specific technologies or tools that have been particularly effective in closing the skills gap at Kempower?"

Yes, there is one specific one. Since Kempower is world-leading EV-charging manufacturer, we need to focus on our business and our own expertise. Utilizing public cloud as our platform for data and IT, we can rely on multi-billion investments what our solution providers invest on cyber. It seems that cloud-native solutions is comparable to old supercomputers, too complex and difficult to everyday average hackers to be interested on, since there are a lot easier targets to aim for.

Leadership and Management:

• "What role should C-suite executives play in addressing the digital talent shortage, and how can they lead by example?"

As mentioned before, I believe biggest impact comes from company culture. For me,? transparency on leadership, creating new possibilities and continuous rewarding for small achievements are everything. Creating motivation, listening people and really caring creates an example to follow. One consistent challenge seems to be the communications, it is never the right kind or frequent enough. That is one of the key leading aspects to focus on.

• "How do you keep your management team updated and adaptive to the rapid technological developments in the industry?"

Of course, they are naturally interested on the topic as also our board is. We have a portal for learning, internal courses, very informative intranet and now we are starting an internal monthly IT-newsletter. On top of these, we have management meetings about the key topics and other forums to share information at.

Organizational Change:

• "What are some of the key challenges you've encountered while leading teams through digital transformation, and how did you overcome them?"

Our key challenge is the constant change and huge amount of change and demand requests coming on daily basis. There could be more than 20 projects for each people to run at the same time. There is just not enough time to manage them all.

Building an agile governance model of our own which scales, both up and down has been one of the solutions. Doing our governance work from bottom to top, basically creating only the processes really required has been very efficient. Having a clear roadmap from the start has been guiding our way and helping us to focus.

• "Can you discuss a particular instance where utilizing a technological roadmap significantly impacted your team’s growth and operational efficiency?"

As mentioned above, our roadmap has been guiding our way from the start and still is. It is also open to all employees, helping them to understand what is going on and when they can expect the results and solutions they are looking for. It also helps us to plan resources, understand the mutual dependencies and maintain our focus on architecture. It is also a very simple way of understanding the requirements for resourcing and budget.?

Future Outlook:

• "Looking ahead, what are the most critical skills that manufacturing leaders should focus on developing within their teams?"

Seems quite clear that is the data and AI. Of course, cyber and cloud will never lose their importance, but personally, I feel that understanding the value of data in business is still very undervalued and should be utilized better. I even see the glimpse of return of the CDO role in the near future.

• "How do you foresee the digital talent landscape evolving in the next five years, and what proactive steps should companies take now?"

Cannot really say. We are living on very strange times what comes to technology, business and global economics. Maybe focus on culture, not always the top talent?

Of course, the requirements of cloud and cyber are not going anywhere, roles for development work are changing and understanding of business requirements is important as ever.?

Case Study Insights:

• "Can you walk us through the case study of Kempower’s internal talent development, highlighting key takeaways for other manufacturing leaders?"

This is very people operations focused process and not that much on the average CIO’s table. I think CIO should focus more on the governance and leadership, not just pure talent development. Cross-function co-operation is crucial, but there should be dedicated experts for key requirements.

• "What metrics or indicators do you use to measure the success of your talent strategies and digital transformation initiatives?"

Many kinds of business metrics, market information, project KPI’s, leading thru OKR’s, continuous partner feedback, eNPS, different kinds of financial targets, personal targets, so basically the indicators most suitable for the case.

Audience Engagement:

• "How can manufacturing leaders collaborate across departments to ensure a holistic approach to digital transformation and talent management?"

Networking is the key and there are many forms of it very widely available. Management Events is a good example, there are both commercial and free interest groups and forums around the world. As one example, I am chairman of the ICT Leaders Finland, where we have more than 200 CIO-members focusing networking and sharing knowledge. There are several great events globally available. If there nothing else, there is also LinkedIn.

Three best takeaways

1. Remember to focus on the culture, not only on the skills
2. If you cannot hire the needed skills, build them together with your team
3. Keep the working environment interesting and motivation high, by allowing freedom and trusting people to do what they do the best