The need to better understand incoming generations at work and how to adapt to them is becoming an issue as important to organisational sustainability, or perhaps more so, than being able to adopt the latest technology. We spoke to David Ambler about his experience of the observable trends associated with a younger generation and where many of the new staff will have grown up in completely different world to current business leaders. Ambler will be one of the speakers at the ITWeb Digital Economy Summit 2017 on 7 and 8 November, at the Focus Rooms, Sunninghill.
ITWeb Events: Can you tell us a little bit more about your role at PwC and how digital disruption has changed the way that business is done?
Ambler: My role at PwC is to work with the leaders of various teams within our people and organisation practice to change how we do business. That includes both how our people work as well as what work they do for our clients. Harnessing the various digital elements that are transforming and disrupting our everyday lives is central to us delivering on our purpose of building trust in society and solving important problems.
ITWeb Events: You have played an influential role in SA in the digital space - what would you say are your three lessons learnt as you have taken this journey?
Ambler: My experience of innovation and digital within a corporate context has taught me the following lessons:
Innovation isn't only about ideas. This isn't a new lesson, but I think one you have to learn by experience. Coming up with amazingly clever ideas can be difficult, but this is not innovation. For me, innovation is the long, hard work of taking an idea through a validation and build process to a conclusive end - either success, pivot or failure.
Innovation definitely has a less glamorous side. With how complex our world and society is becoming, there are a lot of "boring" aspects one needs to consider when doing almost anything new in the digital space. Challenges such as data sovereignty and security are topics you won't hear many entrepreneurs speaking of fondly in their success stories, but they are fundamentals that, left unattended, can definitely contribute to failure.
Leadership is essential. Given the nature of innovation and digital disruption, having leadership that "gets it" is fundamental to success. If that's not in place, any idea or market potential will be incredibly difficult to realise.
ITWeb Events: What role is PwC playing in South Africa's digital transformation? Is your role focused on PwC's transformation, that of your clients or both? And what would you say are the key questions you get asked when putting forward your ideas to the board and/or clients?
Ambler: As PwC, we're committed to driving digital transformation of our business and our people. This is sometimes a painful process for us, but in order to continue to deliver value to our clients and our people, we understand that it's crucial to keep pace with the changes. Our global collaboration agreement with Google and moving onto the Google platform internally are just some of the initiatives we're taking.
My role considers both internal and client-facing transformation needs. On the one hand, I'm leading the development of some new products and service offerings we're taking to market within our people and organisation practice, and on the other hand I'm focused on helping those same teams do what they have been doing in a smarter, more digitally equipped way. These sorts of changes will improve our people's experience within the firm and our clients' experience of the firm.
I think the fundamental challenge regarding digital transformation and products that's top of mind for our internal sponsors and clients is value (most of the time, monetary value). The challenge then becomes being able to convert and articulate what are sometimes "softer" benefits into financial ones in order to find closure.
ITWeb Events: What were the biggest challenges or trends you have experienced in your digital journey when it comes to the workforce?
Ambler: As humans, we're generally averse to change that we haven't initiated, so keeping a workforce engaged and aware of the changes taking place, as well as the reasons for them, is difficult, but critical.
Perhaps an obvious observation, but the degree to which staff are willing to accept and adopt major digital changes is often directly related to their personal technological capability and adaptability, so another challenge is trying to find those individuals and co-opt them into the journey to help others.
ITWeb Events: Who drives/who should drive the transformation process in an organisation?
Ambler: Successful organisational transformation needs the genuine buy-in and support of the CEO (or equivalent) to champion the overall vision and take the necessary difficult decisions when they arise. As to who leads the actual process, though, I think it needs to be someone who has the budget allocation and the right channel to overall organisational leadership. This could be another executive or someone reporting directly to them.
ITWeb Events: Why did you say yes to presenting at the upcoming Digital Economy Summit? What is it that you bring to the table and what do you want attendees to take away with them after your presentation?
Ambler: The 2017 summit is covering some great and very relevant topics to how business is changing today. We wanted to be a part of helping organisations navigate that change through sharing thoughts on some of the opportunities as well as how we're thinking about them ourselves. It goes without saying, that attending to hear how others are handling digital disruption is a key takeaway as well.
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