30 DEBATE
Dave Walker
Lottie Robson The pitfall is the
danger of over-reliance. AI isn’t 100 percent
Oli Clarke
accurate, it will get it wrong sometimes
Jacob Knowles
Dan Knowles
Chris Brown Continued from page 29
JK: We’ve got some main drivers for digital transformation. One is capacity. We are a small team but because of the digital software that we have in place now, we’re managing 3,000-4,000 sites across the UK for their print. Our team in Darwen wouldn’t be able to do that without it.
The second one is service, being able to offer automation to our clients, things like return on investment reporting which is probably the biggest driver for a lot of our clients.
Traditional print is seen as not as easy to report on in comparison to digital, but it can be if you do it in the right way. As people have said, it is about business value.
CB: The key part of it is becoming more efficient so we can add more value and it’s looking at the whole business model, not just certain aspects.
We see it first and foremost from a finance function then it is connecting the other parts of the business with digital systems and how we can integrate all that to make it more efficient.
It is not just about the tech, it is how the people work with the tech. There are some things you can’t digitise but it is about how you can automate manual processes as much as possible to create more value in the business and free up more people’s time.
It is an ongoing process because tech is expanding and evolving so it has to be embedded in the culture and a top down approach.
We see a lot of businesses that want to do it because they can see the benefits but it’s the
Andrew Dewhurst
whole pain of going through the transformation, whether it’s training costs or whatever, so that sometimes holds people back.
DW: We’re a digital agency and cover all the usual marketing services. But we have a technology side where we create bespoke software for businesses. We’re currently developing our own technology in the ILT (instructor led training) sector.
For a large portion of our clients the software solution we’ve developed is cost free. That’s not that we don’t charge - we create efficiencies and that means they’ve got buy-back in terms of time saved, people being moved into more efficient uses.
One of the first things we look at is what people are typing into their systems, what are they printing. We’ve created an electronic digital interface. We’ve streamlined the ordering system for clients which previously would have seen orders emailed or, believe it or not, faxed, then printed out and handed to a person in another department to enter into the system.
Now things are ordered through a website, it goes straight through the automated system and the fastest we’ve seen something ordered, picked and packed is about two minutes.
The efficiencies in terms of reducing human errors are huge.
OC: We’ve had different variations of new company systems and different levels of success. Sometimes it works really well, you streamline and you make savings. Sometimes it just pushes a problem somewhere else and that’s where it goes wrong. In my experience, if you just do one thing in isolation it never
Stewart Townsend works very well.
DK: One of the things that we’re constantly talking to businesses about in Lancashire, especially at the moment, is access to innovation funding and that’s a direct impact on the bottom line.
There’s never been such opportunity for SMEs to access Innovate UK style funding to support the development of innovation in tech in businesses. If you are working on innovative products, services or processes in your business then you have the opportunity to go out and get money potentially to support those projects.
ST: There is a fear aspect and also with digital transformation people look at it as a ‘buzzword bingo’ and AI and technology and stuff. There needs to be rationale behind what you’re doing and you need to ask ‘what’s the output?’
CB: We go into businesses and often think we’ve got to do so much, it’s big stuff but actually, just get the simple stuff sorted first. We see this particularly with the finance function because obviously that does support the bottom line.
We’ll put in cloud software or a suite of apps but it’s not about putting it in for the sake of it or to be more efficient. It is about how we can start to interrogate the data much better.
Overall the bottom line looks great but when you start looking at the data, it can be a different picture. It’s not just the accuracy of the data but how quickly you can get it to make decisions.
If you can create a picture of what’s going on in the business quickly then you can react a lot faster to what’s going on.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
