DW: That’s such a huge part of digital transformation, understanding and getting your data right and the power that comes from that. If you’ve got accurate data, it enables so many more decisions to be made and quickly.
In our business we can now understand every single project, the profitability or sometimes loss right down to the penny in terms of people’s time. I know exactly how profitable every single member of my team is and that’s been a huge part of our ability to grow.
JK: The one thing I would say is that for us it’s been a journey. We got on the ladder a year ago to improve our digital processes but it changes weekly and the way we’re developing all the time is based on what our clients are telling us.
How do investments in innovation, technology and data support the bottom line?
AD: There are tiers to digital strategy and the return on investment you can get from it.
Tier one is that productivity and efficiency piece and it is the starting point for most of us. How do we do it better, quicker, cheaper, faster, better quality, so on and so forth? And there’s absolutely no silver bullet.
The next level is innovation and intellectual property. How do I develop value for my business and that’s your intellectual property development that digital transformation is absolutely fundamental to. The IP on your balance sheet is often overlooked. Digital transformation delivers that.
Then the top tier for me is how we make our business a better place to work. We deliver learning, so we want the best teachers in everything.
DW: So it’s not just about creating the efficiencies but about adding the value to the business. That IP within the business does add value and it’s a conversation we have regularly.
JK: There is a business in the area that looks at how happy its staff are, what its team is doing and they work out a percentage point based on monthly data that’s inputted and added live to their website, which is pretty impressive.
ST: People forget the value of data. They don’t see from a digital transformation perspective that actually some of that data they’re collecting, or can create, is actually the value of the company, not what they’re delivering as a service.
LR: In a lot of organisations data is very siloed, especially if they have been through acquisitions or are large businesses. So there needs to be focus on getting a central view of that data initially.
Then businesses can look to move towards more data informed decisions such as have they got products that are not being used or at end of life and they need to retire and replace.
You’ve got to focus on the outcomes because that’s what’s driving the value. At UCLan, our focus at is on students, providing them a really great experience, setting them up in life so that they can succeed.
So we always come back to that as our key focus because that also brings in our revenue and allows us to continue to operate.
If students are dropping out or struggling, how do we identify who those students are, what channels do they have to then engage, re-engage with us and get the support that they need.
It comes back to what data do we have and how can we use it and move from a reactive model to a more proactive one.
We’ve recently released a new student support software solution to try and make sure they’re getting that support and they can access that 24/7, so they don’t have to wait for a person to be available. The support is there using the data.
What role does AI have in making businesses more efficient and profitable?
DW: We’ve all spoken about some great examples of digital transformation but we’re all going to have to go through it again because AI is throwing another element into it. You can’t get away from AI. It is going to change the world.
It’s the internet all over again for me with the speed and the advancement being made. ChatGPT got it into the media but people have been working on AI for a long time
It’s taking the data and learning from it and using machine learning which is another key term.
ST: When we’re talking about an AI business strategy and the digital transformation, you now need to get legal involvement. So just be wary. It’s not this brand new world that exists. It’s
regurgitating content that’s already out there that may have copyright attached.
Dk: I was speaking to a company that had to go through about several thousand pdf documents of client records to find a certain piece of information. It would’ve taken a human probably a year.
They managed to write a piece of code using some AI software that checked through the records and they’d got the final piece of work done in two weeks, and that’s the kind of levels we are at now.
LR: I don’t think anyone’s in doubt there are huge opportunities for AI to benefit businesses in various different ways and at the moment we haven’t thought of all of those ways.
We should be experimenting and not be afraid to try things out and learn from it and see and understand how within our own business context AI can benefit us.
You can’t get away
from AI. It is going to change the world
But make sure you’ve got the governance in place that wraps around it all, and that’s the key thing. Part of the work in digital transformation is, especially if we’re talking about data and where that data is, have we got that governance in place.?
OC: I’m fully behind AI as long as we, the human species, remain in control.
JK: I feel like it makes good people more valuable. If we use it in the right way and are in control, it doesn’t replace, it enhances what a person can do.
CB: It can churn through our data quickly and probably be more consistent and a lot of what accountants do isn’t just number crunching, it’s problem solving. It will upskill people very quickly.
DW: For me it feels like for the service sector specifically it’s the next industrial revolution, where we replace some of the monotonous tasks with machines.
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