Digitalization and innovation needed? That will not work without training our people

WHAT are we supposed to be involved in these days? Digitalization and innovation? To get there, we are asking ourselves how we can improve planning, forecasting, budgeting, run simulations, run plans and analytics in a very visual and intuitive manner. What tools are available? Are we making those tools available to the organization? And more importantly: are we training our important asset, our people, adequately?

Companies are already familiar with many tools supporting “work from anywhere,” such as videoconferencing, productivity bundles and file sharing tools. They helped support operations for companies the world over.

But there are tools missing from the tech stack that could help companies make hybrid work sustainable long term.

Gaps in company’s technology tool set include:

Virtual collaboration: These tools emulate the physical elements that helped co-located workers brainstorm or visually collaborate on problems. Think whiteboards, sticky notes or flip charts.

Virtual office: While chat apps denote when a worker is available, organizations lack serendipitous hallway encounters or unstructured meetings. Some solutions rehash the office experience through VR (virtual reality) or AR (augmented reality) technology. This is really something to look at!

Virtual events: As the possibility of in-person events, tools designed for recreating the event experience allows businesses to hold training and other kinds of events, the production quality of those kinds of activities really matters.

Adoption of these tool sets adds new tasks to the IT support team, which spent the past year dealing with a combination of increased stress on networks, a shift to digital wherever possible and procuring hardware to keep businesses running.

Let’s be clear: Under pressure, IT workers brace for more complexity:

Eight in 10 technologists say their job became more complex during 2020, a consequence of quick innovation and a sprawling technology stack.

The increase in complexity took a toll on IT pros; 89 percent of technologists say they feel “immense” pressure at work. Upholding IT through a pandemic, 84 percent of technologists found difficulty switching off from work.

In 2021, after most organizations increased their reliance on digital platforms to operate, threequarters of technologists say IT became more complex as a result of their response to the pandemic.

Companies anticipate sustaining a hybrid work model long term and are turning to technologists for the tech stack that supports it, from remote conferencing software to expanded collaboration platforms.

But organizations couldn’t pause ongoing digital transformation. Leaders accelerated the timeline for major strategic transformation projects in 2020. Innovation initiatives that would typically have taken 21 months prior to the pandemic were delivered within seven months last year.

Managing the complexities of bigger, more intricate IT systems starts with having visibility across all components of the tech stack. Technologists say they lack strategies and tools to effectively measure how technology decisions impact business outcomes.

The CIO can serve as a bridge, helping provide business and technology context wherever necessary and informing business leaders as modernization advances. The executive holds a privileged position to steer change from a technical and managerial perspective.

Leaders should help their companies create a culture of change resilience that helps their organizations respond more adaptively to this continuously fluid state of change.

In conclusion: What do I want to achieve in companies through training?

I want that the following can be positively answered by management:

We can:

Monitor and manage business value drivers and simulate how key drivers impact financial outcomes;

Analyze performance variances and identify influencers that impact business outcomes;

Define, measure and optimize sales performance by line of business, product offerings, geographies and sales reps;

Reduce budgeting cycles and run quick re-forecasts by effectively capturing business/ market fluctuations; and

Perform demand and supply planning, inventory planning, procurement planning, work force planning and more.

If you can’t, technical training support is available.