FoW March

A NEW YOU How your AI double could help double up on the workload

THE PIRATE CODE Why shaking up the rules could reinvigorate your firm

CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT How the royal family’s favourite jeweller ended up with an all-female leadership team

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AWARD-WINNING BUSINESS JOURNALISM • MARCH 2019

A new deal for the future of work

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SPECIAL REPORT

The way we work is changing – for both employers and employees.

But will it be for the better?

INSIDE: Why letting your employees off the leash will make working life better for everyone | Page 5 DISTRIBUTED WITHIN THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY LYONSDOWN WHICH TAKES SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CONTENTS

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How technology can engage employees and boost the bottom line OPENING SHOTS JOANNE FREARSON

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EW TECHNOLOGY has been changing old working practices since business began. But although tech is more commonly applied to improve the customer experience or make services more efficient and workers more productive, could it also help when it comes to improving another common business drag-factor – that of limited employee engagement?

Disengaged workers cost a lot to companies. A study from Britain’s Healthiest Workplace in 2018 found loss of productivity is a growing issue in the workforce in the UK – on average, employees lost 35.6 days of productive time per year, compared with 23 days in 2014.

Over the years, technologies have been developed to help improve engagement for employees in different ways – enabling them, for example, to collaborate on projects and share files, run polls, chat and make

35.6 The number of days of productive time lost per employee per year in 2018, according to a Britain’s Healthiest Workplace study

NASA uses augmented reality technology to help employees run projects on the International Space Station

video calls in real time. Unsurprisingly, online collaboration tools have become pretty popular among organisations over the years. Most companies today use a engagment platform, such as Slack, Flock or Workplace by Facebook, to some degree to help their employees communicate more efficiently and improve productivity.

Online collaboration tools have yielded some impressive results. Consumer credit firm TotallyMoney’s employee turnover fell from 64 to 23 per cent since it started using Peakon, another engagement platform, three years ago. Meanwhile, US property manager Colliers-Wisconsin cut meetings

from 90 minutes to 30 by using automatic workflow processes.

Companies are also turning towards gamification software to train and reward staff, and keep them motivated while they are learning. Research last year by online learning platform TalentLMS found that 87 per cent of those surveyed said they were more productive, with 84 per cent saying they were more engaged and 82 per cent happier at work.

As technologies get more sophisticated, augmented and virtual reality devices are also starting to be used to help employees work together. NASA has been using

Microsoft’s augmented reality system HoloLens – which overlays the real world with digital content and displays using a VR headset – for a few years now, helping ground-based project managers collaborate with astronauts on the International Space Station, as well as planning for the next Mars Rover mission scheduled for 2020.

The construction industry has also picked up on the potential for AR, and has been using it to share design plans and architectural models of buildings and resolve issues in real time.

The good news for companies looking at ways to increase employee engagement is that it’s an obvious, and potentially inexpensive, way to improve the bottom line.

The Engaged Company Stock Index, which tracks the long-term results of organisations with high levels of customer, employee and community engagement, has found companies in this portfolio outperformed the S&P 500 by 37.1 percentage points since October 1, 2012.

So when organisations look at digital transformation as a whole, it might be a good idea to pay particular attention to technologies that can empower their own employees.

Find time to think: reach your extraordinary goals I

“Spend your time getting your goal right, and you’ll end up doing what matters most” – Jada Balster

F YOU had more time to think at work, would you be more productive? More than 70 per cent of UK knowledge workers say they would, according to Workfront’s State of Work report.

Importantly, this isn’t just about accomplishing more tasks. Taking time to think is also essential for smart goal setting.

Workfront CEO Alex Shootman recently published a book called Done Right: How Tomorrow’s Top Leaders Get Work Done, and in it, he introduces a process for reaching extraordinary goals that I found particularly useful. The process requires careful thought, but can help you push the limits of your abilities at work.

Alex writes about four kinds of goals: clear goals, stretch goals, extraordinary goals and pipe dreams.

Clear goals set the bar at the same level you’re working at today. You just maintain the status quo. Nothing changes. Stretch goals push you to do roughly 10 per cent more on each of your major initiatives.

Everything is the same – there’s just more of it. Extraordinary goals push you to do something completely different, to open

yourself up to the possibility of greatly accelerated growth by doing something new. Pipe dreams are goals that are so far beyond the scope of what’s possible that pursuing them could deflate your entire team.

The intention here is for you find the sweet spot between a stretch goal and a pipe dream. If you choose a pipe dream, no one will believe success is possible so they won’t even try. If you choose a stretch goal, you might reach your goal, but you won’t stand out in a crowded and competitive marketplace. That’s why the best option is to aim for the extraordinary goal.

Of course, finding the right extraordinary goal requires time to think. You can’t invent a completely new way of doing work if you’re consumed by tasks day in and day out. You have to reflect on an individual level and deliberate as a team.

Here are some questions that I’ve found useful to ask to find your extraordinary goal: • W hat is our unique advantage in the marketplace? Is there a way for us to dramatically increase that advantage?

• W hat is the main problem we’re trying to solve? Is there a completely new way of approaching it?

• W hat actions are we taking just because it’s what everyone else is doing? Do we really need to do business that way, or are we just on autopilot?

The trick is to take the time and effort necessary to deeply analyse your business practices, asking yourself again and again whether you’re caught in a loop of achieving clear goals or whether you’re actually

making enormous strides toward real business success.

So before you rattle off next year’s KPIs, carve out time for your team to think. Spend your time getting your goal right, and you’ll end up doing what matters most instead of doing tasks that may or may not add up to what you actually need to achieve.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Jada Balster (inset, left) is vice president, marketing at Workfront @jadabalster www.workfront.com

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Lightening the workload with a new you What if you had a digital assistant just like you that could help you make decisions on projects?

Futurist Sophie Hackford spoke at the Adobe Sign event about how we might end up working with AI replicas of ourselves…

JOANNE FREARSON

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OPHIE HACKFORD, futurologist and co-founder of data and AI firm 1715 Lab, was asked to speak at a conference last year – but was then told she was going to be replaced by a robot.

“I got this email last year,” explains Hackford. “It essentially said, hi Sophie, we were very excited getting you to speak on stage but we decided to get Sophia, the robot, to speak instead, so I can’t pay your fee. Thanks very much, goodbye.”

Hackford wasn’t overly disappointed at being rejected in favour of an android replacement, however. “I was quite interested in how it made me feel. Of course the question about jobs will probably be one the most popular questions [about the role of AI in] work over the next few years,” she says. “It might be a little counterintuitive because I realised my exact job was being taken by a robot – a robot that shares my name.”

It is a question Hackford gets asked a lot, she reveals. And answering it, she believes that, while certain employment categories will be under threat from new technologies, what people should really be focusing on is upskilling.

She sees the world of work changing drastically, and believes avatars such as her own will increasingly be used in the workplace. AI companies such as Soul Machines, she points out, are already using technology to come up with digital versions of us. She thinks that, in the future, these c hatbots w ill be sent into

negotiations to make choices and decisions on our behalf.

“Our thoughts are being processed as much by computers as they are our own cortex,” she says. “It forces us to ask, what is intelligence? Do we have the monopoly on it? Do we mind if we share that with something else? Where is that blurring happening between human beings and machines?

“A lot of the intellectual, decision-making tasks are going to be outsourced to avatars or digital ambassador versions of us,” predicts Hackford, pointing out that human behaviour, as modelled by algorithms, is already happening and is becoming increasingly accurate. “Avatars will be used at work. I will ask my digital avatar to collaborate with yours in a particular project.

There is a MIT project called Borrowers Identity, [where] you can borrow the identity of someone super-smart like Einstein to solve a particular problem on your behalf.”

Hackford thinks that the future could hold the possibility of fully autonomous companies, run by algorithms, which people can buy skills and services from. There are big questions as to what this could actually mean, however. “If you are a director of a company you have rights like freedom of speech,” she says. “Will we give those same rights to the algorithms that run those companies?”

She also suggests that avatars could help out in other ways – heads of states or CEOs, for example, could use them in succession planning to Sophie help the next person along with the

Hackford

MARCH 2019 Publisher Bradley Scheffer Editor Joanne Frearson Production editor Dan Geary Head of production Maida Goodman

Sales director Paul Aitken Project managers Adam Robins, Thomas English, Jack Layton, James Robinson

“A lot of the intellectual, decision-making tasks are going to be outsourced to avatars, or digital ambassador versions of us” – Sophie Hackford role. “This is a really interesting concept we need to think about quite deeply,” she says.

Satellites are another area that could be affected – satellite data is already being used to predict areas such as consumer confidence. For example, she explains, satellite imagery from the car parks of US department store JCPenney predicted the retailer was going to close stores after data showed a fall in cars visiting branches.

“Everything can be monitored from space,” says Hackford – who previously worked for Singularity University at the NASA research park in Silicon Valley. “The question of course becomes, what do you want to know? What do you want to know about your customers? What do you want to know about your staff? What do you want to know about your colleagues?

Certainly, what do you want to know about your competitors? These sensors are giving us incredibly interesting new powers to manage risk, not just from space but lots of different places.”

Hackford believes these are technologies that could completely transform our lives in the near future – one in which versions of ourselves won’t just help out in the workplace, but contribute to many different aspects of our lives.

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Digital sustainability: the leadership challenge T

HE ACCELERATION of disruptive technologies has put organisations on a continuous transformational journey, one where both the pace and breadth of change are unprecedented.

There has always been change, but until now it has been evolutionary, allowing organisations and workers time to adapt to new conditions so that the status quo was not materially threatened. Today, the rate of change and scope of innovation are fuelling disruption in a revolutionary way. For example, 25 years ago, it took time for organisations to adopt the offshoring of IT, even though it was recognised as a highly cost-effective strategy. Eventually the draw of operational savings, a readily available, low-cost/educated workforce, and increasing quality standards meant offshoring couldn’t be ignored. Companies such as Infosys, Wipro, and TechMahindra grew rapidly to become formidable offshore providers of various services.

Today, such “lift-and-shift” companies are offering a new form of service that generates even greater value for their customers: digital transformation. By leveraging the rapid growth and advances in such critical areas as telecommunications, RPA, AI, big data, design thinking and no-code/low-code apps development, these companies are offering operational savings at another level while offering top-line competitive edge.

Through a contemporary lens, the idea that outsourcing was once viewed as such an existential change now seems quaint. Global spending on the technologies and services that enable digital transformation is expected to hit $1.97trillion by 2022, according to IT market intelligence firm International Data Corp. But at the same time, data from PMI

“One way to get ahead of digital disruption is to encourage it” – Sunil Prashara, PMI

and Forbes Insights’ The C-Suite Outlook show that, while nearly 80 per cent of organisations have undergone a significant transformation using disruptive technology, only about 25 per cent of those initiatives are yielding the tangible benefits against their original goals.

This figure around benefits is too low. Yet no leader can allow him or herself to be oblivious to digital disruption. To achieve digital sustainability – the capacity to adapt to and benefit from the change brought by advances in technology – leaders must continuously future-proof their organisations.

Gartner predicts that by 2020, at least 50 per cent of all new business applications will be created with high-productivity toolsets, such as low-code and no-code application development platforms. This is just one example of disruption. Indeed, leaders are realising that even disruptors themselves are being disrupted – either they adopt and adapt, or they will be marginalised.

One way to get ahead of disruption is to encourage it. A CEO at a major telecoms company carved out and funded “innovation cells” with the goal of “inventing propositions to disrupt core services.” While funding such initiatives seemed counterintuitive, the CEO viewed it as one way to future-proof his company. If the innovators came up with a viable proposition, he could morph the company accordingly. If not, he could proceed with some degree of confidence that the current business model was sustainable.

For all the anxiety generated by talk of digital disruption and what it means for the workforce, there is no question jobs will be created. But the types of jobs will be different, as will the required skill-sets. And those skills

aren’t as technology oriented as one might think. The people who will come to the forefront are creative. They understand business processes, are technically savvy but also understand customers’ needs, are strong in relationship building while being analytical and challenging – in other words, they are pragmatic problem-solvers.

Companies will continue to value the ability to execute. But technological skill is now table stakes. Indeed, this shift is reflected in the PMI Talent Triangle®. The new professional reality demands a combination of technical and project management skills, leadership skills and strategic and business management skills, as well as the ability to learn and keep pace with technology.

To inspire stakeholders and motivate teams, leaders will not only need intellectual and technical prowess, but they must also tap into emotional intelligence qualities, such as empathy, self-awareness, and motivation.

Data from PMI’s The Project Manager of the Future revealed the top six digital-age skills, which included expected entries such as data science, security and privacy knowledge, legal and regulatory compliance, and the ability to make data-driven decisions. But that list is rounded out by an innovative mindset and collaborative leadership.

As PMI noted in its recent report Pulse of the Profession: The Future of Work: Leading the Way with PMTQ, the essentials of project success remain the same: engaged executive sponsors, projects aligned to organisational strategy, and control over scope-creep. What will continue to evolve are the skillsets that enable these project and execution essentials.

To increase their chance of achieving digital sustainability, organisations are changing

their decision-making bodies to be more technology focused. That does not contradict the notion that the skills needed are not technology oriented; rather, it recognises that the appropriate technological knowledge and insight are critical. As a result, organisations are increasingly creating and hiring for chief digital transformation officers and data scientists, for example, to boost the skills of the legacy employee base that may not have the knowledge and context necessary to navigate digital transformation.

Accenture found that while 60 per cent of business leaders had increased AI investments in 2017, only 3 per cent said they would invest significantly in training and reskilling programmes through 2020. Frankly, this number doesn’t surprise me. Companies essentially have three choices: invest in their current workforce – with no guarantee of a return on that investment; acquire the talent needed to get to the next level; or engage outsiders who have the expertise and insight to help employees and organisations achieve excellence. Forwardthinking companies are doing a combination of all three, as well as investing in the next generation of talent.

As digitisation, automation, AI and other technologies put organisations on the inexorable journey of transformation, companies must not lose sight of the fact that they must transform in a way that will be sustainable.

They must not be swept away by the force of transformation, but instead harness it.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Sunil Prashara (left) is president and CEO of the Project Management Institute.

For more information, please visit www.pmi.org/uk

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Why letting employees off the leash will make working better for everyone Harnessing the power of creativity is helping companies survive and thrive.

Joanne Frearson talks to Microsoft’s Sally Elliott to find out how…

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CREATIVE MINDSET in the workforce can help a company come up with new ideas and approaches and compete in a competitive market environment. But how does an organisation inspire its employees to come up with groundbreaking ideas that give it an edge?

“Creativity and our ability to problem-solve kind of diminishes as we get older,” says Sally Elliott, surface strategy lead at Microsoft.

“Somehow, as we go through the education system, it is almost kind of booted out of us. As we start to get into the workplace and into formal education, more processes come into play.”

It is important for employees to be able to regain that creativity, explains Elliot, as innovation and problem solving increasingly become core skills in the workplace.

A report by McKinsey has predicted that, by 2030, demand for higher cognitive skills such as creativity and critical thinking will have increased.

Technologies such AI will help improve employees’ creative functions, believes Elliot, as the data AI generates can be used to gain an insight into what is going on in their organisation. It can help firms understand why certain products are not working, or where to develop portfolios, and as AI can take up the slack performing more routine tasks, time is freed up for employees to work on other things.

“It really is going to open up numerous opportunities for people to think about how [they] can be more creative and problem solve,” she says.

Elliot believes having an AI strategy will soon be vital for companies – she points to research

by Microsoft which found that organisations already on that journey are outperforming

other organisations by 5 per cent in factors such as productivity, performance and business outcomes.

The environmental factor But technology is not the only thing that can make workers more creative – the workplace environment itself can also be a contributing factor. “Gone are the days where you come into a single office and sit at your desk from nine to five to do your job,” says Elliot. “It is much more about how you work with others, and how you collaborate.

“You need inspiring workplaces to be able to do that. It is not just making sure we have interesting meeting rooms – it is about making your whole workplace an inspiring place to be.”

She thinks restrictive workplace design that inhibits people from working in different ways stifles creativity. A study by Microsoft Surface showed that 41 per cent felt uninspiring workplaces were a major obstacle to creative working, while 34 per cent said a stressful atmosphere, and 28 per cent a lack of appropriate spaces, were also hindrances.

What do employees see as the main hindrances to a creative workspace?

41%

34%

28%

Uninspiring workplaces

A stressful atmosphere

lack of appropriate spaces

SOURCE: MICROSOFT

Out of the box Elliot does not favour cubicle-based working, where people can only get together in meeting rooms.

Although she thinks open plan has its place, it can also distract employees – if someone wants to come over and have a chat, it can be distracting for people working nearby.

“If you are going into your office every day and you sit in a row with a bunch of people and you put your headphones on, that is a bit of blocker,” she says.

The best way to create an office environment where employees

can be more creative and productive, Elliot believes, is through culture – and this should start from the top. She feels senior that leaders should be nurturing their staff to make them feel like they can take breaks when they need to, or get up and walk about and have a change of scenery or work flexibly.

“All of that again starts to foster creativity, and allows people to come up with ideas when it is more relevant to them,” she says.

“That is down to culture.”

Below: Microsoft’s Sally Elliot

Elliot uses her own diary as an example, where she has two hours on a Wednesday set aside for growth mindset thinking, where she can do her research or collaborate on social. It is important for employers to trust their employees to do that, she says. “It’s trusting in that process – giving people the flexibility to think differently.”

Ultimately, says Elliot, if staff members are too tired it is unlikely they will be able to work efficiently.

“It is just thinking about how you can help employees reduce stress,

providing them with times to reduce and rejuvenate,” she says.

“When you can do that, it frees up that employee [with] space to think creatively again.”

There are many benefits to having an office environment which fosters creative ways of working, Elliot concludes. It not only keeps employees more engaged, but also gives them the opportunity to develop and be more innovative, which will ultimately help any company gain a competitive edge.

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Terror on the high C-suite: how piratical thinking can shake up your business Joanne Frearson talks to author Sam Conniff Allende about tearing up the rules, buccaneer-style…

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AM CONNIFF Allende thinks everyone could learn a lot from pirates. When he talks about pirates, though, he sadly doesn’t mean the swashbuckling, peg-legged, parrot-perch variety, but the kind of person who challenges the status quo, and rewrites the rules.

So he’s written a book about how piratical ideas can help organisations, called Be More Pirate.

Unlike the bloodthirsty buccaneers of the Spanish Main, however, these modern-day pirates are not looking for gold to plunder.

Rather, what they want to do is rewrite rules for the greater good.

Voted FT business book of the month, Conniff Allende’s pirate manifesto defines this new-age hero as someone who dares to defy the rigid structures of society and business, and reinvent them accordingly. “Over centuries the benefits of a pirate state of mind have become apparent,” says Conniff Allende when Business Reporter pays a visit to his South London office. “It happens when social inequality rises. When there are abject market failures, when audience needs are not met. When economies stagnate, when society slows down. In these times, pirates come onto the horizon – they challenge the status quo, they challenge the rules, and they write new rules in doing so.”

According to Conniff Allende, when business models fail, people look to the edges, and more extreme ideas start to gain traction. At the moment, he says, the framework for business is stuck in the 20th century, by adopting this “pirate” state of mind employees can help organisational change to slowly begin to take place. “Modern mutiny is a new executive skill, and a fast track way of creating professional change,” he says.

The modern-day rebels Conniff Allende, who is also founder of youth-led creative network Livity, tells Business Reporter that bitcoin and blockchain are examples of this modern-day mutiny of organisational change.

“In bitcoin, you see an example of the kind of rebellion [through blockchain],” say Conniff Allende. “The promise of blockchain is inherently rebellious… [It is a] framework for doing things completely differently.”

Bitcoin is a decentralised digital currency system, where all transactions are recorded on

a blockchain and kept on a public distributed ledger. Nothing can be changed unless all computers on the network agree.

The rebellion of bitcoin can be seen on the first block of its blockchain, explains Conniff Allende. This contains the headline from a Times front page from January 2009 during the financial crash, that reads: “Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”.

He calls this bitcoin’s pirate flag and compares current attitudes to cryptocurrency to how people felt about pirates back in the 17th century.

They are asking the same questions about cryptocurrency: “Is it a threat? Is it dark and out to get us, or is it really exciting and promises immense and inordinate wealth?”

Although the jury is still out on cryptocurrencies themselves, the blockchain technology behind them has contributed to industry disruption in other areas. “The middle men, who have broken so many rules themselves, deserve to be removed,” says Conniff Allende. “[Blockchain] has already disrupted industry, and the chances are it is going to continue to disrupt industry. It is purposeful rebellion.”

Another modern-day pirate on Conniff Allende’s list is American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. “She is someone who has deliberately stayed at a tiny label, so effectively she could

“Modern mutiny is a new executive skill, and a fast-track way of creating professional change” – Sam Conniff Allende, author of Be More Pirate

be not just the figure head but really the boss,” he says. “Her business acumen is profound.

Look how many artists have been following in her footsteps – not just in the business sense, but from a marketing point of view, she has rewritten the game absolutely incredibly.”

Think like a pirate Be More Pirate: How To Take On The World And Win

by Sam Conniff Allende is out now

At Livity, he runs a pirate workshop, where participants are challenged to think like a pirate and challenge a rule they disagree with.

“One that frustrates you, one that aggravates you, one that you think there could be a better way of doing things,” he explains. “Mull on it and think of what you would prefer it to be.

Then break it every day for a while and feel how good it is.”

One executive decided to stop mid-term budgeting after this exercise, Conniff Allende points out. “The common thing, no matter the level or scale, is that the individual is empowered.

There’s something very accountable when you say, I’m not doing that anymore, I am doing this. It is not handed down to you by the bosses.

It is not in the rule book. It is your own rule.

Then it is up to you to make it a success.”

In fact, Conniff Allende reckons rule-breaking is as essential a skill to the 21st century workplace as digital skills were a few years ago.

“The rules are there and we all think we have to follow them,” he says. “We are all kind of wedded into this notion of the way things are, the way things have to be. Yet find out, test it, break a rule. What you usually find it is like paper walls – you can just push your finger through it.”

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Sign of the times “All organisations need to transform to compete and remain relevant” – Mark Greenaway

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IGITAL TRANSFORMATION is not only changing the way people work, but altering the competitive landscape for companies. And if firms don’t look to transform technologically, they risk being left behind. “There is a fundamental message here that all organisations – and this includes Adobe – need to transform to compete and remain relevant otherwise they will be disrupted,” Adobe’s Mark Greenaway tells Business Reporter at the Adobe Sign event in London.

Greenaway, who is director of emerging business at the creative software developer, points to a survey by Accenture, which found 63 per cent of organisations were experiencing disruption in their core markets. “It is not necessarily the other major organisations competing against them,” he says. “It is new entrants – more agile players and organisations that are perhaps more creative, or can come up with a digital-only offering.”

He sees technology as changing the way people work and reducing

errors in manual processes. One way Adobe has been doing this is through developing its digital signature platform, enabling businesses to get documents or contracts signed electronically instead of using traditional paper-based systems.

Greenaway points out one of Adobe’s clients, BT, has made huge savings of £630,000 per year by enabling its sales force to use Adobe Sign for its electronic signatures.

The change reduced average contract turnaround time by 99 per cent, from 28 days to just seven hours.

“They can have more productive conversations and reach more customers because those paper-based processes now happen electronically,” he says. “They have saved many BT Towers’ worth or paper in the process.”

He explains that sales staff at BT also no longer needed to travel to their customers to get papers signed, and that there was also a 98 per cent decrease in time spent creating, chasing and uploading contracts.

“It increases [sales] conversion rates and provides better customer

Business Reporter went to Adobe Sign in London to find out what developments at the software giant could spell for modern workplace disruption

experience,” he says. “The organisation saves time and cost, and improves the customer experience because there is no need to be chasing processes. The customer receives a better experience at the end of the day, because things happen in a more timely way.”

Greenaway also sees huge opportunities for companies to digitally transform their workplace through AI. For example, Adobe Sensei – Adobe’s new AI and machine learning engine – can learn to understand language and images, and can potentially pick up on the sentiment and nuance of text in documents to learn what clients want and improve customer experience.

According to Greenaway, companies that focus their digital transformation on improving the experience will have an advantage in the marketplace, and this is what future workforces should concentrate on. “Those that deliver a better experience will be more successful,” he says. “Experience will be the differentiator.”

Why the future of retail isn’t about online versus the high street, but innovation versus stagnation

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NDERSTANDING THE future of the high street is a major part of understanding the future of work in the UK. The retail sector supports nearly three million workers in the UK, and generates more than £90billion for the UK economy.

But it has been and will stay in flux for some time. The change to out-of-town shopping in the 1970s disrupted traditional high-street shopping. Online shopping was the next sea change. At each of these points, retailers have had to find new ways to work to make their businesses thrive.

The retail sector’s next disruptive moment is here. Amazon was launched 25 years ago. It is tremendously successful, but hegemony leads to laziness.

Conversely, disruptors lead to change.

They foster innovative thinking and new solutions to long-held problems.

The future of the retail sector is now about finding a way for online and high-street shopping to become interdependent, not in competition. The retail sector can no longer be online versus high street, or big versus small

business. It must only be about good business versus bad business. Good versus bad customer service. Innovative versus outdated.

Amazon no longer answers the question of what the future of work will be. It no longer innovates to offer the services that businesses and consumers want. It has rested on its laurels, and now other agile and creative disruptors are leading the way on what the future of work for retail looks like.

That is where OnBuy.com comes in. It is the disruptor that online and high street businesses need. It is the marketplace of the future.

OnBuy is not a retailer. It does not compete with sellers and is accessible for all. OnBuy’s selling fees are cheaper than Amazon, meaning sellers can price competitively and buyers can get the best deal.

This in itself has disrupted the marketplace sector. OnBuy already lists more than 10 million products from thousands of sellers, has a unique partnership with PayPal, and plans to expand to 140 countries. Purchases

on the site grew by more than 1,100 per cent between 2018 and 2019. Sellers and buyers already recognise value in a marketplace like this. OnBuy already has the potential to host more sellers than any other platform in the world, and the ambition to provide the

infrastructure all businesses need to deliver their products straight to the consumer.

High street retailers can unlock the potential of e-commerce and change the way they work. An integrated e-commerce platform will enable local

click-and-collect services, and same-day delivery for small businesses – even those with just one store – in ways that existing marketplaces have not. This benefits businesses, consumers, and the high street. This can be a genuinely integrated model for online and highstreet retailers, rather than a competitive one. High-street businesses can use integrated e-commerce platforms, such as OnBuy, to sell and deliver their products in a way that is convenient and competitive for consumers.

This will be a game-changer.

The future of work in the retail sector is always changing. From high streets, to out-of-town, to online, and now to universal, integrated selling and delivery platforms, a strong retail sector should never stand still. Disruptive innovation will always be good for business, for consumers, and for the way many of us will work in the future.

INDUSTRY VIEW

@OnBuy www.onbuy.com

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The luxury jeweller that’s brea It’s rare these days to have an all-female leadership team, but House of Garrard, a jeweller that’s produced pieces for British royals since Queen Victoria’s reign, is one company that does. Business Reporter pays a visit to find out more SPECIAL REPORT JOANNE FREARSON

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’M SITTING in the boardroom of the Mayfair showroom of luxury jeweller House of Garrard, with Joanne Milner, CEO and Sara Prentice, creative director.

The pair are just two members of an all-female leadership team at the brand. And with women still very much under-represented in senior positions in UK businesses, House of Garrard is certainly still an exception. Although the FTSE 100 is on track to reach government-backed targets of 33 per cent by 2020, the FTSE 250 is falling short.

But Milner stresses that this wasn’t an intentional outcome. “I don’t have an all-female leadership team because I went out to find an all-female leadership team,” she says. “I have the best people in the job. I don’t think there should be gender bias either way – it should be the best person for the job. The diversity point to me is less about being all female or all male.

It is more about the diversity of skills.”

Diversity comes in many forms

“I don’t have an allfemale leadership team because I went out to find an all-female leadership team. I don’t think there should be gender bias either way – it should be the best person for the job” – Joanne Milner

When it comes to recruiting, House of Garrard does not have a one-size-fits-all approach. “In so many businesses, people surround themselves with mirrors of themselves,” Milner says. “It is that lack of diversity that is an issue. It is that which is missing in many businesses.”

Milner prefers to hire people in various stages of their careers, who can offer perspectives from different viewpoints. “There is diversity in age as well,” Prentice says. “Particularly in the craftsmanship area, where you have all those traditional techniques from the older level of craftsman, then you have the new guys coming in with the technology and the ideas to work with CAD [computer-aided design] and other innovations.”

Milner points out that fewer millennials are going to university, preferring instead to go directly into the workforce. This younger workforce expects different things to previous generations, with more of an expectation of a greater work-life balance. “People are working longer, and in many cases starting work younger,” she says. “The ethos of work life balance has changed quite rapidly over a short period of time.”

The idea of what a workplace should be has evolved over the years, says Milner, and there are differences in how generations first started their careers. Milner recalls a working environment dominated by presenteeism when she was a graduate, with employees working late for little reason, or leaving desk lamps on and suit jackets over the backs of chairs to make it look like they had been.

Things are different now, though. “There has been a big shift in that, all for good reasons,” Milner says. “[It’s about] what it means to be committed and loyal. [But] that is one

Below: House of Garrard’s CEO Joanne Milner

of the challenges as well – that loyalty has to be earned – much more with the younger workforce than in the past.

“People will move around quite quickly – if you want longevity in your workforce, you have to listen to what is important to people and how you match it.”

To help staff get motivated and value where they work, House of Garrard also supports sustainable and charitable initiatives, which are close to people’s hearts – the company is a member of the Positive Luxury initiative, which awards its Butterfly Mark to luxury brands that commit to sustainability and “measurable impact”. “That will become a bigger part, I hope, of every business,” says Milner

Learning from your workmates To keep the workforce inspired, training is a big part of staff development at House of Garrard. Around 70 people work for

the luxury jeweller, and Milner encourages staff to learn about the different aspects of the business, to give them a broad knowledge of and more of a connection to the company.

Given the brand’s long and illustrious history, they have a lot to learn. House of Garrard was appointed Crown Jeweller by Queen Victoria in 1735, and has created tiaras that are still worn at state occasions, as well as the sapphire cluster engagement ring worn by the Duchess of Cambridge.

The last Thursday of every month includes a “Lunch and Learn” session in the boardroom, an open-door event where anybody in the company can learn about other areas of the business. “You get a better understanding of what each department does,” says Prentice. “You are not isolated or sitting in your own little bubble – you understand what [other employees] are doing and have a comprehension of how the business works in the various teams.”

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aking the glass ceiling Women in the boardroom 40% FTSE 100

Since October 2017, the percentage of women on FTSE 100 boards has increased from 27.7 per cent to 29 per cent. If the trend continues the targeted 33 per cent by the end of 2020 is achievable.

FTSE 250

30%

20%

The percentage of women on FTSE 250 boards remains lower and has increased at a slightly more marginal rate, from 22.8 per cent in October 2017 to 23.7 per cent.

10%

2017

2018

SOURCE: CRANFIELD FTSE BOARD REPORT 2018

The jeweller also sponsors staff members to take professional qualifications in whatever field they are working in, whether it’s accountancy, HR, gemology or anything else related to the business. “You have to be conscious of making sure they are getting the training that they want,” Milner says. “If you are investing in [an employee’s] career, you are getting the benefit of that, and you also get their loyalty. A lot more people are deciding not to go to university, and they need a way to get those professional qualifications. Studying alongside working could well be become a much bigger thing.”

An apprenticeship scheme is also offered, to give younger potential employees a route into the jewellery trade that lets them earn while they learn. Milner sees this as a far better way to get good candidates than an unpaid placement. “[We’re] trying to make sure people can get into work without having to work for free for a year, which I find wrong,” she says.

Everyone feels valued Milner’s philosophy is that the C-suite shouldn’t be dominated by particular people, but that everyone’s voice should be valued and listened to. “If you feel like the person next to you is your competition, then that actually works against you,” she says.

“It is no longer deemed negative if you are nurturing to your team. That is a nice change – that actually caring is not bad, it is a good thing.

You don’t have to put on your tough work face.

You can just be you. That is a really positive move.”

Milner sees her role as CEO as more that of a custodian responsible for protecting the future of the brand. “You need to leave it in a better shape, ready for a better future,” she says. “To do that, you need your workforce.

“A lot of people would think this is the less exciting side of running a business – to be a custodian of a brand to make sure you

Below: creative director Sara Prentice

are in a strong place for the future. But it is to make sure you have a workforce that has strong depth of talent, that you are not too top-heavy, and that you have younger people who are ready to grow with the brand.”

A lot of the training at House of Garrard is aimed at making sure staff members are ready to deal with what clients might demand of the company in the future. “There will be an embracement of more new technology that enables different ways of working,” Milner says. At the moment, for example, the company is using W hat s App to com mu n ic ate w it h it s customers.

But regardless of how technology comes into the equation, both Milner and Prentice agree that the future of work at House of Garrard will be centered on making sure the workforce remains diverse, well trained and nurtured, and that employees see themselves as ambassadors of the brand.

We must be bold and radical when it comes to our future education system

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VERYONE HAS an opinion about what the future of work will look like, but no one holds definitive answers. Given both the pace and scale of the change coming and the uncertainty surrounding it, how can we prepare the next generation for the future? techUK surveyed more than 100 parents working in the tech sector to find out what they thought the future of work held for their children, and how well our education system today was preparing them for the jobs and labour market of tomorrow.

Our findings reveal that today’s parents are optimistic about the future world of work and the opportunities that will be available to their children.

However, they also believe that the education system needs to

adapt in order to better prepare children for the future. At its hear t, a f undamental rebalancing is needed. Today’s curriculum remains too “knowledge-heavy”, with 65 per cent of the parents we spoke to saying more needed to be done to nurture soft skills such as leadership and critical thinking.

With greater use of robotics and AI it will be our very human skills that mark us out – from empathy and compassion to leadership and creativity – and allow us to make the most of humans and machines working together. techUK, and the parents we spoke to, are optimistic about the future. But to reap the benefits and mitigate against the risks we must start preparing now. That means being bold and radical.

INDUSTRY VIEW

020 7331 2000 www.techuk.org

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Book your place for Future of Work Live

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S YOUR organisation ready for the future of the workplace? Are you grappling with the many myths surrounding AI? And how can companies use technology positively to enhance the workplace?

Future of Work Live is a oneday conference for business leaders that takes place on April 4 at the America Square Conference Centre in London. Keynote speakers from around the globe include PwC’s director of AI, IBM’s TA transformation lead, Twitter’s vice president EMEA, Lloyds Banking Group’s programme delivery lead, BT Group’s head of customer insight and futures, Cisco’s practice leader-workplace transformation, and futurist and former IKEA executive George Muir.

Hear about the solutions from workplace experts who have created future-proof workplaces around the world, and find out where agile working, AI and technology can really enhance your productivity, employee a nd c ustomer experience.

Future of Work Live brings together the brightest minds and business leaders from across the world with a great mix of keynote speakers, round-table discussions, live demonstrations, breakout sessions and networking with futurists.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Final tickets are now available at www.fowinsights.com – follow the links to Future of Work Live

How healthy minds make for healthy businesses People make a company. Business Reporter takes a look inside new accelerator StateZero, which sees a healthy workforce as the bricks with which to build a good business

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TARTING UP a business can be difficult. The right people need to be found and systems need to be put in place to allow the workplace and employees to grow. But how do you do this when you are just starting out?

Tazz Gault, co-founder of StateZero, an accelerator that supports early-stage start-ups, thinks the main focus should be on the people.

“Remember, as a founder, to believe in people’s potential,” Gault says. “Not just what they have on paper, not just what they come to you with, but how you can help them to grow.

“Fundamentally, as an accelerator, we believe in people. We believe in their potential as an employer and as part of a community.”

Humanity in tech The accelerator works with start-ups that use blockchain to tackle problems in society. The name StateZero comes from the idea of bridging the gap between humanity and tech, Gault explains, and she believes technology can be a force for good in the workplace.

“People are scared of technology – they think it is going to take over, that it is going to replace jobs,” she says. “While that

might be true in some areas, in our opinion people will always matter. You buy and sell from people. Your technology will impact people, and that is where humanity matters. That is really important for everybody to remember when they are building a new tech product or a business.

There will always be people involved, and that is where it comes back down to meaningful relationships.

Gault admits that some jobs will disappear or become automated, but that they will be replaced by new roles. “The stats show new technologies will also bring millions more jobs,” she says. “It not only balances itself out, but actually opens up even more opportunities.”

To make sure start-ups are on top of their game and put people first, a founder wellness plan is offered to the start-ups in the thirteen week programme.

They can benefit from yoga, meditation and obtain nutritional advice as well as cooking demonstrations. There is also flexible working, PT sessions three times a week and four mental health days for when things get tough.

A personal development fund is also included where people get a certain amount

Tazz Gault

of money to spend on things that are not directly related to your job, but will fulfil you as a person.

The healthy business Gault believes having a healthy business is also about creating a good healthy environment for the team. “We feel it is really important that founders should be there to protect their team and to get them involved in everything they do,” she says.

“So they grow and learn how to run a business, [making them] entrepreneurial too. That is a really important thing for us, in how we help to build a culture. We have had quite a few start-ups come to us and say, you have really made me rethink my working day.”

Gault says start-ups often put pressure on themselves to achieve an unrealistic list of targets. But if employees give themselves some time out, by perhaps doing yoga, reading a book or going shopping, they can be so much more productive.

“The work that you do after that [will] be so much more focused,” she explains. “We always say that a healthy founder equals a healthy

business – and, actually, mental health, wellbeing and inclusion has been shown to bring more money into the business.”

Start-ups should also show respect for their employees – Gault points out that they have taken a big risk to be part of a new business early on. Founders should also help the employees focus on their career goals.

“Don’t pay them off with a fancy job title,” says Gault. “Find a way where you can pay them more money. Also, enable them to feel they have recognition. They can see the impact their work does and they are rewarded for it, whatever way that is and whatever is right for your team.

“People are looking for the extras.

Those extras don’t necessarily mean how they are going to directly impact the individuals, but how they are going to impact a team.”

Team retention is important too, Gault explains – statistics show that it is the exception today for someone to stay in the same workplace for longer than two years. But Gault thinks it is important for founders to keep their staff fulfilled in their jobs if they want them to stay.

“Fundamentally, business is a series of relationships,” she says. “It always boils down to that.”

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Inspector The Inspector enjoys a slap-up Happy Meal every now and again, so he was pleased to hear that McDonald’s UK is set to employ 43,000 apprentices in Europe by 2025, including a substantial number in the UK. The burger chain’s UK arm has been providing apprenticeships for more than 12 years, with a range of opportunities, from entry-level crew apprenticeship to degree level positions. In addition to structured learning, all apprentices are paid a “workequivalent salary”, or respective hourly rate to the job they are doing, rather than the £3.80ph apprentice rate of pay.

Harriet Hounsell, chief people officer at McDonald’s UK, says: “We strongly believe in the combination of workplace training and studying with practical experience to help people progress and develop.

“There can be a perception that apprenticeships are just for school-leavers, or for those working in technical roles, but there are many opportunities in retail and hospitality, and for all ages – our oldest apprentice is 58. I’d really encourage prospective and current employees to consider the options available to them to earn while they learn.”

A study conducted by the Oxford Group, a City & Guilds Group business, has uncovered

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that companies are struggling to adapt to a digital workplace as leaders lack the critical digital skills needed to transform the fear of change.

The onus is on leaders to drive the adoption of new technologies, said 96 per cent of respondents. Meanwhile, 94 per cent saw it as important for leaders to challenge traditional ways of thinking, and only 33 per cent of leaders felt well prepared to lead their business.

Gaps in leaders’ digital skillsets were having a major impact on their ability to transform: 41 per cent said that a lack of digital expertise makes decisionmaking more difficult, and 30 per cent said it has prevented their team from innovating.

One in three employers said their organisation has not tried to reduce its gender pay gap over the last year – and one in ten said women were paid less than men for jobs at the same level, according to a study from the Young Women’s Trust.

Around one in 10 employers said that women in their organisation were paid less than men at the same level, a practice which is illegal, while just one in three organisations has tried to reduce its gender pay gap.

The Young Women’s Trust is calling on employers to put in place plans to close their pay gaps this International Women’s Day. The charity is

Dogberry World Bank

blogs.worldbank.org

A new scheme at McDonald’s lets apprentices earn while they learn asking employers to say what they pay in job adverts to aid transparency – a proposal that 55 per cent of senior HR professionals think would help to bring about gender equality in the workplace.

It also said employers should avoid asking candidates their current salary, which 47 per cent of bosses admitted they still do, and which disadvantages those who were already paid less than they are worth.

Positive action measures, including targets to help more young women into maledominated apprenticeships in industries such as construction and engineering, would also contribute to more equal workplaces.

by their employer is failing to do its job and is stopping them from being productive.

“Workplace technology is much more than just the computer or phone you have in front of you,” says Gerry Brennan, CEO of Cloudbooking.

“Technology has the power to shape the wider experience in the workplace. If done properly technology offers huge boosts to both job satisfaction and employee retention, so it’s critical to get it right.”

Research by meeting room software firm Cloudbooking has found 60 per cent of office workers think the tech provided

This blog, which gives readers the unique perspective of the World Bank, includes a lot of coverage of technology in the developing world, as well as the skills gap. Highlights include pieces on digital literacy in developing countries, and a look at how some employees lack even the basic cognitive and technical skills to use technology effectively.

Working The Future

www.workingthefuture.com/ blog

Working The Future takes in a number of subjects, ranging from digital transformation to how the role of the CIO will develop. Other topics include how the boardroom can use IT to reduce costs and create commercial advantages, and an interesting piece on how the internet has led to people developing a more distracted mindset.

Workplace by Facebook

This work collaboration tool from the social media giant lets employees communicate, collaborate and even broadcast in real time live to each other.

Peakon

Peakon aims to measure employee engagement: its topic and textual analysis capabilities can help companies work out what their staff care about.

Tearing up the template for a new type of MBA

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RECENTLY HAD the opportunity to sit down with Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer, founders of Thinkers50, to discuss the Thinkers50 Executive MBA they’ve just launched.

As journalists, authors and editors, there is no question that the co-founders of Thinkers50 have a deep understanding of how our management landscape has evolved over the last 25 years.

Through visiting professorships, associate fellowships and extensive programme delivery in multiple business schools, Dearlove and Crainer have been close to the beating heart of executive education for more than two

decades. However, despite their personal input, both feel that beating heart has slowed, and that without resuscitation of a radical nature, our future management thinkers will not be given the inspirational launchpad they need to change management thinking for tomorrow.

Dearlove has real clarity when describing how both he and Crainer were inspired when launching their own programme.

“Rather than learning by rote from tired text and theory, we feel the answer lies in a new brand of executive MBA that delivers inspired modern thinking and practical application at

the core of the programme,” says Dearlove. “We also believe that servant leadership should be studied, understood and implemented as part of this practical application. For too long, existing hierarchical structures have stif led t he t houghts and opportunities of future leaders and managers by suffocating the inclusive, supportive and hungry minds championed in the work of the Thinkers50 network.”

Dearlove and Crainer are looking forward to welcoming the “management thinkers of tomorrow” to the first Thinkers50 Executive MBA

programme, with registrations taking place now and the course starting in September.

It is with considerable anticipation that I await the first alumni of the Thinkers50 Executive MBA. If re-engagement with the management world with half the passion, knowledge and inspiration displayed by Dearlove and Crainer results, we will be seeing some phenomenal new thinkers reshaping the world of leadership and management in the near future.

INDUSTRY VIEW

@DrBenLaker www.ncflm.org

Deloitte

www2.deloitte.com/global/en/ pages/human-capital/topics/ future-of-work.html

Deloitte’s future of work blog is written by its employees and covers the challenges the modern workplace is facing. It includes posts on how to make your office more productive, whether AI will be a force for good, the gig economy and the changing face of leadership.

NASA

www.blogs.nasa.gov/ futureofwork

NASA’s blog is a series of posts based on insights from its own Future of Work study.

The space agency explores the disruptors driving the workplace, through articles that cover changing attitudes towards learning, and ask the perennial question: what do you want to be when you grow up?

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Business Zone

Four pages of analysis and expert comment

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A

S MARKETS grow in technological sophistication, with consumers seeking a greater integration of cognitive technology into their everyday lives, the same is true for new-generation employees within organisations. Just as consumers are accessing AI and cognitive technology from their pockets, employees are seeking to use smart technology in their day-to-day tasks.

Many organisations, however, are struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving technology landscape. This has created a gap between the rate at which new technology becomes available in the market and the ability of these organisations to successfully integrate smart technology while also aligning it to the human workforce.

Typically, AI and cognitive technology solutions, such as chatbots, take the end-customer’s needs into account first. This has created a profound opportunity for organisations to redirect similar cognitive tools to support the needs of employees.

Robotic assistant technology is fully designed with the employee in mind, and has the potential to solve many pressing issues within organisations today. For one, it offers employees real-time guidance and support, enabling human workers to more easily achieve their KPIs and performance goals. This real-time guidance can also be channelled into the onboarding of new staff as well as providing on-the-job training. Fully digitising organisational training, with real-time responsiveness, not only significantly reduces operational costs but also provides employees with intelligent, interactive technology to interface with.

In order to reap the full value of robotic assistant technology, and to enhance employee performance while supporting the digital transformation

Robotic assistant technology in the digitally diverse workplace needs of organisations, the following capabilities should be present: • Fully interactive and responsive, robotic desktop assistants should be available to respond to employee requests or questions around the clock, whether activated by voice or text. What’s more, the capability of a robotic assistant to monitor employee desktop actions (by way of mouse clicks and keyboard strokes) and to show up at the most optimal time to offer assistance and automate mundane tasks on behalf of the employee, is one of the most valuable capabilities.

• The ability to execute specific tasks automatically, such as conducting a

background search, verifying the accuracy of various data sets, performing calculations and summarising critical data from multiple different enterprise applications.

• Prompting the employee to remain compliant at all times, by displaying relevant disclaimer scripts or perhaps activating or deactivating call recordings at an appropriate point during a customer interaction. These capabilities ensure employee adherence to the compliant process path.

• Upselling and cross-selling support by providing the employee with relevant customer data and sales scripts, at just the right time during a live customer interaction.

All of these combined capabilities enable the employee to support the broader customer-experience goals of the organisation by way of more accurate and efficient execution of tasks, coupled with more connected interpersonal communication.

As enterprises start to successfully adopt robotic automation and digital assistant technology, we will begin to experience the first wave of attaining unprecedented levels of business efficiencies and human potential.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Oded Karev is General Manager of NICE Advanced Process Automation Solutions www.nice.com/rpa

Discover how your business is eligible for R&D tax credits

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HE REASONS why your business can claim research and development tax credits are far-reaching, yet straightforward. The benefit – financial gain for your business – is well worth investigating. Regrettably, more than 75 per cent of eligible companies are not making a claim and are thus losing out. Make sure it’s not your business.

Every year, your limited business can claim R&D tax credits.

Many aspects of business development can qualify. The eligibility criteria allow for claims

which range from developing a new product or a method of manufacture through to innovation in IT and improvements in problem-solving and knowledge.

Not all are obvious, but advice from Datafox will ensure you submit a claim that maximises the opportunity. A thorough annual audit of business practices and procedures, product lines and services will prove fruitful.

Managing director of Datafox R&D tax credits Jonathan Leefield said: “The government is keen for companies to innovate to help UK

business become more competitive in a global market. The scheme rewards companies with cashback payments further assisting with their research and development funding.”

If, as a business, you have invested time and resources

into improving productivity, customer service, people management and many other IT-based interfaces, there’s a chance you can claim back that investment.

Introduced in 2000, the R&D tax relief scheme is designed to encourage

innovation and global competitiveness by letting companies reclaim some of the money invested in qualifying research and development.

SMEs can recover up to 26 per cent (if in profit) and 33.35 per cent (if loss-making) of all eligible R&D expenditure.

Large companies or organisations can also benefit from an after-tax benefit of 9.72 per cent of the qualifying R&D expenditure.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Jonathan Leefield (left) is MD of Datafox. Start your claim today with Datafox R&D tax credits at www.data-fox.co.uk jonathan.leefield@data-fox.com

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What will the wireless internet do for me?

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Modern teamwork: why flat teams deliver successful software products

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VER THE last 15 years at thoughtbot, we have seen hundreds of mobile apps, web-based apps and other software products. We have noticed a growing trend where some of the most successful products are built by flat teams, where members have the same status as one another. We predict that over the next decade, this team structure will become the new normal.

For a digital product to be successful, three areas must be considered: the product must serve the business, the needs and expectations of business stakeholders must be managed, and the build quality of the product needs to be high.

It is important that these three areas work harmoniously. Too much attention given to one causes the others to suffer, resulting in failure. Think of a stool with three legs – each of them needs to be sturdy or you will end up on the floor! Similarly, a project needs to ensure that all three areas are given enough attention to hold up.

First, if a product does not serve the business, the chance of the wrong thing being produced is high, which results in it not being used by its users (according to Statista.com, 21 per cent of users abandon a mobile app after a single use).

Second, it is essential to consider the needs and expectations of the stakeholders.

Often the design and features change during the build phase, deviating from the stakeholder’s original vision. If expectations are not managed, the project may end up cancelled before it sees the light of day.

Finally, failure to focus on build quality causes future developments to be expensive, or even impossible. The project becomes less

like a stool and more like a game of Jenga. In addition, the morale of the team working on the project suffers.

Coming back to our stool analogy, it is important not to spend too much time strengthening one leg only to run out of time to work on the others. We have seen that flat teams are better at finding the optimal trade-off between these areas, ensuring no risk is overmanaged at the expense of others.

Flat teams consider all three areas while agreeing on objectives and sharing an overarching goal: the success of the project. They encourage open communication, which is only possible with equal-status roles, allowing an explicit focus on managing the trade-off between the three areas.

Fifteen years ago when we started thoughtbot, our five founding members believed in flat teams, and we are still using them today. We have learned it is a very rewarding approach, though it is often challenging. Clear communication is just as hard as in traditional teams, and career advancement is difficult to recognise without status-based promotions.

Despite these challenges, we have seen widespread adoption of flat teams in companies that build software products, as well as in non-technical organisations. Zappos, Valve, and Buffer are a few successful companies that have received acclaim for their use of flat teams. This will doubtless become even more popular in the future.

INDUSTRY VIEW

@thoughtbot www.thoughtbot.com/london

T’S EASY to assume that wireless internet connectivity is reaching saturation point.

With nearly nine billion wireless connections already in place around the world, many countries have gone way beyond the stage of simply having more than one mobile device per person.

But for the future of work, this is only a chapter in the story. Wireless internet connectivity is extending to vehicles, remote sites and a whole range of new devices that make up the internet of things (IoT).

The impact of this will be enormous.

Gartner forecasts that 14.2 billion connected “things” will be in use this year, and that that total will further increase to 25 billion by 2021.

As diverse as these applications are, what many of them have in common is that they will need to use the wireless internet. So, for every business, this massive new wave of wireless connectivity raises an important question: what more can wireless do for me?

Better, faster, stronger The answer is much more. Wireless connectivity technology – in the form of 4G LTE – has developed rapidly in recent years. Gigabit LTE now offers speeds far exceeding those provided by wired connections, and this will continue to improve as we move along the pathway to 5G. Carriers are constantly upgrading their networks to deliver faster speeds and even greater reliability. 4G LTE networks are more resilient than ever, and even in the most extreme situations, as in cases of natural disaster, they are the best option for creating flexible, immediate connectivity.

But, for evidence of our wireless working future, we only need look at the retail, healthcare and public sectors, where

the proliferation of wireless connectivity and IoT is helping organisations collect and leverage data more effectively, streamline operations, reduce cost and improve customer service.

Cities around the world are leading the charge on wireless connectivity and IoT, with smart city initiatives using 4G LTE to improve the efficiency of many city functions, including emergency services, traffic management, energy conservation, utility monitoring and security. This drive towards increased connectivity is providing a better quality of life for citizens while reducing the cost of city services and infrastructure.

Pathway to 5G The arrival of 5G is poised to accelerate the development and adoption of many new technologies. As we move further down the pathway to 5G – and wireless connectivity continues to improve – more organisations will find new and innovative ways of bringing people and data together.

Many will create entirely new business models beyond our current thinking. Consider this – in 2006, before the birth of 4G LTE, how many of us had imagined Uber or Snapchat? We are on the verge of a similar – and likely more revolutionary – jump in wireless technology applications.

It’s not simply about faster connectivity speeds or better reliability – it’s the potential 5G offers for transporting intelligence. The real question is what can the wireless internet do for me? For a technology that is already shaping our lives – those who can answer this question will be the architects of the future.

INDUSTRY VIEW

01932 548410 EMEA@cradlepoint.com

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Riding the wave of change in the maritime sector Technology is transforming every industry – but we need to take careful steps to ensure those changes are positive ones

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HE FOURTH Industrial Revolution is well underway, changing the character and direction of industries across the board. Manufacturing, transport, healthcare and other sectors are undergoing transformations that stand to dramatically improve efficiency, accuracy and, ultimately, end-user satisfaction.

But while certain areas, such as vehicle technology, have taken the lion’s share of the attention, there are dramatic changes taking place further from the public eye.

Many of the boldest innovations – autonomous operating systems, AI, the internet of things – can be integrated into a vast number of industry processes, whether in vehicles, factory machines, or even maritime infrastructure.

“The changing world we live in is starting to lead us to look much more broadly across the sectors we operate in,” says Richard Westgarth, Head of Campaigns at BMT, a multidisciplinary engineering, science and technology consultancy group specialising in the maritime, security, environment and critical infrastructure industries. “We’re moving away from the traditional silos industries operate in to look at how we can bring a more holistic vision to multiple sectors.”

Shipping, for example, is one element in an expansive value chain that comprises many different, yet interlocking, parts: ports, harbours, goods distribution centres, vessel traffic services – the list goes on. With new data systems and the growth of connected technologies, these can interact to a greater degree than ever before, boosting the efficiency of maritime operations.

Yet there are, of course, the challenges that come with any form of disruption.

How do personnel in these sectors keep on top of rapid advancements? How can innovations be integrated in a way that doesn’t cause negative disruption – such as loss of jobs – further downstream?

“We have skills shortages, we see trade changing and we’ve seen the impact of the potential of Brexit starting to come through,” says Westgarth. “How we think about future skills, the ways we adopt technologies, how we ensure the demands of a greener shipping agenda are met – these are all questions we are investing considerable time and resources into answering.”

“With the growing demand for digital talent, industries will be looking for employees who clearly have that level of

“With the growing demand for digital talent, industries will be looking for employees who clearly have that level of specialist skill and thought, and that entrepreneurial drive. So we have to know how to create a maritime sector attractive to that kind of talent – Richard Westgarth, BMT

Richard Westgarth, head of campaigns at BMT

specialist skill and thought, and that entrepreneurial drive. So we have to know how to create a maritime sector attractive to that kind of talent, and that can keep hold of it and enable a person to work how he or she wants to work.”

The signs that the sector is entering its own Maritime 4.0 are numerous: the emergence of autonomous ships that can conduct geophysical surveys with minimum human assistance; “connected” ports and harbours; the growth of alternative fuels, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), and more.

“We need to be able to match skills to emerging technology. It’s thought that around 50 per cent of employees will require additional skills within the next five to 10 years, and so there’s the challenge of continuously developing our employees as the technology changes.

This puts a whole new emphasis on career-based training.”

The car industry illustrates how disruptive these new technologies are.

The move towards a shared economy of pooled car rides and expanding taxi services is complicating demand for vehicles. The supply chain model is also changing: no longer focused on traditional combustion engines, the production line is increasingly dominated by electric components and integrated sensors.

Similar innovations are having far-reaching impacts in the maritime industry too, and BMT is looking at how to integrate developments such as autonomous vessels into new port and

harbour technology, and the ways in which AI can assist with that. “We need to think hard about how the maritime sector can afford to make all these changes,” says Westgarth. “It’s a capital-intensive business – ships are expensive to build, and they are built to last a long time, meaning margins are often low.”

Given the extent of changes the industry is under pressure to implement – new physical infrastructure, new technologies, expanded trainings for personnel – there are significant concerns around whether businesses can make the transformation a financially secure one.

Failure to adopt new technologies carries the risk of becoming obsolete, yet the process of transitioning is a risk in itself.

BMT sees a future in which businesses not only within sectors, but across sectors, appreciate the importance of collaboration. “No one company can have a complete set of skills and capabilities to take a system-wide view of the sector as a whole,” says Westgarth. “You have experts in shipping, experts in port and harbours, experts in data and analytics.

But to deliver this as a connected system and to get all the necessary economic benefits, we need to work together to bridge these different silos and encourage cross-interest collaboration.”

Westgarth sees BMT channelling increasing time and effort into developing connected, autonomous systems over the coming years. While it already has considerable experience in autonomous shipping, he says, the focus will now widen to explore the digitalisation of

ports and harbours. But, he cautions, technology is an enabler, not necessarily the answer.

“These technologies have immense potential, but we need to change the narrative between people and tech,” he concludes. “We need to push past the hype – that technology is a magic silver bullet and the deterministic technologydriven perspective – to a more nuanced, holistic and symbiotic view.

“That’s why we have this interest in building up the skills of people in the industry. We need to bring together the people element with the digital element of transformation, and this of course raises key questions: how do people develop the skills to interact with AI yet not be overly reliant on what the machine is telling you? How can we both trust, and yet be critical of, the information coming back to us? We want to find out how to create the right test environment.”

Ultimately, though, the success of any vision shouldn’t be reduced to whether or not individual areas are seeing improvement. Rather, there’s a higher mission being pursued. “Think about smart cities,” Westgarth says. “We’re introducing technology into cities but we need to think harder about the benefits, and whether it could disrupt communities in a negative way. It’s not about developments that better things only for the few. We need to improve the overall quality of life.”

INDUSTRY VIEW

@BMT_Global www.bmt.org

March 2019

AN INDEPENDENT REPORT FROM LYONSDOWN, DISTRIBUTED WITH THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

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What is the biggest priority when preparing for the future of work?

Richard Westgarth

Jada Balster

Head of campaigns BMT

T

HE BIGGEST priority when preparing for the future of work will be the ability of companies to respond to a dynamic, if not turbulent, technology landscape. The rapid development of AI and related technologies will require business leaders to focus on the ability to recruit, promote talent and develop a network of teams, as traditional jobs change and as new roles and careers emerge. Companies must redesign organisational structures and create more fluid structures which centre on the worker, their ambitions and values, rather than on old-fashioned, functional hierarchy.

Middle management layers will shrink.

The development of smart cities will result in changing worker’s views of “the office” and the commute, and will bring in flexible working patterns, possibly merging work and lifestyle.

Career progression will be driven by individuals’ needs, rather than about climbing the slippery pole of management. Companies will have to replace outdated practices of management science (such as the rigid distribution of the bell curve) that are now becoming obsolete, and replace them with talent-based solutions that have greater appeal to millennials.

Sunil Prashara

Vice president, marketing Workfront

I

F WE want to master modern work, we have to embrace, not fear, technology.

I say that because robotics, automation, AI, and virtual reality aren’t theoretical dreams. They’re the here and now. We now need to really think about how we get the most from these exciting new technologies – the important questions to ask are, which jobs should humans do and which jobs should machines do, and then, what can we automate and when?

The value of embracing this cutting-edge technology will be in automating the mundane low-value work so we can spend our time on the things that add the most value to our organisations. Embracing technology will help us work more flexibly, avoid wasteful meetings, and reduce needless email. It will enable us to master modern ways of working.

Tomorrow will be automated, but there is no need to fear a machine apocalypse. The future will see happier and more purposeful workers who know they are spending their working hours doing things that not only matter, but that they are also best at. That’s a future we all want – together with robots that can bring us coffee in the morning, of course.

INDUSTRY VIEW

T

HE DIGITAL disruption accelerated by advances in RPA, AI, big data, design thinking and no-code/low-code app development will result in the creation of jobs that require a skillset that transcends technical expertise. Those who come to the forefront will be creative – people who understand business processes, who are technically savvy but also understand customers’ needs.

Success will require people to excel at relationship building while being analytical, pragmatic problem solvers. Companies will continue to rely on and value the ability to execute, but technological skill will complement a broader array of necessary talents.

The new professional reality demands a combination of technical and project management skills, leadership skills and strategic and business management skills, as well as the ability to learn and keep pace with technology. To inspire stakeholders and motivate teams, leaders will need more than intellectual and technical prowess. They will also need the ability to tap into emotional intelligence qualities such as empathy and self-awareness.

INDUSTRY VIEW

www.workfront.com

Founder Safe Places To Work

W

E LIVE in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world. This is compounded inside the workplace by advancements in technology and disruption to traditional business models.

With the workforce feeling increasingly anxious and fearful of the unknown, organisations need to create safe places to work.

The biggest priority when preparing for the future of work is therefore people, not processes or technology. People are the enablers for change, and putting people first means inspiring the workforce to adopt new ways of working and providing the psychological safety to remove the fear of the future.

The fearless organisation has authentic leaders that accept vulnerability, inclusive teams that embrace difference, and engaged employees who have a voice without fear of retribution or ridicule for speaking up on ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes. Safe places to work attract and retain the best people by giving them a voice and building the agility, resilience and capability needed to become fit for the future.

INDUSTRY VIEW

INDUSTRY VIEW

@BMT_Global www.bmt.org

Sean Trainor

President & CEO, Project Management Institute

For more information, please visit www.pmi.org/uk

Safe Places To Work’s purpose is to create safe places to work, one voice at a time. www.safeplacestowork.com

Valuing security in a hyper-connected world “Security is the foundation of all major value propositions across IT”

T

HE INTERNET of Things (IoT) is rapidly transforming businesses, connecting previously fragmented management systems, enhancing smart city initiatives and revolutionising healthcare. Security is a significant requirement for these new systems.

However, as recently as 2018 the Bain Company estimated that only 4 per cent of connected devices met the minimal security requirements – a damning indictment of the technology sector.

To address this lack of leadership from the technology sector, the UK government has taken a significant lead in defining best practices, working with UK organisations such as the Internet of Things Security Foundation (www.iotsf. org), supported by companies including Arm, BT, and Secure Thingz. These best practices are now setting the cadence for governments around the globe, including Europe, the US, Japan and China.

For many organisations, security is seen purely as a major IT cost on the bottom line, primarily to defend the organisation against hackers. However, the reality is that security is the

foundation for all major value propositions across IoT, including protecting brand value, securing intellectual property and providing the basis for service revenues. The focus for organisations should therefore be how they value and invest in the right technologies to support the company’s primary goals, drive revenues and protect the critical assets wherever they may be globally.

Protecting an organisation’s brand is critical within the modern marketplace. Brand value rests in how devices operate, and critically the user experience associated with them. Obviously if a device is hacked, either for malicious intent, ransomware or even governmentsponsored activities, it undermines the users’ trust in the device and the organisation who supplied it. Unfortunately, the very nature of complex digital devices mean that exploits will probably always exist, and while every company must do its best to ship secure devices there will always be minor flaws that can be prised open. To resolve this paradox, it is increasingly apparent that every device must be able to be managed and

updated, either by the user or via a trusted service provider. This shift in emphasis from a transactional sell-andforget to an ongoing strategic support partnership will have dramatic implications on how every company does business, and, critically, how every device is designed and implemented.

As this value-shift occurs there is a further shift to monetisation of services

and intellectual property, transitioning from physical goods to data analytics.

A good example of this is within city-scape lighting, where many organisations are moving from selling lightbulbs to lighting-as-a-service, and where a monthly fee not only ensures lights are maintained and replaced where necessary, but also that software running the communications is managed and updated actively. This reduces running costs and accelerates the adoption of lower-energy devices.

These managed services require strong technology foundations based on security from inception, to provide secure device protection, communications and management.

Security is the foundation of value across connected devices, and organisations must also be aware of rapidly evolving legislation in this field. Solutions and tools now exist to simplify the process, but the clock is ticking.

INDUSTRY VIEW

Haydn Povey www.securethingz.com