Sue Whalley, Group People and Performance Officer at Associated British Foods believes leadership buy-in is crucial: “Post-Covid and Ukraine, we’ve got more headspace to invest in innovation. For example, we’re now running AI pilots in a range of areas including for commodities purchasing, treasury management and how we might leverage more technology for product development and for smart factories. We’re in an exciting moment.”
Leading the change Even with the right technology, success depends on how well organisations manage and adapt to the changes, fostering a culture of collaboration and embracing new ways of working. Vanshi Suvarna, Group Chief Information and Transformation Officer at Britvic emphasises that the biggest challenge lies in getting people to adopt and effectively use new technologies. It’s key to work together to build strong data foundations: “It’s complex integrating various data sources, both internal and external, to generate meaningful insights, requiring significant time and resources to manage and potentially delaying the realisation of benefits from digital initiatives. Technology these days works. I have not found a single technology that doesn’t work. The problem is the change management of people.” Keith Thornhill from Siemens believes leadership, culture and people set the environment for business improvements, but tech will be a significant enabler in solving many sustainability and productivity challenges. “Tech is creating the demand but tech alone is not a golden bullet,” he says. “What technology and consulting organisations can do is provide the headroom for leaders in this industry to get on the front foot.”
A kickstart to transformation How can the industry overcome the interconnected commercial, capability and solution obstacles and close the action gap? The research programme highlighted three key focus areas for businesses, industry and the government.
To unlock the full potential of automation and AI, companies need to build strong data foundations, optimise existing investments and focus on outcome-driven initiatives. But, success will also depend on leaders fostering a culture that embraces change and thrives on collaboration, so providing better demand signals to technology companies, academia and entrepreneurs. The next section outlines how technology and people-related challenges can be collectively overcome.
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