Adapt to Survive - Embracing Continuous Change

On Thursday 27^th September, ROQ welcomed senior IT & digital leaders to our 7^th CIO Spotlight event to discuss how organisations can leverage technology to drive differentiated customer, and user, experiences.

For the second time, Carlton House Terrace – home of the British Academy, played host to the event. The generously sized rooms, with beautiful artworks and floor-to-ceiling bookcases, provided a perfect setting for this event.

The afternoon’s proceedings got underway with Ian Golding on the crucial topic of Customer Experience. Ian pressed the importance of creating differentiated experiences which gives customers the service or product they truly need but also being easily accessible to them and provoking positive emotions, time and time again.

Alex Craig then took to the stage to talk about why Elsevier, a 130-year-old publishing company, now consider themselves a technology company. He went on to describe the trials and tribulations they have experienced on their technology maturity journey, and how they crafted their own unique approach to driving the best outcomes for their heterogeneous customer base – ranging from clinicians looking for insights to inform a decision to student nurses searching for the most relevant piece of research and lawyers looking for useful legal precedents to draw upon.

Our final speaker was Richard Hawkins, who illustrated how a global behemoth like HSBC tackles the challenge of staying relevant and how they use technology to compliment that journey and put power in the hands of their 46 million customers. Richard also explained how technology helps them overcome the complexities they face as a prominent financial institution, such as the huge amount of data they have amassed, GDPR, cyber fraud and regulatory pressures.

It was clear from the discussion and Q&A session at the end of the afternoon, that CIOs must build and develop cultures which foster change in the right way. Finding and developing the right skills, creating transparency, providing clear goals and ensuring everyone buys into the technology vision are all key to success of major change programmes and an organisation’s ability to adapt for the paradigm of continuous change.

Andrew Ayres, Director UK&I at ROQ and compere for the afternoon said:

“For our 7^th CIO Spotlight event we decided to focus on the all-important area of continuous change and how large, complex organisations are adapting to meet the changing needs of their customers and users alike. We were very fortunate to have a delegation from a broad array of industry sectors and great line-up of speakers providing valuable insights into customer experience, renovating the technology core and driving digital change at global scale. The CIO Spotlight event series is designed to give CIOs and Senior IT leaders a chance to gain new perspectives, share anecdotes and validate their thinking on a range of important issues – and this instalment was no different.”

Our next CIO Spotlight will be later this year in Central London. If you would like to register interest in advance, then please get in touch by 01257 208890 bethan.wane@roq.co.uk