Modernization:
Architecting the Future of Your Business
September 27, 2022 | London
The Bloomberg Modernization Roadshow explored how companies can create a secure, integrated hybrid cloud environment that extends the value of their technology investments while accelerating their ability to respond to market shifts and customer demands. At this briefing, leaders discussed the concrete solutions that have helped them tackle the challenges in their information environments.
Click here to view video highlights from the Sept. 27 briefing.
Speakers included:
Amitabh Apte, Vice President, Global Chief Information Officer, Pet Nutrition Business, Mars Inc.
Justin Arbuckle, Global Chief Technology Officer, Wealth & Personal Banking Technology, HSBC
Ron Argent, Founder & CEO, Cognition Foundry; CEO, TES Enterprise Solutions
Rishi Das-Gupta, CEO, Health Innovation Network
David Hewitt, Director, Cloud Platform, UK & Ireland, IBM
Prakash Pattni, Managing Director, Digital Transformation, Cloud for Financial Services, IBM
Josie Smith, Chief Architect, BT Digital
Nikkie Spencer, Director of Cloud & Service Delivery, Metro Bank
Bloomberg participants:
- Tamlin Bason, Analyst, Bloomberg Intelligence
- Lauren Kiel, General Manager, Bloomberg Green
- Janet Wu, Anchor & Reporter, Bloomberg
Event Highlights:
Opening Remarks
Setting the stage for the Intelligent Automation briefing,, David Hewitt, Director, Cloud Platform, UK & Ireland, IBM recalled fear, failures and successes from back in his “ponytail days,” and noted that key issues, including sustainability and the talent gap, were important topics before they were today’s stress-inducing buzzwords. He suggested the day’s session be used as an opportunity to revisit and strategize around those buzzwords.
Panel Discussion: Modernizing the Enterprise by Embracing Cloud
Josie Smith, Chief Architect, BT Digital, kicked off the panel, moderated by Tamlin Bason. Elasticity and agility are needed in the current market to drive digital transformation, Smith said. In categories such as FinOps and drones, “it’s all about the time to market, and that’s what the cloud offers.” Being able to turn technologies off and on as needed, as opposed to the old way of buying and running a full package, is driving new efficiencies. BT, she said, is on a simplification journey, and reimagining customer experiences in a digital way.
In the healthcare sector, the approach to digital innovation was altered dramatically by the pandemic, said Rishi Das-Gupta, CEO, Health Innovation Network.. “We saw a lot of change really quickly. It would not have happened but for Covid.” His organization, he said, had to fundamentally reshape risk profiles and become comfortable with rolling out processes that had been in the planning stages overnight. “They may not have been perfect, but we relied on our employees to shout out if things weren’t working right. We even put a doctor down on our IT help desk,” Das-Gupta said. One of the unintended benefits of Covid was improved communications across organizations, such as hospitals, and an understanding of systems across roles.
During the pandemic, there was a marked uptick in pet adoptions, which sparked a greater appreciation of pets as being good for humans’ physical and mental health, said Amitabh Apte, Vice President, Global Chief Information Officer, Pet Nutrition Business, Mars Inc. The expanding market also required updated systems, he said. “Adoption rates have continued to rise, and It’s a no-brainer that we have to go to the cloud.” Increased demand for pet food means more supply chain issues around raw materials, manufacturing, packaging and shipping. “Just throwing cloud at it doesn’t help you scale that,” he said.
IBM Sponsor Spotlight: Hybrid Cloud – Catalyst for Green IT
In an interview with Lauren Kiel, General Manager, Bloomberg Green, Prakash Pattni, Managing Director, Digital Transformation, Cloud for Financial Services, IBM began by offering a startling perspective on the energy crisis in Europe. “Energy consumption has increased by 43 percent over the past three years. In terms of the global footprint, it makes up almost two percent of global energy consumption. That’s nearly the same as the aviation industry.”
Pattni said he expects clients to adopt a hybrid technology environment for the future, with an added focus on sustainability in IT buying decisions. “It now comes up in almost every conversation,” Pattni said.
Pattni said IBM is on its third generation of renewable goals and the fifth generation of greenhouse-gas emissions targets. The goal: net-zero emissions by 2030.
Case Study: Business Impact of IT Modernization
Justin Arbuckle, Global Chief Technology Officer, Wealth & Personal Banking Technology, HSBC, said the requirements of compliance in global banking has driven much of the innovation in financial services. Compliance is something HSBC takes very seriously, “but at the end of the day, [innovation] has to be translated into something that can be repeated in a trustworthy way over and over and over again, with the same answer,” Arbuckle said. “Testability and repeatability are absolutely crucial.”
HSBC operates in 57 markets and manages more than one billion logins per year, which requires efficient and accurate service and data analytics that screen one billion pieces of data per minute. The bank’s technology strategy going forward is to execute more tasks in real time and to learn how to respond to customers proactively when events in their own lives present opportunity, Arbuckle said. On blockchain technology, the goal is to ensure HSBC’ takes advantage of the technology, but that it can’t be a solution in search or a problem, particularly when simpler solutions are sufficient.
Panel Discussion: Recruiting the Talent You Need to Thrive
Asked by panel moderator Janet Wu what “can’t go wrong in her job,” Nikkie Spencer, Director of Cloud & Service Delivery, Metro Bank, said the answer is technology problems that impact customers. “There needs to be resiliency and security in the cloud, and data goes hand-in hand with security.” The toughest challenge now, she said, is finding talent. Hiring and retaining top talent requires offering employees technology challenges. “The journey to the cloud gives us the ability to develop our own skills internally rather than buying it off the street. We’re building engineers and engineering departments.”
To develop customer relationships, Metrobank is committed to “ maintaining direct contact, even while focusing on technology,” Spencer said. “Buying your first house isn’t something you necessarily want to do through AI or a chatbot. From a Metrobank perspective, we believe in celebrating our customers’ successes.”
A need for the democratization of enterprise IT is what drove Ron Argent, Founder & CEO, Cognition Foundry; CEO, TES Enterprise Solutions, to adopt a mission of showing startups different technology paths with a focus on simplicity, even when scaling up. “We look for clients who are doing terrific things for the world, taking on the bottom billion, poverty, stopping plastic waste going into the oceans, looking at sustainability, looking at species survival. When you are working with clients like that people say wow, you know, we’d like to work with this and get involved.”
This Bloomberg briefing was Proudly Sponsored By
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