Posted on

Evolving With The New Normal: Post-COVID-19 Survey

Management Events conducted a survey recently to learn how European businesses are adapting to the regulations that thousands of our EU delegates and solution providers are facing during our transition from physical to virtual events.

The responses highlighted a more concentrated effort from businesses to network in a socially distanced manner.

A major trend based on our survey shows that many would prefer to conduct meetings or attend events virtually as 70% are encouraged to not attend physical events in an effort to maintain social distancing.

Less than 30%, however, are interested in attending events that are related to their fields.

 

Engaging Decision Makers

One of the biggest concerns for virtual-based platforms has always been the absence of powerful face-to-face conversations that keep attendees engaged.

To maintain this social connectivity, Management Events introduced a variety of interactive elements that keeps our events engaging during an online networking session, such as Campfire sessions, roundtable and panel discussions, and matched 1-2-1 meetings.

Keep an eye out for our upcoming 2021 events for some of the exciting elements we have prepared, and take a look at our new format of C-level networking in the virtual space, connecting you to 20,000 top decision makers and 2,500 solution providers.

 

Moving Forward With Virtual Networking

Due to travel bans placed by the EU, as many as 80% of our respondents shared that their organization has placed restrictions towards international traveling. However, with fewer travel costs, businesses might be more willing to explore new streaming technology/virtual platforms to replace their networking strategies.

While there were interests by our respondents to attend smaller/intimate events, many chose to remain safe and practice social distancing by preferring to work from home as much as possible and network with other top-level decision makers through online or virtual applications.

 

 

Embracing The New Normal

The pandemic has shifted the way solution providers and organizations create business opportunities through event networking. As European companies continue to adopt more innovative solutions and technologies to further achieve their organizational goals, we expect to see virtual networking to be the new normal for years to come.

Posted on

IT Benchmark 2021: Where Do You Stand Among the CIOs?

CIO IT Benchmarking

The outbreak, evolving workscape, a volatile market, changing customer demands –  Chief Information Officers (CIOs) have their hands full in strategizing IT projects while maximizing the value of technology investments.

With the modern CIO role entailing more strategic decision-making, you need to identify key technologies that not only help advance the organization’s digital transformation, but that also increase its business value and competitive edge.

So how effective is your IT strategy compared to other organizations in your industry? Are there areas where your peers are ahead of you? Let’s dive into the IT benchmark data for the coming year.

Data Science Takes The Lead

In 2019, Management Events’ Executive Trend Survey found that 88% of CIOs across Europe were focusing on cyber security adoption for the coming years, followed by cloud and big data.

However, the pandemic has shuffled tech priorities with the latest survey discovering that data science and analytics have taken precedence over cyber security for 2021.

Although the findings point towards a higher importance of data science, the surveyed CIOs seem to be almost equally torn between data, cyber security and cloud investments. The close gaps indicate that these three technologies are vital parts of CIOs’ business continuity and recovery strategies.


The Rise Of Data

Based on our survey and interviews with IT decision makers, their core data focuses are on analytics strategy, data management and big data analytics, with the majority looking for data science and analytics to be scaling within their organization in 3 years.

Almost 82% of the surveyed leaders said they are updating data analytics models to accommodate changing market behavior. Furthermore, 73% agreed that they’re heavily investing in data-driven business models for post-COVID-19 survival.


Compared to the 2020 annual budget of between €100,000 and €250,000, the budget allocated by the CIOs for 2021 data analytics spending in their organization is higher, with the majority looking to spend in the €500,000 range.


As for data tech adoption, the majority of CIOs are currently building capabilities by hiring new talents with the required skills. However, in the future, they are looking to change their adoption strategy by investing in other companies to acquire the skills.

Diving deeper into the benchmark data, most of the IT leaders focusing on data analytics are from the retail and consumer industry, followed by the banking and financial services industry. Incidentally, aside from data analytics, the retail CIOs are also looking into e-commerce implementations.


Join the discussion on the latest IT trends with leading CIOs, CTOs and more at 600Minutes Executive IT  in Sweden, Austria, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and Norway.

Cyber Security Is Still A Priority

With cybercrimes on the rise, businesses around the world are working hard to prevent data breaches and system disruptions. At the same time, companies are in the midst of strengthening their security framework, from securing endpoints to stronger online protection.

So what are the cyber security benchmark and CIO cyber security focus areas for 2021?

In terms of security investments, data security and privacy is one of the core focal points among European CIOs along with a more robust cyber security strategy and emphasis on cloud security.


As COVID-19 saw increasing security breaches, it’s not a surprise that employee awareness training on cyber security is a top priority for 95% of IT leaders. Meanwhile,  89% of the IT C-executives are expecting a rise in predictive and behavioral detection to prevent cyber attacks.

Similar to data science, cyber security’s annual budget was also ranging between €100,000 and €250,000 for 2020, but has increased to €500,000 for 2021, according to the IT leaders in our survey.

Currently, 58% of the decision makers are partnering with vendors and consultancies for their cyber security solutions, but in the future, most of them are looking at partnering with organizations in other industries to create security ecosystems.

Incidentally, IT leaders from the manufacturing industry make up the majority of surveyed CIOs looking to invest in cyber security.

Cloud Increase On The Horizon

 

On cloud benchmark data, our survey found that cloud is the third topmost tech priority for 2021 with the majority interested in cloud migration coming from the banking and financial services industry.

88% of the cloud-focused respondents are currently looking to migrate their workload to the cloud for increased business efficiency, and the survey also discovered that cloud infrastructure and cloud platforms are primary aspects of the CIO cloud strategy.


Unlike the other aforementioned technologies, cloud migration seems to have different budget ranges. The CIO respondents are divided between spending less than €500,000 and between €500,000 and €1 million in the coming year, when in 2020, the annual budget for cloud was mostly less than €50,000 and between €100,000 and €250,000.

Currently, their cloud adoption approach is partnering with external vendors and training their employees, but 68% of the IT leaders are hoping to acquire the necessary cloud capabilities by investing in other companies in the near future.


How Should You Respond?

Before undertaking a benchmarking opportunity, there is much to consider:

  • Are you looking at industry benchmark data or more towards IT budget benchmarks?
  • What performance or process gaps are you seeking to enhance?
  • Do you have a clear objective for the tech implementation?

While the trends are pointing mainly towards data analytics, investing in this solution must be in line with your organizational and industry goals. As Datafloq puts it, companies need to “dig down to understand if [data analytics] is worth it”, and if it’ll bring them the return of investment (ROI) that they are looking for.

Data analytics use case of a CIO interviewee from a Dutch online travel agency:

  • What’s the objective of analyzing the data? To improve booking experience and behavior recognition
  • What data are they looking at? Online customer behavior
  • What are they using to process the data? Big data analytics and predictive analytics

The same goes for all innovations that are the focus of CIOs. Although market trends are pointing to a certain technology, it doesn’t mean that everyone must jump on the bandwagon.

Data benchmark is just one indicator of your organization’s performance that will potentially inform you on which areas you need to improve, but identifying the right elements to benchmark is the key. It’s vital to choose elements and technologies that will bring the most positive impact to your organization’s growth and revenue.

Posted on

New Times, New Journeys for Talent & HR Leadership

Empower_Growth_Through_Data-Driven_Customer_Experience

Innovation in HR has always been the key focus for organizations in discovering and adopting new solutions, improving workflow and productivity, and to innovate and excel. In today’s COVID-19 world, Maistering BV’s Chief Sales Officer (CSO) Venkat Iyer (Markets, Sectors & Domains) understands that innovation in the HR industry is needed now more than ever to remain efficient in these new times.

 

The Focus Of Innovation In New Times

The role of HR leaders has always been to be at the forefront of innovation. From innovating workflow processes to adopting intelligent solutions and creating a better employee experience, HR leaders are pivotal when it comes to innovation and business improvement.

However, the current crisis has pivoted the outlook for HR leaders, pushing them to adopt new approaches for workflow efficiencies in the shortest timeframes. Especially in today’s remote working conditions, businesses need to remain efficient and prioritize quality over quantity.

For Iyer, the key points of focus that HR leaders need to be aware of can be summed in three major points:

 

1. Promoting digitalization and increasing productivity by understanding how technology can improve the workflow of people in the organization.

2. Shifting from complicated processes to simple ideas. Simplicity in HR can also mean leveraging distributed intelligence from the employees and efficient use of AI solutions.

3. Engaging the external workforce in an agile and unprecedented way. As remote working becomes the norm, skills become readily available in the digital marketplace, and HR needs to adapt to tap this availability for business needs.

 

The shift towards new technology and digital platforms is a necessary shift for HR leaders. Despite traditionally focusing on innovating processes, employee experience, and talent identification, Iyer says that the “current situation has encouraged us to look at digital connections among employees, simplify processes, and leverage skills in a digital marketplace.”

 

Adapting To Change And Innovating In HR

In the ‘new normal’, HR leaders cannot rely on the traditional ways of managing organizations. While Iyer points out that HR leaders have been quick to “introduce and manage change consistently over the past years”, the current situation demands an environment that is more driven by technology.

 

“Adopt AI services and solutions, embrace the cloud, and live in the virtual employee realities by introducing digital methods,” notes Iyer.

 

As these are business priorities for organizations anyway, Iyer believes that leaders can adopt these new methods and ride the wave while still keeping past priorities in check.

Of course, leadership will play a key role in fostering innovation, and Iyer highlights how most HR leaders are addressing the challenges through a familiar process of “defining the problem, addressing the variables that make it complicated and agreeing on the best way forward.”

However, in these ‘never normal’ times, Iyer believes that HR leaders need to adjust and develop a new core capability: a simplicity mindset.

With HR now working around the clock, to be truly effective, Iyer mentions the need for leaders to embrace the mindset of collaboration and simplicity, foregoing the traditional linear thinking and embracing a collective intelligence where the organization is the team.

 

Prioritizing The Digital Transformation In HR

With the new challenges faced by HR leaders today, the journey towards organizational improvement has shifted towards digital transformation and solutions.

Iyer points out that for HR leaders to be at the top of their game in these new times, they need to embrace digital transformation and start new journeys in utilizing effective but simple tools to tackle complex and complicated problems.

The three key technologies that Iyer believes HR leaders should prioritize are:

 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)

Chatbots have been part of HR systems for quite some time, helping to answer employee queries. But it’s time to step up the game via managing change, tracking employee emotions to help with health, seamless collaboration and open information exchange, aligning to business goals and tracking KPIs, and creating an impact – AI can help vastly in all of these.

With services available today in many areas that embrace the digital workplace and workforce, HR leaders should step up on AI adoption.

 

CLOUD

Only a few years ago, companies were discussing the benefits of systems such as the cloud. Today, they have embraced it.

Cloud-based systems are being used more and more for a variety of reasons, and the same is true for HR platforms and solutions as well. The possibility of being able to manage and complete work through a digital platform has allowed employees not only to do the job much faster, but most importantly, it has allowed for significantly increased earnings.

The use of cloud-based platforms also brings about numerous benefits such as reduced costs, greater and easier access, predictability and availability, and better reach.

 

COMPLEMENTARY PLATFORMS

In addition to core HR platforms that companies have adopted, the need for additional services that complement these massive platforms, and how it can be quickly integrated and used become increasingly important.

Solutions that improve collaboration and ideations, connect to external workforces, match talent with availability, organize and orchestrate HR journeys, measure impact, and are more predictable are vital to companies.

 

Establishing A Culture of Innovation

Iyer emphasizes that HR leaders today need to adapt and learn new methods in cooperation with employees, business partners, and stakeholders to foster a modernized culture of innovation.

 

“How can you create and maintain a culture of innovation when almost all of your workforce is working from home?”

 

Facing these challenges should be at the center stage for HR leaders. For Iyer, it’s important to adapt to the digital workplace while still ensuring that innovation contributes to both the employee experience and business needs of the organization.

To do so, Iyer believes that the following 3 methods should be considered by HR leaders to cultivate the innovation mindset in today’s digital workplace:

 

  • Create new behaviors that reflect not just your company values, but also the current digital workplace style
  • Spawn global and virtual digital ideation sessions
  • Capture and share learnings and ideas openly

 

All of these can be achieved by having a digital platform that complements the existing HR solutions in the organization. New times call for new journeys for sure, but technology today can help to make those journeys magical.

Maistering BV understood this and created the unique platform Master Collections. It addresses this topic by providing leaders the ability to run magical business journeys with essence, beauty, and impact in a way that classical HRM systems simply cannot.

 

Innovating Towards The Future Game Changers

The changing workplace requirements have caused a major shift in all industries, and for Iyer, there are several game-changers that HR leaders need to prioritize to maintain innovation.

In essence, the three major game-changers that HR should focus on are:

 

  • Prioritizing Re-Learning and Re-Skilling: HR leaders should now focus on re-skilling their potential employees to make them efficient and equipped with the skill of multitasking. Learning & Development would take place in a new digital collaborative platform.

 

  • Quality over Quantity: Taskforce optimization, performance management, and talent identification will all focus on top talent and work, which also mean that hiring and role filling will be different.

 

  • External Workforce Management: The pandemic has also exposed a wide variety of available talent, which few have looked at – temporary workers, contractors, project-based hires, and deliverables-based work packages. This also necessitates the need to have systems that can adapt and accommodate externals quite easily and consolidate content and let them collaborate seamlessly with existing employees.

 

The path towards innovation has changed tremendously due to the pandemic. Businesses and organizations need to undertake new journeys for talent & HR leadership to achieve a culture of innovation. With their platform, Master Collections, Maistering hopes to navigate leaders and businesses into the new times with the right tools.

Posted on

Magical Journeys Towards Digital Retail

Over the past decade, the retail landscape has experienced eroding margins, the growth of e-commerce, declining visits to malls, the success of low-cost retailers, and changing consumer behavior/needs. As if that was not enough, the COVID-19 pandemic is still in full development. While many once-leading retailers have disappeared and more brands are in peril, often already since before the pandemic, others have managed to survive, and some even continued to thrive.

 

What drives innovation in retail today

Retailers need to understand that what drove the retail sector in the past differs from what drives it today. For John Brahim (CEO & AI Business Architect at Maistering BV), innovation in the global retail sector is partially AI-driven, highly virtual, and experiential. The pandemic fuels the fire, and strategic choices are imposing themselves much faster than expected. The real challenge to digital retail innovation is making good choices that are executable at the right speed.

 

Tips for managing innovation and resulting change

Change begets innovation and vice versa. Consumers now shop more mindfully and cost-consciously for local, sustainable, and high-value brands. They also consider their health, safety, and financial status often before making purchases. It is vital to take note of these trend changes to innovate effectively. Subsequently, Brahim understands that leaders can better manage growth and innovation through the following methods:

  1. Adopt and prioritize a “digital-first” approach to retail.
  2. Identify a portfolio of digital journeys from a mid-term perspective.
  3. Embrace new principles to orchestrate those journeys.
 

Fostering innovation through leadership

Innovation comes from everywhere. Leaders must possess the ability to tap into current digital trends and understand how the COVID-19 pandemic influences them.

They must also understand the changing consumer behavior in a digital world, having strong convictions on purpose, authenticity, value proposition, and business models.

A handful of global platforms dominate the world; thus, a retail leader must feel the digital consumers’ pulse to lead the race in digital innovation.

 

New digital technological roles in leadership innovation

To innovate in the digital world, one must practice a digital way of working. Get handsy with mobile technologies, conversational AI, and next-gen collaboration. Brahim states that leaders need to embrace digital technologies themselves and re-think management as they formerly knew it. Partly because it is hard to modernize businesses if one is old-fashioned and because the speed of digital innovation is murderous, requiring an acceleration in decision-making & execution.

Innovative leaders have many parallel-running business journeys. Each journey with a different impact and objective. Such leaders have to keep in mind local sensitivities and maintain constant contact with their teams. The game aims to gather insights and materialize propositions that lead to higher customer delight and profitability.

Maistering BV understood this and created the unique platform Master Collections. It addresses this topic by providing leaders the ability to run magical business journeys with essence, beauty, and impact in a way that classical retail systems simply cannot.

 

Customers, partners, and other stakeholders roles in innovation

Innovation today has become a collaborative, instantaneous, and solution-driven process. It is about undertaking experimental journeys with customers and partners in joyful, swift, rich, and impactful ways.

“Business leaders must be on their toes – listen to customers across all channels, understand their local and global buying choices, respect safety concerns in stores, and provides a seamless omnichannel digital experience.”
– John Brahim

Retailers and suppliers must engage in multiple collaborative journeys to reduce costs and enhance the experience. Both stakeholders must also learn how to speed up collaborative innovation.

 

What established leaders can learn from new innovative leadership

The retail sector in the post-COVID-19 world will undoubtedly find itself with an accelerated shift from bricks to clicks. There will be surges in AI implementation from demand forecast to supply optimization and cognitive digital consumer experiences.

Established retail leaders must adopt two things from digital leaders. The acceptance that software eats the world and the unconditional willingness to speed things up. The Holy Grail for established retail leaders is to undertake collaborative business journeys that combine speed, sophistication, and common sense feasibility. Established retail leaders still have unparalleled strengths in the latter.

 

Future trends in innovation

Although we continue to witness unprecedented change and innovation today, the real revolution is still to come. Brahim postulates that artificial intelligence (AI) will completely change the connection between consumers, retailers, producers, and the product portfolio itself. Soon we will see a whole new world of contactless collaboration, conversational interfaces, cognitive abilities, machine learning, and adapting algorithms, predictive software, applied robotics, and next-best suggestions reaching the consumer in a myriad of ways.

Business leaders will learn how to adopt AI technologies to solve new problems, create new ways of working, orchestrate magical journeys, and master their retail leadership art. As digital retail transformation accelerates worldwide, consumers’ expectations at each stage of the customer journey – be it prepurchase research or browsing, the shopping experience itself, or post-purchase experience sharing – are changing.

The adoption of breakthrough technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain will help brands and retailers address these changing consumer expectations in a timely and effective manner, thereby deepening customer engagement.

Master Collections, as a new category platform, offers leaders the perfect toolset to engage in digital journeys and naturally fosters the synergies with C-Suite peers and others who require guidance and empowerment as we master digital retail.