Gunnar Hagman: Digitaliseringen avgörande för miljö- och hållbarhetsarbetet i byggbranschen

Det har gått snart fem år sedan Gunnar Hagman tog över posten som VD för Skanska Sverige, när han i slutet av 2016 efterträdde Pierre Olofsson. Som ansvarig för ett av Sveriges största byggföretag ser han inte bara till att man bygger säkert – utan strävar även efter att få med hållbarhetsaspekten i alla delar av verksamheten. Digitaliseringen underlättar det arbetet. Men det finns även utmaningar på den fronten – inte minst när det kommer till lagstiftningen menar han. 

 

Hur kommer byggnads- och konstruktionslandskapet att se ut efter pandemin tror du? 

Det är en spännande fråga. Något som har stuckit ut är att bostadsmarknaden varit överraskande stark ända sedan förra sommaren. Det är kanske först nu som vi ser att det planar ut något. Troligtvis börjar fler och fler personer att lägga pengar på andra saker än sitt boende. Man kanske vill återvända till jobbet och spenderar inte lika mycket tid hemma. Därför svalnar bostadsmarknaden av litegrann och blir lite mer “normal” nu när pandemin klingar av.  

Sedan har många kommuner och regioner haft ansträngda finanser och fått statligt stöd. Inte bara i Sverige utan även i andra länder. Även detta måste trappas ner och då finns en risk att det kan bli en tuffare marknad. Men – alla prognoser pekar på att det blir en ganska stark ekonomi generellt i samhället och även för vår bransch. Så jag skulle säga att det ser ganska positivt ut.  

 

Efterfrågan på smarta byggnader ökar som svar på behovet av mer hållbara bostadsutrymmen. Vilka smarta byggtrender kan vi förvänta oss 2022? 

Om vi tar bostäder som exempel tror jag att fler och fler insett att man kommer att spendera mer tid hemma och jobba hemifrån i större omfattning än man har gjort tidigare. Det gör att kravet på att hitta en avskild arbetsplats i sin bostad kommer vara något man värderar högt. Givetvis ställer det krav på bra teknik likt fiberuppkoppling som man har i de flesta projekt idag.  

Tittar man sen på kontorsbyggnader tror vi på Skanska att dessa också kommer spela en viktig roll framgent, men det kommer att vara utmanande som företag att skapa samma “sköna känsla” som det är att vara hemma. Arbetsplatsen kommer att behöva vara mer som en magnet. Trevlig, energigivande, och kreativ. Mer av en mötesplats än bara ett skrivbord att sitta vid. Det är inte minst viktigt för att kunna attrahera de smartaste och bästa medarbetarna.  

Sen är det klart att hela digitaliseringsprocessen är i en form av brytpunkt nu, något som startade innan pandemin. Det har varit mycket förberedelser för smarta byggnader och göra de mer integrerade med datorverktyg. Det tror vi kommer att ta fart nu på allvar. Tekniken är så pass billig och datakraften så pass stor. Det finns även exempel på techjättar som investerar stora pengar i byggsektorn. 

 

Vilka är de viktigaste utmaningarna för bygg- och fastighetssektorn när det gäller just hållbarhet. Vad är förhållandet mellan digitalisering och hållbarhet?  

Man får se lite på kort och lång sikt när det gäller hållbarhet. Vi har satt som mål som många företag att gå ner till noll klimatpåverkan till 2045 och en halvering till 2030. Den planen bygger bland annat på att vi måste minska CO2-påverkan av stål, cement och fossila bränslen. Just cement har blivit en aktuell fråga i Sverige under sommaren som många noterat med Cementas tillstånd som nekades i Mark- och miljööverdomstolen. Det tycker jag var mycket tråkigt eftersom jag vet att Cementa fortfarande har höga ambitioner när det kommer till koldioxidneutral tillverkning av cement på Gotland.  

Cement står kanske för en tredjedel av alla utsläpp i Sverige i byggbranschen som helhet. Om vi tvingas köpa den från länder likt Kina, Turkiet eller Algeriet som verkar vara enda alternativet, ja då kommer utsläppen att vara större än de är idag. På kort sikt är jag lite bekymrad måste jag säga. Det är ganska tydligt att vår miljölagstiftning troligtvis behöver ses över och reformeras. Vi behöver göra en väldigt dramatisk omställning till grön produktion av stål, elektrifiera mer och bryta exempelvis kobolt som kan användas i batterifabriker. Alla inser efter FN:s senaste klimatrapport att tiden är knapp. 

Just när det gäller klimatet skulle jag säga att digitalisering är en förutsättning för att kunna uppnå en väldigt låg klimatpåverkan. Det är helt avgörande med ny teknik om vi ska kunna göra medvetna och kvalificerade val av material och produktionsmetoder. Inte minst för att få beslutsverktyg som gör att vi kan fatta vettiga beslut och därmed en låg klimatpåverkan. 

 

Skanska banar väg för hållbara lösningar inom byggbranschen. Är företaget på väg att nå sina hållbarhetsmål om koldioxidneutralitet innan 2045? 

Jag tycker att när det kommer till de delar som vi kan påverka själva ser vi en väldigt bra utveckling. Då tänker jag på sådana saker som att om vi har möjlighet att välja fossilfritt bränsle, ja då gör vi det. Den utvecklingen går ganska snabbt och vi har fler och fler kunder som kräver detta också. När det kommer till stål respektive cement är vi beroende av materialleverantörerna. I Sverige har vi två stora företag som vill tillverka koldioxidneutralt stål. Både HYBRIT som är ett samarbete mellan LKAB, SSAB och Vattenfall och H2 Green Steel som är ett fristående privat företag. Jag tycker det är jättespännande. Till 2045 är min förhoppning att vi kan ha fossilfritt stål till byggindustrin och att vi även kan återvinna material i en mycket större omfattning likt beton. 

Cirkulärt byggande är en superviktig del och jag tycker det går framåt. Vi har våra första helt klimatneutrala bostäder som vi har sålt i år och vi har startat ett nytt kontorsprojekt i Malmö i Hyllie som också är helt koldioxidneutralt räknat enligt vår livscykelanalys som bland annat bygger på att att tillverka solenergi i det här fallet i de här projekten som neutraliserar de utsläppen man har åstadkommit under själva byggprocessen. Vi försöker även jobba med att minimera vår påverkan ytterligare så klart genom smarta materialval och partnerskap med en del leverantörer av material. Och givetvis vill vi ha fler kunder som ställer tuffa krav på oss och som gärna vill utveckla klimatneutrala byggnader tillsammans med Skanska. Vi gör inte det här helt själva – det är en insikt som vi har.  

 

Det låter verkligen som att det går framåt och att framtiden ser positiv ut. 

Man måste vara positiv tycker jag. Man får inte blunda för att det finns utmaningar längs vägen som är ganska stora. Men redan idag finns de tekniska lösningar som krävs. Sen är frågan mer om vi kommer att hinna ställa om i den hastighet som krävs. Jag är själv personligen bekymrad och många med mig så klart. Det känns som att klimatförändringarna går fortare än vad forskare och experter har trott i sina scenarier och det känns bekymmersamt. 

Magnus Solberg: Does Your Organization Have a Robust Security Culture?

Hybrid work models and digital device dependency have greatly increased an organization’s susceptibility to cyber attacks. As these attacks become more intense and complex, cyber resilience and awareness are critical. We speak with Magnus Solberg, VP & Head of Security Governance at Storebrand, on his experience building the company’s security culture, the link between cybersecurity and risk management, and more. 

 

How are cybersecurity and risk management connected in today’s organizations? 

Cybersecurity and risk management are at this point deeply intertwined. In almost every industry, cyber risk is in the top three categories of both operational and business risks. This is because nearly all critical assets are now digital. Of course, this leads to an enormous number of risks that an organization didn’t have 20 years ago.  

Unfortunately, the sheer speed of this development has caused difficulties for a lot of organizations. This goes down to simple things like definitions of risk, and of static policies and processes. Many governance structures are not rigged for disruptive change, such as “new categories of threats and risks.” I think that anchoring the understanding and competence necessary to include cyber in broader risk management is also a challenge. Beyond tech companies, it’s a fact that the board of directors and to a certain extent, C-suites, do not include technologists, which slows down the adoption of modern risk management. Cybersecurity and risk management are very connected but there is still a long way to go to make them as connected as they should be. 

 

What makes for a robust risk culture beyond the traditional 3LoD? 

As I see it, organizations often put too much emphasis on having a formal three-part structure of control and reassurance, and far too little emphasis on building an actual culture that identifies and steers risk as part of its DNA. Of course, building a strong culture of security and implicitly, a risk culture – means including all employees, from the CEO to the bottom-rung shift worker, from the service partner to the short-term consultant. Including all the human risks and employees are key to making an actual risk-based culture.  

You need to really engage the human factor by having a bottom-up approach that enables your employees to think and act in a risk-based approach as a reflex. This can be done by teaching them about threats and potential consequences by training them to perform not only ad hoc, subconscious risk assessments, but also give them the tools to perform more structured and documented assessments – mental tools as well as strong policies and guidelines, and the proper software tools. In my opinion, building a robust security culture is both dependent on and a fundamental ingredient of building a robust risk culture.

 

What are the most effective digital tools and technologies in risk management? 

Can I answer PowerPoint and Excel? Or even the good old whiteboard? [laughs] Of course, I’m only partly joking because I think the biggest revolution in the last couple of years has been the way home officing has exploded the way we utilize collaboration platforms. At the same time, these platforms were forced to provide more robust solutions for things like proper access control, document or file revision history, classification, and of course, API connectivity to other tools. This means that we can get a lot of what we need in terms of managing risks.  

Workshops, creating assessments, performing audits, and even tracking remediation can be done via these platforms. We can use everything from OneNote to the tired but time-tested spreadsheets without losing control because it’s all protected, indexed, and searchable. That being said, I still see the need for a proper enterprise risk management tool that tracks risks, makes people accountable and responsible and of course, pleases our auditors. Exactly which technological solution or which software that should be, I don’t really have any strong opinions about but there are a lot of good ERM tools out there. 

 

Do you think employees are the weakest link when it comes to an organization’s level of cybersecurity? 

It’s irrefutable but it’s the wrong way of looking at it. People are not a simple chain in a link, people are at the nexus of it all. The only reason why we have cybersecurity issues is that there are people out there who are after either stealing, changing, or making information unavailable. No company was ever created simply to be secure: We exist to create services or products for people, and there are people out there who want to benefit illegally from that. Some experts like to say that people are the weakest link, but so is technology. People are the ones configuring that technology or using that technology wrong. Some even have the hubris of buying their way into security, which is equally a weak link. I think putting the blame on people for poor security is misunderstanding the issue completely. You can’t have security without people. But then again because of people, we need security

 

What were the biggest challenges during the implementation of Storebrand’s security culture program and how did you overcome them?   

We’ve been at it for six years and we started very much from scratch. When we started, there was nothing in terms of security awareness training, much less a security culture program. There were several challenges that had to do with mid-management buy-in. Although we did have support from the top management, we were also not given an adequate budget or allowed to make the training portion of the program mandatory. The latter made it especially hard to motivate our mid-level managers to introduce this training to their employees. Mid-level management is all about delivering results and eating up their time and resources does not land you on their friend list.  

So, it did take a lot of time and dedication to make them understand that a secure employee is a low-risk employee. As soon as we reached that turning point, it was immensely satisfying, because mid-level managers are key to enhancing the security message to all their employees. But they’re also an important target group, constituting human risks in themselves. As time went on, we could point to concrete results including the avoidance of huge risks due to more risk-aware workers. We finally received an unbroken chain of buy-in all the way from the top and down via the mid-level managers. That ended up landing us a nice budget and made training mandatory. 

 

How did you develop the program’s framework to ensure it was dynamic enough to handle the evolving threat landscape?  

The framework we developed is in its essence, dynamic, and scalable because it’s all about answering five fundamental questions: Why are we going to do this? Who are we? What do we need to address? How should we go about doing that, and When should we do it?  

In order to answer these questions, we revise and update a number of working documents. For example, we have a program strategy, a target group analysis, and learning objectives based on the current threat and risk landscape. We then test out a lot of different learning platforms and other engagement activities. This is done continuously to allow for emerging risks to be included almost instantly. However, we also do it more formally once every two years, where we do a full audit and revision of the whole program. We’re actually in the middle of doing a full revamp and plan to launch a new version of the program next summer.  

 

How do you measure the program’s success? 

We use a lot of different metrics to measure success and have KPIs linked to distribution, which measures how many employees we reach and how many complete various parts of the training. We have KPIs linked to knowledge where we can see if an employee received and internalized the message. Finally, there are KPIs related to behavior — this allows us to see if training has actually changed risky behavioral patterns.  

Additionally, we perform a group-wide security culture audit every two years performed by our internal audit, who, among other things, performs a comprehensive self-assessment that is sent to all employees. With this independent report, we get a clear picture of how we fare with security culture and whether the success of the program addresses our current needs.  

Our most recent group-wide security culture audit was completed in January this year, the third one we’ve had in six years. That means we can now begin to accumulate historical data that shows encouraging results. Yes, our employees are more competent, more motivated, and a lot more risk-aware than they were before the program started.  

Finally, another measure of success is a bit more qualitative. It has to do with how the program itself has been received. We do gain a lot of positive attention from both regular employees as well as the high reps. And even externally: My team and I do presentations at various conferences, and for other companies as well, just to share how we have “cracked the human code.” 

 

Can you share some current highlights of the program?    

Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, we are in the middle of our biannual revamp. I think one of the best things about maturing the program is its correspondence with the maturing of the organization. We now have various security tools on the technology side that help us create more individually tailored training programs. For example, every employee is invested with a security score, which is automatically set defined by their actions — whether they fall for phishing assessments if they are reporting incidents, and so on. This also paves the way for rudimentary gamification, which will be quite fun to see how we can implement.  

Secondly, I’ll have to highlight our security month. This is something we’ve been doing for six years, and it’s been one of the most important boosts to communicate risk and security, and by extension, the security culture program itself. Every October, we skip the focus on corporate security and put the focus on each person instead. “Why is security important for you and your loved ones?” We pull in external speakers every week to address some common people security problems, such as social media, digital tracking and manipulation, and fake news. We also have weekly security quizzes that are a bit tongue in cheek as well as having great prizes. We do hackathons, we do cool stunts such as “hack yourself”’ competitions, and we do physical stands with security cupcakes. It’s a lot of work, but very fun. 

One of our goals is to make our employees more secure at home, which means they are going to be more secure at work. But also, it has to do with simply marketing our security efforts by getting out there and meeting people. It makes security, if not fun, then at least interesting, because for a lot of people security is boring, or they think it has nothing to do with them.  

On a personal note, I felt we were getting somewhere a couple of years ago when I was invited to do a three-hour workshop on building our security culture program at the security conference in the EU parliament in Strasbourg. Knowing that we built something that works and helping other organizations do the same makes me very happy and fulfilled

 

*The answers have been edited for length and clarity. 

Karin Immenroth: Developing Competency In a Data-Driven Business Culture

The advent of readily available data has fostered a new era of fact-based innovations in corporations, where exploring innovations and new systems can be backed up with empirical evidence. And with the disruption caused by COVID-19, there is accelerated adoption in data technology.

So why is it hard for businesses to adopt data as part of their organizational structure?

The biggest obstacles do not stem from the technical side of things; it’s about the culture. In this interview, Chief Data and Analytics Officer for RTL Deutschland Karin Immenroth shares with us how a business needs to transition into a data-driven culture and the approaches that a modern chief data officer (CDO) needs to adopt in today’s digital landscape.

 

The New Landscape of Data Culture

Over the past decade, data has steadily become an influential factor for decision-making processes. Especially in the past year where almost 60% of the global population is constantly online, businesses are looking into data analytics to better understand their customers and employees.

As with the aftereffects of the pandemic and the changing demands of today’s market, Immenroth highlights how the role of the data officer today has changed significantly while pointing out the underlying driving force for data transformation.

 

How has the role of the Chief Data Officers (CDO) changed and what challenges do they face in a post-pandemic market?

Companies didn’t have Chief Data and Analytics Officers ten years ago. That role didn’t exist yet. But because the market is changing dramatically due to progressive digitalization, “Data” as a topic is becoming more and more important. 

The biggest challenge, however, is cultural – it is not enough for a central data area to drive the cultural change, rather the entire company must start working in a data-centric way. 

The DATA Alliance is the central catalyst for RTL Deutschland on its way to becoming a content, tech, and data powerhouse. The pandemic has permanently changed the way we work. 

For us, as the DATA Alliance, the development surrounding the “mobile office” is very positive, as it means we can now work across Germany and in a completely flexible way. This helps us find and attract the best talent in the German market.

 

Why are companies still struggling to implement data competency and how has the pandemic affected their hesitancy towards adopting data culture?

We are in the middle of a cultural change, transitioning into a data-driven company. 

RTL Deutschland is a company with over 3,000 employees – a cultural change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, and it’s also important to have a few lighthouse projects that carry the topic of “data” into the organization and help spread awareness. 

We must make it easier for our colleagues throughout the company to access data, support them in interpreting data, and, of course, show them how to make better decisions based on this data. 

Just like the motto goes, “Use data, be better”. The pandemic has been a positive and driving force behind our cultural change – greater digitization has also brought the processing and implementation of data more broadly into society.

 

Developing and Simplifying Data For Organizations

Without a solid foundation for data culture, businesses will often miss out on the chance to fully utilize the data they’ve collected, or even encounter issues with data consistency or internal processes.

Deloitte reports that only 21% of the global workforce is confident in their data literacy skills. And with 70% of organizations expected to shift to new analytics techniques known as “small data” and “wide data”, businesses that are not data literate will get left behind.

Immenroth dives into how the leadership in RTL Deutschland has steered the company towards developing its analytics sector and advises those who are still trying to find success in building a data-competent organization. 

 

What can those in leadership roles do to improve data literacy within their organizations?

We have launched various projects that help our colleagues make better use of data for themselves and their day-to-day work. 

These are, for example, projects like our Reporting Center or our quota tool, Key Vision. We also support various stakeholders in the company by building data products and decision-support tools for their businesses. 

At the moment we are particularly active in the marketing, content, and digital sectors. And it’s also crucial for us to continue developing in the analytics sector, as it will enable us to make even better use of the treasure trove that is data analysis.

 

For companies and organizations that are struggling to find success in data, what key metrics and best practices should they focus on to drive the importance of data?

Our experience shows that it makes sense not to overcomplicate the initial steps. Very exciting and useful insights can often be found in simple descriptive data metrics. 

If you then go one step further and use analytics or even machine learning, data science, etc., you’ll often find unexpected results and insights that have been “fleshed out” by the data. 

I recommend a good dose of courage to use unconventional methods and approaches – we have had very positive experiences here and have been very pleasantly surprised on more than one occasion.

 

Starting Small and Establishing Data Competence Centers

In 2021, global big data and business analytics was forecasted to grow to $215 billion while connected IoT devices are expected to create 79.4ZB of data by 2025

With global economies adopting data analytics at an accelerated pace, businesses might be tempted to “go big” with investments in a data-driven culture. Immenroth believes that CDOs and organizations should do the opposite instead while building on Data Competence Centers to kickstart their digital transformation.  

 

In the pursuit of a data-driven culture, what pitfalls or common mistakes should CDOs or organizations be aware of?

More doesn’t always mean better. My experience is that it’s best and most sensible to start “small” and then expand gradually. In concrete terms – it is better to always start with a small proof of concept and then decide whether something bigger can emerge from it.

Fail fast and have the courage to make and admit mistakes… This is the best way to learn and then use what you’ve learned in your organization.

 

How would you advise CDOs or data leaders who want to seamlessly integrate competence centers?

My recommendation is to look at where topics related to data are anchored throughout the company. 

Then, based on that, you can build the core for the so-called Competence Center. It is advisable to define central topics and make them the heart of the Competence Center, and it is also fundamentally important that enough “data” ambassadors are distributed throughout the company in the areas correlating to each topic. 

In my opinion, it’s this balance that counts. In any case, our experience shows that a central Data Competence Center can be a very successful catalyst for the transformation of a company.

Mikko Tepponen: CDOs are Catalysts for Change

When asked about his biggest achievements as FLSmidth’s CDO, Mikko Tepponen talks about the following:  

We saved up to USD150 million annually for a customer by providing them with digital and optimization solutions.” Tepponen also says the data collected from FLSmidth’s sites and equipment is “the basis of many of our digital services and solutions, creating a lot of positive momentum in our digital transformation.” 

The two statements clearly show that successful digital transformation consists of three factors — digital maturity, tech investments and strong leadership. Mikko Tepponen shares why he’s excited to be FLSmidth’s CDO and walks us through the company’s digitalization and sustainability efforts.

 

What is the link between digitalization and sustainability in an organization? 

Digitalization is an enabler for sustainability from several perspectives. First, you must be able to measure sustainability goals. For example, a company with ambitious targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions. Digital tools are important in industrial settings in terms of collecting data and understanding emission levels

In industrial settings, the cycle time for replacing equipment or building new capacity in the market is very long. Some of the equipment used is at least 30 years old. In order to work with zero emissions and carbon neutrality, you need to have the technology ready within the next couple of years.  

But at the same time, you can already do so much today from an optimization perspective with digital tools. For example, we take a traditional cement plant and optimize it, finding energy savings of 5% to 10%. These will directly benefit the environment, forming a good business case for customers. At FLSmidth, our future rests on two pillars — sustainability and digitalizationThey’re very much intertwined and you can’t have one without the other

 

Tell us more about FLSmidth’s MissionZero ambition and its milestones so far.

MissionZero is our central ambition in the cement and mining industries. In the cement industry, it goes back to the following questions: “How can we substitute some of the fuels needed in cement manufacturing?”, “What raw material is it produced from?”, “How do we move away from using limestone and clinker into clay?”  

Mining is quite a water-intensive and energy-consuming process. How can we use less water and lower the energy footprint within the mining industry? As a technology provider, we’re committed to having all the technology ready and available by 2030, so the two industries can become carbon neutral and emission-free.

 

What are the greatest challenges and advantages of being a CDO in a company with a 135-year legacy? 

We’re very much an engineering company and we’ve built a lot of the technologies that are behind current cement and mining processes. In an engineering culture, people are willing to try and push for new technologies and get excited about innovative projects. That is one benefit of working in a company like ours. 

In terms of challenges, I could say it’s the same thing. Every engineer likes to invent and has individual ways of working. This presents an obstacle when driving uniform technology from a process perspective.  

The related systems in the back end are not always easy when you have a mindset that everything can be tweaked to be a little different. As a CDO, you want to build a system of uniformity that can be automated and developed further.  

 

What does this legacy mean to FLSmidth’s digital agenda? 

Because we’ve been around for a long time, we have great and long customer relationships. A lot of digital innovation happens together with our customers. We also have a large installed base that spans several decades. How do you link into that installed base with technology that is decades old? 

As some of it existed before the Internet, it can be upgraded throughout the years. The heritage brings great opportunities because there is plenty of installed base and equipment that can be connected. This can bring a lot of value as we’re a company with a global heritage. We can work anywhere in the world at any time but must keep in mind the history and old systems that are in place.   

 
Find innovative ways to build a strong digital agenda through expert panel discussions and case presentations at Denmark’s Digital Advantage event.
 

How exactly is customer co-creation utilized in FLSmidth’s digital transformation journey? 

We have a standing rule when developing new digital technology. I think it holds true with a lot of our R&D efforts in traditional and digital spaces. We don’t develop anything unless there is a customer involved in that development. It is crucial, even for a technology company like us. 

We call ourselves the best in generating physical equipment and the digital services related to them. Of course, you want to have that end-user input all the time when you’re developing new services. It reduces the time to market,  helping us get the right answers quicker.

If you’re successful, you get the first references immediately. If you have the data to back it up, it’s even better. For example, this solution increases productivity by 2% or improves availability by 5%. This allows us to solve challenges and scale solutions out to the market quicker.  

There is also a lot happening with our most important customers. They’re tackling the same digital transformation challenges as us. They’re thinking about how to operate their plants more effectively. As some mine sites are located in super remote places, our customers are moving towards autonomous operations. What role can we play in helping them with that technology? 

 

What are the biggest challenges when it comes to integrating digital tools across all business functions?   

Many industrial companies such as OEMs and manufacturers of industrial goods have grown through a series of acquisitions, resulting in a mixed landscape of solutions and systems. At the same time, there is the integration of different cultures, processes and ways of working. It becomes a challenge if there is no clear focus on harmonizing your processes.  

At FLSmidth, we had a holding company structure that consisted of product companies and small entities. We’re making progress in standardizing global processes and that has helped us in delivering digital tools. There is still much work to be done as our enterprise architecture is quite diverse. For example, we just announced a major acquisition – which is subject to regulatory approvals – of thyssenkrupp’s Mining business, an entity with more than 3,000 employees and many locations around the world. An enterprise architecture and system landscape need to be as lean as possible to manage the additional complexity of acquisition of this magnitude.  

 

How has the CDO role evolved in the past year in terms of leadership and driving tech investments? 

At FLSmidth, the CDO is expected to be a catalyst for change as well as a technology leader. Digital organizations are used to working in agile ways and CDOs are tasked with introducing a modern and emphatical leadership style. The CDO role is a balancing act of trying to constantly push their organization a little bit more than they’re willing to. When you get a little bit of pushback, then you know you’re at the right level of trying to drive change. CDOs need to make sure that their organization is ready by taking on new ways of working. It’s an exciting time to be a CDO because I think it’s more vital than ever. 

 

*The answers have been edited for length and clarity.