Digital transformation – #ITWCchats Twitter chat

Digital transformation has become a hot topic over the last couple years, with its forward-thinking, streamlined message being shouted loud and clear from every keynote speech, conference panel discussion, feature article and research study. More importantly, it’s become imperative for businesses, both large and small, to succeed in an increasingly digitized world.

But what is digital transformation? Most will describe it as the changes every industry, from business to politics to our general daily lives, will need to make in order to keep pace with and leverage rapidly advancing digital technologies. How we bank has changed with the implementation of new tech, and so too have the ways in which we navigate, drive, order food, interact with others, and even vote and receive healthcare services.

But it’s also much more than that – digital transformation is a new mindset and way of life. It’s being called the fourth industrial revolution, and just like the three before it, society has turned a corner – we can’t go back to a time with no digitization, automation, or data, so we must move forward.

It’s become painfully clear that those who don’t accept and adopt new innovative technologies will fall behind, and those that do make the shift have a better chance of achieving success in a competitive market. And we’ve witnessed this happen firsthand. Global home video rental giant Blockbuster, for example, officially closed its doors in 2013 after failing to compete with more modern video services like Netflix, while travel websites such as Expedia and Travelocity have replaced traditional human travel agencies.

So how can companies avoid going the way of Blockbuster and the dinosaurs? Join us and several tech industry experts on June 1 at 1pm ET for the latest ITWC Twitter chat, which will focus on the digital transformation journey within businesses, and how workplaces are changing as a result. Corporate culture is the key to digital transformation, according to market research company IDC, so what does it mean to build company culture around the digital experience? For those that have yet to make the leap, what are some steps they can take to get started?

We’ll discuss all of this and highlight brands that have shown leadership in this area. Our guest experts have all studied and experienced the impact of technology, and will be sharing their knowledge, personal stories, and advice in hopes of improving others’ digital transformation journeys.

Guest experts

Ray Wang, Constellation Research

R “Ray” Wang is the principal analyst, founder and chairman of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research, Inc. He’s the author of popular business strategy and technology blog “A Software Insider’s Point of View,” where he provides insight into how disruptive technologies and new business models such as digital transformation impact brands, enterprises, and organizations, which receives millions of page views a year.

He has previously held executive roles in product, marketing, strategy, and consulting at companies such as Forrester Research, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and John Hopkins Hospital.

 

Tracy Fleming, Avaya

Tracy Fleming is a Senior Technologist with the Office of the CTO for Avaya. He is focused on driving thought leadership around emerging technologies and contextual collaboration by working with strategic customers, partners and consultants to evangelize emerging technology models and map to business requirements. Tracy has over 20 years of industry experience and sits on multiple industry advisory councils for governments, colleges and universities.

He has been at the forefront of innovation including Avaya Aura from its inception and now focused on Digital Transformation and artificial intelligence. Tracy is tasked with providing customer requirements internally to various stakeholder organizations within Avaya.

Previously, Tracy held a position as UC Practice Lead, Avaya Canada. Prior to Avaya, Tracy was Director of IS/IT for a subsidiary of Bell Canada.

Greg Verdino, digital transformation consultant

Greg is one of the leading voices on digital transformation and understanding the rapidly changing global landscape to solve pressing business challenges. He is the managing partner and chief strategist at Verdino & Co., a consultancy he started with his wife to help companies create content-driven experiences demanded by customers. He is the author of several marketing books, and a go-to expert on digital transformation for a wide range of news outlets.

Previously, he was the executive vice president at social business firm Dachis Group (now Sprinklr), as well as digital strategist and head of emerging channels for Digitas.

Matthew Metelsky, Third Octet

Matthew is CTO, partner and co-founder of Third Octet, a strategic implementation leader in digital transformation and thought leader in implementing technology to achieve work-life, balance. Matt drives technology strategy and vision through internal research and testing in the fields of cloud, virtualization, computing efficiencies and user experience before recommending solutions to clients. For almost a decade, Matt and his teams of architects and engineers have been designing and implementing digital transformation, and managing solutions, in manageable, scalable phases at leading organizations across the globe, including Fortune 100 and Fortune 500.

Christina Hatziioannou, CIBC

Christina is the director of digital strategy and integration at CIBC. Since joining the company in early 2009, Christina Hatziioannou has held various leadership roles across the bank.  Christina’s career has been focused on developing strategies that disrupt the traditional retail banking model. This is evident through her work to modernize CIBC’s mass affluent offer and her current role within CIBC’s Digital group. Currently, Christina is a leader in the Digital Strategy group where she is responsible for establishing and driving the Digital roadmap with a focus on developing capabilities to drive digital sales for key products. In addition, Christina and her team provide the bank expertise in mobile and online innovation strategies.

Rachel Minicucci, CIBC

Rachel Minicucci leads marketing and communications at CIBC Live Labs, the Digital Innovation Lab for CIBC. She showcases innovative products created from Live Labs across digital media channels, bringing a discussion around innovative technologies and the culture needed to sustain them. As a passionate businesswoman, Rachel is also a YouTube Content Creator with over 90,000 subscribers, under the screen name prettypolishes, disrupting traditional forms of marketing in the beauty and fashion industry.

Sean Hinton, BMC Software

Sean is the country leader for Canada at BMC Software. With over 20 plus years in IT, Sean Hinton possesses advanced expertise in leading-edge IT standards and practices. He is an IT strategist with a fluid ability to bridge the language of business and technology, adept at putting in place the systems, standards and procedures to ensure that corporate IT plans align with short and long term business objectives.

Questions

1. How have you experienced digital transformation in your own life?

2. In your opinion, what has been the most disruptive technology so far (whether in your own personal life, business life, etc.)?

3. What is the key to successful digital transformation?

4. To what extent are we in the fourth industrial revolution? How big of a role does digital transformation play in that?

5. How can companies succeed at digitally transforming their business? What advice can you offer them?

6. What would you say to a legacy company that believes going digital is a waste of time, money and resources?

7. For those that have yet to make the digital leap, is it too late? Why or why not?

8. What are some of the negative consequences of digitization and how can we alleviate those as best we can?

9. Looking forward, technology will likely continue advancing at a rapid pace. Can keep up with all the changes, or is that an unreasonably optimistic goal?

10. We’ve experienced the mobile-first mentality of the last few years evolve into an artificial intelligence-first focus more recently. What’s the next big tech trend we should expect to see?