Oliver Wyman’s Adel Alfalasi On Digitization

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“When it comes to digitization or digital transformation, it's no longer a luxury. It becomes a need for survival, for being relevant, and a need to provide better customer citizen services.”

Transcript

00:00I'm Adel Flassi, I'm a partner with Oliver Weinberg.

00:07See, when it comes to digitization or digital transformation, it's no longer a luxury.

00:17It becomes a need for survival, a need for being relevant, and a need to provide better

00:25customer and citizen services.

00:28The UAE has been at the forefront when it comes to digital adoption and innovation.

00:34I think if you look at both the public sector and the private sector, we are both here in

00:41the UAE taking advantage of that, of those developments.

00:45At the digital front overall, but also when it comes to adoption of emerging tech, including

00:52AI, though I will not call AI an emerging tech, it has been there around, but the last

00:56number of years of the acceleration of the number of applications, providers, and investment

01:03going to generative AI.

01:09So this has two elements, right?

01:11The first element is why you should do it.

01:14The second element on how to go about it.

01:17Why you should do it?

01:18We're talking about citizens, especially when it comes to public sector citizens, that are

01:24demanding better services, citizens that would like to be engaged, citizens where the

01:31expectations for quality service are quite high.

01:34Here, the governments are leveraging technology when it comes to how we can provide better

01:42services, not only in terms of design, but also delivery.

01:46The other thing is how to stress test policies before even the policies get executed.

01:52How the organization within themselves leverages technology to become more efficient and effective.

01:59So there are so many elements of technology that help the public sector become better.

02:05If you look at the private sector, and here the private sector is quite a vast term, right?

02:10It depends from one industry to another.

02:12I would say when it comes to technology, it's about being connected with the customers better

02:19and serve them better.

02:20So there is the connectivity element, which has the element of understanding our customers

02:25and reading them continuously in order to adjust the services to the individual customer.

02:34Doesn't matter how large or big, doesn't matter if you are in retail or telco or banking.

02:39These are the fundamentals that are, I would call them like sector agnostic.

02:45Transformations, unfortunately, usually fail.

02:48Because, especially when it comes to technology, they say, oh, it's a digital transformation.

02:54I will upgrade the infrastructure.

02:56I will have the new software in place.

02:58And I'm saying this in very simple terms, right?

03:01And this means everything should work.

03:03No, there are so many other elements that need to be taken into account.

03:07For example, how does the digital transformation fit within the overall strategic direction?

03:13Why are we doing this?

03:15In my view, the push or the drive for digital transformation should come from business needs,

03:22not from technical needs.

03:24So this is one thing.

03:25The other thing is, do you have the right setup, whether in terms of infrastructure,

03:30in terms of data, especially when it comes to analytics and AI?

03:33Do you have the right setup in place?

03:35The third thing is, do you have the right skill set for people in terms of adoption

03:41or in terms of ability to be included in that change and actually driving it forward?

03:49And lastly, I would say, what's the role of leadership in all of this?

03:54Not having the right leadership support, not having the right governance,

03:58that's one of the challenges that face transformation

04:01and could be a make or break element in any transition.

04:12There is a very simple answer to this.

04:16But let me give you one thing on the importance of AI and I'll tell you why we built it.

04:22For example, if you look at analytics, right?

04:25Using AI, AI can be used for different reasons.

04:29The challenge currently with some of the organizations,

04:33they want to use AI for the sake of using AI.

04:36It has to be for solving a business need, right?

04:40It could be for, for example, there's a type of analytics that's quite descriptive.

04:45For example, I leverage AI to make sense of whatever reports, data,

04:50whether it's structure, not structure, that I have in the past

04:53and trying to come up with new insights.

04:55There is another kind of analytic, which is the predictive analytics.

04:58It's like, okay, how can it make sense with everything that it's having

05:01to give me what sort of potential future scenarios that are out there?

05:06And here, you're looking about certain use cases like predictive maintenance,

05:12looking at even advanced policing when it comes to better energy consumption.

05:20So lots of predictive elements.

05:22And then there is the prescriptive analytics,

05:25which actually, how can you use analytics and AI

05:30in order to help decision makers come up with better decisions?

05:34And here, to answer your question, you need the support from the top for steering that direction.

05:42If it's a use case for the sake of the use case, it will never take off.

05:47But if it's a use case for the sake of helping the organization with a business need,

05:52that drive needs to come from the top in terms of buy-in,

05:56in terms of enforcement, in terms of allocation of resources,

05:59and in terms of designing and having the right team in place for execution.

06:04And so if you don't have all of these elements, which usually come from the top,

06:08those digital transformations usually, the change will not be possible.

06:13In my view, the most important element of any digital transformation

06:18is that you don't look at it as just digital transformation.

06:21It's still an organizational transformation.

06:23It has to be linked to the overall direction the organization is in.

06:27There has to be a reason why we're doing this,

06:31other than, oh, this is actually quite cool and we should be doing it.

06:34And there has to be a linking that digital transformation to an immediate business impact.

06:40Having that link is important, not just to justify the transformation,

06:48but also to help communicating the success of transformation to the rest of the organization.

06:57Microsoft Mechanics

06:58www.microsoft.com

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