Exclusive Access #6 Melbourne – “Navigating Your Data Nightmare”
Exclusive Access powered by Maxsum was proud to host our first-ever Melbourne metro-event on July 26, 2017. The topic “Navigating Your Data Nightmare”, brought together three insightful speakers who took attendees on a journey through the science of decision-making, over-arching data trends in the technology industry, and the potential for real-life data management applications in small-to-medium-sized business.
Maxsum Consulting on behalf of Exclusive Access, welcomed attendees and set the scene for the day’s discussion with some startling statistics:
- Data is growing faster than ever before and by the year 2020, about 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created every second for every human being on the planet.
- Feed into this the prediction that by 2020 we will have more than 50 billion connected smart devices also producing, consuming, sharing, analysing and feeding the data machine.
- But as it stands now, less than 0.5% of all data collected is every actually analysed or used!
Our event host described data as giving businesses the opportunity to “start looking at the questions people gave up trying to answer because they couldn’t answer them before” and prompted attendees to consider the following two questions whilst listening to the event presentations.
What those questions might be in your business?
What data do you have already that, better utilized, might help you answer those questions?
First up, Chris Pezzimenti from One Step Out, discussed how he sees effective decision-making as a process of business leaders moving one step out of their comfort zone to achieve greater success. He described the typical journey that businesses take across their lifespan from the of initial fervour of the start-up climate, through the “good old days” of early successes, winning friends and influencing people, to the point where many small businesses come into a period of disengagement; encountering brick walls and hurdles in their growth, strategy direction and skills sets. Overcoming these hurdles to reach greater heights, according to Chris, is very much about whether your decision-making style is fed on inspiration or desperation. Mastering decision-making from an inspirational mindset (as opposed to simple striking out in desperation) is about the gaining the Three Cs: Clarity, Confidence and Control to transition your business beyond the hurdles you face and position you for advanced growth.
As always Chris stepped attendees through this process with an engaging presentation that covered off on everything from strategies in international test cricket to how you make carpet choices for your rental properties. Ever entertaining, Chris set the scene perfectly for discussing how using your data better can move you towards inspirational decision-making.
Next, Exclusive Access welcomed our keynote speaker, Craig Baty from Fujitsu. Craig brought to the room knowledge and experience from his stellar career in all things data spanning analytics and technology giants Gartner and Fujitsu. Craig kicked off his segment with a very entertaining psychological experiment that involved attendees choosing a shape which ultimately revealed their personality trait in relation to decision-making and leadership. Whilst this was a bit of fun, it was an insightful exercise that had everyone thinking about their own approach to processing and utilizing new data and information.
Craig gave a backdrop to the exponential speed and scope of technological change and development experienced globally in recent years and discussed Fujitsu’s headlining strategy around “Human-Centric Co-creation”: namely that the best and most successful insights to be gained out of the digital transformation journey (including big data and analytics applications) are those that bring together the analytical strengths that better data management can offer with human application, insight and knowledge-building in the “co-creation” of new value for enterprises. As examples of Fujitsu’s global work in data and transformation he outlined three case studies on how Fujitsu worked with stakeholders to harness data for enhanced human outcomes. Sperbank, Singapore Sustainable Urbanization Project and the San Carlos Clinical Hospital.
Third on the bill was Joe Ciancio from Maxsum Consulting. Joe stepped the audience through a brief trip down memory lane with some pics of technologies that were transformative for their time. This journey demonstrated how over time the pace of change has become faster, bigger in scale and also more bafflingly complex for SME leaders to navigate. As an example he displayed a tell-tale picture of the number of years it took various products throughout history to gain 50 million users. While the telephone took 50 years, the PC 14 years, and the mobile phone 12 years to reach this milestone, Facebook took a mere 3 years, Twitter 2 years, and the race to 50 million users only gets quicker and quicker. This is why, Joe explained, businesses are feeling the need to digitally transform to keep pace with broader market change, but often they are held back by inefficient, cumbersome, legacy data processes that are simple not agile enough to generate the information they need on-demand to make quick, yet fully informed, decisions.
Joe proceeded to showcase three case studies of data management projects Maxsum has worked on that have had transformative effects on the processes and operational maturity of their clients: one a funding and project tracking system for a large metro-based not-for-profit organization, another an alerts and asset maintenance management system for an air-conditioning company, and a home-grown case study about how Maxsum itself uses sophisticated data management for CRM. Joe made the very important point that a “data strategy” alone will not put any SME on the road to digital transformation, but rather any element must be part of a broader technology strategy discussion that is aligned from the outset with the SME’s core business objectives. The key message from Joe was that to achieve alignment between data/technology strategies and business objectives, technology partners need to gain a #seatatthetable in organizations.
The event wrapped with one lucky attendee winning the stunning Red U937 Laptop kindly donated by Exclusive Access event sponsor Fujitsu Australia, as well as some other giveaways, followed by a networking morning tea that gave speakers and attendees the perfect opportunity to talk about data, digital transformation and taking these discussions further.
Exclusive Access extends their thanks to Fujitsu Australia, Maxsum Consulting and One Step Out for supporting Exclusive Access #6.
Check out the Exclusive Access #6 event gallery for more pics from the day.
Read more from our EA#6 supporter Fujitsu: Fujitsu Vision Exec Summary 2017 Fujitsu at EA6 2017
Find out more about Exclusive Access and register for updates and future invites. Or simply email: rebecca@maxsum.com
