Venue: Chartered Accountants House, Pearse Street, Dublin
Date: 8th March 2023
Event: Two
Title: Creating a culture that motivates employees to embrace digital change
transformative for your business. The term “transformation” can be very intimidating. It is better to use the term “digitally enabled” Dumbitdownandtailorittoyourneeds.Itcuts across four dimensions i.e., purpose, people, process and technology. Technology is not the most important dimension.
Digital is highly disruptive, and one needs to accept this. It will be disruptive for your business and particularly your employees to adopt new behaviour and habits. When one meets resistance from your people, it could be that people feel threatened and marginalised. Therewillbedisruptionparticularattheearlier stage of the transformation programme. People can feel unsafe as you are bringing something unpredictable into their world. If you don’t bring the people along with you and proactively assure people of their positive contribution, there is a danger of failure. Make sure to assure and reassure your people on the journey.
Speaker 1: Saoirse Colgan, Enterprise Ireland
Title: Business Readiness for Digital Projects –How to Prepare Your Organisation for Change
Saoirse is Senior Digitalisation Technologist in Enterprise Ireland. She has a background leading on digital programmes to drive business outcomes across Irish SMEs and Multinationals.
Enterprise Ireland has a very keen focus on digitalisation in sustaining and achieving business growth. Saoirse focused on the disruptive impact of digitalisation. She quoted the prolific author Peter Drucker “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. This statement really captureswhychangemanagementincriticalas one starts on a digital journey. What Drucker really focuses on is culture and unless the culture is right the digital transformation has a high probability of failing. For change to be truly embedded into an organisation, in an effective manner, leadership needs to buy into that change and commit to it, set the direction and tone, set expectations and lead by example. Enterprise Ireland help senior management achieve these transformations.
Saoirse said that “when corporations launch transformation, 70% fail”. It must be
A digital enabled company is a company that puts digital at the core of your business model. A company that is constantly modernising and is driving efficiency across the full value chain. Put the customer central to your purpose and the customer experiences. As one is looking at digital look at how openly collaborative the experience across your teams is. Collaboration is so important.
Make sure to embed an innovation mindset within your own internal teams. It is important to have a digital first mindset from the very start. Moving from a reactive to more proactive culture to better manage your information. Have a sense of urgency on your digital journey.
Saoirse outlined the ADKAR change management model.
This model puts the people at the centre of the change. People must be willing to change. Awareness is so important and raising this awareness as early as possible. The individuals need to get an understanding of the impact of the change in how they work and the expectations from the change. You need to get the levels of desire from your people or buy-in to bring them along. This will in turn provide the level of knowledge your people/users will need.Driveontheactionsandkeepreinforcing the core message that “change is good”.
Saoirse spoke about stakeholder analysis to make sure all stakeholders are aware of your digital transformation programme. Make sure to access the capability gap which will give you an indication of the appetite to change. You need to identify your passive resistors, active resistors and your digital champions, as it is these champions that will help you unlock the greater potential of digital change. These is turn will help in the heavy lifting and onboarding. Nurture these champions. You need to keep them incentivised. Get your digital champions to try and move the passive resistors in particular along as if you don’t move these people from their perceptions you may have resistance down the line.
Try and keep it simple and take a step by step approach. Plan to deliver value early and build trust. You need to deliver digital in an iterative way and bring your people with you.
Saoirse concluded with an overview of the supports available from Enterprise Ireland including the Built to Innovate scheme that manynon-EnterpriseIrelandclientscanavailof should they be involved in residential building.
Speaker 2: Rob Fox, Site Passport
Title: Why should I get excited about adopting technology?
Rob is a Chartered Civil Engineer and founded Site Passport Supply Chain in 2017. He has 20+ years of experience working with Tier 1 Main Contractors in Ireland and Australia
Site Passport is a supply chain and procurement platform for the construction industry. Rob learned a lot in his years in construction but with a lot of frustration. Subcontractors and supplier are by far the largest component of project life cycle transactions.
Site Passport can provide consultancy and support to their customers. They take pride in the fact that theystaycloseto their customers.
Rob spoke about the support that Enterprise Ireland have provided Site Passport over the last 5 years. He also referred to the Built to Innovate fund and encouraged those who qualify for this funding to take advantage of this funding.
Rob focused on the mission of Site Passport to focus on optimising the 80% spend on subcontractor costs on a typical construction project.
They help to organise and capture the data from their supply chain. They can help companies reduce risk and help them make more profits. Every construction company is different. Who are the best companies out there that are a good fit for your business? The lifecycle of supply chain management was outlined by Rob from discovery to evaluation. This central intelligence refers to the data collated in the management of the supply chain.
Rob spoke of the “disconnection” between the array of technologies available in the market.
It is importantto bringyourdecisionmakerson boardatthestart.Aclearvisionforsuccessand associated KPIs is critically importance. What is the procurement process(es) and establish the pain points and the budget allocation early.
It is important to identify the resistors and try to unlock this impasse. At the end of the day there must be a business case and a return on any investment.
The latest development is to have a small number of integrated best-in-class solutions. It is important to look at your integrated technology stack.
Rob spoke about the need for short, medium and longer-term implementation strategy which contains four key modules.
At the centre is the subcontractor database. Systems that can speak to each other is really key.
One of the key areas is to make sure there is a value proposition for your people and the various facets of your people/business processes. You need to make sure that any solution makes people work life easier and more efficient.
Rob also referred to Saoirse’s slide on digital champions. This person needs to be relatively senior as it is this person that carries the weight.
Rob spoke at length around the term acceleration and broke it down into the follow 10 steps A.C.C.E.L.E.R.A.T.I.O.N.
Rob spoke of the importance of trust in the processandthesensitivityindealingwithinput from the customer is critically important.
Speaker 3: David Mullen, Engineering Documentation
Title: Addressing the talent gap through dynamic BIM training
Set up to succeed: How to implement Building information Modelling processes strategically.
David Mullen is the managing director of Engineering Documentation Ltd., a company providing BIM and drawing support to clients and employing over 30 people in Sligo town.
David’s talk was mainly non-technical and about their cultural journey so far. David’s first job was with a mechanical contractor and he felt he was unprepared for the world of work.
The skills gaps that he experienced was vast. This skill gap still exists today.
David could see how jobs were handed over and he could see how this could be improved. David’s company got a name for producing gooddrawingsandhishands-onapproachwith his clients on site.
Today they are now more involved in 3D drawings. During the challenging downturn in the industry, they found that Revit was transformative. At the time they were largely ignorantofthegreaterpotentialofBIM.Rather than coming in through the front door they came in through the side door and today they have full ISO 19650 certification.
Today they provide services that are drawing related.
David is looking for BIM co-ordinators and has built up a core team of approx. 30 employees. He is not seeing the pipeline of people coming out of the BIM programmes.
He referred to the Sustainability Wood and Technologies course where he is finding good quality people. They have also taken on people from Letterfrack where they have excellent Revit skills.
David believed in micro-credentials and the opportunity to tap into a new talent pool. He spoke about bringing in both 2nd level and 3rd level students into their business and he referred to the fact that the students passed their professional examination. He referred to Liz O’Brien presentation last month on these smaller bite sized programmes.
There is definitely something for everybody. David spoke at length about the culture of training in his business.
David spoke about training as the one thing that ties their services and capability together. His business is about “people” i.e., getting the right people in, giving them the training and winning work. He spoke about Mark Whitehead (Cpac – event 1) three nonnegotiables i.e., Honesty, Adaptability and Passion. David spoke about his service as “hands-on practical BIM”. We are going to get in there and do the job for our clients.
David new approach to on the job training is to get people ready and productive within 2 to 3 months instead of 6 months. We bring people in at the start and give them upfront intensive training. This can then add to this and constantly encourage and support them.
David spoke of his company’s recent excellence award from his local chamber of commerce. This gave them a real boost that his company was gaining the respect and recognition from his peers. He believes in a training culture and addressing the talent gap.
There is a benchmarking and progression training process in their business. David spoke of encouraging his people to take on the “train the trainer” and an approvedAutodesktrainer.
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