adaptive strategies Archives - 51��Australia & New Zealand News Center

People and Processes Remain Critical to Business Recovery

Marcus Lim — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 01:35:03 +0000

The world continues to respond to the rate of new coronavirus infections and work towards defining what a COVID-normal world would look like; Australian and New Zealand enterprises face new challenges and uncertainty as with the rest of the world.

As part of SAP’s commitment to helping business become more resilient and agile in today’s challenging environment, the recent Forum provided free industry-specific webinars that explored how governments, business and the community can work together to drive a faster economic recovery.

The Forum was a follow-up to the inaugural Adaptive Strategies event in May, where industry advisors and executives shared their perspectives on the strategies that Australian and New Zealand organisations were taking in response to some of the challenges we have faced this year – from the bushfires to the global pandemic. Regardless of industry, common themes that emerged were; digital preparedness, the importance of collaboration, business continuity, keeping customers and employees safe, safeguarding supply chains, mitigating risks, and building resilience for future events. Members of our team in the Digital Transformation Office at 51��Australia & New Zealand participated in these sessions and here are some highlights.

Adaptive Strategies in a Changed World ACCELERATED

Small and medium enterprise (SME) will play a pivotal role in getting Australia back to work, which according to the 2019 Small Business Ombudsman Report accounts for 35% of our national GDP and 44% of Australia’s workforce. The SME sector, much like larger enterprises, has been hit by three primary challenges – cashflow management, employee engagement/availability, and supply chain disruption.

To further understand how innovation and increasing productivity can foster growth in this sector, Hannah Baudert, Federal Government Director at 51��spoke with the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO), Kate Carnell in the dedicated

For the , Anton Kroger, Director of Energy and Natural Resources at 51��hosted a discussion with Angela Williamson, Partner at Integral Supply Networks Advisory, Sanjiv Manchanda, CEO for Atlas Iron, and Robert McCarthy, GM at Dyflex Solutions.

A key takeaway from this session was the importance of engaging with remote workforces and contractors while managing supply chains during this time of uncertainty. With ever-changing legislation and continued fears around the safety and supply of resources – both human and material, mining operators should utilise technology that helps keep its various stakeholders connected and compliant.

As highlighted in the discussion, it’s not just about reducing costs and maintaining business continuity but ensuring the productivity and wellbeing of various staff members, processes, and equipment throughout the product lifecycle. Miners should use this opportunity to take stock prior to digital transformation, understand business capacities and systems to ensure they’re aligned with overarching strategic goals.

Evan Mantis, General Manager for Consumer and Service Industries at 51��introduced the with Steven Moraitakis, Transformation Lead for Consumer Goods and Retail at SAP, and Jackie Pearson, Executive GM for Business Transformation at Sigma Healthcare.

Ms Pearson which they kick-started due to the legacy ‘technology debt’ created across the organisation. With four separate ERP systems and a host of different applications that were highly customised, disparate, and not providing the necessary insights, Sigma Healthcare needed to optimise its technology and processes to operate more intelligently.

Moving ahead with their digital transformation program not only mitigated risk but broke down structural silos and unified all parts of the organisation, allowing staff to work more efficiently while creating value in multiple business areas. Currently in the process of evolving its ERP ecosystem to integrate all data touchpoints into a single platform with 51��S/4HANA, Sigma Healthcare was able to withstand the COVID-19 disruption by relying on agile technology and its best in class distribution centres. Ms Pearson is fiercely powering through implementation remotely, emphasising the organisation’s ability to quickly adapt to new circumstances.

For the , Jonathan Fogarty, Utilities Lead Architect for 51��hosted a panel discussion with Danica Lawrence, IS Lead Chief Architect for Powerco NZ, Rob Scott, Director and Principal of HR Strategy and Innovation at Deloitte, Aaron Green, Senior VP and Head of 51��SuccessFactors APAC, and Gavin Mooney, Utilities Lead Architect for 51��Australia.

With ongoing challenges and uncertainties, the panel discussed the importance of connecting and collaborating with staff while maintaining company culture. As businesses focus on productivity and safety, the key is facilitating remote work with operational and intelligent technologies – helping staff to work seamlessly and minimising manual, in-field work. For example, Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning capabilities are facilitating predictive maintenance, optimising asset use and longevity while increasing the efficiency of maintenance crews. By assisting fieldworkers through augmented reality, and reducing the amount of fieldwork required using touchless substations and smart metering, utilities are improving their processes and keeping everyone safe during the pandemic.

In the , Peter Jose, General Manager for Financial Services at 51��introduced a discussion between Darryl Fox, Industry Account Director at 51��and David Earls, Executive GM of Enterprise Services and Technology at IAG. They discussed how IAG are utilising digital technology to empower staff, stay connected to their customers and maintain service continuity. Prior to the lockdown, IAG already had 30% of staff working predominantly from home which helped set a solid foundation in terms of technologies and practices for ensuring productivity.

Evan Mantis opened the with Asha Bisla, GM of Business Applications at Broadspectrum, Shenaz Bilkis, Global Industry Director for Construction and Real Estate at SAP, and Mike Denning, Business Architect for Service & Engineering Industries at SAP.

Asha shared insights into how Broadspectrum are working closely with strategic partners to fast track critical processes. Leveraging technology allowed the business to facilitate remote working at scale, manage the scheduling and safety of projects and people, while using communications and analytics software to forecast and plan for ever-changing circumstances.

Uday Bonu, Regional Industry Lead for Public Sector at 51��, VP of Digital Government Transformation at 51��to explore the impact of COVID-19 on public services and the strategies that can help governments work more efficiently to deal with the increasing demand for social services in the face of declining revenues. By implementing and accelerating digital initiatives, governments and private businesses can help set the industry norms and motivate change for the better in terms of processes and systems.

Taking insights from each of these industry sessions, it is clear that organisations of all sizes, in all industries, are squarely focussed on safeguarding their employees and customers, while maintaining business continuity. Technology and digitisation is playing a vital role in supporting and facilitating rapid change. In polling attendees, 51��found that businesses across industry sectors are reprioritising and/or accelerating digitalisation projects in response to the pandemic – using the global shift to focus more on future-proofing operations.

Access the from the 51��2020 Adaptive Strategies in a Changed World ACCELERATED Forum to gain further insights on specific industry challenges and how 51��solutions are helping organisation to become more adaptive and resilient in this rapidly changing environment.

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51��Adaptive Strategies: IAG ‘buddies’ tech staff with business for remote work transition

Fred Azis-Laranjo — Mon, 24 Aug 2020 01:47:41 +0000

Progresses two-year-old ‘ready for anything’ approach.

Insurer IAG created a “buddy system” that paired technology staff with people in its business divisions to help understand some of the problems created by COVID and how IT might assist.

Executive general manager of enterprise service in IAG’s technology division, David Earls, told he viewed the buddy system as “the standout” initiative that IAG had pursued during COVID.

Technology to the rescue

IAG has a few initiatives to choose from here, including a .

Earls said the buddy system saw “everybody in [IAG] Technology sign up to ‘buddy’ with a colleague in one of our business divisions to help smooth their transition to home.”

Buddies were members of Technology “who clearly had basic skills that would help understand the problems that were being faced, and also help to get them fixed for those individuals.”

“I found that we built great relationships across the business, across our teams, and we got a better understanding of the problems that our users were having when we did that move,” Earls said.

“I would call out the buddy system as being probably one of my highlights [in IAG’s response].

“It goes to the heart of the culture at IAG where we really are about making the world a safer place and helping each other.”

Culture driving change

Earls said the cultural piece formed the backdrop of every decision – and direction – taken by the Technology team at IAG.

Earls’ own specific area, enterprise service, is a group function that delivers “efficient, secure and standardised [IT] services across our divisions and geographies.”

“It includes the management and transformation of our people and finance systems to support a data-driven business with increasingly real-time information to inform better decision making for our business and for our customers,” he said.

“It [also] includes our tech support for our colleague experience, enabling them to be ready for anything, [and] our underlying infrastructure and transition to software-defined and cloud-based services.”

Earls noted that COVID was simply the latest in a long line of issues that IAG had to deal with over the past year, including the 2019/20 measles outbreak in New Zealand, Australia’s bushfires, and floods and hail storms.

All of these events “had a massive impact on our business and our ability to react and support our customers in their moment of need,” he said.

The right foundations

For IAG, that meant the company was already building ‘ready for anything’ capabilities for staff.

“We believe we’ve been on this journey for over two years now,” Earls said.

“We already had a backlog of things we wanted to investigate further because we were already on this journey.

“So [COVID] was really an acceleration of that backlog to deliver the extra things that would make this easier and better for our employees and a more engaging experience.”

Earls said that the work this year is mostly focused around improving employees’ ability to work from anywhere.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work this year to ensure that our digital workplace is ready and enabled for anybody to work from anywhere, to have enhanced communication and collaboration from anywhere, and to be able to engage our customers from anywhere,” he said.

“Pre-COVID, our business already made major steps to embrace flexible working and more remote working for our employees. That was a conscious decision by our businesses at every level, because we wanted our people to give their best to IAG when they were able to give their best.

“Thirty (30) percent of our staff were predominantly working from home pre-COVID. We had already created the patterns and the designs that allow us to securely allow people to work from home in a good manner, allowing them to be highly productive, and to communicate and collaborate efficiently with their teams and other teams across the organisation and with their customers.

“COVID clearly was the next step because we’ve gone from 30 percent to high 90s percent working from home on a permanent basis, not on a predominant basis.”

***

To watch replays where other businesses discuss their responses to the pandemic,

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Adaptive Strategies for Consumer Industries Beyond COVID-19

Steven Moraitakis — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 01:49:15 +0000

In this turbulent time, it’s assuring to see how competitors and unrelated organisations are banding together to assist one another, utilising the skillsets and systems of one another for a greater good.

Sure, COVID-19 has had devastating effects on businesses everywhere, but this global pandemic has also spearheaded cross-industry collaboration and a common goal towards the health and wellbeing of people.

Forward-thinking businesses are focused on people instead of profits – assuring staff, customers, and partners through clear communication and steady support. 51��is one such business as we are readily available to for helping businesses navigate through this challenging time.

51��recently ran a series of virtual forums called , I thought it would be pertinent to share what was discussed with experts from our 51��network.

Putting People First
People’s emotions have always helped inform policy, particularly in response to extreme events or fluctuations. In response to current circumstances, 51��is here to assist businesses – regardless of industry, size, or situation – by capturing employee sentiment.

Communication is critical at a time like this, as retail and consumer products companies stare into challenges of their people being overworked, working from home or being stood down. Employers in consumer industries have a responsibility to extend their duty of care and demonstrate understanding towards their staff during this time.

During the virtual forum, my colleagues Crissa Sumner and Steve Bennetts, who are also licensed psychologists, provided their perspectives on the impacted groups. Crissa and Steve outlined what to look out for and, in certain instances, how to activate upskilling for employees.

Supply Chain Risk and the Modern Slavery Act 2018
passed by the Australian Government requires companies to report on modern slavery throughout the supply chain. Companies must be able demonstrate that all its inputs and finished products sold are sourced and produced from ethical organisations.

Modern slavery isn’t just unethical, but can open a business up to legal, financial and reputational risk. The key to mitigating these risks is having the right mechanism to provide visibility across the business and all its suppliers.

The key is to ensure cross-business transparency so that consumer products companies and retailers mitigate supply chain risks both from a Modern Slavery and post COVID-19 supplier risk perspective.

To cover this topic in some detail hosted Abigail McGregor from Norton Rose Fulbright Australia. Abigail is a dispute resolution lawyer located in Sydney and leads the Norton Rose Fulbright Business Ethics Anti-Corruption Group in Australia.

With the environment ever changing, join our second forum in the .

In this ACCELERATED version, you will have the chance to hear from industry experts on the current analysis and interpretation, along with assessment of repercussions and ripple effect of the last few months.

This blog originally published on

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Mining in this Brave New World

Anton Kroger — Wed, 15 Apr 2020 05:20:08 +0000

Industries everywhere are undoing immense changes in the way they work and communicate since the outbreak of COVID-19. And with further developments and shifts occurring daily, it’s challenging to properly anticipate what will happen or how to prepare for it.

Within mining, this global pandemic has demonstrated the need for flexibility and rapid responsiveness. While mining services have been deemed essential to the economy, this shift has led to roles labelled non-essential moving towards digitalisation. Companies have been driven towards work-from-home capabilities to limit public contact and mining is no exception.

Digital transformation was and remains a critical safeguard to limiting people’s immediate contact as it enables staff to operate remotely and unlock avenues for automation. At times of heightened caution for people’s safety, automation is paramount to protecting people and businesses.

Supply Chain Impact
As of writing this, Australian mining production continues, however news changes develop quickly, and governments continue tightening restrictions on people’s movement and gathering. With availability of workforce under risk, the other critical impact is on availability of goods and potential bottlenecking at primary shipping ports.

With increasing mining organisations undergoing streamlining supply chain processes and optimising inventory management, this increased efficiency has also reduced the ability for some companies to cope with global shock events like COVID-19.

However, digital platforms and intelligent technologies have equipped many businesses with the right demand management systems to leverage different strategies and sources for supplies. The dynamic complexity of comprehensive data analysis can help highlight vulnerabilities in real time and present other options or outcomes.

It’s a challenge to understand completely the effects of COVID-19 for mining as the pandemic continues evolving and measures a continually being implemented to curb its spread globally. Organisations with links to countries that have seen significant impacts, such as China, Korea, the US, Italy, and Spain should proceed with caution and consistently monitor how the virus could impact on operations.

The Vital Next Steps
outlined some valuable next steps for businesses that applies to any industry. The first and most important step is to support and protect employees during this time of uncertainty.

As the challenge is ever evolving, it’s important to listen closely to staff to help ensure their safety whether on- or off-site. Now is the time to communicate with people clearly and calmly, explaining what they can do to remain safe, productive, and informed.

The next step is to monitor key indicators of where the pandemic is evolving and start planning for more potential impacts as coronavirus continues to develop. Data from the regions of your key suppliers and customers could be vital in adapting your business process to safeguard from further interruptions to your supply chains and production processes.

Mining organisations must think about the next horizons of COVID-19. The urgency of immediate response to changes can make it difficult remain forces on what’s needed tomorrow or further down the road. Beyond the needs to today companies should be adapting to this change and hopefully emerge more resilient, more efficient, and flexible for future changes.

Centralising your systems and communications is paramount – not only for keep operations running and staff safe, but as a means of safeguarding against future impacts and getting ahead of any developments. It also helps to be transparent and responsive with staff, this ensures your organisation can maintain momentum and safety at challenge times like these.

With massive confusion and ever-changing news developments, it’s valuable having some reliable information resources that can offer guidance during this crisis. 51��recently hosted a series of virtual forums called , with industry-specific episodes to help companies make sense of the changing situation and utilise the latest technology trends for futureproofing their business. In looking back on the past few months, we also have a second edition of – Live on August 6^th.

The featured a panel of speakers to discuss some key topics, that included Paul Mitchell, Global Lead for Mining & Metals for EY, Indrasen Naidoo, Managing Partner with Integral Supply Networks Advisory, Barry FitzGerald, Australian Mining and Business Commentator and Melinda Cilento, CEO with CEDA.

The forum explored the future of workforce in this post-COVID-19 world, how companies can adapt and change in light of this global pandemic, and the new workforce strategies that will emerge from this worldwide shift.

We also assessed the full impact on mining and resource supply chains – looking at commodity prices and the major disruptions that continue to shake our industry.

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adaptive strategies Archives - 51����Australia & New Zealand News Center