The rapid pace of change can be boiled down to one mission critical service: the cloud. But despite widespread adoption and enthusiasm for the cloud’s seemingly endless possibilities, many organizations are still not seeing the payoff from their investments. At least that’s what Jenny Koehler, the US Cloud and Digital Leader at PwC, told us
“There’s this notion now of how am I going to deliver this thing? So I don’t have to wait until the bitter end to get value out there. How do I sequence it the right way to get the value unlocked earlier? How do I not have to wait until the end? I think almost as much as the price take conversation is happening and trying to tie it to value, there’s also this approach to get it rolled out. How do I see value faster? How do I not have to wait? That’s a conversation that’s different. And technology allows it.”
The good news is Jenny has one mission; to change the digital face of her clients and on this episode of IT Visionaries, she offers up some insights into why companies are no longer worried about security when it comes to cloud, and instead are focusing on if they are deriving enough value from it. Jenny also touches on PwC’s intense initiative to close the talent gap within the IT space. Enjoy
Main Takeaways
- The Talent Divide has Worsened: As the digital divide has worsened, companies now must invest more resources into not only being a destination for talent, but also upskilling the current talent pool on their roster. When thinking about upskilling, it’s best to take a holistic approach to team building. Not everyone is going to be an expert in a particular field, but if you have enough team members who can compliment each other and effectively work together, you can fill-in a lot of the gaps.
- Security is Not Top of Mind: Enterprises are no longer focused on securing its cloud infrastructure, but rather actually getting value out of the investment. At the heart of this issue is that while the members of executive teams have bought into the cloud’s benefits, there is no synergy amongst the C-suite when it comes to strategy and integration practices.
- Data Remains a Company’s Biggest Asset: With third party cookies going away, a company’s biggest form of currency remains its data and how it’s using that data to unlock value insights for other parts of the business. One of the main drivers of data moving forward should be how companies are using information to create a frictionless experience for consumers at every digital touch point.
For a more in-depth look at this episode, check out the article below.
Article
The rapid pace of change can be boiled down to one mission critical piece of equipment: the cloud. But despite widespread adoption and enthusiasm for the cloud’s seemingly endless possibilities, many organizations are still not seeing the payoff from their investments. At least that’s what Jenny Koehler, the US Cloud and Digital Leader at PwC, told us
“There’s this notion now of how am I going to deliver this thing? So I don’t have to wait until the bitter end to get value out there. How do I sequence it the right way to get the value unlocked earlier? How do I not have to wait until the end? I think almost as much as the price take conversation is happening and trying to tie it to value, there’s also this approach to get it rolled out. How do I see value faster? How do I not have to wait? That’s a conversation that’s different. And technology allows it.”
The good news is Jenny has one mission; to change the digital face of her clients and on this episode of IT Visionaries, she offers up some insights into why companies are no longer worried about security when it comes to cloud, and instead are focusing on if they are deriving enough value from it. Jenny also touches on PwC’s intense initiative to close the talent gap within the IT space.
“90 percent of our survey respondents said that they’re all in on the cloud and the promise of the cloud but only half of them are saying they’re getting the value from it,” she said. “Four or five years ago, everything was about securing the cloud. We’re hearing nothing that screams to that level in our data.”
Cloud adoption has become almost unanimous amongst enterprise businesses, and it’s true that most business leaders view the cloud as a necessary tool for achieving a company’s fullest growth and operational potential. But Koehler stated that when looking at the survey, one of the biggest challenges was getting members of the C-suite to work together and integrate strategies amongst themselves, and the CIO needs to be unifyer of these practices
But while companies try to understand how best to utilize the cloud, Koehler also shifted the conversation to a few key topics, one of which is the need to understand the digital divide that currently exists within the industry. PwC has invested heavily in the last few years in not only bringing new talent into the organization, but also upskilling its current workforce.
“With the war on talent, digital trends are creating a digital divide in expertise,” Koehler said. “We’ve come to the realization that in some respects we will quote ‘buy that talent,’ but in a much more real sense, we want to be a talent destination, so we have to build the talent.”
But upskilling is hard and requires nuance. That’s why PwC looks at its teams through a holistic lens, where every team member doesn’t necessarily need to be an expert, but they should have skills that benefit their colleagues.
“[There are] a few things that we think are critical for success — one being experience,” Koehler said. “The experience doesn’t need to be every single team member, but you need a degree of experience on a team. We believe in differentiation and it does get specific to an industry because there are certain kinds of technology or the ways that they’re connected that have sprung up in every industry… You need the right architect that knows the industry. But people that have just done it time and time again and know what good looks like to get the actual task done.”
To hear more from Koehler on how PwC is shifting its focus to help its clients get the most out of the cloud, check out the full episode of IT Visionaries!
To hear the entire discussion, tune into IT Visionaries here.
