Utility Week

8 www.utilityweek.co.uk/fLeX T echnology doesn't drive transformation, culture drives it. e end users – the people in your organisation – will be the ones who bring about digital transformation. One of the biggest challenges organisations face is having the right internal structure and culture to effectively transform. For maximum impact, everyone from the boardroom to the field needs to be empowered. Digital transformation is not just a technology project. It's identifying the business outcomes you want to achieve and then looking at how technology can support that. Businesses that use digital transformation to drive business change need people who are adaptable, flexible, keen to learn, and willing to collaborate on solving wider problems that are instrumental to their success. Focus on connecting and empowering employees with the organisation's goals. Successful businesses are open to sharing from all areas. Sometimes the best ideas come from the employees out in the field, seeing customer challenges first hand. e organisations that work in silos and lack the tools that empower their employees are the ones that get left behind in digital transformation. Taking a holistic approach to your transformation and bringing your employees along the journey with you is key to success. e first element of digital transformation is to ensure all employees are empowered to do the work they need to, at the right place and the right time. More employees than ever are working remotely, with half the UK workforce expected to be remote by 2020. is brings in new requirements for collaboration and security. A large part of these remote workers are first-line or frontline workers. ese employees often form the backbone of the utilities industry. ey're the ones engaging with customers, performing triage at the power stations, or maintaining day-to- day running of vital services. To ensure employees are achieving their full potential, we need to ensure every single employee is connected. is is mostly about providing simple, secure technology for everyone to use. Organisations need to ensure frontline workers are getting all the benefits of digital transformation while staying secure. Microsoft has had a long and strong history of being secure: one of the key tenets is providing the capability to ensure data is secure and protected – both at rest and in transit. We want to make sure technology is as seamless as possible and that the security is transparent to the end user. Importantly, this security is implemented across all devices and the cloud, so the https://aka.ms/surfacegouk E X P E R T V I E W e importance of culture in digital transformation By Michael Wignall, CTO, Microsoft UK | @mdwigs protection is across all devices, whether it's a PC in the office, a laptop in the field, or a mobile device on the train. is means it's easy for frontline workers to access the information and the tools they need right then and there, without putting your data at risk. ey often need to collaborate with other people in the office or on other sites. Using these tools in the field means they get the work done when it matters. ese people need to be productive collaborators, which is why it is vital for them to stay connected. Wessex Water, for example, has 2,500 workers across the organisation. When an incident occurs, they instantly link the frontline worker straight to incident rooms via the Surface Hub, providing the right information at the right time and resulting in less downtime on services and more productive employees. While we're seeing an increase in voice and video for point-to-point contact to provide fast solutions, we're also seeing Microsoft Teams being used to curate a library of information and chat history. In the here and now, we're looking at the Surface Go as a powerful device for the frontline worker, which gives the full rich experience of Microsoft collaborative tools in a super-portable and connected way to create a seamless employee experience. Excitingly, in the future, I'm looking forward to seeing mixed reality such as the HoloLens being used to help frontline workers visualise, collaborate and be more confident while working. For example, if a piece of machinery went down, a technician can see through the eyes of the frontline worker to help guide the repair. What's most important, however, is frontline workers will continue to be connected with smarter, more flexible devices that allow them to be more productive in the field than ever. // Microsoft has had a long and strong history of being secure: one of the key tenets is providing the capability to ensure data is secure and protected – both at rest and in transit //

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