Embracing technology transformation in 2023

Getting to grips with the current pace of technological change is a bit of a double-edged sword.
First there’s real fear of missing out, in case a rival steals the initiative and creates business advantage. Yet this sits alongside the opposite concern that a novel tech might not work, or be a total waste of money.
The trick is how to know the difference.

We recently surveyed over 800 business leaders across 27 counties for the annual C-Suite Business Barometer 2023. A third of businesses leaders identified IT and tech transformation as their number one organisational priority.

An impressive 93% also said they felt confident in their ability to navigate new technologies - which might come as a surprise to some.

The business leaders we surveyed clearly recognise that technological change is nothing new. The main difference is that technology has now evolved and can ‘learn’.

Embracing the tech transformation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now better described, as ‘Generative AI’. It is already with us and starting to become embedded at the very heart of contemporary commercial and organisational process.

Technology is also no longer the preserve of tech specialists. Anyone who has used a AI chatbot to plan a holiday, or been moved from search engine to a social media algorithm in pursuit of their dream holiday, is already swimming in the vast ocean of generative AI.

The dizzying pace of ongoing change means tech specialists (and the generative tech itself) may be the only ones at the sharp end of discovery and innovation, but the rest of us need to choose what does and, crucially what does not, advance our objectives; regardless of what those might be.

In practice, this is a question for regular Business Impact Analysis, alongside many other factors including ‘old tech’, such as availability of funding, supply chain issues and changing consumer preferences.

Effective Risk Management must continue to look both ways; identifying the dangers inherent in missing a technological advancement, while taking a measured view of what is realistic, workable and economically viable.

Seeing technological change as just one more significant but constant variable in the business mix, seems to underlie the confidence which clearly emanates from the business leaders surveyed in our 2023 C-Suite Business Barometer.

Generative AI and human resourcing

It is not at all surprising however that, against this backdrop of technological change, 28% of those we surveyed identified the recruitment and training of a suitably-skilled workforce as a significant threat to their pursuit of company growth.

Almost every aspect of recruitment, retention and reward can be impacted through the need for novel skills and changing approaches to how business is conducted.

Mazars’ Head of Technology and Digital, Asam Malik said, “I do not share the pessimistic scenario that tech will render human workers completely irrelevant.

“Instead, I share business leaders’ optimism that emerging technology has the power to reduce the drudgery of many repetitive tasks, while creating higher-value, skilled roles for people, who are still very much required to operate, manage and shape new product and service delivery.”

Technological change is not about walking into the unknown, it’s all about identifying and evaluating available options.

Just what good managers have always done, in fact.

Read more in the C-Suite Business Barometer 2023