Braidio’s Trends and Key Takeaways from the AT&T Business Summit

By Iain Scholnick, CEO of Braidio

Last week, some of the world’s leaders in business, politics, and communications came together to discuss what the world looks like today, and where it will be headed during the next five and ten years as the digital transformation continues to have an enormous impact on nearly every industry. We are truly entering the dawn of a new decade, with technology set to continue to shape the way businesses adapt and transform. Yet while the digital transformation will continue to play a huge role in the years to come, it has become increasingly clear that 

Connecting was the theme of the last decade, but today experience triumphs.

Most of the business world has undergone some sort of digital transformation in the past ten years. However, in this rush to “digitize” the workplace, the employee and customer experience has become somewhat of an afterthought. Being able to offer the most revolutionary technology in your industry is great, but if you aren’t scaling areas of your business less affected by the digital transformation, then your company is going to suffer. In order to elevate productivity in this new dawn, companies will have to look at creating and optimizing people centric experiences. 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, “Companies need to be early adopters of new technology to power their businesses, so they don’t waste time or money later trying to get out from behind the curve. Then companies need to cultivate the ability to develop their own “digital IP,” building exclusive software and tools that only their customers have access to. You don’t want to be caught up in spending your scarce resources on what is essentially something that can be available as a commodity. You want to bring in the commodity, and build your own IP.” Focusing on verticalization within specific industries opens up technology to have a major impact, while still delivering an optimal user experience to customers. Braidio WorkStreams does just this, allowing our customers across multiple industries to optimize their experience with our technology, with a specific build-out to accomplish their goals. 

Some worry about the pace of change, and some fully embrace technology. Yet there is no doubt technology can augment people strategy.

Beth Mooney, CEO and Chairwoman of KeyCorp spoke at great lengths about the pace of change and how companies need to approach the growth of digital tools, heading into the new decade – “We are moving beyond the pace of change and into the type of change. No business or industry is going to escape these kinds of shifts, and the smart money is on people thinking today about what they will need to do differently tomorrow to thrive in the new mobile and digital economy. The question you need to ask yourselves is not simply how do I use some of these new-fangled technologies to do my business better, but how will I use these new tools to do things for my clients and customers that I never imagined I could do before.”

Technology is showing no signs of slowing down as companies integrate new solutions into their business every day. There is concern that this continuing change will disrupt business as we know it and can potentially have negative consequences. This will only hold true if companies fail to see the most efficient use cases for the technology they onboard. Take AI for instance – many folks fear that AI will displace future employees, causing a massive exodus of human talent across multiple industries. Business leaders that fear this aren’t thinking about all the possible applications AI can have to help augment your existing talent. In fact, AI should be able to strengthen employees, giving them the tools to become more efficient and the time to focus on tasks that only an extremely talented human can complete. The same sentiment can be applied to most technology. Think critically about how this can help your people, not how it can help your business.

The most adaptive will survive – not the smartest.

It is essential that as a business leader, you don’t think inside or outside of a box. Instead, think without a box. In other words, embracing an agile mindset, rather than a fixed mindset, can create the right environment for innovation and transformation. ‘Know it alls’ are more apt to stick to the status quo, leading to stale business plans and eventually sub par results. The more you explore the unknown, ask questions, and learn, the more doors you’ll unlock. Even if new ideas and ways of thinking result in dead-ends, or bring you back to square one, pushing the boundaries of what is known is where the greatest breakthroughs are born. Nadella reinforced this point by stating that, “Learn it alls always move beyond know it alls.

Braidio Workstreams gives business leaders a wealth of knowledge about their company, and affords them the opportunity to continue to “learn” about their people and outcomes. Having your entire business de-siloed and organized under one roof decentralizes decision making and allows the agile mindset to further prevail.

In summary, the themes we took a hold of at the AT&T Business Summit heading into the new decade are staying adaptive, embracing technology without rushing into the latest solution, and focusing on experience, whether that be your own employees, customers, or both. The new dawn may get very overwhelming with the amount of options available to business leaders, but sticking to these points will set your company up for success. Companies can’t lose sight of other critical business functions such as customer service and project management.