To say that the past two years have been a challenge would be an understatement. Outside of what has happened on a personal level, looking at the business landscape there have been a number of chaotic factors at play to create a maelstrom that all organisations need to negotiate.

Whether that be the shifting requirements, and now expectations as regards where and how employees work, the loss of critical skills in industries like the financial sector, as well as the constant need to understand and meet customer demands to not only stay relevant, but thrive too.

To gauge what is happening in South Africa’s different sectors, along with sharing some of its own insights as to what it is seeing and experiencing with customers, open source specialists Red Hat recently held a roundtable.

Along with swapping stories, the roundtable also served as an opportunity to exchange ideas and potentially spark inspiration as to how CIOs and other executives in the business can kickstart the business rebound.

In attendance at the roundtable for Red Hat was Monica Sasso, EMEA FSI (Financial Services) chief technologist, among others.

The growing disconnect

Explaining what she is seeing in the industry of late, Sasso opened the discussion by highlighting one of the biggest problems that remains unaddressed by organisations – the growing disconnect between the two key elements of the organisation.

“As most of us know, at large companies there is often a huge wall between IT and the business, with neither party fully understanding one another. I really wanted to help bridge that divide and that is part of the reason why I am at Red Hat,” she explained.

It was a point widely acknowledged by those in attendance. As was the fact that without addressing this disconnect, initiatives like digital transformation will never truly come to fruition, in Sasso’s view.

“I absolutely believe that it is people that are driving digital transformation, not tech,” she stated emphatically.

Along with people within the organisation, Sasso also highlighted the people that companies aim to interact with – customers. They too have a vital role to play and it is the organisation that can meet their needs that will thrive.

“The companies that accept the changes driven by their consumers are going to be the ones that are here tomorrow,” said Sasso.

A shared journey

Shifting focus to one of the other significant trends thrusted front and centre as a result of the pandemic – digital transformation. While we have seen companies across many industries scramble to ensure their digital transformation is well on the way to being complete, not all industries are equal in this respect.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the maturity of fintech in South Africa, Red Hat is quite pleased at what it is seeing locally in terms of digital transformation in the financial services sector.

“I think that financial services is further ahead than people give it credit for in terms of its level of digital transformation. Take for example tapping to pay, which is something we have all likely done today. That is very much digital transformation and it is so much further ahead than some of the other industries out there,” pointed out Sasso.

“I do think we forget how far financial services has come and just how much it has dragged other industries in terms of digital transformation,” she continued.

It therefore offers great cause for optimism, but much of the success so far is driven by a desire to meet the needs of customers and being willing to take a journey as an organisation rather than separate teams within the business being at odds with one another.

One final thought that Sasso and Red Hat want to leave the C-Suite with, is that the digital transformation journey does not have a definitive end. As such you cannot venture on it solo and the only means of success is getting all stakeholders on the same page and pulling in the right direction.

“It is all about an organisation’s people. If people buy in, they become your ambassador. And you are only as good as your people. If you have miserable people, you have a miserable company, you have a miserable product and your customers are going to be miserable,” Sasso concludes.

To find out more about Red Hat, its open source solutions and how it can help business rebound, head here.

[Image – Photo by Greg Shield on Unsplash]