When we conceived the idea for an inaugural event which will bring together industry thought leaders and technology experts to discuss how to future-proof your business, we wanted to create that same feeling. While lots of conferences deliver great speakers alone, the marketing team at 麻豆原创 ANZ wanted to create a complete experience that not only gives attendees relevant information but leaves you inspired to act on your newfound knowledge.

will be brought to life on Tuesday 8^th August in Sydney. We scoured the city for venues and settled on the Hyatt Regency, for the very fact that it is not only a great space, but we can run the entire event on the same floor so everything is easily accessible and buzzy. We want to bring that vibe that we deliver in our global event 麻豆原创PHIRE in Orlando.

If the recent past has taught us one thing, it is that there are always unforeseeable changes in our industry and marketplace. Flexibility and agility have always been constants, but they now need to be coupled with resiliency.

At 麻豆原创 NOW 2023, we will delve into the strategies and actions required to successfully meet the demands of the present and the emerging future and future-proof your business. You鈥檒l have the opportunity to learn from industry leaders, technology experts, and innovative thinkers who will share their insights and strategies for navigating the digital landscape and driving success in the years to come. You’ll discover how to leverage cutting-edge technologies to unlock new opportunities, streamline processes, and enhance customer experiences.

Current relatable themes to spur new ideas

We will have three breakout tracks running and will feature 麻豆原创 experts and customers speaking across all these tracks, mostly in fireside chats or panel discussions.

The three breakout tracks are:

Company: Achieving sustainable growth as a聽Company聽or聽Organisation聽by adopting a culture of innovation and learning, and building a diverse, inclusive, flexible and agile workforce.

Customer: Anticipate the evolving needs and expectations of the future聽Customer聽by accelerating products and services rapidly and efficiently through streamlined processes and embracing digital.

Communities: Advocate corporate social responsibility and build stronger聽Communities聽by acting on data insights, circular economic practices and fostering business networks.

A bit of glitter

Probably the first thing you will notice about the event is that it does feature Cirque du Soleil. , Chief Growth Officer from Cirque du Soleil will fly in from Montreal for the event. We鈥檒l also incredibly have artists from Cirque du Soleil perform two acts for the audience.

We have also managed to secure , Former NSW Minister
Customer Service and Digital Government to close the event, where he鈥檒l share his thoughts on innovation and future-proofing.

And to close out the day, we鈥檝e got the icon, legend and phenomenon that is Kate Ceberano performing some of her greatest hits.

Immersive experiences

We want all attendees to be immersed in real life scenarios. So there will be three showcases featuring innovation on the show floor:.

Sustainability

An interactive demonstration of how 麻豆原创 and our ecosystem support complex, cross-industry value chains, such as food supply. See how ice cream goes from farm to consume and how 麻豆原创 software helps ensure that each step, and each business involved, is more sustainable and profitable.

Resilience

When your business depends on production, your supply chain is critical. It is the engine that drives your business. It can also be a source of constant risk for disruption. Experience how to holistically manage and mitigate business risk with a digital supply chain.

Agility

Get ready for a fun challenge in a racing simulation. Experience the Power of 麻豆原创 Innovations and Data Analytics in Sports AND聽Discover how our AI solutions can help you stay ahead of the competition and achieve your business goals.

Innovative technology

The showfloor will feature 麻豆原创 partners and all of the new 麻豆原创 technology innovations, particularly AI.

I would love to see you . Keep a look out for me on the showfloor and come and say hello.

The post Everyone loves the Circus appeared first on 麻豆原创 Australia & New Zealand News Center.

After businesses were embroiled by operational disruptions throughout the height of the pandemic, Timo has now reflected on his observations and found that his mission to continue encouraging innovation has naturally become embedded in businesses future. 鈥淲ith unprecedented times came vastly accelerated innovation in order to survive.鈥�

Speaking to 顿别肠补迟丑濒辞苍鈥檚 Chief Value Officer, 鈥淣othing is impossible anymore鈥� is simple the new business experience in light of the innovation that has become possible. The downside to this journey stemmed from the elevated pace that businesses were required to innovate, and in turn, ended up doing so in silos.

鈥淚 recently saw some data from International Data Corporation (IDC) that showed, a couple of years ago, 75% of organisations were innovating with a strategic approach, leaving the remaining 25% who were innovating in silos. Unfortunately, those numbers have changed. Organisations innovated in a silo because they didn’t have time to do it in a more strategic way, and now the number of organisations that have a strategic approach has dropped to 50%. So, unfortunately, there’s lots of innovation, but because of all these new silos, it’s actually harder to do even more innovation in the future.鈥�

With these results in mind, analysts are in agreement that to innovate both at a faster pace and with strategic efficiency, there needs to be a solid information foundation coupled with a flexible set of building blocks. What the pandemic shone a light on was an atmosphere of uncertainty experienced by organisations which can be combated with flexibility, agility and the technology foundations to support it. Those organisations that weren鈥檛 able to adapt or differentiate themselves unfortunately were forced to fold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STDFvPBYW74

鈥淚 think one of the key takeaways, I hope, is that some organisations were a little complacent about needing to innovate. Why innovate? My business is stable. I don’t need to do anything differently. Instead, that thinking is a little bit like standing on a down escalator. You’re slowly moving backwards compared to the rest of the environment. In order to stay still in modern business, you have to be walking up the down escalator. You have to put effort in because the environment around you is evolving. Customers have higher demands, your employees have new expectations, your competitors are upping their game, so you have to do a certain amount of innovation just to stay still.鈥�

Asked on where organisations should begin their innovation efforts, Timo reminds us that because of a high investment in technology solutions that automate the time consuming parts of day to day operations, there鈥檚 a new wave of solutions such as a solutions. How do accelerate innovation this way? By letting business employees do more of the innovative work themselves in their area of expertise without IT and technology being a bottleneck.

Speaking to a customer, they explained to Timo that his 鈥榢nowledge workers鈥� know exactly what’s going wrong in the business and they know what should be done to fix it, but they feel powerless. 鈥淭hey feel like they’re at the mercy of the machine because they can’t fix it themselves. All they can do is point it out to a technology team, but that team don鈥檛 have enough time, there’s never enough resources, there’s always a backlog. So, the answer is no, we can鈥檛. Now, these new tools are becoming really powerful, where business people can create their entire applications, workflows, analytics and do it all themselves.鈥�

There are always some dangers to be aware of with implementing solutions like these, where if you let anybody in your business become involved in the technology, the result is probably going to be chaos. 鈥淣ot everybody’s ready to be enabled. Everybody’s gonna recreate the wheel and get calculations wrong.

So the right approach is not low-code or no-code or pro-code, but co-code where you have a combination of the technology teams putting in place the Lego bricks that reflects the different objects of the business like a customer or an invoice and so on. Employees can then take those blocks and use them, change the order and wire them up in different ways, and have different authorisations and so on in the knowledge that they’re going to do that in a way that isn’t gonna be damaging for the system it’s gonna be scalable, it’s gonna be compliant, follow all of the security laws and so on.鈥�

To hear more from this discussion, dive deeper into business innovation projects and hear more from Tim about his technology predictions for the future, listen to the full episode of The Best Run Podcast .

The post The Importance of Innovation in a Post-COVID Era appeared first on 麻豆原创 Australia & New Zealand News Center.

Those who saw their vulnerabilities and were able to transform from them not only had a positive impact on their customers, but for their staff as well. From this experience, the demand for staff who are both literate in IT and business languages are greater than ever before.

On the , we welcomed Senior Lecturer of Information Systems and Director of the 麻豆原创 ACC, Scott Bingley, and Lis Miller, Training and Adoption Lead at 麻豆原创 ANZ, to discuss the digital skills of the future and how you can pivot your digital transformation with 麻豆原创.

Over the last few years, numerous trends in the digital environment have emerged within businesses including automation, cyber security and project management which has confirmed the prediction that digital skills are an integral employee skillset within any company. Lis Miller expands on this thinking by reconstructing what it means to be digitally literate.

鈥淚t’s the digital skills around understanding how your business works, digitising that information and then getting the visibility of what’s going on in the business that wasn鈥檛 available before because of the enormous amount of information that needs to be collected. [Digital skills are about] combining the knowledge of the business and feeding back information that you can then use to make better decisions and innovate further.鈥�

At the current pace that technology and software is evolving, Scott Bingley can summarise the top level skills employers need to succeed as being data literacy, instilling a culture of learning and by doing so, empowering employees to adapt these new systems into their daily operations. A company who can pave the way for employee digital upskilling can remove the reliance on outsourced consultants and overseas systems that the pandemic has exposed and increase the retention of knowledge within an organisation.

As the Director of Victoria University’s 麻豆原创 Next-Gen Lab and Academic Competence Centre (ACC), Bingley understands that these programs fulfil that core objective to up-skill the next generation. The introduction of numerous 12-Week Courses as part of the $63 Million Digital Job Programme for the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions is working as a pathway into further certification for potential employees.

鈥淚n 1997, [Victoria University] chose to partner with 麻豆原创 and has since extended this partnership to have the ACC, plus Australia’s only 麻豆原创 Next Gen Innovation Lab, where we run industry projects for 麻豆原创 customers and capstone subjects. This semester, we’re working with 麻豆原创 on a fire disaster recovery project. So we’re looking at bushfires in Australia, how to prevent the previous fallouts and we’re using the to analyse all of this data and inform those decisions.鈥�

Through this partnership, 麻豆原创 has been able to broaden their reach, increase the diversity of students and mid-career changers within the digital ecosystem and promote 麻豆原创 as a valid career path. Organisations and businesses alike are also reaping the benefits of the program with the option to embark on a custom training journey that priorities flexibility for both employees and businesses and removes the disruptions that previous upskilling programs cause to workflows.

Lis Miller leaves us with, what it, the definition of 鈥渄igital skill鈥� that businesses are looking for, 鈥渋t鈥檚 not all technical and computer science, it’s making sure businesses can run digitally, particularly in this post pandemic world.鈥�

To hear more from our discussion around the development of digital skills in the workplace and the opportunities that Victoria University offer, listen to the full episode of The Best Run Podcast .

The post Developing Digital Skills of the Future appeared first on 麻豆原创 Australia & New Zealand News Center.

There鈥檚 still much confusion surrounding the fundamental questions of , what is AI, what is capable of and what isn鈥檛 it capable of. Many of us were introduced to AI through pop culture depictions such as the friendly robot Rosie from The Jetsons or the rogue servant droid Sonny from I, Robot, which has set unrealistic expectations for their use.

Kim summarises AI in the simplest terms as 鈥渃omputational agents that act intelligently.鈥� Performing tasks by using data, algorithms, and programs and processing a specific output or goal. Classified as 鈥榥arrow鈥�, the AI that exists today can only perform the task in the simple or specific domain its programmed to do so in, it can’t do anything outside of that.

As AI is merely an umbrella term for the vast array of intelligent technologies that exist, we can classify three categories of machine learning AI:
1. Analytical AI: Intelligence that we see 90% of businesses use today, AI that predict, recommend and mine data and learns from past experiences
2. Human Inspired AI: Intelligence with some extent of sentiment and reaction that must be programmed, e.g. chat bots
3. Humanised AI: Intelligence that understands human emotions and has considerable empathy to respond to the end user in a human-like or natural manner, potentially a technology that will be available very far into the future.

鈥淲e have a bit of a tendency at the moment to call everything intelligent just because it’s software.鈥�

Passing the Turing Test
Speaking to Pete about the real world applications of AI, he made one thing clear, 鈥測ou can’t call it AI unless it’s passing the Turing test in some way鈥�. Referring to the test created by Alan Turing to determine whether or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being. Using this logic as the foundation of our understanding of AI, we can apply this narrow technology to the business world of today.

鈥淭hrough a machine learning angle, AI can detect patterns that you wouldn’t normally decipher through traditional statistical algorithms. An example would be, we鈥檝e got a client that was using this technology to process applications for grants. They had a massive backlog that came up unexpectedly, and they used this machine learning to recognise what was tending to get approved and could identify and accelerate those application.

In order to keep things safe and apply their principles, they use the rule that the machine can say yes to something that is beneficial to the customer, but if the outcome is no, then it goes to a human to get double checked and processed. That’s the kind of thing that companies are doing to protect us from the AI getting it wrong and people being disadvantaged by this kind of technology.鈥�

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVMG6tOkbF4

A benefit to businesses
Kim was able to concisely offer three of the major benefits that implementing can offer business and dramatically change their day to day processes.

鈥� With multiple data touch points across a businesses value chain, there is a risk of creating data complexity. AI acts to process that information and provide analytics and insights into what the data is saying and alternatively give insights into customers and sales alike.
鈥� Customers expect that businesses are online 24/7 to answer queries which can be combated by the use of conversational AI and remove the necessity for a human to answer every query.
鈥� With recent supply chain disruptions, this situation has created quite a lot of inefficiencies in operations and AI can assist by streamlining some of these processes by taking over the manual tasks and automating them to enable decision making.

Pete couldn鈥檛 agree more following on with the sentiment that 鈥渁 lot of benefit can be achieved just by using logic and automating simple processes with the application of basic logic. I think people get confused with the notion that automating a process means you are using AI which isn鈥檛 the case. AI comes into play for very specific areas where you need something computed that something beyond simple logic to solve or decipher.鈥�

鈥淚f a human can’t do it, it’s gonna be very hard to get an AI to do it.鈥�

Unlike what the movies have made us believe, the true benefit of AI for businesses is the opportunity to allow the human worker to contribute to the process with the most value and leaving the relatively repetitive and tedious work to the intelligence to automate.

The binary function of humans and technology doesn鈥檛 exist in silos, one cannot exist without the other. With a balanced approach of human led and technology led workflows, incorporating artificial intelligence into your business is far from out of reach.

To hear more from our discussion about Artificial Intelligence, its challenges, responsible use and the future use of AI in business, listen to the

The post AI in Business: What You Need To Know appeared first on 麻豆原创 Australia & New Zealand News Center.

The sponsorship will see 麻豆原创 celebrate the ninth edition of the women鈥檚 tournament through ticket entitlements, branding and more. Importantly, the sponsorship enables us to play a role in bringing together some of the best female sports talent from across the world for the first time in the southern hemisphere.

Whether you’re a fan, player, or coach, 麻豆原创 is at the forefront of supporting teams and individuals to enhance fan experience, optimise player performance and simplify sports business operations.

麻豆原创 and sport have much in common by way of shared ethos. This sponsorship is a particularly meaningful one because fostering a diverse and inclusive culture is something that we are passionate about at 麻豆原创, and we are focused on aligning ourselves with organisations who also pride themselves on building similar diverse environments.

Major organisations and individuals already partnering with 麻豆原创 include the Women鈥檚 Tennis Association, Women鈥檚 National Basketball Association, and equestrian Ingrid Klimke. Earlier this year, 麻豆原创 also announced a multi-year partnership with New Zealand Rugby, and the Black Ferns as part of this, to power and accelerate the rugby union鈥檚 digital transformation across all areas of the business.

One weekend in, the world record for attendance at a standalone women鈥檚 rugby match day and women鈥檚 Rugby World Cup match day has already been broken, with the opener on Saturday 8 October bringing in a record crowd of 34,235. Before the final is played on the 12 November we expect to see many more records achieved for women鈥檚 sport.

麻豆原创 is thrilled to be a part of this truly momentous and unforgettable moment through its sponsorship of the Rugby World Cup 2021 in New Zealand.

You can learn more about 麻豆原创鈥檚 global sponsorships .

The post 麻豆原创 an official sponsor of the Rugby World Cup 2021 appeared first on 麻豆原创 Australia & New Zealand News Center.

What is e-invoicing?
Mike started off the conversation to explain that is a digital exchange of invoice information between suppliers and buyers. It is done electronically, and it is not the same as sending attachments or PDF-based invoices. It is in a structured format. The purpose of e-invoicing is to provide a level playing field for everybody that plays in the supply chain, within the invoicing process. This includes small and large organisations.

Swapnil added that it’s not restricted to any particular type of organisation, it’s across the entire business landscape. It’s just a direct exchange of invoice related information between a supplier system and buyer system. And because of that, it helps enable quite a lot of automation and eventually, faster payments.

Swapnil suggested that the benefits of invoice automation include faster payments and improved cash flow, as well as increased efficiency and reduced administrative costs. It is not restricted to any particular type of organisation, and can be used across the entire business landscape.

Where to Start with e-invoicing?
Mike added that e-invoicing is an by talking to your and registering on the e-invoicing platform. You will then be able to send and receive invoices electronically.

Swapnil added that after you’ve confirmed that your accounting system is e-invoicing enabled, the next step is to register with a platform and start sending and receiving invoices electronically. This process is simple and straightforward, and most platforms offer helpful tutorials and guides.

What is e-invoicing week?
Swapnil explained the main purpose of which is on this week in Australia, is to create awareness of e-invoicing within the Australian business community, with the intent of encouraging Australian businesses to adopt e-invoicing. This will be facilitated by a number of events and communications being released through various channels, with the Australian Tax Office (ATO) playing a leading role.

E-invoicing has been shown to have a number of benefits for businesses, including reducing administrative costs, improving cash flow and increasing efficiency. As such, there is a growing demand for e-invoicing in Australia and businesses that adopt it early stand to reap the greatest rewards.

Comparing e-invoicing to the traditional invoicing methods
Swapnil explained that paper-based invoices involve the supplier issuing an invoice and printing it out to put in an envelope and send through snail mail. On the receiver’s side, they will have to receive it and address it to a particular contact. E-invoicing is a more efficient way of exchanging invoice data between suppliers, accounting financial management systems and buyers’ accounting financial management systems. It is faster, more secure and can be processed and paid faster.

Mike added that from a macro perspective, it is estimated that over a 10-year period, $2.8 billion is lost in productivity due to the manual processing of invoices. This is a significant amount of money that could be put back into the economy if this process were automated. Research and surveys show that small businesses can save $40,000 a year by making the switch to electronic invoicing. Other benefits include increased sustainability and faster payment times.

Costs of moving to e-invoicing
Mike added that the biggest cost for small businesses when implementing or e-invoicing is change management – getting customers and suppliers on board with the new system. The technology needed to support this framework is already built into many software packages, so the cost is mainly in terms of time and resources needed to implement the change.

Swapnil mentioned that from a cost perspective, it depends on the business needs. Some businesses may need to use a premium e-invoicing service, while others may be able to use a built-in e-invoicing service within their accounting software. The price of an e-invoicing service can vary depending on the provider and the features offered.

Changing the Way Business is Done in the Future
On the topic of how e-invoicing will impact businesses, Swapnil explained that e-invoicing will become much simpler with the advent of routed networks. Suppliers will no longer have to find out where they have to send an invoice, but instead the invoice will be automatically sent through to the intended recipient. This will save time and hassle for both suppliers and businesses.

The supplier experience would be greatly improved with the invoicing and invoice response functionality built into it. They would not only be able to send the invoice directly from their accounting software, but they can also see the status of the invoice within that system itself. This would provide a one-stop shop for the supplier, making it easier and more efficient for them to send invoices and check on the status.

Closing Thoughts
Swapnil explained that e-invoicing is a no brainer for businesses, as it is more efficient and can lead to faster payments. The New South Wales government acknowledges that some small businesses may not have accounting software, but encourages them to try out e-invoicing to experience its benefits.

The Supplier Hub Invoice portal is a service that allows suppliers to New South Wales government agencies to enter invoices. In the backend, these invoices are received as e-invoices. The will offer productivity benefits of $28 billion over the next 10 years.

To listen to the full conversation you can access the podcast recording via, or .

The post The Difference e-invoicing Can Make to Your Business appeared first on 麻豆原创 Australia & New Zealand News Center.

Join a collection of homegrown pioneers and global innovators to share, create, listen, connect, learn, and grow with industry and technology experts. This year鈥檚 event as always is where innovation and ingenuity meet imagination and creativity but imbued with a local flavour.

The Inspiration Stage is where thought leaders from Australia and New Zealand will share meaningful stories and insights into the future of technology and science. Our keynote, live in Sydney and Melbourne and virtual in other cities are co-founders of 鈥� Dr Angus Hervey and Tane Hunter. Future Crunch will guide you on your Effect journey, highlighting the possibilities and success stories driven by new technologies.

Future Crunch presentations explore the frontiers of science and technology, taking an intelligent, courageous, and optimistic view of how the future could unfold. They create unique and memorable experiences that integrate music and captivating visuals that have commanded crowds at over 200 events across five continents.

After losing both his hands and legs to a deadly disease, Tom Nash鈥檚 life journey with prosthetics has built a treasure trove of stories that will inspire and amuse. Filled with heart, hardship, and humour, Tom鈥檚 story of innovation will resonate long after his presentation.

The Labs will help attendees reimagine the exhibit-hall experience, providing an interactive space for engaging directly with our innovation experts with hands-on experiences.

The Future of Business is brought to life via a walk through 鈥榳orld鈥� experience to explore emerging technologies and practices in two areas. How we redefine how we work and creating a more sustainable approach to solving our everyday industry challenges. 麻豆原创鈥檚 innovation partner, will bring to life their take on Future of Business in this zone.

Inspiration Lane provides attendees with access to 麻豆原创鈥檚 innovative partner ecosystem, allowing them to view solution demos and engage with 麻豆原创鈥檚 most valued partners to explore the technology, processes, and practices that help businesses become intelligent enterprises.

Catch the Effect innovation experience as it returns to

The post Effect 2021: where innovation and ingenuity meet imagination and creativity appeared first on 麻豆原创 Australia & New Zealand News Center.

I was joined by Evan Mantis, Executive General Manager of Consumer, Finance and Service Industries for 麻豆原创 ANZ; Lizzie Creed, People Manager for NTT DATA Business Solutions; and Kylie Preisig-Toro, Head of Enablement for Supplier Services at 麻豆原创 ANZ.

Evan noted that 麻豆原创 offers staff a variety of programs around , such as the Businesswoman鈥檚 Network, Autism at Work, and Pride@麻豆原创. 鈥淥ften what we found through our research is that our employees that identify as LGBTIQ+ often come out at work before they do at home. It鈥檚 absolutely critical that the workspace allows our employees to be their authentic selves.

鈥淥ne thing that鈥檚 very clear over the last few years in the Great Place to Work survey that 麻豆原创 has been a part of, is that employees that identify as LGBTIQ+ have a higher than average engagement score than other 麻豆原创 employees, which has been fantastic. It鈥檚 really helped us improve our position each year in Great Place to Work; up to third [best] in 2020.鈥�

Celebrating and Educating in the Workplace

According to Lizzie, NTT DATA has numerous diversity inclusion pillars, which includes LGBTIQ+. 鈥淒uring pride month last year, we ran an event kick off, we did trivia, we had a keynote speaker. We also did an education campaign linked to our values, so that was pushed out through all of pride month. We sent gifts to our people throughout the month to remind them that this is what we鈥檙e focused on. At the end of the month, we came together and celebrated 鈥榳hat makes me me鈥� 鈥� an event that shares and celebrates what makes us all unique.

鈥淲e have dedicated diversity and inclusion roles in the business to focus on this strategically and drive that strategy. For this year, we鈥檝e come together globally to do a global kick off, we introduced our exec sponsorship, which goes all the way up to the board in Japan as well as our lobal global leadership. We鈥檝e done some basic learning, tried to take away some of the fear of what actually LGBTIQ+ is, reinforced the need to listen, reflect, and understand our gaps in focus.

鈥淲e鈥檝e launched a grassroots community with dual purpose 鈥� we鈥檝e looked at supporting people individually in a private forum as well as having a purpose that directs education and awareness to a broad group of people, so people can learn along with us. We鈥檙e at a time with NTT DATA globally to move beyond just Pride Month and focus on this strategically for our future.鈥�

Pride@麻豆原创

Kylie said this year marks the 20th anniversary of Pride@麻豆原创, which has provided employees with information, resources, and regular events. 鈥淲e had things like World AIDS Day, we had drag bingo last year, which was hosted by a local Sydney drag queen. We also had campfire chats, which is where employees can ask questions that they鈥檝e always wanted to know the answers to, but perhaps haven鈥檛 had the right setting or the right opportunity to ask.

鈥淲e鈥檝e had lots of D&I training, which has been amazing to get people in a room together (pre covid), sit down and have discussions about what鈥檚 happening. And even more subtle things, like the signature pronoun banners. That鈥檚 amazing 鈥� just to be able to put that on your signature so people are aware of your pronouns before they go into conversations with you.鈥�

鈥淧ride@麻豆原创 extends to most of our regions and market units,鈥� Evan added. 鈥淯nfortunately, and this shows that there鈥檚 still a lot more work to do, there are still so many countries including countries where 麻豆原创 has market units, where people don鈥檛 enjoy the freedoms that we do in ANZ.. Plenty for us to do and focus on.

鈥淲e had our Wear it Purple event last year which, due to COVID, was a virtual event. But the great thing about it, and probably the only good thing about not being in person, was that we ended up inviting a lot of our employees from those countries where they鈥檙e not allowed to celebrate in the same way that we do here. Although it was a virtual event, we were able to extend it beyond our borders, which I think helped the feeling of inclusion and enabled us to spread the message more effectively.鈥�

The 麻豆原创ures and Nuances of Coming Out

Kylie explained that whether someone chooses to come out publicly or privately at work, the decision can weigh on them. 鈥淚f you choose not to come out, there鈥檚 the added pressure to act straight, which is even more exhausting. Trying to be something that you鈥檙e not around other people is hard work.

鈥淭hen we need to think about how we would interact with our customers. When customers ask me how my husband is, do I answer them, do I just go along with it, or do I correct them? What鈥檚 the correct move to make in that situation? It really depends on what your further relationship is going to be with that person.

鈥淲hat鈥檚 really great about getting in a company where this is out in the open is that 麻豆原创 accepts and understands the LGBTIQ+ community. It means that you don鈥檛 have to choose not to [come out].鈥�

Building a More Accepting Work Environment

Lizzie said the key is focusing on policy and really understanding what language the organisation uses. 鈥淔or example, removing gendered language, perhaps including transitioning under a sick policy, and just being aware that your policies can give different messages to different people, and making them more inclusive. Also, look at your benefits 鈥� the LBGTIQ+ community might benefit more from the option of having some coaching support rather than a gym membership, and allowing that choice and option and freedom can be something to think about.

鈥淚 think one of the most important things, especially when you鈥檙e starting out on this journey as an organisation to be more inclusive is to actually understand your people and what is being felt across your business, and perhaps use some datapoints to uncover the problem before identifying how you鈥檙e going to make a solution, and actually involve people in that solution.鈥�

To hear more about how businesses can improve its diversity and inclusion by providing a supportive network for the LGBTIQ+ community, listen to the .

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Kate鈥檚 career has been focused on customer marketing and personalised experiences for driving sales and customer loyalty. Whilst working for Veolia, she was asked to be part of COVID response team 鈥� to ensure people receive timely and consistent information during the pandemic while keeping tabs on staff during this challenging period.

鈥淥ne of our biggest challenges, particularly during the pandemic, came from having a such a diverse workforce that is literally all over the country,鈥� Kate explained. 鈥淚鈥檝e had the lucky pleasure of traveling all the way to Newman in Western Australia, which is a very remote depot where we operate. We have employees working there, others that are based in major cities or metro areas, with anyone from truck drivers to machine operators, to engineers, to lawyers, to sustainability experts.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a very diverse workspace, so technology has been really important in helping us reach and meet all of those different employee types since they all have different work schedules and different ways of operating.鈥�

Steve noted that many organisations with diverse and widely dispersed workforces faced similar challenges during the pandemic outbreak. 鈥淭ypically, we would have seen organisations dealing with the remoteness of their locations, but during the pandemic, we saw a lot of originations having to move their workforce into their own homes.

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鈥淭echnology has been critical for a lot of organisations to reach out and have conversations with employees. Getting that feedback is absolutely critical, especially in those fast-moving days during the early part of the pandemic 鈥� to understand people鈥檚 needs and what was happening at the time.鈥�

Kate said Veolia had previously measured employee sentiment annually or bi-annually through engagement surveys. 鈥淭hese were typically at the same time each year, but it was a little bit challenging getting engagement from some of the operational areas since a lot of them didn鈥檛 have computers or were working off a laptop, so they weren鈥檛 always able to sit down and fill in that engagement survey, which was reasonably lengthy and quite a big ask.

鈥淭hrough the pandemic we had to adapt because we had to reach those employees faster, we had to take quicker pulse checks to reach them individually. We did a big process around collecting mobile phone information from employees so we could start to communicate via SMS and that has flowed through to our day-to-day operations.

鈥淲e鈥檙e now able to, in a more agile way, take the pulse of our employees and send content to them, such as video messages from the CEO or from their leaders, which they can quickly access from their phone rather than wait until they get back to the depot or home computer.鈥�

鈥淭he feedback has been really positive; I think people are feeling pleased and much more in the loop because of that personalised experience we鈥檙e now offering.鈥�

Kate was surprised by the level of engagement from the surveys Veolia received from staff. 鈥淵ou do wonder about the uptake or engagement with people who are perhaps out in the field, or operational areas, or even working at home 鈥� but we consistently had really excellent response rates to our range of pulse surveys that we issued.

鈥淚 think people felt that they wanted to take the opportunity to be heard, and the important thing for us as a team was to show that we鈥檙e receiving and acting on that feedback, communicating that feedback to the broader business. We would regularly share communications, showing what came out of the latest pulse and what we鈥檙e going to do about that, which was critical in maintaining that level of engagement. If you鈥檙e asking people for their time, I think it鈥檚 critical that you鈥檙e demonstrating that you鈥檙e going to do something with the feedback they provide.鈥�

Steve agreed with Kate, highlighting how organisations should collect data to inform future decisions and implement change. 鈥淭his is one of those critical learnings as we look forward into the future of work. driving the next stages going out into the post-pandemic stage. We still want to be able to collect that feedback and act on that feedback with the same velocity and speed and the only way that we can really do that is through a digital listening platform that allows you to scale those listening programs, the feedback, and then the actions on top of that.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we鈥檙e seeing, encouragingly, the that companies are using, like Veolia using us, to rollout and really capture information and drive the success of people returning back to work or back to whatever this new world of work looks like.鈥�

Steve explained how Qualtrics release a that helped organisations quickly gauge employee sentiment during the early stages of COVID. 鈥淚 think Veolia took about 30 minutes to take that, transform it, and get at least the first cut out to their people so they could start collecting data. It was critical to have that speed and ability to be rapid around that. With the Qualtrics solution, we were able to provide that ability to capture and rapidly collect that information in real time and get those insights driving through it.

鈥淰eolia used our listening platform and the dashboards to get this information out to the managers as well, and this was something critical we saw across a number of organisations that faced the same problem of listening to their people at scale and getting that information rapidly back to them. Veolia really captured it through SMS technology and using that also as a communication 鈥� using it to send out information; not just collect it.鈥�

To hear more from our discussion about employee sentiment, adaptation, and the future of work, listen to the

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Fionn noted that he joined AGL in May 2017. 鈥淭hat was a few days just before we kicked off our digital transformation program, otherwise known as PT3,鈥� he explained. 鈥淚 had several roles throughout the program, primarily starting in the work management space and then moving into some analytics and BPC areas 鈥� so I got a really good spread of experience across the program.鈥�

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With over 11 years working in the utilities and 麻豆原创 space, Fionn鈥檚 primary role now is supporting AGL鈥檚 energy-generation sites. 鈥淚 work with the technology team and focus on delivering new capability on our brand new S4/HANA platform. The focus is really delivering new solutions and capabilities to our integrated business energy unit, so AGL is really focused on all our power stations throughout Australia, which includes our coal, thermal science, gas, wind, solar, hydro, and soon, very excitingly, our grid-scale batteries.

鈥淲hat we also do is support AGL in our drive around acquiring new business. Every time we buy a new company, they come into our technology team to help bring them onto our existing S4/HANA platform.鈥�

Fionn said shifting from an on-premise to a cloud-based solution has given AGL greater consistency, transparency, and control over its vast network of sites and functions. 鈥淧rior to PT3, we had over 50 legacy ERP applications around the business because we鈥檇 acquired a lot of energy businesses to secure those energy sites.鈥�

According to Fionn, this transformation journey was delivered by AGL internally, collaborating with various partners throughout the program鈥檚 implementation. 鈥淲e decided not to go outside and bring in a large consulting company, so it was effectively managed and delivered by AGL people with a lot of help from obviously 麻豆原创, but also a lot of consulting partners as well. It was a really great project team because it was heavy with businesspeople and technology people, so quite a unique deployment.鈥�

AGL has been making ongoing investments into its technology, Fionn explained, not only in digital transformation, but other backend processes that helped a majority of its 4,000 staff members move to remote working during the pandemic outbreak.

鈥溌槎乖� S4/HANA was just one of the key ingredients, but it has given us far more operational transparency across our business.鈥�

鈥淥ne of the challenges of having 50 ERPs across your business is that it makes it very hard to have visibility of activities happening or have trust in data. Having a single platform certainly gives a greater view of information that comes out of our various business units, providing a lot more trust in that we know the data is right in having one platform.鈥�

Another key benefit Fionn highlighted was the significant improvement in AGL鈥檚 flexibility for managing business change. 鈥淎GL, just like any other utility at the moment, is going through a period of change where the future is very uncertain, so we have to be flexible and nimble. Having one platform provides that flexibility.

鈥淚n recent times, we purchased a new energy business in Western Australia, and over a period, we were able to bring that onto our existing so that business aligns with the AGL way of working, which has been great to see.鈥�

AGL implemented other 麻豆原创 cloud-based solutions to further streamline and standardise its internal processes. 鈥淥ur business has a lot of contingent workers that support us, so we rely on quite heavily for that,鈥� Fionn said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e also using to support our procurement process. It was quite exciting to see those two cloud products heavily integrated into our platform as well.

鈥淲e digitalised 78 business processes, so it鈥檚 been fantastic that all those processes are on state-of-the-art technology that works whether you鈥檙e sitting inside the office or at home, maybe if you鈥檙e lucky enough even on the beach, or even on mobile devices. With that technology, it has certainly given us a lot of flexibility as an organisation.鈥�

Fionn expressed that the big two factors for a successful transformation are about business support and basing decision on people. 鈥淭hrough our digital transformation, we had business people from across our business and corporate functions that were embedded in the team. That enabled us to make sure we weren鈥檛 just delivering a technology solution, but we were also delivering a business solution.

鈥淭he second thing I would like to call out with these activities is that your people should always be the focus in everything that you do. Ultimately, it鈥檚 a people-based solution, so you need to make sure you鈥檙e thinking about how they鈥檒l be using the tool in the future and what sort of change impacts that might have.鈥�

For businesses considering this cloud-based solution, Fionn offers some important tips for kickstarting a digital transformation journey. 鈥淥ne 鈥� don鈥檛 be afraid of S4/HANA. There are a lot of known unknowns in that space, but I highly recommend getting onto that platform and doing it as quickly as you can. All the incredible new capabilities that 麻豆原创 are releasing are all built for the .

鈥淭wo 鈥� focus on people and change. It really is the most important area because if people don鈥檛 embrace the technology, you won鈥檛 be able to deliver on the benefits of such an implementation.

鈥淭hree 鈥� user experience should always be front of mind, so make sure you put the right focus and attention into delivering solutions that help people through their day-to-day activities.

鈥淎nd finally 鈥� study the S4/HANA simplification lists just to understand what is in and out from each version. There is a lot of critical information in those documents, so I highly recommend you study those so there aren鈥檛 any surprises.鈥�

To hear more from my discussion with Fionn, check out the .

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