How Can You Leverage Technology to Scale and Grow Your Business?

Transcript

Karen Kirton  

this series is all about growth. So we thought it would be remiss of us to not look at how technology can help SMEs to scale and grow. And joining us today is Maria Perez city. And Maria started her career as an electrical engineer for the number one consulting firm in New Zealand. And in 2002, Maria and her husband launched digital armor, and their aim is to transform businesses through the use of technology, using Marie's expertise as a business transformation expert along with their highly specialized technology teams across four countries. Maria is a regular speaker, she's passionate about personal development, helping others achieve the seemingly impossible, and she practices customer satisfaction and happiness. Like her religion. Digital armor is a multi award winning IT services company with a track record of working with mid market businesses for over 20 years, and they have a highly specialized technology and cybersecurity expert team. You can sell to federal government privately owned businesses and publicly listed companies with very stringent requirements. They've been handpicked by world class vendors such as Microsoft and Telstra to launch cutting edge technologies. And they've been first in the country to implement things like Microsoft Teams calling solutions. And recently a technology that is first in Australia for security. Now I met Maria and her husband Manny through LinkedIn a couple of years ago, and we've had a number of conversations about people and culture and I'm really excited to have Maria with us today. I absolutely love her energy, her warmth, her openness and her honesty. And thank you for joining us today.

Maria Padisetti  01:57

Thank you so much. It's beautiful. Karen, thank you.

Karen Kirton  01:59

You're welcome. I thought it'd be great to start off with what do you think SMEs should prioritize when it comes to technologies that workflow automation, productivity, data analysis, where do you think people should start?

Maria Padisetti  02:14

That's actually a really good question. Because funnily enough, I was talking to a brand new customer or CFO just a couple of days ago, and he was saying, where I actually don't know where to start. I feel like all I'm doing is spending money on technology. My IT guy comes to me or girl and says I need to do this. And I don't know where to start. And I don't know if this is ever going to end. So I'll say what I say to most people who ask us that question and that is, instead of starting with the technology, how about we think about where are the pain points in your business? I mean, no different to anything, right? And any consultant from any area, whether it's HR, where is your pain? And where do you think you'll get the most or the best return on investment. Now, there are some things that you need as foundation like you need proper storage, you need security, all those foundational things but in terms of the things that will give you the competitive edge, like the workflow stuff, and the automation that you talked about, the way to go from is okay, where does my business need to be in three years? Where is my pain right now? What's stopping me from growing? Yeah, I would start with that. And if it is, if it happens to be that there are too many areas in my business where things are manual, repetitive processes, and I've got three people doing something which I know a system can do. So that way I can reallocate those three amazing humans to something more intelligent than constantly filling in a spreadsheet and then transferring it from one species to another or something ridiculous like that. And that's the area because you can see that you can immediately get a return on their investment and also not lose those people. Because as you know, Karen, people aren't the biggest thing at the moment. So if you keep somebody in a role that's boring, doing manual repetitive tasks, you're going to lose them. Yeah, absolutely. So I think start with where a where is your business? Now? Where do you want to go? And then where is the pain at the moment, and then try and solve those so you can get some quick wins so you feel good about that investment as well. Otherwise, like that CFO said, you just keep spending and he just feels like he's not that's because no one has told him that you need to focus and then look at the before and after no different to real estate right. Before and after photo same thing with technology just invested some things you just as I said you must do like everybody computer that's not like a before after that, that a person can do their job. So you've got the foundational stuff, but the competitive stuff and the stuff that really gives you the impact and biggest bang, you go by pain points. I don't know if that helps.

Lachy Gray  05:54

Hi Maria. And yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it? I think one of the challenges I see with technology is there is always something new and shiny and we can feel like we have to keep up with what we're reading about what we see competitors using and yeah, we can get further and further away from the why I guess as you say, like what's the actual pain point we're trying to solve? And I'm curious, in your experience, what are the most common preventable mistakes that you see small and medium businesses making with their IT and technology

06:33

without even hesitation investing in the wrong things Lachy. So again, not keeping as as Stephen Covey beautifully said right start with the end in mind. I mean technology to me is no different to business. So if you want to this year, increase your headcount by 10 or 20 people as an example, then what are you doing to make sure your systems can cope with that increase or cope with increase in growth? So that has to be a game, not the new gadget that will help with something but what is gonna help you seamlessly as seamlessly as possible onboard those 20 people and also onboard say, 20 new customers if that's what you want. So if that's the case, you'd have to sit down and go okay, this is my business priority. Therefore, my technology priority has to be make sure my finance system can handle the increased number of transactions, make sure that I've got 20 new computers because I'm about to onboard that. So what what do I have to budget for that? So I feel that businesses lose the priority and lose the focus. So yes, there are some technologies that will come your way and we're in the tech business so there is lots of shiny new type toys trust me, like every time like you'll have a CRM system, and then you'll attend a conference and go, Oh, but that CRM system sounds better. Or you'll have a finance system I've got Maybe, and maybe it is better, but then come back to the organization and rather than get distracted, have a process where you actually assess the systems and solutions in alignment with what your business is about to do and then choose because it may well be that you do need a better system because you've had the CRM system for 15 years, in which case, yes, probably, but do it in such a structured manner that you're not distracted. I think having structure governance and process helps you or stops you from going crazy, because it's easy for us as well as a business even though we're tech business advising other customers. It's really hard for us because we see the shiny new toys first.

Karen Kirton  08:29

Yes, and you're very excited by them and be like when are we going to do?

08:33

When can when can we test the new Windows x right like or when can I test the latest iPhone? Now we do have to because we're supporting customers, so we have to be ahead of the curve, but that's in alignment with who we are as a business not because shiny new toy. So similarly, if you're a manufacturing company, you want to look at the future of manufacturing you do need to look at it Lachy otherwise you get left behind but when you're looking at it look at it from the lens of it does that take me where I want to go? There is that one area but there is also sometimes if I don't do it on my cease to exist because if I don't invest in robotics, if I don't invest in automation, and if I keep throwing people at the problem, then I am going to be left behind. So it's a balance between the two. What could stop you What do I need to do to align myself with the business goals but at the same time, what am I not doing that could stop me from being around for another 10 years?

Karen Kirton  09:30

Yeah, and I think that's where technology can really help is trying to get that future focus and Oh, absolutely. We're gonna be

09:37

absolutely good criteria and just some sort of structure in your selection of systems and you select not just because somebody attended a conference came back all excited and came to the team and go, Okay, that's it. We're implementing that. That is what gets businesses and that's the number one mistake that I see Lachy. We have our own customers come to us all excited. Oh, Maria, or money or whatever. Zoe, we just attended this conference and we think this is amazing. What do you guys think? First thing come down. It's great. It's exciting. But what does this align with what you want to do the 1212 months, or Okay, that's great. I think that's the right solution to do. Here's the money you need to invest. When do you want to do it? And how do we do it in a structured manner? And does it tick all the boxes from your business perspective? So it's just just yeah, not getting distracted. I mean, that's that's common, not just in tech, right? Lachy you could be in the manufacturing business and all of a sudden you want to get into agricultural business because it seems like a great industry to get into, so take us executives and distractions or distractions.

Karen Kirton  10:46

And when you're talking about bright, shiny things, I was just reflecting on the last couple of years because I know I've been guilty of this and many people that I know have been is just all of the new apps and you know, productivity and collaboration tools that have come out like it's just completely exploded. And you know, I do wonder if the market is now flooded with all of these things. But is there a particular software in terms of productivity or collaboration that you would say that a business should have? Is it something that you I guess, changed your life or that you've seen really work in other customers that you would say that's worth looking into?

11:23

Yeah. There is no one particular vendor or solution, but I think generally things that capture your communication in one platform, which is the platform we're talking about, we happen to use Microsoft Teams, we're a Microsoft partner. That's not to say that the alternatives aren't better, etc. But but we have to also we're an organization that's very cybersecurity focused. So Microsoft takes the compliance boxes because it's the one solution that has got the Australian Government protected status. So it makes sense for us and we work with fed gov right, so So James, for us actually has changed things completely. It was amazing. It's reduced the number of emails I mean, there are still some culprits who will try and do email in and then we go no, no, no, that's not the process. You have. You have to do this people are people, right? Take business or you're not. So it's helped streamline things. And I think for some people, it's slack. For some people, it's something else. It doesn't matter. But I think the most important thing is to to manage the communications that's what productivity to me is all about. There is the productivity aspect of you managing your individual tasks and your corporate tasks, which is the project I'll come to in a minute, but I think biggest, biggest thing about these collab platforms is reducing the noise and communication. And I think picking a platform we happen to have chosen Microsoft Teams, it's reduced the noise a lot. It can also be disruptive because you can annoy the heck out of people by chatting with them. You can but you can do clever things like turn off notifications or say it's urgent in the communication. They don't even know people pay attention, but we found it helped a lot because it also stopped the number of documents being emailed around because nowadays we only share documents for example, as not as an attachment but as a link to SharePoint. So so that has reduced so much searching and annoyance. It's I mean, we're nowhere near perfect, but it's pretty pretty damn good compared to four or five years ago before we implement a team. So I think the thing is first, pick a platform. And the first thing you need to do is reduce the noise and communication and streamline communication. And then comes the other collaboration and project management type stuff which is your own personal task management. I use a combination of tools. We've got planner for simple things like we've got a process where if we're working on an opportunity or an inquiry from somebody, it becomes into pre sales and there's a bucket and planner. It's kind of like those Kanban boards. It's like a forgotten the competing tool Trello it's kind of like a Trello type board but different because it's within Microsoft suite. So that is a beautiful way to organize. Not so complex projects. And then for very complex projects, which a lot of IT projects which we manage for customers we think use things like Microsoft Project Online, etc. Those are the tasks and stuff and the other thing that I use as a personal productivity one is Microsoft OneNote it is a godsend. Yes, I

Karen Kirton  14:15

saw your you did a webinar about one night, which I watched. And I see I've got it in my diary to rewatch because I was just blown away. I was like, oh my god i using this thing. And then I was like,

14:29

I'm gonna redo that. webinar, because it was really requested.

Karen Kirton  14:34

Recordings, so don't get rid of the recording. Because yeah, I was I was talking to I got a new coach. I was talking to her this week. And she said, what's the one thing that you're going to do by the end of this week? I said, I'm gonna re watch this video. Because I'm just like, Yeah, I'm terrible. I've got lots of different technology. things and then I kind of I never use about I think 3% of it. So yeah, yeah. So very, very

14:57

simple thing. I used to do care and and I think I said that on the webinar. I used to just open up notepad and write on it. It's the worst thing ever, really. Because it's not searchable and then I don't and then I have multiple notepad documents. I have no idea which one I put it in. So now I've got like for example, I just have one one note called meetings, and each tab on like, it's like a notebook. It's like a physical notebook but looks electronic. So on the tabs at the top I've got each month. So for example, if I go into June 2022 on the right hand side, I've got all the the pages in the notebook, and each one has a meeting. So now I have stopped searching. I think I would have saved hours of searching every week, but just getting my act together and just opening up putting up one. I mean there are so many tools, so many tools. I think my advice is the first one. The first and most important big win for businesses is to reduce the noise and repetitive communication. And the team's for us is what changed our lives and really changed our business and it's done that for many customers. So but there's many, many other platforms. Thank you.

Lachy Gray  16:05

Maria, you've been in business for close to 20 years. Congratulations. That is a tremendous achievement. We had our six year birthday, sixth birthday two weeks ago, you know three times ahead of that. So I mean, that's just amazing. I'm curious, what are some of your biggest learnings you know, from 20 years in the IT industry?

16:32

Well, the first one you actually pointed out don't get distracted by the shiny new objects too frequently. I think it's important. It's absolutely important to be educated and know what's out there. But then have some guidance and structure or somebody to guide you to choose the right things. Because actually choosing the right technology at the right time can change your business completely. Like if you think about Uber that changed that industry. Right. So like an app changed the entire sector. So keeping your eyes and ears open actually will help you. But you also then need to make sure that you're choosing the right thing. And what you need is somebody that you can trust. The other thing that I've seen a lot is it's so cliche in our industry and it's frustrating the 20 years later, it is still a problem. People struggle to find someone that they can trust. It's quite sad because I've been saying this for 20 years and it hasn't changed. That's something that I'm so proud of that we do that we look at customers businesses as our own and when a survey was done last year by consultant people loved us because of the consultative approach and the fact that we don't care. We will make money Lachy because we do the right thing. And that's why it's 20 years overnight success, right? I could have done it differently and been successful in four years. But I've chosen to do the right thing. So it's taken longer. And I think so I think the biggest thing is organizations all over are still struggling to find somebody that they trust somebody who's doing the right thing by them and not by their sales numbers. And the other one I think I hear and again the same CFO actually this is another CFO I spoke to last week. I have no idea what it is doing. Senior executives, regardless of size of business, still don't have the transparency, the visibility, the accountability of what the heck is going on in this black box called it it's like this secret society. Senior exams. I just no money goes in there. And I know something breaks I get asked for like to sign off on this. But beyond that, I have no idea what the heck is happening. I don't know it's like this thing. It's not that people do that intentionally because that would mean the whole if that's not what I'm implying. It's just that somehow that visibility doesn't rise. So I think that's again, it's a problem that's been there for 20 years and it's something that we do like I spoke to yesterday to a recent customer of as another reason customer and he says I would love to know what's going I know you've now given me visibility because you've just on boarded us as a customer and you've given us more visibility than I've ever had. I'd like there's three more pieces in the business which are internal, and I would like you to tell me how to get visibility on those three, so that I can sleep at night because I have no idea what's going on in those three areas in it. I said let's come up with a plan so that you get visibly I just want numbers Maria and I just want to know what's happening.

Karen Kirton  19:27

Yeah, that's so interesting because I was just reflecting as she was saying that on people I've come across over many years in IT departments that perhaps performing or their behavior isn't great. Yeah, but the senior management won't move on them because they're actually not 100% sure what they do. What would happen like what would fall over if they left?

19:49

There's so much fear. Like I have seen people who are very courageous leaders, but when I tell them that something is not right, they are so scared to make that change. Because what if yes, because it's very weird because that person controls your information and manages your information, but it's really sad to see so I've I've helped many organizations who have been in very litigious situations where even an ad going provider like I'm talking to a company right now. I've been working with them for two years, and they still haven't been able to extricate themselves from that relationship even with lawyers

Karen Kirton  20:31

which I guess takes me to another area which was last year. I had a client that had a massive cyber incident. And so that got me thinking about the importance of information security and cybersecurity and, you know, as a small business owner myself, I started to do some research and I found it really overwhelming and frankly really frightening when you start looking at the statistics in Australia in relation to ransomware and cyber attacks and so do you have any advice for SMEs on how to take simple steps to protect their business? And at what stage and your business? Do you get really serious about this?

21:16

Um I think you have to get really serious even as an individual forget about as a business right? So I don't think there's a stage the minute you start a business you need to get serious about cybersecurity. Because the biggest myth is that people think oh, because I'm a small business or medium business, they don't care. They're only going after the banks and the telcos. And that's not at all true. In fact, there is actually more breaches in the SMB sector, the mid sector, which we target, and certainly smaller businesses as well, because we like the practice grant. Yeah, we were easier to hack and easier to breach because we're not protected. So I think you need to take it seriously as a business and even as an individual. And before I come back to business one, I just want to say something during COVID One of the things that happened is we even the older generation in Australia, had to get used to phones because all of a sudden we you had to have the codes to enter place. And the apps and everything which which many people hadn't touched their phone for people by smartphones that they could go into QR codes and scan in. So even at that level as an individual if you're not protecting your mobile and your identity gets stolen, to undo that takes months right your entire life was taken over by somebody to go to the police to go through that. It's it's an it's an absolute nightmare. So and even at an individual level, please make sure you don't take things lightly because they are not light anymore. Not the COVID was one of those times where the ransomware attacks just grew tenfold 500 fold. Actually, that big jump from a business perspective, there are so many things. One of the mistakes that I've seen organizations do is they think, Oh, I've got antivirus and backup. That's not security. But that's just basic. You need to do that. But But how do you prevent ransomware? So people seem to or organizations seem to go and do exactly what we're talking about. Go and look at the latest cybersecurity vendor who's advertising the best and go and buy that solution. So they go crazy that way. Or they might go and buy the next best firewall thinking that that will solve the cyber security problem once again, that doesn't solve that problem. So people seem to go after products and solutions. What we advise organizations to do is okay, depending on the industry you're in you're if you're in financial services, there are certain compliance and regulation, regulatory stuff that you have to do. So for example, they might need to get IRM certified or ISO certified. So pick a framework like that, and use that to implement cybersecurity in the business because some frameworks are so beautiful because they talked about everything. How do you protect your data? How do you protect yourself from ransomware? What are the policies and procedures? If you have a disaster, how do you recover your business? They give you everything and then you find the tools and solutions to implement cybersecurity as opposed to leaving with tools and technologies vendors. So for for organizations who don't have that framework, there is one that's done by the Australian government called Essential aid. It's such a basic framework takes effort to implement, but there are eight things that you must do and there are lots of things I won't go through all of them but things like backup patching. I don't know. MFA, which is, you know, multi factor authentication, which is two step process before you log in. They've got eight things like that. That's a fantastic framework to use. It become more prevalent since COVID. Because people didn't know where to go. They ended up with 80 different solutions, but we've walked into organizations and they've literally got 88, zero, different vendors for this. And for the NFL, you've gone mad. You might you might need more vendors, but you need to have some structure and a framework so that you can do that. Not go crazy with tools. So start with a framework not Don't be dictated to buy vendors and products and to patients. Because with antivirus you can have 20 different vendors right how do you know what's best

Karen Kirton  25:11

for you tend to just go with whatever came with the computer. Yeah, you build it from here, which is not always the right thing to do. But I do wonder about your mobile phones, like because I've got so many things in my Google Authenticator app. Yeah. And yeah, it's like if I lost my phone, like how do I get into anything? We've become so reliant on them.

25:33

Yes, back it up. I guess it's

Lachy Gray  25:37

actually you saved the backup codes. on it.

25:41

You go to iCloud or wherever you say me to them then. Yeah, my life is on my phone too. And if you think about the younger generation, my son, for example, doesn't have wallet anymore. Kids don't carry around

Karen Kirton  25:55

wallets. Oh, good. I'm a kid because I didn't carry one.

26:00

Because because you can actually pay using just just wave this thing wherever you want. Yeah. It's got everything like I no longer stress about my license because it's in the service New South Wales.

Karen Kirton  26:13

You know, where I got caught out. When you travel aeroplanes, they you must have a physical credit card. They don't take the tap and wave. And the other thing I found is that when you go to hotels, they also want the physical credit card because they want to take a deposit. That's where I've gotten caught out with

26:32

you know what I've seen people do is they get a really cool leather cover for the phones. And in that just like the wallet days, there's actually a place to put the whatever one or two cards you might need.

Karen Kirton  26:41

My husband has that so we've gotten a situation I back in the days and so now we get your topic but you know, the woman would have the big handbag and the man would put everything it's actually gone the opposite way. around where the woman just has the mobile phone and the man has a mobile phone with the pockets on the new version of a quality is

Lachy Gray  27:04

the company called Bellroy that make really beautiful mobile phone cases like that. Oh, wow. Yeah. And it really, really small, really small box. I have like a little clip in it. So the car just pops up, Tony about it's extremely thin. Very cool.

27:24

Look that up. Thank you lovely. I think that the younger generation is a great one to follow to see the where the future is going. I watch the behaviors of my son and the younger ones that I know exactly where we're going. Yeah, I know wallets will be a thing of the past. I knew emails were a thing of the past. We're still using them, but that generation will change because they chat and text so things like I mentioned teams or whatever the chat that's what they think email is so old school. So if you watch movies,

Karen Kirton  27:55

isn't it to send an email?

27:57

Because it just you just got like I won't even say how many I've got I don't organize that very well. I can be bothered. I just did it because it's too far gone. So but I organized myself outside of you know,

Karen Kirton  28:10

yeah, actually horrified my time. Last week, we had a team day and my screen was shared on the projector and they saw that I had over 1400 unread emails. lives.

28:24

But a lot of those subscribed things. Yeah. Lots of those. I might have 10,000 over because it's stuff that I just need to delete.

Lachy Gray  28:33

Yeah, are they it doesn't it costs pretty much nothing to send an email but it costs the person to read it and think am I gonna do I need to action this? And if so, what are we gonna do about it? That's what I don't like about it.

28:44

And my biggest bugbear lock is the CC don't CC a person if you don't want them to so

Lachy Gray  28:51

you are on the email you will say say it on the email.

28:56

Yeah, I don't read emails as as as a philosophy and as a principle I'm not reading emails at MCC and Ron. I had

Karen Kirton  29:02

an old manager that did that Maria and it drove everybody crazy like what did you notice a CCG was like if I'm say sued, he just had a rule actually set up that it just went into deleted

29:14

championship it's a bad it's a bad thing because the only thing we can't get back in our life is time. So and again, it's a productivity hack. Like this. There are tools but they're also behaviors that are productivity. I think that's them. You want somebody's attention and you want them to take an action on something then just send it to them

Lachy Gray  29:34

typifies what advice? And speaking of advice, how do you educate your customers about the latest in technology and cybersecurity, given that it changes so quickly?

29:49

We've got lots of mediums that we do that on Lachy I mean, in terms of cybersecurity people who are managed customers who are who we manage ongoingly they get alerts whenever there's a big cybersecurity thing that's happened either there's a breach of a server or some hardware vendor needs a patch otherwise you're gonna get hacked. We will say we've got an advisory. We've got an entire cybersecurity arm built in the emails so they get the alerts so they get emails from us or text messages from us if it's super critical. We run webinars with we've were known to do very good quality webinars. We've been doing them consistently. Those are gold is what we've been told. We're not like a typical IT company. Most of that information is usable, practical. So we get very high ratings for those as well. We do for customers, we do a newsletter, which is also lots of goodies in there too. And then we're very social on social media. So there's always current content, my own personal one, that everything and then there are roundtables with Ron. And Karen was of course one of the roundtables. This one happened to be virtual, but around tables are also very, very popular because it's a discussion amongst peers. So we that's one of the things we're very well known for is the educating and I think that's what has us retain our customers and also when our customers

Lachy Gray  31:10

it goes back to the trust that you were using before. Yeah, I think that is so important. There's can be this reticence to give away proprietary information and what if our competitors see it and steal it and the site but that's what builds trust is the fact that you share information that people could implement themselves, but will often choose to go with an expert such as yourself, to help them do it. Yeah, because they trust you

31:38

if I if we thought that way. It's really funny because somewhere this is like deja vu I'm trying to remember where where this question was asked of me. Somebody asked me that question. Like, I noticed that you share a lot of information where do you draw the line? That's right. I was interviewed in a group and they asked me I can see that you openly share about everything. And like, where do you draw the line when it's too much. I said, we don't draw the line because my husband money gave me the best advice ever. He said, If knowledge is your only competitive edge, then you've got a real problem. Yeah, because you will never innovate if you think holding on to that one brilliant idea that you came up with two years ago. The reality is Lachy. People already know about that. You're not that special.

Lachy Gray  32:22

I love that. I'm gonna write that down that great. That's good.

32:25

No, nobody's that special. Like seriously. There are some individuals on the planet who are special like very gifted and I'm not one of them. So but whatever. I know, I learned from somewhere Lachy. So that means probably 50 other competitors already know it happened to be the one who shares it, that's all and I also love I follow a lot of people on social media because I'm obsessed with it. Gary Vaynerchuk is one of my one of my Gary Vee is people who are social No, I love his philosophy in life. That man shares everything. And he's got a $400 million business. So let me tell me that doesn't work. I think generosity of heart. I think for me is our edge. And I know nobody can read that. They can take away all of our knowledge, they can take away everything. But I think what will set you apart is your heart. And I think that's that's that's our slight differentiator and in the tech industry that's the word heart and tick tock

Lachy Gray  33:30

could be the first time it's ever been said

Karen Kirton  33:35

worldwide exclusive podcast.

33:38

But I like but I love people like that people who are authentic and who just give give give and how successful is he Lachy? Now I'm not giving with the intention to become that but you know what? wherever it leads to it leads to

Karen Kirton  33:52

you reminding me of a book by Elizabeth Gilbert who's the Eat Pray Love or read a book called Big Magic. I don't know if you've read that. I haven't read that book. Is it good? Yeah, it is. It's really great. So I went into a bit skeptically because I'm a very practical grounded person, like a finance I'm an engineer by background I ended up marrying so you go through it the same way that I did. But actually I got a lot out of it. And one of the things that she gave examples of this is where people in throughout history have come up with these absolutely amazing ideas at exactly the same time that somebody else did. Yeah. So it's this whole idea that yes, you're amazing idea. It's not going to be unique somebody else has done that. It's all about how do you actually capture it? How do you deliver it? How do you do something with it? And yeah, you just reminded me of that as you were. Were talking Yes. Yeah, I've taken the same philosophy and I know when also when I was writing my book and people were asking when I was in a group that was writing and people say, Well, how much of what I know do I put in my book, and the copy editors were saying, Well, you put everything in, like why why would you hold back if you want to share your knowledge you just put everything because people either resonate with you or they won't. So but you know if you can give people some information that helps them with their business or with their personal life, then it can only be a good thing. And you'll attract your tribe. Right? Exactly. Yeah. And there'll be people that

35:23

and the right, people will come to you the wrong people will take it and do whatever but so what

Karen Kirton  35:28

that's right, it attracts some filters. Yeah, exactly. So another thing I've come across a lot over the last few years, it's just this increase of AI and also ml machine learning. And as businesses generally start what they call these digital transformation processes. You know, from my perspective, from an HR standpoint, you know, staff get really nervous because they see it as a threat to their jobs, and it often is it's often quite warranted. They feel that way. So what are your thoughts about how business owners can prepare their teams to keep developing and embracing this type of technology so that they can ride with those changes and not be left behind?

36:17

It's really, really good question, right? I had to think about this. I'm thinking about it for a couple of seconds. And the reason I'm thinking about this is as a human race, if you look at technology, along the span of the years that we've been on this planet, there has been technology industrialization, that's actually changed jobs. So why is this any different is my question right? I know it's scary because you're thinking robots, and we've been watching too many sci fi movies and someone's gonna take over the world. I just watched an event today the other day again, and I'm like, you know, things like that. But but but the reality is, as employers and organizations people need to work with you, Karen because what we need to do is actually educate our workforce and upskill them so that there is that fear, because the reality is that jobs that are that are repetitive and things will get done by something else. But I think our goal as employees is to give our people the confidence that there are jobs out there that they could do and it's actually better for them. They're probably going to get paid more because the reality is robots are not going to replace this. Not in my lifetime. I don't see like where it's going to start thinking like I am answering the questions like I am, there's no robot that's going to do what I'm just doing right now. Not that I know of at the moment, right? Because there is that other aspect of it. That we don't have the hot pot that I said, go Lachy there. There are other things that are there that robots and AI, but mundane repetitive tasks. Robots stocking the shelves for Amazon with the entire floor has taken over those things. Yes, people will. So what we need to do as organizations as a planet is okay, what do we do with human beings? How do we scale them for the future jobs? And I think even as we as parents get our children ready, we need to think about what are the careers of the future because it is going to keep changing. So I would say I think don't be afraid of it because this to me, it's technology. And technology has been around for decades now. And every technology has done things cloud for example, in our own sector. People were so scared because they're like, Oh my God, then we're not going to have enough work in our sector to manage service. What are we gonna do and and oh my god, like we used to have email servers, four of them in a company. And now Microsoft 365 has taken that entire job away. That's been happening in our sector for 20 years. So what we've had to do is actually changed like the number of times we've had to change our business because we've had to because technology has taken away stuff from us. And we're in the technology business. But what we've had to do is retrain our people and change tact and change the way we're working. We will be in business, it's just going to be a different business.

Karen Kirton  39:03

I think that's the trick isn't it will always be in business, but it could be different and I think you know, that goes for business owners as well. Not just the staff doing those tasks. And we're talking I just picked up my future of jobs report that I keep on my desk here because you know, one of the things that they talked about this is for Australia, so are the companies surveyed in terms of responding to these changes. 97% So they need to retrain their existing employees. Yes. Isn't that amazing? 97% so it bodes well for your business Lachy. So yeah.

Lachy Gray  39:37

Well, the half life of skills is going down to something like five years which is very, very short. Yeah. So it's a massive conversation to have but as you say, right, like it's it's a conversation to have, it's it's talking about well, and bringing it back, I think to what you're talking about the start. One of the problems we're trying to solve for our customers. How can we best do that? Where does it make most sense? To leverage people's skills and experience? Yeah, the roles might change, but it doesn't mean that there aren't going to be any roles anymore, that is going to be different. And that change is scary. But that's that is part of human nature. And we just got to talk through it and have that ongoing conversation and as leaders, we have to lead that conversation. And I think it's okay to say, I don't know what the future necessarily is going to look like. But I can tell you how we're going to approach it with the same principles with the care and responsibility like you said before and with trust and with really good communication we'll be transparent about how things are going. And I think that, that if you if if we trust each other, and it's okay to have that uncertainty in the future. Yeah.

40:49

But will we have to give a career path to people who are doing the things that we no longer do? And we're in the tech business, right? I mean, God, the things that have happened in 20 is very long time and tech, like, seriously ridiculously long, right? So so I saw stuff that I don't see anymore. And I know for a fact that in five years we'll be probably doing something ridiculously different that I don't even know about. I have no idea what we're going to be doing in five years time. All I know is I'm going to just think about the next 12 months. 24 months. Yeah, keep retraining our stuff. So I don't know and future jobs that they say Right. And Karen, you would know this we don't even know what the future jobs are going to look like 510 years from now because they're, they're saying there's going to be brand new careers that we don't even know and we haven't even thought of right

Karen Kirton  41:33

now. That's fine with my kids. I never anyone says to my kids, what are you gonna be when you grow up? I just find that such a redundant question because it's like the jobs that they're going to have when they grow up. They don't exist today. Let alone I can't remember who it was. Might have been Adam Grant. Lachy you probably correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he I was listening to something and he said he hates that question because you shouldn't be defined by who you are. Anyway. Yeah, let alone like, I have no idea what their jobs could possibly be. It's just like you said 20 years ago, a lot of the jobs today like a social media influencer. That didn't exist. And it's just

42:13

the fact that you can get paid millions of dollars for just being on the platform and videoing everything that you do, like, you know, how you talk and yeah, it's like, and like, yeah, and was it the other day? Somebody locally in Australia just valued their NFT business at $1.5 billion, and NFT has been around for what? 12? I don't know. Months. They got valued for young guys. Yeah. I mean, kids at 12 I'm making a million dollars or $12 million, being YouTubers. Yeah.

Karen Kirton  42:53

Day. So really, just taking that back a step and say, Okay, where are my pain points? I think in terms of productivity and managing the noise of communication, that's something that I've really taken from today as well. You know, I didn't meet only use technology, about 3% of how I should be using it and teams is another example of what we use but nowhere near what we should be using it. So So I put that on my to do list to look into that. And I think the other main point for me was around cybersecurity. So really just thinking about that from day one of your business because I don't think people are doing that. You know, when you start your business, you're just thinking about, I just need a laptop I need to get on the phone, I need to start getting customers. But, you know, if you do get hacked, or you get ransomware and it might happen, you know, 235 years down the track, it could take you months or years to get all your data back, get your business back on track. So so that should be a priority area.

44:33

If you think about Karen, just a very quick example of that. If you think about some of the social media influences, what happens if you lose your Instagram account? Yeah. Something happens you get hacked, or Instagram shuts you down. That's your entire business gone.

Karen Kirton  44:46

Yeah, that's, I decide I like don't forget about your website. Even though people think that websites are pretty old fashioned these days. But because yeah, if one of those platforms Shut you, chokes you down. You need to have somewhere that people can go to. How about you Lachy Did you have any other takeaways?

Lachy Gray  45:05

I love the just the general principle that technology should be a way to support the business I guess and the value that you're delivering for customers rather than an end to it of itself, and that it will change over time. So I think it's really important to continue to review the attack against the strategy, and how is it helping us deliver and serve our customers in our mission? And that is going to change over time as it should?

Karen Kirton  45:39

Probably quite quickly. Yeah. Yeah.

45:42

Now that we don't do there was a time more than a decade ago, where it plans were three years and five years long. Two years is at best because God knows what's coming around the corner.

Karen Kirton  45:54

Yeah, it'll change within those two years. Thank you so much for joining us today, Marie. I've really enjoyed it and links to any articles and other things we've talked about today, such as Bill ROI and essential aid. We will put over on our website, just follow the links on yahoo.com to AU or amplify hr.com. Au and go to the podcast section. And if you've received value from this episode, we'd love it if you could leave a rating or review over Apple podcasts. Now you can get in touch with Maria in a few different ways. So you could email her if you're still an old school email her advisory at Digital armor.com.au You can head over to LinkedIn and it says linkedin.com And then that slash i n slash Maria PEDAS cities so Maria PADISE Double TI. You can go to their website Digital amma.com.au. They've also got a company page on LinkedIn. And you can also go to Instagram which I was so impressed by because I'm not much of a social media and personally my marketing guy actually put us on Instagram. Recently I was like really businesses on Instagram. So when I saw you there, I'm gonna go check your page out so it's instagram.com/digital

Lachy Gray  47:12

Thank you Maria. I really enjoyed today's episode as well. And coming up in our next episode is the value of feedback. And

Karen Kirton  47:20

yeah, so that episode is coming up in two weeks from now so click the subscribe button and you'll be notified when that's available. Any final thoughts Lachy?

Lachy Gray  47:29

I think I'm going to check out one of Maria's webinars upskill myself.

Karen Kirton  47:35

I recommend it. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you next time on the Make It Work podcast.