Meet Shamayun Miah, who has been in senior leadership roles in the technology consulting industry. Shamayun Miah touched upon a number of important topics such as sustainability, diversity, leadership, and digital transformation. He explained why all these topics are important to accelerate digital transformation.
Shamayun Miah said that digital transformation is not just about technology. It’s about business process redesign, organizational culture change, people development and community engagement to take on new challenges with unprecedented pace of change in today’s era. In the world of technology, digital transformation is an integral part of a company’s business strategy to enable customer centricity and to stay ahead of the competition.
During our conversation, Shamayun Miah pointed out that many people come to think that sustainability is all about going green and carbon footprint. While it is essential, the most critical aspect of sustainability is making sure that we leave this planet in a better place for future generations. Sustainability is the responsibility of every individual on the earth. It requires a change in our behaviour, thinking, and mindset to reduce power usage and natural resources consumption.
Shamayun Miah went on to emphasize the need for diversity in the workplace. The diversity gives you the ability to enhance your company’s capability to innovate and respond to market challenges, diverse teams bring different viewpoints, ideas, and new ways of solving complex problems and creating new opportunities. All this results in profitability and makes business sense.
If company leaders were to focus more on sustainability, digital and diversity, then these three elements would, in return, would result in profits according to Shamayun Miah. In the new normal, companies have a massive opportunity to make changes that will make them more successful and help society and the community at large.
Finally, we talked about digital transformation and how it is allowing businesses to improve. Shamayun noted that “cloud computing, Automation, AI and Data provides a massive opportunity for companies of all sizes, small and medium, to rapidly accelerate their business growth.” Cloud computing can drive over 1 trillion in run-rate EBITDA across Fortune 500 companies by 2030, according to recent research, said Shamayun Miah.
Shamayun Miah was very motivational throughout the interview, and he provided excellent insights. Here’s a little sneak peek into our conversation:
How are industries being impacted by digital, AI, Automation, Cloud and Data? What has changed since the Covid-19 pandemic?
A lot has changed since the Covid-19 pandemic. As the world shut down in response to the pandemic, businesses started to realize the importance of hybrid working, communication and online interaction with their customers more than ever. A recent survey concluded that ‘’the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technology such as cloud computing, automation, Artificial and IoT. And these changes, as a result, are likely to remain for many years to come’’ commented Shamayun Miah.
Speaking to fortune 500 executives, they recognise that to remain competitive in this new business environment and the new norm requires new digital strategies and a new operating model fit for purpose. Shamayun Miah added that executives in these firms realize the value of digital and now understand the significance of acting at speed and being prepared for an uncertain future. They also see digital as a cost lever to drive efficiency, and as a differentiator, ultimately a new way of working. Executives also realize that this pandemic crisis needs bold moves, and their senior management have learned to experiment and launch new products and services at speed through this process. Shamayun Miah asserted that much more is required to move to business as usual, where initiatives are launched at scale and not as point solutions as we have seen in the covid times. Increasing senior management has been given the mandate to be bold in their digital initiatives.
Data security has been an essential topic for executives, whether securing the workplace environment or securing their systems and data. Given the massive increase in online transactions and hybrid working, companies realize the weaknesses of their systems and are rapidly addressing them. Many painful lessons have been learned during the pandemic, and security is on the top of the list.
During the pandemic crisis, consumers have moved their buying habits dramatically toward online channels, web, mobile and through apps. Innovative companies and industries have responded to making these channels key to their business strategy. The retail sector, mainly bricks and mortar, were already in crisis before the pandemic; the covid situation only accelerated their shift to the cloud and online channels.
What is your view of ethics and Artificial Intelligence, good tech? What responsibilities do companies and governments have?
I think we need to be more conscious about what data we collect and how we use it. There’s a difference between collecting analytics, security, and personal information for user experience purposes. We can’t always rely on the government to set out policies, so companies should take the lead and create their guidelines. Many companies already have a formal code of conduct, but they should also take it upon themselves to be more socially responsible. We all want to make the world better and safer, and I believe it starts with company leadership, respecting consumer rights to data and privacy. We also need to keep this in the front of our minds when designing Artificial intelligence and data lead applications.
Shamayun Miah, we have just had COP26; what do senior executives need to do to make a meaningful impact on sustainability and the environment?
Executives should take a proactive approach and invest in green technology. I’ve seen some companies adopt an internal carbon tax which encourages people to think about the environment. Companies need to have sustainability at the core of their value, making sure that they implement policies and strategies to conserve water, use green materials and products that encourage cycling to work and invest in alternative energy for running their companies.
What is your view on diversity and inclusion? And what can CEOs do to improve diversity and inclusion in their company? And is enough being done?
We need to be more open and accepting of other cultures, races, disabilities, religions, and backgrounds. Diversity will help with creativity and thinking outside of the box. I think we can build on the progress made; it’s important to celebrate what makes us different rather than focusing on what unifies all humans together. As for is enough being done, the answer is no; we need to do more; diversity and inclusion initiatives to date, in my view, has failed due to the lack of leadership engagement. Let me give you an example; Globally, women hold just 24% of senior leadership positions. If we compare this to China, they are doing better, where women hold around 40% of senior leadership slots. Women represent 45% of the S&P 500 workforce. So, we need to do better.
How are companies being disrupted by digital technologies? What are the ways they can take advantage of it?
Every industry is being disrupted; Financial Services are at a pivotal point due to the rise of Fintech, the impact of the pandemic, greater regularity compliance and the acceleration of digital spurred by changes in consumer behaviour. Banks realize the need to transform at scale to survive and capture market share; they also realize that their current legacy systems, mainframes, monolithic applications are not suitable for the digital era and need wholesale changes to the front office and back-office systems and processes to remain relevant.
Financial services also understand the value of user experience. It doesn’t matter if you have the best hardware or software or the product; if your platform isn’t friendly and intuitive, users will move on to an alternative.
We need to put ourselves in the shoes of our users and keep in mind that people are different. We all have different levels of expertise; some people are more familiar with technology, while others might be intimidated by it. It’s all about simplicity and making things easy to understand. Machining learning platforms are becoming the norm.
What are the critical benefits for leadership in driving Sustainability, Information Technology and Diversity?
Diversity can help with many aspects of technology. It’s important because we need people who have different perspectives to build increasingly complex solutions.
In terms of women in IT, it’s a vast industry. Shamayun Miah states that there are opportunities for everyone from the hardware level to support and user experience to senior leadership. Anyone can be a leader if they have passion, drive and empathy for what they do. We need to create a fairer society, a level playing field for all. Technology is vital to digital reinvention; we are in a radically changing environment, where leaders need to embrace innovation at pace and scale to thrive. We need to build the necessary future talent and digital skills to innovate and continue to create shareholder value and our community.
