ITPalooza Panelists: Anand Rao, Elizabeth Decker, Jennifer Torlone, John Riley, Murray Izenwasser

How to be your organization's trusted advisor for keeping technology current

Panelist, Jennifer Torlone, Vice President of Information Technology at Willis Lease Finance Corporation, shared a key tactic she uses to keep her business current.

By empowering employees and vendors in a “lunch and learn” about what is needed to learn in key technologies.

We all know that, high level officials in a company don't have enough time to do research on every small story there is. They only have time to see content that has been researched and compiled in a structured document so they can absorb the high level content optimally. This is why, after Torlone's team learns something new, each individual presents their findings so everyone has valuable content to absorb.

“You need to delegate the learning and focus only the high-level content.” - Jennifer Torlone

So what are the technologies that allow you to stay competitive? Depends on your company’s goal, for example, Anand Rao, SVP Digital Business at Autonation, shared that Autonation’s focus is to become a customer-oriented company. The question they’re facing is what technology will allow them to do that? Anand described that, customer data platforms, personalization engines, Chatbot are the ones we should be looking at.

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Elizabeth Decker, Director, IT Enabled Services Operations at Cross Country Healthcare, shares a new perspective since she is in the staffing business.

How can a staffing company fit technology in their system when their margin is very small? The majority of companies use their revenue to invest in new tech, but Elizabeth shows us a new perspective the more employees she can position with a lower cost of the process the higher her revenue can be.

She focuses on quantity, not the cut per worker positioned. So what’s her optimal technology? As she states:

“Robotic Process Automation is the solution to have our operations be cost-effective” -Elizabeth Decker

During Elizabeth's explanation, she describes RPA (Robotic Process Automation) as a virtual software 'robot’ or application that replicates the actions of a human being interacting with the user interface in the same way that a human would. RPA is able to learn in weeks to perform a variety of functions and operations, saving costs in human labor by tackling tasks with a lower time of performance.

Staying relevant with Blockchain

John Riley, CEO, and Co-Founder of C-N-C Blockchain Advisory Company shares his point of view on blockchain and how it is important to keep an eye on its world.

“If you're in blockchain it's like a tornado and every day and every week there is something happening. It is a global technology where you need to look at it as it impacts and tights everyone.” -John Riley

John expresses that to stay relevant everyone should keep an eye on revolutionary technologies such as blockchain.

Jennifer adds into John's statement that blockchain is becoming as relevant as the internet was decades ago. The question now is what Blockchain will do for us now, how will it change our lives, and what are the barriers to adapt consumers.

Once all systems can exchange information freely that is when trust comes into place. TRUST is the key and the biggest entry barrier. Don’t replicate systems share it, this makes it agile.-Jennifer

As she shared on the quote, trust in sharing data is the problem. Because it is copied in thousand of hundreds of data. Why is Blockchain so slow to integrate? Once trust is established, our world would become as fast as expected where we can pull data from anywhere and anyone.

Digital transformation has to drive technology. The bottom line is to bring the right technology that makes sense to our business.

• For a staffing company who looks for process cost-effectiveness, automation is their solution.
• For Aviation who has pieces that live 40 years Blockchain is key.

What about your industry? What is your company seeking? Let me know marketing@tsl.io