One of the key drivers for the IT function is to live and breathe the important values at Coles a focus Harvey readily admits wasnt there when he joined the group. Predictions for 2019 in data, analytics, and AI, This year's round-up of predictions from industry figures yields wisdom in: AI, data regulation, data governance, the state of the Hadoop market, open source and "the edge. This means we can now get data out of the warehouse at a pace that was previously unthinkable, Harvey says. The fundamental meaning of transformation is not about replacing old technologies with new ones, or capturing high volumes of data, or hiring an army of data scientists, or trying to copy some of the things Google or Amazon do. Wesfarmers Managing Director Rob Scott said the change would bring together the Groups pure digital businesses. University of Melbourne data strategy advisor Fiona Tweedie, who also took part in the panel, added that organisations should be active in interrogating the tools and data they use, taking into account the biases and assumptions that may arise. Its problematic when companies decide to embark on a digital transformation agenda without having a clear definition, let alone vision, for what it means. Following an initial pilot in Tasmania (Bunnings is not rushing this after the UK debacle), click-and-collect will be rolled out in Victoria and then the rest of Australia. Having the right leader, resources, and measures of success for the journey towards each different pillar can contribute greatly to success. On top of that, weve changed the digital interactions. Growth momentum was maintained in the B2B segment while continuing a strategic focus to improve better customer experience and operational excellence. We know upfront whether we expect a project to improve store performance, reduce effort to be allowed to be redirected to somewhere else, or to improve our decision-making in terms of margin, investments, or otherwise.. Learn howand get unstoppable. By Chet Kapoor, Chairman & CEO of DataStax. Read:Predictions for 2019 in data, analytics, and AI. Wesfarmers primary objective is to deliver satisfactory returns to shareholders through financial discipline and strong management of a diversified portfolio of businesses. Rodney Zemmel. Do you need one? Technology is a focus for the business. In June, Wesfarmers held its Strategy Briefing Day, outlining the key initiatives it had undertaken in FY19 and its plans for the years ahead. The authors outline four pillars of digital transformation: IT uplift, digitizing operations, digital marketing, and new ventures. we equip you to harness the power of disruptive innovation, at work and at home. Historically, these relationships yielded poor or dispersed records. He says the legacy systems at Blackwoods, combined with its extensive range of products, had combined to make it impossible for staff using a computer to check inventory in each of the seven Blackwoods distribution centres in real time. Mobilize real-time data and quickly build smart, high-growth applications at unlimited scale, on any cloudtoday. Lydia joined WES corporate office in Business development and commercial. Without a clear understanding, the wrong people are often put in charge, with the wrong resources, and the wrong KPIs, setting the digital transformation project up for failure. This leads to costly upgrades. Copyright 2023 IDG Communications, Inc. Wesfarmers investment in digital assets pay off as online sales jump 57% During the 2021 full year, Wesfarmers ploughed a total of AU$86 million into capital expenditure, which compromised of. AI can make predictions, and data can give us insights, but the so what part requires actions, and these actions need the relevant skills, processes, and change management. Baxby says Wesfarmers opted for Microsoft Dynamics for several important reasons. Some companies are already deep into this journey, but many other companies struggle with questions about how to upgrade the digital infrastructure. But with the right expertise and tools, data can be turned into insights. Wesfarmers OneDigital May 2022- Present10 months Melbourne, Victoria, Australia After launching OnePass in May 2022, I moved into a role focussed on identifying, validating, and executing on. Where organisations have been successful, Rucinski explained, they had combined the various points of views from their respective data analytics, IT, and business arms to form a cohesive business strategy. A framework to help leaders decide where to invest. However, if the brains behind the worlds and Australias- biggest companies think it is worth it, you should definitely be looking at how to digitise aspects of your business. But all four pillars are important to digital transformation, so they may happen in another order. As for Wesfarmers share price, after a rough end to 2018, this year has seen it steadily climb, rising approximately 23% year to date. And with the results already under our belt, alongside our deeply skilled and resourced team of in-house data and analytics experts, I firmly believe we are well on our way! Trevor Collens. There arent many roles that have such a diversity in focus and where you are literally down in the weeds working out how youre going to apply the latest patch to Internet Explorer, to the next day thinking about what service-oriented architecture we should be putting in place based on the assumption that well be deploying different types of sales terminals in different locations and channels long-term.. One of the foundations is to apply SaaS model thinking to OneDigitals operations, such that its quality-of-service is the same as a Wesfarmers brand would expect from any vendor or partner it engaged. This will provide benefits in the attraction and development of digital talent as well as logical synergies between the Groups shared data platform, advanced analytics team and subscription capabilities. Digital transformation can mean a lot of different things. One of the biggest barriers to true digital transformation success is change management. As a matter of fact, the most interesting, captivating, and curious insights will go to waste without a solid plan to turn them into actions. The OnePass program provides members with additional benefits and convenience when shopping with the Groups retail businesses. According to Harvey, certain loads are always going to be difficult for large corporates to move into the cloud. After years of talking about lifting its digital capabilities, Wesfarmers is finally putting its money where its mouth is with IT implementation projects costing $75 million at Bunnings and in the industrials division. Information includes sales data, stock availability, store remuneration, markdowns and waste. Wesfarmers has its sights set on realising strategic value and transformation through building a market-leading data and digital ecosystem. Just as we had to evolve our view of computers after their introduction from a device performing a narrow set of tasks at the edge of the organization to one that performs many tasks, in many different ways so it is time to evolve our view of digital transformation, from a monolithic concept to understand that digital transformation means many different things for different parts of the organization. Wesfarmers says COVID-19 disrupts H1 operations but bumps up online sales, Wesfarmers investment in digital assets pay off as online sales jump 57%, Kmart Group to shift its mainframe to the cloud, AWS skills training for 1,400 Kmart and Target employees, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. OneData, formerly the Advanced Analytics Centre, manages the Wesfarmers shared data asset, providing a single view of the customer and enabling the divisions to deliver a more compelling offer to customers. The struggle to implement the new ERP system highlights how digital transformations may not always go smoothly. "When we talk about use case and they're saying where are the results with [this process], it helps in terms of getting that alignment and management of expectations, and when we talk about how do we think that use case is going forward, we've got that reference. Blackwoods, which is the largest provider of industrial and safety supplies in Australia and also part of the group, is currently in the process of replacing its 30-year-old Focus COBOL-based system with a new Microsoft Dynamics ERP. The online sites, social media space and mobile phones are each a different touch point where we can change the customer experience. Choosing and prioritising those assets is a two-way conversation. Digitizing operations is a fundamental pillar of digital transformation in the sense that, without it, your company will be left behind by more efficient operators. Embracing change has become a mantra for CIOs looking to take a more strategic and innovative position within their organisation today. Then they will lead the change because you helped them see the opportunity.. We interviewed four global leaders responsible for their organizations' digital transformation, each in different business and technical functions, industries, and geographies, and found that they were already approaching transformation in this waybut without a clear language and framing to guide them. Digitization and digital transformation can expose internal weaknesses that leaders should acknowledge and take a hands-on approach to tackling. As noted at the recent half year results, more detail on Wesfarmers OneDigital will be provided at the Strategy Briefing Day in June 2022. If we are focused on the business objectives and keep the long-term priorities of the company front of mind, there are such exciting things we can make happen with technology working as part of a business. All rights reserved. An equally important consideration was the buy-in by Microsofts senior engineers in Australia and in the head office in Seattle. Among Harveys list of priorities is adopting a hybrid cloud model, and hes moved up to 40 per cent of total workloads to cloud infrastructure to date. Wesfarmers a diversified corporation From its origins in 1914 as a Western Australian farmers' cooperative, Wesfarmers has grown into one of Australia's largest listed companies. When completed, an IT uplift provides your company access to up-to-date tools that offer increased employee efficiency, lower IT maintenance costs and increased employee satisfaction. The point here is not to be right, but to find better ways of being wrong. Managing Change. The Bunnings pilot program in Tasmania was followed by the rollout of the Bunnings click-and-collect offering in Victoria in the first half of this year. Reinforcing the importance of Catch to its digital strategy and online growth, Wesfarmers lured former Amazon VP Pete Sauerborn to lead Catch. According to Scott, Wesfarmers increased its investment in digital capabilities during the period, particularly in building out its data and digital ecosystem, which helped support the. The benefits of and reasons for the initiative need to be owned and communicated from the . Baxby says Scott has met Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who is personally committed to the success of the Blackwoods implementation, as is Microsoft Australia CEO Steven Worrall. We call this digitization, or the process of datafying human behavior, translating it into standardized signals (0s and 1s). A second critical pillar of digital transformation, often tackled earlier in the digital transformation journey, is using digital for optimizing, simplifying, and rationalizing existing processes. Our diverse business operations cover: home improvement and outdoor living; apparel and general merchandise; office supplies;health, beauty and wellbeing; and an Industrials division with businesses in chemicals, energy and fertilisers, and industrial and safety products. Catch's vision is to be the trusted place where Australians start their shopping journey. Wesfarmers formally acquired the online retailer Catch for $230 million in August 2019. At Wesfarmers we believe sustainability is about understanding and managing the ways we impact the communities and environments in which we operate, to ensure that we continue to create value in the future. Each of our divisions is developing significant capabilities in data analytics and digital services to meet the specific needs of their customers, Mr Scott said. But what happens when an organization becomes too large or complex to know your customers or employees on a personal basis? This is where technology can have the biggest impact in the process of capturing or creating digital records of people (e.g., what they do, who they are, what they prefer, etc.). Suppose that your insights tell you that a certain type of leader is more likely to derail how will you change your internal hiring and development process? Think about analog and informal small businesses, such as a stand in a Turkish bazaar: the salespeople have a great deal of access to, and knowledge of, their customers and clients, but its all trapped in their minds. The performance of the Industrial and Safety business was disappointing, reflecting the impact on Blackwoods earnings from ongoing investment in customer service and the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, Scott said in Wesfarmers FY19 results briefing in August. Often this is the first step on the digital journey. From a PagerDuty perspective, I think the key thing there is how do we help cut the noise across so much information thats coming through to us, he said. They are then taken through one stage of the conglomerate's use cases, such as identification, beta engineering, or the advanced analytics and implications, to highlight what role the various teams in the business play in applying the use cases, followed by this information being cascaded around the organisation. He was initially brought on as a program director for a merchandising systems refresh project, before taking the role of general manager of IT strategy, architecture and program delivery in 2004. Managing Director (Acting) Michael Howard plans continued investment in every channel strategy with ongoing enhancements targeting improved online customer experience. Testing RFID blocking cards: Do they work? Having run a corporate BYOD program for the past three years and maintained thousands of devices in its network, the latest step has been bringing BYOD to store managers. In its most basic form, this pillar can mean swapping out analog activities with digital ones. It requires IT architects and time, but promises up-to-date platforms with more effective tools to serve customers at lower cost of maintenance. While reporting for the data and digital division remains as part of corporate for FY22, the company said this will be separated from FY23. The key to cutting through the confusion is to see that digital transformation is not a single thing, but a multi-faceted journey with differing goals depending on your industry and digital maturity. - Emmy-nominated host Baratunde Thurston is back at it for Season 2, hanging out after hours with tech titans for an unfiltered, no-BS chat. The Evolving State of Digital Transformation. Whats exciting for me over time is narrowing down my focus on infrastructure, and making it less of a discussion point for small and medium-sized projects and workloads. View my verified achievement from Project Management Institute. In this role you will be responsible for optimising data platform engineering and architecture, as well as designing and building data products. All four are part of most companies digital transformation journey. Wesfarmers doesnt seem to be immune from the underpayment epidemic admitting underpayment at Target and Bunnings. Following Wesfarmers acquisition of the Coles Group in 2007, Harvey became IT group general manager across a team of more than 700 staff. To learn more about how we can help your business, contact us today. Established in 2022, Wesfarmers OneDigital brings together the Groups digitally native businesses, including the Catch marketplace, the OnePass membership program and the OneData Group data asset. One business strategy that Wesfarmers has adopted, Lowthorpe explained, is a one-day program focused on data analytics for leadership teams that teach them about data analytics, including the. Cnd este extins, afieaz o list de opiuni de cutare, care vor comuta datele introduse de cutare pentru a fi n concordan cu selecia curent. Without a model, a system, a framework, or reliable data science, any data will be useless, just like 0s and 1s. During the half-year, Wesfarmers also continued to build out its data and digital ecosystem. My head of digital and loyalty systems gets on exceptionally well with the head of digital marketing, and the two understand how they can add value to each other. Harvey points out his own team takes a highly disciplined approach around capital and investment, knowing what benefit levers will be pulled and what will be delivered before they embark on any project. Wesfarmers finally goes digital Chanticleer is Australia's pre-eminent business column. Senior Data Engineer - 6 Months Contract. He added that AIOps to detect anomalies and correlate events is also potentially on OneDigitals radar. Eric Lamarre, Kate Smaje, and. Woolworths, Coles and other retailers have been focused on digital growth as a critical element of overall growth strategy. Melbourne, VIC. Based on our collective research on companies undergoing digital transformation, we offer a simplifying framework to cut through the confusion and conflicting demands. This is in part due to Bunnings disastrous entry (and exit) from the UK market but also involves the Wesfarmers ongoing investments in digital transformation. Several global retailers are using digital channels, AI and predictive analytics to access prospects and customers, set up digital marketplaces, viral campaigns, and geo targeting campaigns. The key to success is simply getting clarity that digital transformation is not one thing, but rather many different things. Although these failures have multiple causes, they are generally the result of underestimating the various steps or stages required to successfully execute a transformation agenda. This will support the growth and performance of our retail divisions while providing new growth opportunities for the group.. It is useful to remember this, because the real benefits from technology are not hard (i.e., cheaper systems or infrastructure), but soft (i.e., capturing valuable data). Like many things, its tempting to look for the conflict, but if you just focus on the win-win, the roles just naturally evolve themselves. Click and Collect has been scaled to 100 stores, with plans to expand in New Zealand. But for more mature digital companies, investment is still required to use advanced tools such as artificial intelligence. It is no secret Bengaluru is the destination to recruit tech talent and Bunnings doesnt seem to be missing on that important tech link. Its about so much more than your technology. All models are wrong to some degree, but some are more useful than others. Digital and omnichannel capability is a critical area for other retailers as well. Typically the CEO, or head of sales, leads such initiatives because of the requirement for investment, agility, but most importantly a team capable of running experiments to validate the new business opportunity. As part of the digital function, executives were also tasked with digitizing the entire ecosystem as well as a separate department with a task to build and maintain the resulting ecosystem. Wesfarmers managing director Rob Scott has described the first half of the 2022 financial year as the "most disrupted period" for the company since the onset of COVID-19, due to extended government-mandated store closures and trading restrictions in Australia and New Zealand. 2023 ZDNET, A Red Ventures company. For example, common errors include the nave assumption that by simply buying technology or investing in any of the fancy tools or shiny new objects of the booming tech market organizations will somehow transform. In the final stage of the process, you can evaluate results or impact. "If we relied critically on large datasets, instead of removing human decision making and making decisions easier, sometimes you end up just reinforcing those biases.". This is where technology gives way to analytics the science that helps us give meaning to the data. Everyone who has been part of digital transformation describes it as a journey. Click and Collect, an important bridge between click and brick, continues to be a growth element for the Wesfarmers companies. Bunnings, Kmart and Officeworks continue to deliver topline growth for Wesfarmers while Target was below expectations. View my verified achievement from Project Management Institute. Our database provides customer insight and contextual information on which enterprise applications and software systems Wesfarmers (Bunnings Warehouse) is running and its propensity to invest more and deepen its relationship with SnapHire, SAP, UKG or identify new suppliers as part of their overall Digital and IT transformation projects to stay . Sheffield joins Wesfarmers' executive leadership team as a managing director from November and is tasked with leading development of what it's hoping will be a market-leading data and digital ecosystem. Wesfarmers OneDigital will power the Groups data and digital growth ambitions and provide customers with a more seamless, rewarding and valuable omnichannel experience across the retail businesses. The point . But at the heart of everything Coles IT has to do is deliver ways in which the business can save money so we can reinvest that money into the price point. [You] might as well just break it yourself in a controlled environment and learn from it, and thats where PagerDuty plays a key role.. For us, the delivery of an ROI is the way into the door, not the way out, he says. While hes comfortable on the strategic high ground and being a business-led executive, Harvey doesnt believe this should take away from the day-to-day operational role CIOs need to continue playing in their organisation. With her strong business background, she has been instrumental in ensuring that. Industrial and safety comprises four main businesses: Blackwoods, NZ Safety Blackwoods, Workwear Group, and Coregas. Harvey downplays any questions about who should be responsible for the technology or leading the way, saying the impetus should be efficiency and customer delivery. Likewise, companies are using artificial intelligence to identify and act on critical customer behaviors, for example, identifying customers likely to leave your service and then intervening before the do so. 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