Digit Leaders 2023

• DIGIT North Summit Aberdeen: Thursday 25th May
• Cloud First Summit Edinburgh: Thursday 15th June
• *NEW* Glasgow Scot-Secure 2023: Thursday 14th September
• Fintech Summit 2023 Edinburgh: Thursday 21st September
• Fintech Awards 2023 Edinburgh: Thursday 12th October
• Digital Transformation Summit 2023 Edinburgh: Thursday 26th October
• DIGIT Expo 2023 Edinburgh: Thursday 23rd November
• ITSX Summit 2024 Edinburgh: Thursday 29th February
• Edinburgh Scot-Secure 2024: Wednesday 27th March

#digitleaders
Richard Marshall
Technology Analyst,
Concept Gap

Generative AI
Richard M Marshall, PhD
richard.marshall@conceptgap.com
@rmmarshall@mastodon.scot
Fad or fundamental?

Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894

Yet new technology creates fear and panic

The humble invention of tubes of
oil paint enabled one of the most
significant art movements ever:
impressionism

Claude Monet painting in his garden at Argenteuil (1873)
by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in 1873

Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood (1885)
by John Singer Sargent

Impressionist Artist Painting en Plein Air (2023)
by Richard M Marshall using Jasper.ai

The classic Gartner Hype Cycle
Skip of Insignificance
Vanishing Vapourware
Cult of Irrational Exuberance
, Enhanced

When is a technology strategic?
Emerging Growth Mainstream
Uncertain Happening
Starting
This is where a technology
becomes strategic
Some just fade away

Loud mouths with vested interests?

Half-baked technology pushes
trying to control the future?
Complete with faked legs!

Image credit: Kyle Hailey
Or the fastest ever time to 100M users?

(Generative) AI is
fundamental to
human augmentation

Which tool will you pick to dig a big hole?

Awareness of ethics and risks is needed
“munch style the scream with a robot face”
• No world model
• No concept of truth
• Factual inaccuracy
• Plausibility
• Biases
• Incomplete training
• Plagiarism
• Compliance
• Lack of repeatability
• Transparency
• Auditability

No matter how big
the model, a
generative AI still
does not understand
what it is building.

Generative is only one kind of AI:
a powerful probabilistic approach.
There are many others active or in
development.

What do I need to do now?
Experiment – see
how the current
crop of tools
work for your
business.
Deploy modern
security tools, for
example DLP,
and include AI
tools in resilience
planning.
Protect your data
– do not put PII or
confidential
material into any
external AI system.
Educate staff
around the risks
and how best to
use AI tools.
Set clear targets
review regularly,
and actively
make decisions
and take action.
Need help? richard.marshall@conceptgap.com

#digitleaders
Laura Gilbert
Chief Analyst & Director of Data Science,
10 Downing Street

Data. Decisions. Digital.
Data-Driven Decisions to Solve Real-World
Problems: Learnings from Downing Street

10DS: Ten Data Science
1) EVIDENCE BASED
DECISIONS
2) BUILDING A BETTER
CUSTOMER
3) TARGETED INTERVENTIONS

1) EVIDENCE BASED
DECISIONS
• Predictive Modelling
• Don’t let the perfect be the
enemy of the good
• Time is of the essence

Example 2: Transport
Assessment tool to support £100billion decision around Integrated Rail Plan with costs, benefits and other politically relevant
information. Enables thorough investigation of options quickly and easily.

Example 3: Net Zero
Engaging visualisatons descrive the impact of policy decisions on the UK’s journey to Net Zero

2) BUILDING A BETTER
CUSTOMER
• Show not Tell
• Drive Demand
• Data Upskilling
• Aspirational Risk, and Decision Making

Making Good Decisions
Evidence
Attitude
Biases
Experimentation
Evaluation
Evidence-based approaches to risk

3) TARGETED
INTERVENTIONS
• Impact
vs
• Effort

Project rAPId
i.AI
Evidence House

How do you ACTUALLY persuade people to share data?
Vision
Risk
Barriers to entry

“WORLD DOMINATION BEGINS WITH AN MVP”

Radically upskilling civil servants in data science,
technology and analysis whilst delivering innovative
solutions to crowdsourced problems at pace.
CROWDSOURCING SOLUTIONS
TO WICKED PROBLEMS
“You all save lives in multiple ways, often in ways
you don’t realise. If someone has a good idea… and
it’s not backed up by good data and good testing,
based on really rigorous analysis, it’s almost
certainly going to be less good than they think at
best… and in some cases cause active harm.”
Professor Sir Chris Witty

Victim req.
attend court?
Charge
altered?
Case included
Domestic
Violence?
Avg. Predicted
Drop out Risk
Y Y Y 51%
Y Y N 38%
N Y Y 31%
Y N Y 23%
N Y N 16%
Y N N 13%
N N Y 10%
N N N 3%
Example - Victim Dropout - UNTESTED

70% training, 30% blind
117,630 individual, anonymised pieces of 360 feedback
given to 8,795 recipients (50%M/41%F)
Building a better Civil Service
Women are nearly twice as likely to have the word ‘warm’ in their feedback, 56% more likely to be described as
‘caring’, roughly a third more likely to be described as ‘forthright’, ‘empathetic’, or ‘resilient’. They are also much
more likely to be described as ‘determined’ and ‘fantastic’, or to ‘prioritise’ and ‘champion’, or as ‘intimidating’.
On the other hand, men are roughly two thirds more likely to be ‘relaxed’, ‘international’, or ‘intellectual’. Men are
more likely to be described as ‘quiet’, ‘technical’, ‘logical’, ‘measured’, or ‘analytical’. Men are more likely to ‘align’,
‘explain’, or ‘regard’.
Older people are 60% less likely to be “Bright”
Interpersonal skills assessed differently by ethnicity
(8% BAME)

Fraud: the multi-billion-pound/year problem
*CyberEdge’s 2021 Cyberthreat Défense Report (CDR)
In the UK, fraud costs
£27 billion
annually*, with
phishing accounting for
a large portion of this.
Of UK businesses that
suffered a cyber attack
in 2022, 83% say the
attack was
phishing**.
Problem: anti-phishing
services are hard to
access, or closed to a
particular app/software.
“ Tap Away Spam “
**The Latest Phishing Statistics

Our Strategy

Forward/Send any message to 07860 003 294
It could be a spam message, or just a website you know and trust
GET INVOLVED!

111 Human Assistive AI
Civil Service Efficiency
Ambulance Wait Times (DHSC, London Ambulances, NHS)
Fraud (NCA)
Benefits Fraud (DWP)
Maternal and newborn safety (NHS Nurse/Midwife, DHSC)
999 call handling (BT, NHS, DHSC)
Asylum Backlog (HO)
Crowdsourcing
solutions to
Wicked Problems

Lead
• Lead pipes are found in the water supply of an estimated 8M UK properties.
Lead paint in some homes.
• Studies show that elevated blood lead levels in the USA contributes to a 18% of
all-cause mortality, comparable with tobacco smoke as a cause of death.
• Lead exposure in children retards their mental development, measurably
reduces their IQ and renders them more likely to engage in antisocial
behaviour and criminal behaviour. Correlated to crime back to 1870.
Stress
• Workplace related stress and mental ill health is estimated to cost employers
£35Bn a year.
• It is estimated that for every £1 spent on workplace stress saves £5
Loneliness
• Around 5% of UK adults report feeling chronically lonely, with nearly half
being somewhat lonely.
• Loneliness is worse for your health and longevity than being obese, and worse
than smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
• 1/10 of GP appointments are for patients who are lonely, and only 13% of
GPs feel confident they can help lonely patients.
• Loneliness costs the UK employer £2.5Bn a year.
• It is estimated that for every £1 you spend on loneliness you save £3.
• One estimate puts the overall cost of disconnected communities at £32 bn a
year.
Half of all mental health conditions are established by
the age of 14, three quarters by the age of 24
¼ of 14 year old girls self harm
1/3 of 2-15 year olds are overweight or obese
(pre-pandemic)
Where Next for Government Data?

#digitleaders
Theo Priestley
Author & Futurist

AI: Practicalities and Future Realities

• How is AI actually going to impact your business?
• Are you ready to capitalise on your data?
• Some examples of AI in use
• Where is this all going?

JOBS

300 million jobs at risk – Goldman Sachs, 2023
Bottom 15% of low level, low salaried white collar work
Middle Management, high salaried white collar work
All knowledge based work

There will be an AI Agent for every
task within your business.
Large enterprise software stacks will
be a thing of the past
ERP, CRM, SCM, RPA….
It will all be driven by your data
strategy

“We are still early”
“This is still experimental”
It has been less than 6 months

Creative Agencies: AI will never replace us!!
Also Creative Agencies…

- Find jobs that are a fit for you
- Submit personalised applications
- Prep you for interviews
- Give feedback afterwards
- Negotiate salary/ perks
- CV and cover letter will be dead
- An AI filtering out those using an AI to
generate disingenuous CVs and
applications
- Time wasted on recruitment increases

GPT-3 took several weeks to train on
10,000 GPUs costing $10,000 each
It was trained on 825Gb of text-based
data scraped from across the internet
The next iteration is reportedly training
on 25,000 GPUs
Elon Musk recently bought 10,000 GPUs

Tencent Cloud
Google Cloud
Microsoft Azure
Amazon AWS
NVIDIA AI Cloud
CoreWeave
AI-as-a-Service is big business but it’s
also highly constrained by availability
already

1. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
3. Business Intelligence (BI)
4. Human Resource Management (HRM)
5. Supply Chain Management (SCM)
6. Marketing Automation
7. Business Process Management (BPM)
8. Knowledge Management
9. Content Management System (CMS)
10. Project Management
11. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
12. …..

Bloomberg have a 50 billion parameter
large language model for finance
Bloomberg’s data analysts have collected
and maintained financial language
documents over the span of forty years
Proving that a data is now the most
imperative strategy on the agenda in the
age of AI

Insurance policies - Personal
Supply chain contracts – Large South East
Asian fertilizer company
Customer Service – Air India
Data labelling – Biotech Lab

#digitleaders
Mark Stephen
Journalist & Broadcaster,
BBC Scotland
Richard Marshall
Technology Analyst,
Concept Gap
Theo Priestley
Author & Futurist
Laura Gilbert
Chief Analyst & Director of
Data Science,
10 Downing Street
Q&A

Thursday 27th April 2023 | Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh, UK
#digitleaders

#digitleaders
Jim McFadyen
Wellbeing Specialist & Founder,
The Vortex Centre
A

#digitleaders
Lauren Cahill
Transformation Director,
Cairngorm Capital
B

Digital Transformation
Lauren Cahill

71
A bit about me…
Physics Graduate at the
University of St Andrews
Tesco Technology
Leadership Programme
Management
Consultant
Agile Coach
Transformation
Director

73
Supporting the transformation within a company
100 days I year 3 years 6 years
Disruption
£ Harvest
£ Investment

74
Key technology trends
Agility and scale
Growth, market
access and
adaptability
Commodity
services vs
USP
Secure, modern
and outcome
focussed
Automation and
analytics
Informative,
insightful and
efficient

75
Making the difference
Choosing the right
technology at the right
time
Overcoming
legacy and
biases
Bringing
together the
right team

77
Future proofing organisations
Creating a CULTURE that will allow you to succeed
Learn fast and
fail fast
Encourage
experimentation
Measure the outputs
and not the inputs

78
Embracing new WAYS OF WORKING
User centered and
value driven
Delivered
incrementally
Stop starting and
start finishing

79
TECHNOLOGY becoming part of your DNA
Technology through
everything
Integration and
automation
Using data to drive
effective decisions

80
But the real benefit comes when you BRING IT ALL TOGETHER
UX and value Incremental change Completion
Learning Measurement Experimentation
Tech prevalence Integration Data
CULTURE
WAYS OF
WORKING
TECHNOLOGY

Using Agile as a Way to Deliver Change

82
Defining Agile
The ability to create and respond to
change in order to succeed in an
uncertain and turbulent
environment.
Agile Alliance Definition

89
Agile is a mindset, not a methodology
Agile
Flexible
Fixed
Traditional

90
Individuals and interactiover processes and tools
Working solutions over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
The Agile Manifesto

91
How do we adopt new ways of working?

92
Cadence
• Build habits through repeated
behaviours
• Using patterns and structure to
provide robust governance
• Using burn-up charts to
promote steady delivery
USING AGILE CEREMONIES
HELPS THE TEAM GET USED TO
NEW WAYS OF WORKING

93
Intrinsic Motivation
• People want to do a good job…
BUT they need to understand
why
• Agile roles and self selecting
tasks encourages accountability
• User centred design builds on
this motivation through User
Stories
MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR PEOPLE
AND YOU’LL MAKE THE MOST OF
YOUR PRODUCT

94
Short Iterations and Relative Sizing
• We can’t predict the
future…
• How big is Jupiter?
• How big is Pluto?
• Is Jupiter bigger than
Pluto?
• Force divergence using a
Fibonacci Sequence
1,2,3,5,8,13,21…

#digitleaders
Anne Dhir
Service Designer and Creative Strategist,
SPARCK
C

The circle of life
A talk about killing services
Anne Dhir
she/her

My name is Anne Dhir.
I’m a creative strategist and service designer.
SPARCK is the design & innovation agency,
within BJSS, a leading technology company.
We’re based across the UK, Portugal, the US,
and Denmark.
Hello

Design to deliver
Understand Design & Experiment Deliver

Is anyone here building the
pyramids of Egypt?

“WE JUST
LEAVE IT
RUNNING”

A quick tour of the graveyard
Services do die

Micro-ends
22m unused broadband
routers, enough to fill ten
Olympic swimming pools Uswitch
survey, 2022

However, some legends never die!

“Can we not just unplug it?”

And the not-immediately visible

It’s the end of the world
And I feel fine

Design with ends in sight
Build your closing capability
Kill little, early, and often
Ask about ends
Create end scenarios

❑ Could the service be(come) temporary or cyclical?
❑ Are we prepared for it to collapse?
❑ Could it be suspended?
❑ What does it replace?
❑ Could it be replaced?
❑ Does it still align to the strategy?
❑ What dependencies might make retirement difficult?
❑ What if the need were met?
Create scenarios
end

TL; DR
Monitor the
business case
Create end
scenarios
Ask about
ends
Services
die
Unship
Kill
Delete
Build a
capability

“Kill your darlings,
kill your darlings,
even when it breaks your egocentric
little scribbler’s heart,
kill your darlings.”
Stephen King 'On Writing’

#digitleaders
Laura Casci
Head of Delivery,
BJSS
D

Laura Casci
27th April 2023
DIGIT Leader 2023
TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP
SUMMIT

LAURA CASCI
Head of Delivery
Scotland
132

NOT ALL LEADERS ARE CREATED EQUALLY
136
Mahatma Gandhi
Martin Luther King
Jr.
Margaret Thatcher

CONFIRMATION BIAS…
137
Elon Musk Bill Gates

Autocratic Democratic
Transformational Laissez-faire
KURT LEWIN’S LEADERSHIP STYLES
138

• Decisive, lots of self-confidence
• Focused commitment to business goals
> When it works:
• Urgent or chaotic situations
• Where effective and prompt decision making is required
> When it doesn’t work:
• Teams feel micromanaged
• Single point of failure for decisions
139
Bill Gates
Co-founder Microsoft
Autocratic

• Desire for input from all sides
• Good communicators, easily approachable
> When it works:
• Generates creative input, heightens employee morale
• Group feels part of the solution
• Not every leader achieves success
• Some team members can feel left out
• Solutions can be problematic if the group is not skilled
141
Tim Cook
CEO Apple Inc
Democratic

• Develops the vision and rallies team
• Encourages the team to transform and evolve
> When it works:
• Clear vision, great communication
• Team is loyal and productive, committed to vision
• Can lead to team burnout
• Unclear vision & poor communication lead to challenges in
delivery
143
Sheryl Sandberg
COO Meta
Transformational

144
Commercial in confidence
Illustration by Sierra Sulc

• Excellent delegators, instil confidence
• Provide constructive criticism
• Willingly delegate responsibility to others
> When it works:
• Leads to faster delivery
• Teams feel very empowered.
• Can lead to non-delivery
• Outcomes won’t be right, if team don’t understand the
vision
145
Oprah Winfrey
CEO of Harpo Productions
Laissez-faire

To influence, inspire and help others become their
best selves, building their skills and achieving goals
along the way.
148

1. Inspires and motivates
2. A vision and path to achieve
required goals
3. Ensures team has support and tools
to achieve goals
WHAT MAKES A
GOOD LEADER?
149

A leader may be any of those things, but
a good leader needs to demonstrate all three
to their teams.
150

EMPLOYEE
EXPERIENCE
SURVEY
96%
Trust the judgement of
the Scottish Local
Leadership team
95%
Response rate
153

154
Commercial in confidence Photo by Markus Sandhofer on Unsplash

1. In your opinion, sum up in one word/phrase
– what is the most important quality in a
leader?
2. Does Laura Casci demonstrate that quality?
3. Is Laura Casci a good leader?
SURVEY
156

100%
Of team members
who responded
think I am a
good leader
158

159
https://www.uagc.edu/blog/4-leadership-styles-in-business

160
Determine
Determine your
inherent
leadership style
Understand
Understand
what your team
and your
business need
from you
Adapt
Adapt your
leadership style
for the right
situation and
people
Be brave
Be brave and ask
people if you are
a good leader
Learn
Don’t take it too
personally but
learn from it

KEY TAKEAWAYS
161
KNOW YOUR SELF AND
YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE
KNOW YOUR TEAM
AND THEIR NEEDS
ADAPT WHEN
APPROPRIATE TO DO SO

163
https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-casci-bjss/
Laura Casci
Head of Delivery
Connect

#digitleaders
Barry Daniels
Chief Operation Officer,
Droplet Computing
F

DROPLET
Compatibility,Security,Compliance

DROPLETCOMPUTING.COM
DROPLET APPLICATION DELIVERY SIMPLIFIED
CyberEssentials V3update.
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/information/cyber-essentials-technical-requirements-updated-for-april-2023
24th April 2023 sees the introduction of v3.1 of the #CyberEssentials requirements, but what does it mean to you?
The two significant changes that could impact your EUC or Infrastructure programmes are:
☣ Malware protection.
#Sandboxing is removed as an option.
🔐 Security update management.
All software on in-scope devices must:
- be #licensed and #supported
- removed from devices when it becomes #unsupported
💧 Vendor does not support on Win10/11 or Server 2016/2019/2022 even if you can get it working using MSIX, MSIX AppAttach, AppLayering, AppVolumes
💧 Cloud provider does not support or have required platform to host your application
#sandboxing this may only refer to Malware Protection, but an assessor may see this to apply to any applications delivered through sandbox technology. The
worst case is
💧 No Windows Sandbox
💧 No sandbox mode in your application packaging, use of portable app technology that keeps all executables and dependencies in a single folder structure

ANYAPP.ANYWHERE.
Droplet containers are:
Cost
effective
Simplified
pricing
Versatile
Secure and
compliant
Simple and
fast to deploy
out of the box
Portable
across multiple
systems
Optimised
for legacy

DROPLET DOESRETRO
Droplet containerises any Windows or even MS-DOS application
Containers encapsulate the core binaries needed to run a Windows application
Unchain legacy apps from a defunct, unsupported OS.
Deploy apps once and run on any system without modification.
Run containers on:
Cloud Chrome Windows Linux MacOSX

DROPLET
ANDSECURITY
Droplet is secure by design
Achieve and maintain Cyber
Essentials Plus or Nist Compliance
1
NeverTrust™ model blocks all
inbound/outbound traffic by default
2
Droplet containers are Immune to
zero-day and ransomware attacks
3

DROPLET
ISSCALABLE
Fast to set up, easy to deploy
Droplet containers are fast and
simple to script and deploy
1
Little support required
2
Deploys to any cloud or endpoint device
3

DROPLET
ISFLEXIBLE
Legacy Windows Server environments supported
Securely Run Windows Server 2003/2008/2012 applications
on
• VMware vSphere
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Microsoft Azure
• Google Cloud Platform
• Amazon AWS
• Lift and shift process converts your
system into a Droplet format
• Droplet P-2-C for physical server
• Droplet V-2-C for VMware vSphere
VMs
• Clonezilla for Windows Hyper-V VMs
• Support for VMware Convertor for
online conversions

DROPLET SERVERCONTAINERS
Supported on Microsoft Azure, AWS, VMware vSphere and Bare Metal
DCI-X Server Container:
designed for legacy apps that typically
run on Windows NT4/2003
DCI M8/M12 Server Container:
designed for server applications that typically
run on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows
Server 2012 R2

DROPLET
Deployment Options
Same droplet file delivered how you choose
Droplet Client to the edge or endpoint
1
Droplet Hosted Containers delivering
end user applications remotely
2
Droplet server on any cloud or on prem via
any hypervisor
3

Easy to calculate
and predict costs
DROPLET LICENSING
Simplified licensing designed for the subscription generation
Save on
multiple licences
for one application
Pay per user,
per month
Don’t pay for
what you don’t use

DROPLET
CASE STUDIES

PUBLICSECTORCASESTUDY
Securing server and client in NeverTrustTM security solution
CHALLENGE SOLUTION BENEFITS
Legacy servers 2003 2008
Cyber Essentials Plus audit failure
Applications critical for archive
retention compliance
Limited budget
Server lift & shift to Droplet
Run on Hyper-V
Droplet client deployed for access
10 days from start to finish including pen
test audit and end user testing
Achieved Cyber Essentials Plus
Passed pen test
Futureproofed application
Cost effective

PRIVATESECTORCASESTUDY
Protecting Nuclear Power Stations
:Legacy across their estate
Compliance for critical national
infrastructure
Security
Devices connected to serial ports in
production plant
Dropletize applications, servers and
device connected systems into Droplet
NeverTrust
Full Pen Test and compliance audit
Work with and train outsourced SI team
Compliance for NIST and Cyber Essentials
Plus
Futureproof security

PUBLICSECTORCASESTUDY
Enabling 40,000 users to be digital citizens
Transform locations into digital
assessment centres
80% of branch locations paper-based
and offline
Field operatives move between areas of
connectivity and internet black spots
Adopt cost-effective laptops
and tablets
Droplet containers deployed
to support semi-connected
offline model
Data synchronised when internet
connections are available
Run Windows Applications on
any device
Scalability and flexibility
Massive cost saving making a mass-
deployed solution viable
Field operatives can use a choice of
devices with low-cost options

CENTRALGOVCASESTUDY
Speed of migration, compliance, Security with remote office solution
Legacy servers needed to migrate to
cloud
Office closing moving to remote working
timescales
Multi-tired application stacks Dropletized
into server and client encrypted
NeverTrust security on cloud solution
Seamless migration to cloud
One delivery mechanism to deliver every
app
Centralized cloud delivery
Customer now has a fully functioning
remote working solution
No staff retraining needed
2 week project timeline met
Cost savings compared to alternative
solutions

DROPLET
USE CASES

SECURITY&COMPLIANCE USECASES
Systems need to persist expensive or no easy upgrade path exist
Failed audit
Application critical for operations
Security vulnerabilities
Compliance
Containerise the application
Harden DCI-X and DCI-M image with
relevant group policies
Move to Windows 10 environment with
BAU maintained
Security approval for Cyber Essentials
Plus
Reduced development time
and costs
Improved security

PUBLICSECTORUSECASES
350,000 production applications on Legacy Systems according to Gartner
Budgets constrained
Critical for operations
Security
Compliance
Connectivity
Containerise the application
BAU maintained
Security approval for Cyber Essentials
Plus
and costs
Improved security

ENTERPRISEUSECASES
Cost effectiveness and business benefits are key
Budgets constrained
Critical application(s)
for operations
Security
Compliance
Containerise the application(s)
BAU maintained
No need to retrain thousands
of staff on new software
Much cheaper to deploy
and manage
Improved security
BYOD enabled with significant reduction
in infrastructure costs
Patch Tuesday de-risked

EDUCATION USECASES
Modern application delivery simplified for flexible user scenarios
Multiple devices on different operating
systems
Deployment of applications
is challenging
Containerize the applications
Create one image with
multiple apps.jason templates
Deploy through SCCM, Intune, Mobile
Iron etc
Build once deploy to thousands across
different devices
and costs
Improved security
Cost saving on
Infrastructure required

#digitleaders
Marnie McCormack
MD: Software Engineering,
JP Morgan Chase & Co

TECHNOLOGYLEADERSHIP
DECISIONS,DECISIONS,DECISIONS:HOWTOKNOWIFYOUAREGETTINGITRIGHT?
MARNIE MCCORMACK

DECISIONS
BYTYPE
WHICHDO YOU CHOOSE?

#digitleaders
David Farquhar
CEO,
IGS

Enabler of Agriculture 4.0
Novel Infrastructure for a Huge Global Sector

This is a story of real business Turnaround,
Transformation, Growth and Exit, founded
principally on the creation and nurturing of a
winning Culture.

1. It’s all about the people: skills and values
2. It takes 15 players to score a Try
3. Permission to Succeed
4. Proceed until Apprehended
5. Never hire yourself
6. Purpose

Most people rely on a given set of metrics to analyse and
measure SaaS companies.
These focus on key indicators like web traffic, lead gen, pipeline
value, ARR growth, and churn to gauge whether momentum is
sustainable.
We think there is something more. Culture.

This is because we learned where the true sources of value lay
in our company and how best we could impact them.
All of the value was created by the people in Workplace who
discovered, designed and executed change.
This would only happen if our Culture encouraged and enabled
them to take ownership.

Our Cultural Qualities
1. Honesty & Trust
2. Vigilance & Openness
3. Learning & Continuous Improvement
4. A focus on Community
5. Courage & Innovation

What This Culture Enabled
1. Collaborative Planning
2. A Unifying Force
3. A Platform for Growth
4. Omni-Directional Communications
5. Taking the Lid off

The team that led Workplace was not its founders.
We joined the business in mid-2013.
It was 27 years old and was stranded.

It had grown minimally and
mostly by acquisition.
It had been used and bled dry.
It was tired, becalmed.
It was defined by its functional
and regional silos.

Losses were mounting.
Cash was rapidly running out.

Was this due to a lack of good people?
NOT AT ALL!
It was just really poor management.

We removed the bad management very quickly:
ALL of them

We settled on the only viable
way to shake things up:
• Behave like a start-up for a
couple of years.
• A 27year-old start-up, but a
start-up nonetheless.
We built our start-up on:
Attitude ¦ Ambition ¦ Hunger

We found ourselves a role model.
Watch the amazing Danny MacAskill and see how he (1) sets
himself audacious goals (2) tears up the rule book and (3) gets
up and tries again when things go wrong.
We agreed to make every day at Workplace just like that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o

We made it a good thing to talk about our challenges as much
as our strengths.
We even made it cool for teams to comment on one another’s
capabilities.
We analysed the contribution of our 17 legacy product lines
and the profitability of our major customers relationships.
What a shock that delivered!

Ours was a small but highly
agile vessel.
It had to be fiercely
competitive and very
tough to beat.
The Good Ship

We knew this journey wasn’t for everyone and decided to leave
some people back on the quayside.
This was hard, as some had been there a long time, but real
leadership is about making tough decisions.

We told everyone who got on
board that we had no room for
passengers.
No room for cynics. No room for
those only willing to look after
themselves. No room for 9 to 5.
Anyone like that would be
made to walk the plank by the
rest of the crew.

Everyone who stayed agreed to help paddle as hard as we could.
Turning a ship around is NOT a spectator sport.

We said farewell to one-third of the crew: 45/135 people.
The remaining crew massively increased productivity.
In 100 days we delivered a £1M EBITDA turnaround.
That’s £10,000 per day.
The business became profitable and cash-generative.
We never drew down the cash set aside for us.
Now we were ready for growth.

Some friends showed us
the Gigaom view.
With its huge, wide-open
space exactly where our
customers had described.
Diagram courtesy of Gigaom https://gigaom.com/

It was really obvious we
had to get the crew on
board. Creating the right
culture became our
obsession.
We focused on building:
1. Trust
2. Honesty
3. Openness
4. Mutual Respect
5. Mutual Reliance

This allowed us to
talk about ourselves
and each other with
equal frankness.

We wrote a press
release. Together.
It imagined an exit in Q1 2017.
It set big, audacious company goals in terms
of ARR growth and EBITDA.
It told the story of how we got there by
explaining what each function in the business
had contributed.
• It described our Value Proposition
• It set out our Competitive Positioning
• It summarised our Strategy
• It described our Culture

We were totally
honest about our
shared priorities
and that we work
to live.
Our culture places our
families first and recognises
the foundation, the platform
they provide in each of our
lives. This allowed people to
open up and actively
contribute.

Next we wanted an Org Chart to convey three big messages:
1. Our Focus
2. Our mutual Interdependence
3. Our need to Learn from each other

We are people who make…
Great
Products
Delighted
Customers
The other 2 possible
It all hang
together
Engineering, Support, Infrastructure
Marketing
Sales
Key:
Operations: Finance, HR, IT, Admin
Product Management
and Services

People named these the Fuzzy Eggs.
1. Everything we do contributes to Customer Delight.
2. The Eggs overlap on purpose to symbolise Collaboration
and mutual reliance.
3. They have fuzzy edges which are permeable to enable
sharing and Learning.

Territories
Scale
Channels
Sectors
Requirements
Cultural Fit
Key:
Active focus
Active focus – by Channel
Worth Investigation
Reactive only (hard qualify)
Latin America
US
UK&I, Scan / BLX
DACH
Eastern Europe
Etc
Manufacturing
Education / Healthcare
Passenger Transport
Field Services
Etc
Direct
System Integrators
VARs
OEM Partners (e.g. HP)
Etc
Etc ? ? ? ? Tier 4
Tier 3 Tier 1
Tier 2
Scenario Modelling
Reporting/BI
Mobile
Core Functionality
Etc
the Strategy Spider

So now we know where and how
• Of course we had to write a Business Plan to provide coordination
• Before that we had to get ourselves in shape: CHANGE EVERYTHING
So we made a Transformation Map (“T-Map”)

We shared our
strengths and
weaknesses.
Then openly
commented on one
another’s.

Then we figured out
what we had to stop
doing, start doing,
or improve.
And cross-checked
our sequencing so
we could hand-off
from one team to
another.

All of which gave us a
huge Transformation
agenda covering 3 years:
Basically we realised we
had to CHANGE
EVERYTHING.
Next we found patterns to build into projects
Phase One
Phase Five
Phase Four
Phase Three
Phase Two
Which became Five Phases of Change

This Change agenda gave us a real sense that we were embarking on a
Voyage.
Thinking this way helped Galvanise us as a Crew.
Everyone knew their Role and their Objectives.
What they had to Deliver.
What they Needed from one another.
How they could Help one another.

Now we had made
the stepping stones
to let us utterly
transform this
business.
We delivered the 2½
year Transformation
Programme in 18
months.

From nobody looking at us,
to a whole different story.
Submitting to another kind of test
All content © Northface Ventures, 2007-16

By Oct 2015 we were here: Top 10!

We had become a 30 year old start up
• Lean and Agile everything, including Services
• MVPs for everything, including HR
• Pipelines for everything, including Admin and Finance
• Daily Scrums - Fractal Scrums – Scrums of Scrums
• The PDG inspired an MPG (Marketing Planning Group)
• An employee-led global coaching development programme
• New tools everywhere
• Metrics for everything
• THE ENTIRE T-MAP AGENDA HAD BEEN DELIVERED IN 18 MONTHS

We didn’t make posters
and stick our Values on
the office walls
We lived them every day
#ValuesInAction / #Kudos
Continuous Mutual
Reinforcement

How do you know if it’s working?
The crew takes over
In late 2015 a bunch of engineers
decided to take ownership of, and
solve, a big commercial challenge:
how to de-couple the growth in our
Customer Support team from the
growth in new customer logos.
They ran a 24 hour Hackathon during
one sprint and came up with 10
product improvements which radically
altered our 24/5 global support
capability.

Each fortnight we polled our Customers and saw responses rise from an average circa 5 to an average over 8 and often 9-10
Persuade
Delight Attract
Engage
We always published
#DelightAlerts to the
whole company
Customer Delight was our #1 business goal
Strangers
Followers
Prospects
Advocates
Customers
#DelightAlert
#BellRing
#PilotLive
Farmer-Led
Marketing-Led
Hunter-Led

Results
Growth
• ~6x hunting pipeline value growth
• >40% ARR growth
• >85% SaaS ARR growth
Profitability
• Gross Margin ~85%
• Through the J-curve: SaaS >65% total revenue
• Channel programme delivered >95 new logos LTM
Sustainability
• Agile deployments: 30-50 days for flagship product (was ~250)
• <2% churn
• >80% of projected recurring revenue baked-in @ 1st Jan

http://www.ldc.co.uk/news/2016/06/ldc-exits-workplace-systems-in-
sale-to-workforce

#digitleaders
Tim Sabanov
CTO,
Zumo

Building a
Sustainable Future:
How we take responsibility as
Tech Leaders

Raise your hand if you have any crypto or
know someone who has?

3 millions crypto wallets in 2015.
Today?
170 millions crypto wallets.

The telephone The internet
The television
75 y
How long did it take to reach 50 millions users?
13 y 4 y

Do we take the time to think of
our impact?
Society Environment
Health

A better planet for
digital assets
Effortlessly embed digital asset engineered with a
focus on trust and sustainability
Tim Sabanov, Chief Technology Officer
Website: www.zumo.tech

o Company founded
o Core IP development
o Launched app with Non-Custodial Wallets
o Launched exchange service
o Built user base to 60,000
o Fully FCA regulated for crypto
o Launched Zumo Enterprise (B2B Solution)
o Developed custodial solution
o Developed crypto decarbonisation product
o Key contributor to the World Economic Forum Crypto
Sustainability Coalition, GDF Sustainable Crypto Council
& Crypto Climate Accord
2020
Zumo’s journey so far
2022
2021
2018-20

Turning the problem into an opportunity
Buy Bitcoin on
App
Zumo calculates
electricity
consumption
Renewable energy
certificates purchased
from
clean energy project
More renewable
energy demand

Inclusion inspires
Zumo is accessible and useful to people
everywhere. We believe the benefits of
crypto and blockchain are for everyone. We
seek to ensure our decisions and actions
benefit people and the planet.
Transparency wins
Everything we build has usability and
security at its core. We seek to make the
complex seem simple, and we don’t use
jargon. In every situation, we speak the
truth.
Unshakable commitment
We treat everyone in a respectful way.
We provide a laid-back environment to
ensure great productivity. We bring our A-
game to work every day.
Love the adventure
We do not take the easy path unless it’s the
right one. We are constantly exploring to
find the best way. We accept failure as part
of the road to success.
A values driven business

Set a clear vision and values
1
Diversity & inclusivity in decision making
2
Engage with regulators & sustainability experts
3
Lean into challenges
4

Thank you
In this race
we all win or we all lose
~ Nigel Topping

Let’s stay connected
Join Scotland's largest technology community today

Measure
Act
Reduce
Decarbonise
Digital.
®
Taking action to decarbonise the
digital world in which we all live™
Join us.

Join us.
Measure
Act
Reduce
Decarbonise
Digital.
®
Double Award Winner at the
Global Energy Tech Awards
“GoCodeGreen’s tech is the true de
fi
nition of using
technology for good”
London City Winner
“GoCodeGreen is one of the UK’s most exciting
new tech companies”

The Impact of Digital
The growing role and value of technology to business
and customers. ‘Digital
fi
rst’ is now a common term.
“Up to 90%
Scope 3”
CarbonTrust
Scopes
1 & 2
“Up to 29% can
be ICT related”
CDP
An Organisation’s Total GHG
Emission Impact
We believe that software creates the need for the ICT
value chain. If we can make more energy ef
fi
cient
software then we can reduce the demands on ICT.

Software as a Product
At GoCodeGreen we view software and
the associated technology value chain as
a ‘digital product’. We’ve taken the GHG
Protocol ICT Sector Guidance and
codi
fi
ed it.
“The Product Standard can be used to understand the
full lifecycle emissions of a product and focus efforts
on the greatest GHG reduction opportunities. This is
the
fi
rst step towards more sustainable products. The
results can create competitive advantage by enabling
better product design, increasing ef
fi
ciencies,
reducing costs, and removing risks.”
When we can measure, we can take action to decarbonise.
Corporate
Business Unit
Facility
Activity / Process
Product
Levels of Data (ranked in order of speci
fi
city)
Per GHG Protocol Technical Guidance
Your Digital
Product

Measuring Digital Product Impact

Digital Value Chain Assessment
Company: Major European Financial Services Organisation
Value Chain Selected: Mortgage / Home Buying Journey
Assessment Scope: 32 applications identi
fi
ed, Phase 1 selected Top 10 by size | cost | complexity | FTE
Phase 1 Carbon Coverage Estimate: 70%
Summary Lifecycle Assessment Findings Scope Analysis - Iterate and Operate Carbon Reduction Opportunities
Software
Product
Baseline Results Post-Action Estimate
Core
Total tCO2e / CI
Iteration
Total tCO2e / CI
Operation
Total tCO2e pa /
CE
Core
Total tCO2e / CI
Iteration
Total tCO2e / CI
Operation
Total tCO2e pa /
CE
Product 1 251 / 0.03 35 / 0.03 300 / 0.04 139 / 0.02 21 / 0.01 220 / 0.02
Product 2 87 / 0.02 12 / 0.02 100 / 0.03 67 / 0.01 6 / 0.006 65 / 0.01
Product 3 98 / 0.03 19 / 0.03 124 / 0.04 58 / 0.02 10 / 0.02 90 / 0.02
Product 4 99 / 0.02 20 / 0.02 125 / 0.03 63 /0.01 11 / 0.01 98 / 0.01
Product 5 75 / 0.03 11 / 0.03 78 / 0.04 56 / 0.02 7 / 0.02 67 / 0.02
Product 6 18 / 0.01 9 / 0.01 23 / 0.02 9 / 0.005 4 / 0.005 15 / 0.007
Product 7 97 / 0.02 23 / 0.02 123 / 0.03 65 / 0.01 13 / 0.01 95 / 0.01
Product 8 20 / 0.03 8 / 0.03 26 / 0.04 12 / 0.01 5 / 0.02 18 / 0.02
Product 9 15 / 0.01 9 / 0.01 22 / 0.02 8 / 0.005 5 / 0.005 14 / 0.006
Product 10 3 / 0.01 3 / 0.01 5 / 0.01 2 / 0.003 2 / 0.004 3 / 0.005
Total tCO2e 763 149 926 479 84 688
54%
27%
19%
Scope 1 Scope 2 Scope 3
Total Scope, 1, 2 and 3 allocations based
on software products assessed for full year
excluding core and estimated two release
cycle p.a.
Total tCO2e
1,224
Financial Services - Mortgage / Home Buying Journey
Baseline
(tCO2e)
Post-
Action
(tCO2e)
Reduction
(tCO2e)
%
Core 763 479 284 -37
Iteration 298 168 130 -44
Operate 926 688 238 -26
368 tCO2e p.a. not emitted
In other words, every year that’s the
equivalent of:
1.2m kWh not consumed
776 tonnes coal not mined
£0.23m electricity costs avoided
By taking all the actions identi
fi
ed in the
assessments for Iterate and Operate, the
estimated annualised carbon reduction
could be as high as:
Note: CI = Carbon Intensity per Function point | CE = Carbon Ef
fi
ciency per Function point. These scores drive the
ratings. Function points are our standard unit of measure to drive consistency across assessments.

Calculation emission factors / UK electricity as proxy: 1 kWh = 0.309 kg CO2e | 1 kWh = £0.189 (UK, 2021) | 1 tonne coal = 2,500 kWh | Source: BEIS & eia.gov
GoCodeGreen Carbon Impact Sizing (as at March 2023)
Production Reduction
-53%
6,940 tCO2e not emitted
22.5m kWh(e) not generated
9,000 tonnes coal not mined
Use Reduction
-27%
4,040 tCO2e not emitted
13.1m kWh(e) not generated
5,240 tonnes coal not mined
Software Production 13,100 tCO2e Software Use 15,000 tCO2e (pa)
= 721,000
= 627,000
Carbon
Impact:
19 Organisations
FinTech, SME, Mid/Large
Corporate, Charitable and
Voluntary, Global Technology
32 Software Products
Mobile, Web, Full Stack, SaaS
Solutions, In-house, Outsourced
and Vendor Products
5 Industry Areas
Financial Services, Government,
Technology, Non-pro
fi
t,
Consulting Services

Digital Decarbonisation. The Value Proposition.
Decarbonisation - reduction of CO2 associated with digital products Up to -53%
Cost E
ffi
ciency - reduce energy demands and associated costs £ Saving
Purpose - attract, retain and motivate your talent Employee
Satisfaction +
Product - differentiate your product in the market Revenue Protect / +
Customer - meet the sustainability demands of customers NPS +
Strategy Accelerator - Rationalisation, Simpli
fi
cation, Modernisation £ Saving
Net-Zero - contribute toward your organisations Net-Zero commitments Net-Zero
The Value
Proposition

www.gocode.green
GoCodeGreen is a
Carbon Neutral+
software platform
STAINABLE SURF | LOGO - PRIMARY
Join us.

Digit Leaders 2023

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