Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 72 | Page 76

FINAL WORD in a bind over skills gaps . It is expensive and often fruitless , to attract and retain the kind of skills necessary to build the advanced digital workflows mentioned here . But today , automation projects can be undertaken by the very users that they will most benefit from , rather than farmed out to IT through a lengthy development lifecycle that includes imperfect requirements gathering .
Mark Ackerman , Area VP , Middle East & Africa , ServiceNow are to a digital native as a bicycle is to a fish . The millennial and the Gen-Zer demand digital services . The mobile app , the messaging channel , the chatbot – these speak the language of the modern consumer . But they do more . They offer a window into the behaviours and preferences of individual consumers who – remember – expect to be treated as individuals . In real-time , interaction data is not as actionable as it is when looking at the patterns in behaviour over time to discern trends that can inform decisions .
This approach also enables the proactive customer service mentioned earlier , in that it allows the business to anticipate issues and demands and allows the designers of digital services to empower the customer to discover new products and find solutions to their own problems . Self-service is , after all , another defining aspiration of the digital native and it has the convenient side-effect of being cost-friendly to the business .
3 . Encourage citizen development
All of these avenues may seem attractive in theory , but many regional businesses may find themselves
The citizen developer , under thoughtful governance , can be a lucrative asset capable of adding much more value than a new IT source . Using simple , drag-anddrop , low-code development platforms ( LDP ), nontech citizen developers save on the procurement and ongoing costs of a new human resource , they deliver higher-fidelity outcomes and they learn new skills , which allows them to add even more value as time goes on .
Of course , the success of the citizen developer is predicated on a fully integrated IT department that supports them and empowers them to become autonomous . But if duly supported , the citizen developer – immersed as they are in daily , valueadding innovation – is much more likely to stay with the company than if they remain an undervalued backroom specialist perpetually frustrated by corporate inertia .
4 . Redesign cybersecurity
Today , every digital business has digital assets to protect . If they did not , they would not be a digital business . Mere anti-virus and firewall just won ’ t cut it . Intellectual property and cloud infrastructure require a stronger threat posture and a dedicated security operations centre ( SOC ) that covers the detection of threats , the containment of damage and the recovery from incidents .
But today ’ s security teams must go further , to take responsibility for the assessment and management of risk , including penetration testing and red-team exercises . They must be integral to the design and testing of digital experiences to ensure the brand ’ s market reputation is not tarnished by trust issues . And they must be conversant in regulatory compliance and granted the authority to enforce it internally .
The digital business at last
Businesses must be and will be , digital . But slapping technology on top of legacy processes and stale culture will not be sufficient . Delight the customer , inspire the employee and secure the infrastructure . Now you are ready for the digital economy . p
76 INTELLIGENTCIO AFRICA www . intelligentcio . com