Discover strategies for digital transformation, gaining expert insights on data-driven decision-making, innovation culture, and the evolving tech landscape. This journey requires strategic overhaul of organizational structures, processes, and mindsets, as technology is fundamentally altering lives and businesses must remain competitive.
Marita Vavoulioti, Partner – Digital, Data, Growth at Bain & Company, brings a wealth of experience garnered from nearly two decades of consulting across the EMEA and Asia. With a focus on AEC, telecommunications, manufacturing, and digital, Vavoulioti has been instrumental in guiding organisations through large-scale transformations and performance improvement initiatives.
In this interview, as a judge in the SBR Technology Excellence Awards, Marita Vavoulioti offers insights for organisations navigating the complex terrain of digital transformation in the tech industry. With her strategic vision and practical wisdom, she illuminates the path towards achieving sustainable growth and competitive advantage in an ever-changing digital world.
- The tech industry has significantly impacted the way people think, feel, live, work, commute, and interact with their environments. Semiconductors are the foundational tech that permeates nearly every aspect of modern life, driving innovation, connectivity, and efficiency across various industries. The chip sector is enabling cloud edge computing, mobile, IIOT, and the entire data explosion, AI/ML, and GenAI agenda. Generative AI is upgrading people’s experience of the internet from transactional to personal, enabling two-way conversations.
- However, the rapid pace of technological advancements makes it difficult for organizations to be true leaders in the digitalisation era. Over 70% of organizations are classified as beginners or emerging when it comes to their data & tech business capabilities across sectors. Common challenges organizations face when embarking on digital transformation journeys include taking a step back to realize the impact level of digital, managing change effectively, measuring ROI, and planning for scale while starting small, always having in mind the end experience.
- In the construction industry, technology and digital innovations are influencing the construction industry, with specific challenges and opportunities for companies in adopting and integrating these advancements. The market is challenged, and the AEC sector is the least industrialised/digitalized sector. Digital technologies adoption varies across industry verticals, with higher maturity achieved in more complex projects such as hospitality and healthcare.
- Construction is a front-stage actor for the global sustainability agenda, with several forces propelling the sector change. Customers are expecting more with less cost, there is a shortage of skilled labor, materials shortage, and stricter regulations in safety and sustainability. Technology-enabled shifts in AEC bring opportunities for existing stakeholders, but an optimal strategy needs to be defined.
- To unlock operations’ full potential in a tech-enabled transformation, organizations should focus on rooting the effort in business value, driving an integrated approach across operations, technology, and op model, making pivotal decisions early on, designing and deploying tech stack iteratively, aligning IT/OT operating models, developing DataOps/DevSecOps capabilities driving human-centric automation, and ensuring delivery by driving behavior change at the frontline and accelerating/de-risking tech delivery.
- Companies can stay ahead in adopting and adapting to technological advancements by continuous learning and training, investing in their people, adopting lean and agile strategies, allocating resources to research, product development, and innovation, and fostering partnerships instead of competition. As a judge at the SBR Technology Excellence Awards, assessing the innovation and effectiveness of a technology involves several aspects, including its impact on the bottom line of the business, measurement of the tech’s impact, customer voice, scalability, flexibility, security, compliance, and industry impact.
