From traditional operations to a technology-led model requires a profound shift in mindset

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In our last blog, we talked about how Danske Bank , in collaboration with IBM, applied disruptive technology to minimize business disruption on infrastructure. This was done by employing advanced automation and analytics with the IBM Service Platform Watson. Such a fundamental shift, from an execution that is practitioner-led and technology driven to one that is technology-led, can only come about through a change in mindset. It is more than simply technology driven. It requires adopting and embracing innovation as part of the day-to-day activities of the organization. Management, philosophy, mindset and behavioral change are required to drive heightened focus to ensure that technology is not only implemented but also adopted as part of daily operations. Only then are the successes of improvements, through systematic automation and the advanced analytics, used to gain deep insights into “big data”, going to have the desired result of improved IT support and business stability.

Success through a clear strategy

Clear articulation of the vision and strategy by the leaders involved in this change will help to engage and prepare practitioners to adopt new ways of working. This adoption must also be monitored and driven to ensure the desired outcomes are realized. In the Danske Bank/IBM case the evolution and adoption of analytics and automation innovation, was driven through the definition of a clear strategy and empowerment of the teams through communication and idea development. Management-led sponsorship of the technological capabilities primed and ensured, not only the structured implementation but also the adoption of these capabilities on the distributed systems by the IBM teams, in collaboration with Danske Bank.

Effective implementation creates great results.

For example, with automation we used analytics to determine the best point of attack and to target the highest impacting areas initially to show true value. This helped ease the pain of adopting new technology and win “hearts and minds”, especially as Cognitive Services in a vacuum cannot generate value. Therefore, it was important to provide relevant insights that are easy for users to quickly understand and act upon and to ultimately derive value. Delivering a project implementation or tool is great, but once the relevant insights and connections are in place it is important to make a difference by mandating the integration of the tools into the business-as-usual workflow. Finally expect improvements with feedback mechanisms for all teams involved, to foster improvements and identify the next opportunities and personal ownership. The results since implementing these capabilities and adopting these new methodologies are self-evident when we dissect the reduction in critical incidents over time. There was a significant decrease by over 90% of infrastructure related high priority incidents during the first 2 years from initial implementation to adoption into daily workflow.

Why Watson?

Moving from traditional-monitoring-and-reactive-incident-management to a predictive and proactive technology-run state with the IBM Services Platform with Watson allows us to enhance the entire managed services life-cycle, and drive the current human-led-delivery to technology-led-execution through a structured approach and with management buy-in, that will help make the change stick.

Read more on: From a Better Way to Run IT to a New Way of Doing Business

Previous blog on the topic: How Danske Bank applied disruptive technology to minimize business disruption