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October 07, 2021

BTOES in Financial Services Live - SPEAKER SPOTLIGHT: Enabling growth while protecting stakeholders

Courtesy of Caesars Entertainment's Rias Attar below is a transcript of his speaking session on 'Enabling growth while protecting stakeholders' to Build a Thriving Enterprise that took place at the Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Summit in Financial Services Live.

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Session Information:

Enabling growth while protecting stakeholders

  • Change is hard but not changing can be fatal
  • How to move from adopting to change to creating value and growth opportunities
  • No matter how much better, faster, smarter, or more efficient our companies are, they would face terrible consequences if they do not properly protect their stakeholders.
  • They key initiatives to protect shareholders, customers, employees, and the community

Session Transcript:

Added up our next speaker, he is a cross-industry leader of excellence, innovation, culture, business, and digital transformations. And I'm talking about the RIAs atar and ... is joining us now. Go ahead and turn on your camera there. He is from Las Vegas, Nevada, I believe today. And Reyes is an accomplished business Strategist, Transformation expert, operational excellence leader.

Project can change management, management professional, and all around, great guy. He has assumed senior leadership roles at different industries for various companies, from small organizations to Fortune, 500 in the United States, the Middle East, and Canada. He is the author of the great book, Change to Win.

and the an industry awarded executive recognized for his ability to help strategize business architecture, identify areas to improve processes and outcomes, turnaround business from the efficient to profitable, lead to innovation initiatives, champion, operational excellence efforts, deliver challenging cross functional programs, lead winning teams, and inspire staff, Welcome, change, and deliver on ambitious results. RIAs, it's always a pleasure to have you here.

Thanks for taking the time to share your expertise for a global audience, Anchorage, Jose, and I appreciate you, and I appreciate the introduction, and thanks again well. Welcome, everyone. And, again, thank you for having me here. So, So, we always, We always talk about transformation, and optimization, and operational excellence. And in the financial industry.

Specifically, this is, this, is also accelerating at a faster speed with the, with the introduction of digital, and acceptance of the digital transactions, and so on, so forth. So, so, all of that is wonderful. But that also as a little bit of a threat, So, I'm going to be focusing today on three elements. So, we will, we will be talking about the change itself, about the creation of value and growth, and then, most importantly, how to protect your your stakeholders.

And I think this is kind of the topic I wanted to focus on today, because I feel this is very sensitive when it comes to the financial industry.

So, so, so basically as as we all know, change is not easy, right. But but not changing can be can be fatal. We have seen many companies of the past.

I guess few years that have disappeared from, from from, you know, from business or from from, from existence, statistically actually 90% of the Fortune 500 companies that existed.

In 19 55 the original ones uh, nice I think is what 92% has now gone.

Then they no longer exist.

Between 4020, 52 of those Fortune 500 also disappeared and that's pre pandemic.

Now with pandemics I don't have the statistics yet but I'm sure that it will be even higher. And then going forward I mean they're saying that's also the acceleration of a shift of those organizations.

The top 500, it's accelerating.

Know, the problem here is that, this is the big, giant companies who are So it, can you imagine, what would be the status of, like, smaller companies that do not have the wealth, and the support that those Fortune 500 companies have? So, so why that happens in the first place is, because organizations face consistent pressures.

Rias Attar.Whether it's from market, or economy, or political pressure, whether, whether it's from customer demands or technologies, competitive, competitive pressure, like competitors trying to find new ways to please customers and be more efficient, Cost is increasing. So they're kind of challenge in a place where they cannot raise their prices much, but the cost is rising very, very high. So how they can balance profitability.

Modern emerges in acquisitions and the marketplace is also creating those, like, big organizations that are also competing with, with smaller ones.

And, of course, crisis and catastrophic events like Covert 19, for example. So all of those are putting a lot of pressure on organizations.

Now, what happens is that most of the time companies, even like individuals, right? You know when we grow up or when we grew up?

We were we wanted to conquer the universe, you know.

We wanted to to learn more. We want to go find a job. You know, relocate from our, You know, that, or move out of our family house and find new jobs and new opportunities and new countries. So, we want to conquer the universe, so, so, we, we start growing, and then as soon as we start making money, find that first or second job, we start building walls around this, which is which we start to protect what we have, and that becomes our comfort zone.

And, the same thing applies to organizations so they become happy and familiar, and feel safe and peaceful and where they are, because they're happy with the outcomes that they're producing.

So, But that's what, that's not what the ship is made for. And then you feel the ship. Sit in the harbor, but it's not what the ships are made for.

So, so the thing is, every time those companies and of course individuals and leaders, tried to get out of their comfort zone, and they lose sight of that, that the shore, they go back to their, their comfort zone.

So, so until they kinda realize, no, there's an opportunity, and then they start to kind of look beyond that, that danger.

But as soon as I get out of that comfort zone, they go into this danger zone, which get them feeling exposed and unfamiliar and unsafe.

So, so once they go into that hump, which is, like, the learning zone, they start to find, Oh, you know, what, There is another shore on the other side of the ocean. Then they start to see that opportunity, And then they start to feel exciting, again. And, and, and then, they start to re benchmark themselves and find that new land and new gold.

And that's going to be their growth zone, and then they look back from that state, and they say, we wish we have done it sooner.

So, I encourage you always, you know, to think about how you can help your companies and leaders get out of their comfort zones and realize that rose zones. So this is more about adopting to change, so I'm a, I encourage you like Wayne Gretzky once said to get out of your comfort zone and take educated risk, so you will miss the 100% of the shots, you do, not think, or you don't take.

So, so, to fix it, take some shots, but also make it educated.

So, I like this, this sketch here that I'm gonna put together on the screen. Because we always have, like our products and services as a baseline.

And we always see this optimal business results, profitability, growth, market, share, and so on and so forth. So why we do this in the first place? Because we want to satisfy our shareholders, our bosses, the people who own the organization that we work with. So that's kind of shareholder satisfaction. We also want to add, because it's for our customers.

Btog CTASo we want to have our customers served and satisfied so they can come again, and they can tell other customers to come. So we want to share. So we want to satisfy our customers.

We also want to satisfy our employees, because they take care of our customers. And they take care of the corporate business as well. So, so we want to make sure that our employees are satisfied. Then we need to satisfy our community because without our community will not be able to get, like the supplies we need, the comfort that we have, the support, the, the, the, the taskforce, you know, you know, the people and so on and so forth, so I like to kind of call. It can have a customer satisfaction of all those stakeholders, you know, those for stakeholders. Now what we, what we do about this is we addressed that.

People process technology data elements, which we'll talk about a little bit in this presentation and how we do this is by tackling strategy and delivery and culture.

And that's kind of one of the main topics that I talk about in my book, because I feel there's a, there should be an end, an adequate balance of strategy, delivery, and culture, when it comes to delivering business objective. So, we'll talk a little bit about that. So, again, when we're going through any journey, or a companies go through any journey to, to transport, optimize, grow their business.

The, most of those efforts fail, in a matter of fact, statistically 70% of initiatives fail to achieve their goals. And in my view, and basically I find this based on like, post-mortems that many companies focus so much sometimes on strategy without putting within focused on their delivery mechanism that strategy does not get adequate attention, sorry, the delivery mechanism does not get adequate attention. And sometimes even with delivery, they forget about the culture of change management. So the way that this should be is like this, which is like an equal balance between your strategy, your delivery mechanism, and your culture.

So we're going to be talking about those those three elements of our strategy.

For example, a good strategy always enables value creation. If it's not adding value, it's a waste of time.

So, think about how this strategy that you're putting, or you're gonna, or organization is putting, will add value. Because change for the sake of change is meaningless unless we have defined the future.

State. So, that change could be and increase the volume of work.

Of products that we sell, increasing market share, presents, increasing revenue, margin, increasing the value of the company.

Sometimes you do not really report revenue, or, sorry, bottom line, like avatar or notepad for a few years, because you're building your company value, like Tesla, for example. This is what they did for many years. They were building on innovation until they were ready to, like, you know, show their, their, their quality, cost savings, cost avoidance, and self benefits. Again, they find that value that you seek.

Now when you're drawing your strategy and made sure that you have that strategy as Northern style, or whether your strategies, organic, or inorganic, make sure that all your initiatives align with that Northern Star. Because sometimes we get this.

The syndrome of, uh, of, uh, shiny objects. We find a shiny objects here, and then we go, you know, seek that shiny objects and forget about our focus and our, and we lose attention on that, what really matters, which is our strategy.

So, always think about your strategy and that Northern star is taught to always, or always focus on, on keeping that, that Northern star as your guidance. Right. So, all the initiatives, All all the work that you're doing should be aligned to That.

Another topic that I want to bring forward is that, when we are working on transformation or optimization, operational excellence, the, usually some or some leaders and shareholders have higher expectations And they think that that value will be coming and linear. We would start to having value tomorrow, or next month, or next quarter. Many times the value is really exponential, it starts very slow, and then at a certain point of time, it peaks.

So, so, think about, you know, kind of educating your stakeholders about, like, managing expectations and what, and when they would be finding the value.

So, that's more about strategy. So, let's talk a little bit about delivery.

So, Jordan once said, you can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all what you become as big as shooting the wrong way.

So, point here is that, if we do not, if we do have a proper delivery mechanism, then our strategy can be ineffective.

We need to deliver the initiatives that, that deliver that strategy. So we have to have an action oriented mindset. You know, those leaders that you have, the project leaders or operational leaders, they have to have this action oriented mindset.

They might, my advice is, coach them on how to do to bring the issues. And the resolution is not only come with issues, don't overcomplicate things with so many complicated tools. Try to keep it simple. Apply the rigor and discipline.

Have some decent project management knowledge and best practices in place.

And inspire that sense of ownership. I like to call it the entrepreneurial kind of mindset.

And feel like each one of those employees and, or leaders feel that this organization and that effort is part of their own, it's like as if its own company. So think about that, right?

how they can be jealous about, you know, the company and the future of that company.

So focus on that delivery and act fast, and then of course leave no stone unturned.

So in organizations that are, you know, mid to large, I strongly advise that they have some sort of like a PMO, or maybe an enterprise PMO.

That enables that project management discipline by focusing on the delivery control and capabilities. So delivery will be, like, deliver those projects and programs that they have with proper and adequate tools and techniques.

Make sure that they have control to ensure to have sustainable, but also controllable a intake process for all the new ideas that come in place.

Because many times, you find that the organization get overloaded with many initiatives that they, again, like, lose focus. So proper portfolio management report would tell us, you know, how many projects are coming? How many projects we have capacity for? What's the status of those projects?

And whether the mess that we need to remove, ensure that we have a proper, the proper capabilities in place, I can remember that action oriented discipline through training, and coaching and mentoring, and kind of more of more like, show people how to fish versus fish for them. So you don't want to do every single project yourself, but you really want to kind of show people how to do these projects.

So I also know as part of when we're building PMO's and project management, sometimes people like go crazy about tools, that they make it so bureaucratic.

So always differentiate between governance and bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy is evil, Governance, governance is needed.

So, governance. It just sets the tone of like, who approves what and what goes into the pipeline, what gets funded, which one gets activated as well, so forth. But you also have like some kind of a clear path and communication versus bureaucracies like this, so, so think about differentiating between bureaucracy and governance.

The third leg is tools that I like to highlight here. As the culture and change management.

So for, so why culture is important, because, honestly, I mean, any business study is as good as the people implementing it, right?

But the people are as good as culture that allowed them to be who they are. And the culture is as good as the leaders who are forming this culture.

So, the tone starts from the top good. Leaders build positive cultures, positive cultures, inspire people, and the people deliver the strategy. So always think about that culture.

So, when we think about the leaders, again, remember that top leaders, many times, we, we focus on intelligence or IQ, intelligence quotient.

So, when we hire people and leaders, we we hire them because of their resume, and their background and their experience, because they're visionary in a knowledgeable, experienced competent, you know, focused, so on and so forth.

28But what we do not really focused on most of the day is it is Emotional Wharton, which is the EQ.

So, have we can have always thought about, like, how do we hire and bring leaders who have high degree of emotional quotient that are columns, communicators, courageous problem solvers, self-aware, self and self motivated, and most importantly with empathy?

So they understand and their employees, and, and, and, and, and work with them?

So when we combine those two, then you will have a more successful, much effective leader.

So, when you build the leaders, and you build the leader business culture, then you start to see a good culture normally. So, what are the symptoms of culture? Well, successful, profitable business.

Team, spirit, effective leadership, work, life, balance. You walk into this, people's offers us a people's office.

Or two to organizations. The first thing you feel is like this positive energy flowing through.

So, so think about those. You know, that Google culture that enables a smile and pleasant attitude.

And people will just say, Hey, you know what? We're happy where we are, although we maybe are not making the most money.

But we're really happy to see that the energy also flowing in, the, in the, in the, and the atmosphere.

So those are the symptoms of good culture.

The other topic that I also want to talk about is that many times when you're leading projects, many organizations, they say, no, we don't need change management.

We're just gonna go on and enable those projects, then, around like midway through, they realized, you know what, we may need some change management. So, let's do some training and communication.

Then, towards kind of the end, it was like, oops, Then, they fall short on what they're doing. So, normally, this is how it works. You know, with projects that have a cycle of initiation, planning execution was uncontrolled and close.

Many organizations start to realize change management needs towards the end, while, in reality, it should be like this, Change management and project management should go hand in hand.

So, statistically, when we're doing this right, projects are six times more able. Where we are six times more able to increase the chance of meeting and exceeding scope.

1.5 times more chance to deliver initiatives within budget and three times more likely to deliver schedule, And those are statistical. And if anybody would like to see the source, please let me know. This is from ..., who have done this, this research for many, many years.

So, back to the basic, keep it simple, how do we, how do we continually enable value creation?

Focus on your customers. Pay attention to the customer journey, The needs, the ones that triggers the consideration, that triggers the purchase, that enabled them to use and retain the, the, the, the products. And then repeat and or disposals products and then promote and tell their friends and families and colleagues about about those products. And then back to the basics are back to the beginning, where, again, you start to trigger that won't and awareness to always focus on your customers. There's the one paying your salary. Data is power, so utilize it without they. They were just people with opinion.

So we know the different stages of data data.

Start with like row, row forms of data, like facts, and numbers, and, and figures.

Then, when you put it altogether, you start to forget to form an information. The data starts to tell you something. When you put it together, then you start to see trends and, and, and, and, and and indicators that tells you what the data is. Trying to do to bring your attention to that kind of forms of knowledge.

And the decision for you to say, OK, now I want to do this, or that which becomes that kinda as part of a wisdom, and that wisdom becomes like an experience. So think about that. You know, the data is very important. So we utilize it. There's again, like we're going to talk a little bit about data today.

And utilize technology technology is very important, because it creates new ways to please customers.

It's also increase efficiency because we can increase value with less efforts. Tried to avoid technical debt. Try not to put band-aid over a bandwidth of it.

And it's try if possible to bring a harmonized roadmap and focus on what really matters that roadmap, that digital roadmap should kind of be all talking to each other's. So try not to increase technical debt.

And try to also build internal talent that leverage and utilize technology all the time.

So, in the end, so we talked about innovation, We talked about culture. We talked about people. Let's try all of us to be efficient and consistent.

So, that's like one-on-one, or one hundred and one leen, and waste elimination, and six Sigma.

Just a little bit about that topic. We want to reduce, waste, or eliminate waste and reduce variation. So we want to make sure that we are efficient, and you are consistent, or delivering consistency to our organization. So, I also think about that. Think about how you can leverage efficiency. And consistency in your organizations. The mantra of this era is speed. So always think about how you can, you know, deliver value to your, to your customers, and your shareholders. maybe without waiting for perfection. So add incremental value.

So, so because customers are not wasting anymore and competitors are going at the 100 mile per hour. So you may want to always be agile and think about introducing value fast.

The last topic I wanna talk about is slang.

Communities, because we forget about this most of the time, and this is an extremely important topic. Whether it's the diversity and inclusion that you actually champion ethical, responsibility, social, responsibility, environmental responsibility, goodwill, support, those that protect us and service, and, of course, you know, support those less lucky than us, whatever that you want to do.

This is the right thing to do at the end of the day, and honestly, we have seen from experience that it does also increase bottom line, so it's a win-win situation. Because when you do this, well, you get better, quality employees, get better quality suppliers, you see the whole community, both physical and cyber community, by the way, helps and rally to help you when you need.

So those are like the topics that I want to talk about strategy delivery on culture, and serving customers, shareholders, customers, employees, and the community.

So what if I told you that you can throw all of that out of the window, if you do not protect your shareholders or stakeholders? So whether it is shareholders, customers, employees, and communities, You really need to throw everything we talked about out of the window.

Well, yes, If we why, this is becoming an important topic, and specifically in the financial industry.

Because, because right now, if we do not do this, we lose credibility very, very, very fast, and it's, it's a quick decline of the business operation. So, when we're protecting shareholders, for example, make sure that.

No, we, we do not jeopardize, uh, safer for better and faster and more efficient, so always safety first. There is no point of satisfying our shareholders. If we put their company in imminent danger. So, remember, remember like Enron and Worldcom, you know, back in the days. Yes, they were. For a short period of time. They were like adding a lot of value accelerating growth across across multiple jurisdictions. But they did not do it in a safer way or NSF way that they actually made more more problems for the companies that they did. Well, I mean, we also understand and heard about the Wells Fargo issue. That happened a year ago where they were trying to use like fake accounts to leverage, you know, some of the, you know, activities and or services. So again, I do not do not.

You know, focus only on better and faster, and cheaper safety. Always, always first. So think about that.

Then second, make sure that you protect your customers, So, so, so protecting them is more important than addressing their needs. So if you address their needs, but you are not protecting them, then you're putting them in and harm. So remember, the Boeing 737 max 8, a couple of years ago. It was much faster, faster and better, but it does not safer. It cost several of casualties of you know, unfortunately, at that time. So remember that you need to protect your customer, your customers before you satisfy their needs.

Screenshot (4)The next one is protecting your employees. You know, health and safety and their workspace privacy of their information and of course make sure that you protect them against other things that lure them like you know, gifts and and like and then make sure you have acceptable practices and and and and regulations right. Next item is protecting the community. Well, so whether being a responsible citizen, or you know, protecting the environment, or an increase, green space, I mean, again, just think about, you know that reducing carbon dioxide and the environment. Because I think protecting the environment would also help us, and our organization is kind of a karma in one way or another.

So, make sure you protect the shareholder's, customers, employees, and communities, so, as part of protecting customers, shareholders, communities, and, and employees, data security is one thing that is, becoming a major factor here and measure focus, because the types of data breaches now much larger, then what we had before, and much larger than what people realize. So, in the past, I remember back in, like, the eighties and nineties, when people, and specifically financial organizations, or organizations, when they, when they wanted to protect their environment, they would just unplug.

And they will say, you cannot put any USB, or any CD or any anything in in the computer that does not help the annual, anymore we cannot unplug anymore. We are 100% connected environment.

We connect through the clouds, our system, then the cloud, Our companies have social media, channels, and there's everything now is connected, so, but now, with connect, with everything connected, there's no 100% security, by the way. No matter who tells you what, there's no 100% secrets, you try to achieve that on the percent security, but it's not always 100%.

Criminals are always, you know, finding ways to go around and maybe it's just a mistake or negligence or maybe a dissatisfied employee, and maybe some kind of a loophole that a system that would trigger a criminal to go there and still and steal your information. And then they actually are able to quickly monetize that.

Are they able to sell it? They will go for a ransom And and and I mean the the the the the the damage is catastrophic So so think about data security. So when we talk about data security, Let's talk about like the very basic principles of data security.

We target the data at rest, which is stored? Data. Where do you store the data? and How you're storing the data? So make sure that you have, like multi-layer of of protection You separate locations, maybe different cloud providers, these days, authentication like these days you go to Login to your bank account, and it tells you please enable to authentication to Level Authentication. So they, you log, and then they ask for your phone number. So they text you, and then when the texts you actually answer, or you put the code, and then you are able to log into your, because they are trying to enable this multi-level authentication. And, and, and make sure that whatever you have. And the data at rest stores is kind of encrypted.

So people who even are able to get it, they cannot really translated because it's encrypted.

The next one is Data and use. So, when you are using the data, as you pulled it out from that box. And now, you're using the data. This is called data in use, and that's like more vulnerable than the data, just because somebody is using it.

So, again, that can ensure that, that You control the access. Who has access to the data at rest? And who can bring it. And then, how do you also continue to diagnose and monitor the traffic around, around those data threats, to ensure that, yes, people are getting it at the right time and there. And those are who are getting this data are authorized to get the data? And there's no leak somewhere else? So ensure that there's no suspicious activity is over there.

The third one is data in motion, which is transmitting. It's in, in transit, in transit data. So you're taking it from your hard drive to your computer, from your Cloud, to your screen.

This is the most vulnerable, vulnerable state. So, ensure that you have data encryption end to end encryption, that will allow people, even, again, even if people try to interject this channel, they cannot make any sense of that data encryption of that data because it's so encrypted. So ensure that you prevent interception at the beginning and then ensure that your data is encrypted.

So again, all of this is what I wanted to talk about. It's all available in my book change, the way in which is on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles. And Apple and it's also available on ... dot com. So, with that, I would like to thank you all for your attention.

And you're, I'm hoping that I was able to add value and bring some some thoughts about strategy, delivery and culture, and of course, about how to protect your, your shareholders, your customers, your employees, and your community.

So, so, again, like, I'm hoping that you have had a good time listening to my, to my presentation jose's, if there's any questions you may have for me, please let me know I do. I'm just waiting for you there you go to stop showing your screen so that I can come back in Perfect. Awesome.

So ..., thank you so much to you you cover and two and, you know, business transformation.

You know you left no stone unturned and that that's very great coverage. I saw the commentary and some of the questions have to do with the final focus that you had.

You, you presented this beautiful, beautiful view of how to do successfully lead transformation.

And then you say, For all of, throw everything away, If you don't have the protection of the stakeholders, OK, when the newer maturity processes, the leader, and the working with many different organizations, this has become kind of a top priority. What has happened there?

Well, hey, there, it seems like sometimes when we are, like for, you know, we're trying to conquer a new market or a new product wherever we have like many casualties.

Unfortunately, you know, one of the casualties data security And because we've become so focused on the goal and like marching forward that we would, that will leave loopholes along the way. Those loopholes could be and speed like because we wanted to like reach there faster. So it's like, you know, what we would look like let's let's oversee this. Let's let's not pay attention to this, because because, you know, it's not that big of a deal.

And then a month later that not so big of a deal becomes a monster, that haunts you forever. one thing sometimes is just an exit negligence. I'll give you an example.

There was one, I think one casino a few years ago. They had an aquarium, a big aquarium, Josie, and that aquarium, fish and they wanted to put their, you know, their efficient. and so the supplier of the aquarium said we need to have a certain monitor to wanted to, to get, to gather information about the water salt and the chlorine and whatever particles to ensure that those fish exotic fish live very well. So they asked the IT people, OK, well, you just need to make sure that this transit transmit signal to our system. So, at least we know what's going on, so we can supply you with the chemicals.

So, they said, Yeah, you can login to this Wi-Fi that we have, It's it's secured Wi-Fi in our environment.

So they actually give them the Wi-Fi password of the They're not the guest Wi-Fi, the corporate Wi-Fi. So, there are lots of they get into the Wi-Fi.

It was working for a month or two, and there somebody had that Aquarium's system, they're the whoever hack that aquarium system when there and hack their clients system, because they have access and from that little chip.

On an aquarium, they were able to access, you know, employees information, social security information, customer information, name it. So sometimes it's just about negligence.

So you have to coach and teach people that it's black and white.

Rias Attar.I mean, when it comes to data security, it's right or wrong, there is no mid-way it's either right or wrong. So, don't jeopardize again. Safer better, faster. Beautiful, whatever.

Yeah. With safety.

This is a really interesting analogy because I thought you're going to go with this with this example. You're going to start talking about the fact that everybody was very excited about having this aquarian, but over time, the person who just had that idea kind of left the organization, and other people were not so passionate about the query, and the fish has started to die over time. Because that's another thing, right?

If you, if you do an analogy now with technology, people, got excited about what's cool right now, and then 2 or 3 years later, they're complaining about something, because it's not being properly maintain anymore. The excitement about implementing something, kinda has died, a slow death, and then the and then, again, a bit of the analogy of the aquarium here. You can have cracks that happen, physical cracks. And in this case, digital cracks that that emerged. So, it's part of your message here is to take an inventory of where we are in, in our organizations and making sure that we still have a strong foundation. Then making sure that we are maintaining, well, we have, well, before we go after the next thing.

Yes, I mean, it's maintaining. It's protecting its, it's a continuous effort really, I mean, it should be part of our strategy. And I always, I always pay attention to safety. I mean, and And again, like, sometimes it's minor.

But but sometimes you think it's minor, but it comes back and haunt you, I mean you think you think about those ransomware I mean like we've heard about like, you know, big organizations like government organizations, sometimes that even gets hacked. Like how would that happen?

No, I don't think the system is the problem. I think it could be just a bad practice.

Somebody decided to go on our website that they're not supposed to or click on a link that they're not supposed to, something triggered that, that intrusion.

So, so you have to educate your people about the importance of data security and, or security. I mean, whether it's a, say, again, physical security, when you see something on the floor, pick it up and put it on the garbage because somebody comes to that.

So, think about like the safer and then better, faster, cheaper because I think that safety element, and again, we're talking today about the financial services and the financial services, specifically, it's a service.

It's not really a physical product.

Most of the time, it's service and it's all about data. I mean, you've got your, you're dealing with money, you're dealing with numbers, you're dealing with access to systems you're dealing with access to, to POS and payments and collection and whatever, and, and, and ATMs. It's all about data.

If you do not have, like, a very solid practice to secure this end to end, then, you will have many issues, People can steal other people's money if hackers can steal your information and then sell it to another company, or another country never know.

So, when you talk about this protection, you had a very strong focus on cybersecurity, and in digital data, and things like that. Are there other aspects of this protection that we should be aware of?

What else, what are other categories of protection that we should be looking at?

I mean, of course, they are multi, multi, I mean, this, this topic, and kinda, except for hours, and may have is our session. But, it's just bringing it simply.

It is its mean, when we talk about, like, data security is, mainly those three elements that we talked about. It's the storage where you put your data, who uses the data, and how the data gets transmitted from the warehouse storage to the people who are using this. So it's kind of those three elements, basically. So, and everything is built around the three elements, whether it is, where do you store it, is it on the cloud, or is it on a server in a back door, where it's locked somewhere in the office? So, it says, that data at rest. Where does the trust? and then the people who are using this who has access was the key to that cabinet and or who has the password and admin passwords to that cloud system? So that kind of who has access and who's who's getting that information and then how is it transmitted? Is it the Wi-Fi? Is it the Bluetooth?

Is it the wire is somebody is trying to you know hack lack and get into your Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or NFC or Or I mean now with IOT, and and and I mean everything is kind of, you know, really exposed and I mean the Internet of things Of Course, like your business cannot scale these days without technology. You cannot really read people. People, customer employees can have a specific customer behavior and journey and get back like live feedback about their information without data.

So if we do not secure this data, it can be leaked very, very quickly and be used against you.

Yeah, And the, and the real. Just to follow up on that and clarify, so, we got the data side of things, and the cybersecurity side of things, that digital assets. But, some of the examples that you talked about, the need for protection, I think, were cracks in culture. Cracks and strategy cracks in other areas. So, can you talk a little bit about the non digital stuff, the, what are the other cracks that we have to protect? And how the organization should go about doing that?

Definitely. So, let's talk about strategy, delivery, and culture, so, strategy, most of the cracks, and the strategy.

Because they come from different senior people at the C suite, pulling in different direction.

And each person has his or her own agenda, and, or, you know, thing to focus on, without, like a proper, again, that northern star. So, the tone should start from the top, whether it's a member of the board, or chairman of the board, or the CEO.

Whoever the top person as the message should be coming from there, that would be the focus. Otherwise, you will see cracks and the strategy. So, and then not only putting that in place.

We want to make sure that that person or those people who are making that strategy decision do not have that ****, shiny object syndrome. They, every time somebody bring them a new idea, and new thing of, like, OK, let's do this. Now, let's do this, Let's do that. So, it's more about focus.

Now, sometimes I'm not saying it should be carved in stone, but it should be some sort of like stable, scalable, sustainable, verse, and then, maybe you can always adjust Mid-way, But it's not like you are shifting direction.

Significantly, so the cracks in the strategy happen there.

Maybe this tragedy from the beginning was wrong.

28Maybe you're focusing your code that you're still focusing on polaroids, where digital pictures are, like, you know, you know, growing, or you're focusing, still, or, like, DVD renting versus, like, doing online like, like, Blockbuster, right. So, so, sometimes the crack is in the strategy itself and sometimes the crack and happens with people pulling from different directions, and sometimes it is from that, whoever made the strategy getting pulled in different directions.

From a delivery perspective, the cracks can happen most of the time, almost all the time, because of lack of discipline, the lack of that E PMO, or project management discipline, Each person in the organization has their own method of delivering projects, have their own projects. The new products coming in, every day, they put a lot of pressure on, unlike maybe like one person and technology, who has to handle 1700 initiatives. While we should make sure that our capacity of people also has been, it's been, you know, monitor, then who's doing what in the organization, were burning tires were driving.

We're burning tires, but, we're not going the right direction.

Each person is doing something, and doing it using a certain tool, so that's why governance is really needed to ensure that we have a proper intake of ideas, know, what we are doing, and then, and then, and then do. it's right.

So, the practices and tools and Techniques, from a culture perspective, the cracks can always happen from, you know, lack of that leadership inspiring that leadership who, who may actually preach something, but does not act as what he or she is preaching? And, and, and that's about, again, being genuine about the company, being genuine about that positive culture, being genuine, about, about diversity, and inclusion, and being genuine about protecting. Employees protects your employees against other employees, maybe, who may take advantage of them, and, or, maybe, customers, and, or, maybe, the environment. Right?

So, making sure that that leader, again, that's either bring the culture and the culture, brings the employees together, who actually create that strategy.

Really, as it's always a pleasure. ... is one of our participants, has just written that. I love, this guy's presentation, I'm buying his book, the book, is Changed to Win, By Real Athar, make sure to check it out, you can find it, and where you find, books, these days, Amazon, and other sites, and the RIAs, thank you for taking the time to share that wisdom with our global audience today.

Definitely. Thank you for having me.

Ladies and Gentlemen Reyes Athar again with us, all is an awesome part of our Our Events, and the and the masterclass on Culture of business and digital transformation and the focus on on Protecting your your Business and Protecting the stakeholders.

All stakeholders in an organization, we're going to be taking a break now, and when we come back, we're going to have a treat.

We're going to have a trio of cross industry leaders who are going to discuss with us how to harness digital AI infused operational excellence for financial services. And we have a three leaders who are coming together to to give you this presentation, and the world-class leaders of excellence, innovation, culture, business, and digital transformation, focusing on financial services. So take a break now, and we'll get back in at the top of the hour with harnessing digital AI infused operational excellence for financial services.

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About the Author

Frank van Geffen-2Rias Attar,
Vice President – VP, Transformation, Integration, Project Management, Continuous Improvement,
Caesars Entertainment.

Implementing Self Service Process Mining Capability for Rabobank

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