Session Information:

Utilizing EA and business capability modeling to drive strategy and strategic technology investments

In today's world, where agility & time to market is considered gold for a product; companies requires a holistic digital transformation. Having a consistent, common language between business and technology takes care of 50% of the problem. Business capability map not only help in establishing a common language but also drives a future business vision, technology strategy, roadmap and future technology investments.

• We always think about investing in applications and infrastructure rather than to investing in capabilities, which cut across silos 
• Transforming an organization to a capability driven IT organization is way more difficult to implement than it sounds 
•  Capability-based IT strategy and strategic technology investment helps meet business outcomes. At the same time it helps define a systematic process for defining future/transition state and evaluating various options

Session Transcript:

Oscar Stark is a seasoned IT executive, and financial services veteran specializes on driving the transformation that redefines organizations in the digital world.

He focuses on innovation through transforming, enterprise architecture, setting up data as an asset.

And building the resilience that protects organizations. Oscar is currently the Chief Strategic Enterprise architect at the Liberty Group.

And the reason he is because he was successful at this transformation so, Oscar, we're looking forward to hearing your journey and your story. I don't see your face yet on the screen. Hopefully, you're you're about to join me on screen.

And I'll turn the stage over to you.

Oscar, I guess.

It looks like yes, I am. It looks like the web cameras just decided to stop working on me. That's OK. Well, let's let's go for the presentation.

OK, I'm going to take myself off the screen, because I don't know how to mine your words, So I will I will disappear.

OK, thanks, Russ.

Hopefully the presentation of visual. Oh, well, ladies and gents, thank you very much.

Today, I want to share with you a bit of a digital transformation story and going to tell you about the digital transformation that the Liberty Group has gone through.

And I've titled it, Making Range because I think Digital Transformation, Inherent JS, Preferably Making Learning for an Organization.

But before we get into the guts of the conversation, let's just for a moment pause and reflect on how one deals with complex digital transformations.

Quite often people think of it as a single change intervention that ripples through the organization that delivers the required change outcome effective and efficiently.

But I think actually that first, just wishful thinking, the reality is probably something that looks a bit more like watching rain falling upon the drops great various points of impact. That have for different spheres of influence as they play out in a changing environment.

This very much reflecting on how digital transformation actually plays out in an organization.

So let's set the scene for this conversation.

I'm going to take you through the Liberty Group's Journey and how they tackled digital transformation.

Now, for those who are not familiar with Liberty, it's the african born and bred Financial Services organization was a strong routing in difference not to be confused with Liberty Mutual from the US.

This company was founded in 19 57, a man called Sir Donald Gordon.

And that was based on his own personal belief that everyone should have the opportunity to grow their wealth and leave a legacy.

And this belief was actually born out of his experience when he saw his dad struggled to make ends meet in retirement.

Also having worked hard in Seoul.

In growing the liquidity business is not only extended and offerings and geography, but also masks some legacy through multiple acquisitions over time.

Of like The Liberties, long standing relationship with Standard Bank, dating back to 19 78, actually evolved to Standard Bank acquiring the outstanding Shell to ship of the Liberty Group.

And it's now a fully owned subsidiary of Senate Bank group.

You might ask her to step back. Standard Bank is the largest financial services organization in Africa.

And so, if there's 1 thing 1 can take from the literature story, is that it's, it has constantly evolved, to have to deal with various levels of complexity over time.

And this being much more pronounced as the organization is now starting to embark on its digital transformation journey, especially as it moves towards a platform business model.

Another perspective to the liberty story lies in the business strategy itself.

The strategy has been designed to address various areas of focus, like, for instance, dealing with a cost income ratio, improvement, and increasing the customer relevance of the organization towards its customer base.

But, in fact, the strategy, it also frames telling of the organization towards an intended platform business model.

Now, central to this strategy is three main areas of focus.

Firstly, simplifying the business, which carries with it a bit of a short-term focus.

In the medium term, the objective is to improve the competitiveness of the organization in the market.

In the long term, it's delivering to a modern digital human augmented platform based business, which is a bit of a mouthful, But the important here is that these words all highlight some of what the characteristics needs to be of the platform business in future.

And so naturally.

The time horizon Generate questions for people in the organization around what the future would look like.

Well, what capabilities do you require to actually deliver towards intended outcome?

And so recognizing that in the short-term, you're actually delivering some of what will bold your future.

So these Christians typically then manifesting in some level of emotional crisis of sorts. You know, when version.

How does the outcome of this strategy actually relate to the world in which you find yourself?

And how do you know that the issue that you're putting into building stuff today, actually is going to be part of the future of the organization?

They might even ask the question, What is a platform business. And what does it even mean?

Because most people draw certainty and security out of there, and now, as the future is not always well defined.

I think this backdrop frames what I refer to as a bit of an architectural conundrum.

People tend to architecture asking what the future looks like and wanting to know if the current issue actually delivers it.

And to me, that's very similar to someone drifting in the ocean.

They can see the water around them, but they're not exactly sure where the Rosalyn myths.

For Sike, Industrial, on the session, when I refer to digital transformation, definition I associate with that is, how you leverage digital technologies to help transform an organization's abilities.

And through transforming, that, has the ability to actually allow the organization to start playing out different business models, like for becoming a platform business model, or being a bit more deliberate about engaging an ecosystem.

All the top of change to digital transformation represents, it's actually pretty pervasive across an organization.

Sir, if you kind of look at the different aspects highlighted on the slide, what you're just going to find out is that the organization starts introducing different ways of engaging with the customer and driving different experiences within a digital context.

Ability to compete for institutional strategy perspective does not evolve beyond the traditional linear business model and organizational structure.

And to start embracing, the ability to start being much more deliberate about a value stream, focused delivery, going to the organization needs to drive high levels of collaboration and agility.

And so the embrace of the digital information, then signifying a lot of soft and hard skills development in an organization's talent pool.

Well, new technologies, just like cloud, enable more rapid value outcomes for an organization.

Then last, but definitely not least, data being an asset for the organization.

Irony is used for making decisions, but also in tapping new market opportunities.

So you would admit that the digital transformation sounds daunting. And so where do you start this journey?

Well, we actually start by building a level of confidence, and why confidence.

Or recognizing that the introduction of the strategy is initially accepted with levels of uncertainty and emotion, which is especially true when people are trying to relate the existing worlds to an unknown future.

This emphasizing the architectural conundrum that I've just referenced.

And this basically boils down to people being in a specific space and time wanting to know with clarity what the future would look like, then the specifics of the futures, actually.

The firmware depicted in front of you helps sketch the path of progression to help address this architectural conundrum.

Moving from quality emotional to the measure.

And you will note that this framework actually carries a deliberate split in conversation, too.

The business and what actually enables the organization.

This must be done to deal with the solution bias separating business requirements from high, actually, in them.

I'm going to use this as a backdrop to help explain how we should address not only the architectural conundrum.

But how validity group is actually progressed through its digital transformation, going from the initial emotional, jet the end of day accounting for the actual value created.

But what does the future look like? Which is Jimmy the million dollar question when you start engaging in some more interpretation of the strategy.

What we've done is we've actually created a bit of a composite picture that we use to help orientate people.

And this visual surfaces are handy to support conversations.

Emphasize various considerations in the digital journey.

You will see that the picture also transitions the conversation from where we are, at present, to really want to be in future.

So I'm just quickly going to orient you to this term, this Visual Anchor, and help highlight some of the different elements in it as these were elements of concern to the organization.

So at the top, what restraint is the key matrix the organization was using and how they would relate to the intended future.

Being a financial organization, accounting is kind of core to the organization's hot.

And there's also fundamental to help support some of the economic outcomes There are being invested and how they actually accounted for value as part of their overall digital transformation of the organization.

If we then turn the toggle to the bottom end of this picture, especially to the lift. What do we highlight to the organization in the current year?

And now, context was that the technologies and processes that we were drawing on Clift, as well, in the past, being the organization to where it is today.

But the reality was that they were not actually fit for where we wanted to go as an organization. They actually carried levels of technology and persisted.

That will not allow us actually to be effective and competing within the platform world.

To the right, we leverage Staffan, MIT model job frame, what the platform business could be.

And this was a way to help people start interpret Jingle Vision, realizing what that platform could look like and the visual inherently kind of drawing on three elements. Firstly, the customer experience and engagement that we would need to drive towards the customer in a digital context.

Second, the nature of content that will be using in that engagement with the cost with the customer.

And, lastly, the actual form that underpinned our ability to engage meaningfully with the customer in the digital context.

We then went a step further to embellish a bit around for change, We delve into the technology enablement of the organization where we wanted to emphasize the point that we're actually going to start decreasing, the applications that we have on premise, and started embracing the cloud. And the cloud was embraced because it's a buzzword.

In our world.

It actually represented the ability to manage costs, that is more variable, and to actually allow the organization to tap into ready made solution sets that could allow them to solve problems a lot quicker.

This messaging, serving as a bit of a catalyst, but there is going to be change or movement in this transition for the organization.

Central to the picture, actually lead to different pathways of how one could get to this in the future state.

Once reading, drawing of ration service credits by the Center for Information Systems Research at MIT, painted four options towards a future ready set. Now, a future release dates for Liberty represented a platform business that could compete in an ecosystem environment.

Now, if I quickly just run through the different pathways.

Also, one, see a focus of taking your product, and then ensuring that you actually set it up, dash, realizing it, as such, to be relevant within the future.

Very context, pathway to taking a focus to drive higher levels of integrated experience towards the customer.

Both ways three actually represented a bit of a midway between the industrialization and the integrated experience.

And then, pathway for, which is actually just a new starting point, is where you forget about what you have in your organization. And you thought of fish already within you intended to charity.

The case of liberty, it was evident that our strategy strong for workers towards customer would pull us towards more pathway to integrated experience, But our protocols are recognized for them to be irrelevant in this future state.

They are going to have to start industrializing the offering.

So you could actually effectively play it through a platform business model.

And so one could look at the past, where the organization took, actually summarized as 4, 3, 3.

But on an average day, and she had to ask someone, Which way are we going, people would be leaning towards the integrated experience.

So, in summary, this picture highlighted re-organization, we're moving from to where it needed to be, at both the business and an enablement level, essential to realizing this outcome was how they were organizational strategy, co-ordinated efforts to actually drive this digital transformation.

So this level of conversation then, framing enough of what the future actually tale to get people engaged.

Now at Stanford, they will start increasing, and people get a better understanding to actually shape the future Then naturally, you gage in the next level of conversation.

Then the next level of detail which often leads to a sequence and party of delivery type of condensation.

These questions are actually often disguised as how do you get there.

And the questions are January requiring a bit more detail to actually equip people to make decisions.

Appreciate that.

Part of what the business wants to understand is how they key applications, which support the main business processes will be impacted.

In appreciating the nature of the applications, we compartmentalize the application landscape.

It's a bit of a strategic view as depicted on the list.

Radar applications were placed in layers based on their primary use.

These layers within transfers to in relation to future platforms that on the right, in a way that you can start seeing your familiar application in context to how you need to think about them in the platform world.

Recognizing that those applications actually represented business processes.

Breathe in, took that done level more to help support the catalyst of change angle, And we actually started coloring in which applications are actually fit for our future, which of them need to be decommissioned, and which of them will actually be new.

This thing actually allowing the realization to better understand the level of change that we're going to have to incur, to help complement building this platform world.

It's also probably useful to mention that this was not a 1 to 1 mapping that's actually use the opportunity to fundamentally rationalized the application landscape of the organization.

The other critical aspects really wants to ensure that people actually understood the sequence in which future oriented building blocks had to be like.

This is serving as an anchor to help the organization think through your dependencies in delivering their respective initiatives, and also identify where they had to leverage to help establish some of the common building blocks.

In this case, we face the reality that we first needed to get our cloud foundations established, if we actually want to use the cloud.

Some prior work we did on the key highlights the fact that a lot of the services that we want to use towards customers and intermediaries, to drive experience and engagement, we assumed that your data was readily available within the chart.

For that reason, data accessibility, and building the enterprise data platform.

And for the establishment of the Cloud Foundation, inherently a lot of start playing out the benefit towards customers in communities.

The end of this conversation is forming the back end and been quite deliberate about switching off the technologies that we're not going to be part of our future.

We're doing this for us, factoring into the budgets, the savings that will amount from switching off these applications, another way to help motivate behavior that played out through the different initiatives that we're delivering on the digital transformation journey.

So, with these building blocks framed as an X axis, we depicted on the Y axis, the future platform transpose.

Then we transpose actually the initiatives to show the relationship between the two.

This way the organization could understand how they could be contributing towards establishing some of the building blocks while they're actually building out some of the core capability for the organization.

This space of understanding, then, allowing the business to build a plan for delivery.

But after all of that, or do you actually influence the outcome?

So, central to the success of delivering the digital transformation is actually how the various initiatives all contribute to delivering the intended outcomes, and ensuring that we were well co-ordinated, was actually quite critical in this regard.

So what we did is, at a business level, we actually started plotting the intended outcomes of each one of the projects in context to the future.

That effect, The way we did that was, by developing a Christian Day, that allowed us to unbiased leaf plot those different projects.

It also allowed us to actually have some different conversations to help ensure that the initiatives would deliver specific to a specific target area, say, supporting enhanced customer experience through a as depicted on the slide, as opposed to being the all singing and dancing solution to all the problems they have within the organization.

This then further emphasized project dependencies, which improved off turning ability around if it for execution.

From an enablement perspective, on the other hand, we actually wanted to help people in the organization understand which technology sets will dominate our landscape.

And so, the colors you see depicted as different zones on the slide inherently represented different technologies.

So, when you had an initiative that fell within a specific technology zone, it actually serves as a mechanism to help close the interpretation gap that your project actually had to consider these future technologies, and deliver towards that as for the eligible, as opposed to perpetuating, re-using some of the old technologies that we did not want to carry forward into our future.

So with the planning address, the next it was creating a level of tangibility for the organization, as to what the future could look like and a bit of benefit it represented, Recognizing that a lot of what the digital transformation represents is a new set of abilities for an organization.

And if you had to talk to the average business user in the organization, think you're just talking about new check, as opposed to a new ability to actually solve business problems.

So, having stated that the cloud had a significant role play in opening the organization's future, and knowing that the organization did not appreciate the paradigm shift of the cloud fully, we use the cloud program as a vehicle to create some tangibility for the organization.

So, early on in our cloud journey, Actually, while we were getting our feet wet, we worked with the business to identify two use cases.

That allowed us to help them share the power of the cloud, not purely as a piece of technology, but actually in solving some real business problems.

The first one is an example where we calculated four billion lines from 30 minutes in the cloud now.

Well the average person, there's quite a quaint to the cloud.

That doesn't sound like a mean feat but you need to understand the point of friction.

The organization was coming from the four billion lines of data being calculated, ran for a week in the organization, and then with time out.

So practically, once we've done this calculation in the cloud, it was the first time that the organization could actually see the results of the calculation to help support their decision making.

The other was to show how one could improve decision making by increasing the ability to provide analytical outputs that help charge market movements.

This was a calculation that typically ran once a week, that we set up to run as and when required.

And then nature fake was a significant financial risk reduction, two hedge market investment risk.

Now, both these examples not only deliver tangible business benefits, but also highlighted positive economic benefit for the organization in the short-term.

And the results, then, serving as examples, that actually allow people to start appreciating what this digital transformation opportunity is to help solve problems and inherently help drive the transformation and the embrace of what transformation looks like.

Now, as we've kind of progress in dealing both the architecture from the content can conundrum and driving the organizations district summation.

The real measure of success is actually the measure.

And quite often, when you're dealing with transformations and wanting to judge performance, it feels a bit like reading this fortune cookie.

We're a plan you've been working very hard on for a long time, Seems to be taking shape.

Reality is, though, that people do not always know what they need to measure and how the measurements actually relate to each other.

In our case, we recognize that where there were different aspects to being measured as we've matured in our digital transformation journey.

And so typically, we tried to frame them upfront as the piccolo slot.

Firstly, we wanted to understand if we were moving from where we want to know what was actually moving.

And so there's mobilization increased in the organization.

We wanted to ensure that the efforts we were driving, we're in the right direction, long before we can kind of get to more sophisticated Christians around if we are actually moving fast enough and can we accelerate the rate of delivery for the organization.

The other angle to this measurement must you understand the relationship between the measurements, and at what level it has to be accounted for.

Being at a strategic tactical and operational matrix.

This way, you could ensure that the right level of scrutiny is applied when needed, as opposed to contaminate in some of these conversations between the different layers.

Let's illustrate to you in the next few slides, just how these dots connected for us.

They're starting at the operational level.

The question was more, if we are moving, recognizing that the results of the initiative might be in a few months, only visible to the organization?

And for practical, clear, recognizing that we've already plotted in terms of where these projects need to do logging towards, knowing that they were underway, it was actually quite critical for us.

Certainly, at a tactical level, The participation sequence was important to support the planning and thus understanding what was moving, played a critical role.

An example of where this allowed us to pick up initiative that perpetuated the wrong target site was when one of the future applications, which actually supported some significant customer engagement, would go and source data directly from some of the on premise, full systems.

As opposed to sourcing the data from the cloud harstad Enterprise Data Platform.

Sure.

In the short run, you might have the needed data to support the application, but in the medium term, the application that you're sourcing your data from might disappear, forcing you to have to re-establish your data source.

Then at a strategic level, one wanted to judge if the overall digital transformation was towards the organization, stated strategic intent.

And then all the various aspects that needs to be influence in the organization were actually being impacted sufficiently to help support the overall digital change. Digital transformation of the organization.

That then would also, if the organization was actually moving in the right direction.

We actually measure this certainly over time.

Start seeing how that movement would actually play out across the different facets within the organization that you were trying to influence.

An interesting observation that I'll share with you that came out of our first measurement was the general perspective of stuff around innovations, digital transformation, efforts in the early days.

Look to them like a slow follower or almost a laggard in comparison to what was playing out in the industry.

But the next measurement points, which was about two years later, the perspective significantly changed as people felt that the organization was starting to lead as a digital transformer in the industry.

This reality is far from case due to the increased tangibility, which sprouted from the various projects delivered actually gives more meaning towards what that future looks like.

But, on the other hand, this sort of tasting to closing, the architectural can continuum get, as the organization progress, digital transformation journey.

So, reflecting on what just evidencing the measures spreading across the various aspects of the organization.

It highlights simple reality: creating value in a digital transformation.

It's actually creating grain as it is the multiple interventions that all influence the desired outcome over time, which yields the benefit for the organization.

Thank you very much.

Alright, Oster, can you see me?

Yeah, Oscar. Oh, I can't see you, but you can see me. I guess rockets that we've got. So it's all right. So it's OK if you don't mind. I'll just beyond the camera And I have a couple of questions. I'd like to go through with you if I could looking at actually, we've got plenty of time. So that's good. I can put those in first of all.

Thank you for it. I wasn't, I hadn't seen your presentation, so I didn't know in what detail you would go.

How interesting or compelling the journey actually is and the journey is.

So it's great to put a real story in a real company with real people and the challenges that all unfold. You know, because that's what, that's what the, as I call that, the people on this call and who will watch it later.

We're all members of a certain tribe, of people who are trying to do these kinds of things, and the best way to try and learn just to see someone who's successful. You know, in the tribe to it, and then, if that person is willing to mentor and share.

In the in the words of Obi Wan Kenobi, you know, help us all be jet eyes in this transformational journey.

So let me ask you a couple of simple, well, simple, easy to say, but not necessarily easy to answer.

So, if you had to say, how long and you just covered some of the timeline and some of the evolutions that took place, how long would you say it took for the journey to reach the organization in their journey to reach this point?

So, from, you know, beginning to when you felt like you were at minimum, acceptable level of maturity, how long would you say that journey took?

That's a good question, because he could be fooled looking at the slides. That wasn't an easy journey, and a quick one.

Exactly.

And so, So, I think the short answer to it would be a decade. So, let me just color that in a bit.

The reality is, the organization went through a transformation of its architectural landscape from an application centric architecture, to a data centric architecture.

If that work wasn't done, the work that as Susan, the first 4 or 5 years, especially what you see in the presentation, will never actually been able to play out for the organization.

Right. Right.

So, that the kind of contextual reality being set up to complement the digital transformation was quite critical, otherwise, this would have probably been a much longer journey to get to where we are now.

No, I'm listening to that, And I'm thinking, and perhaps this analogy is, has been used to, many times, but the, we used to call the multi-generational product plan, or the multi-generational project plan, depending what you're actually doing.

And one of the most famous examples was landing on the moon, right? So in order to land on the moon, they had an incredibly limited amount of time.

Like every executive in every company, you have a limited amount of time.

And if you're just saying, We're gonna go from 0 to 100 and asked her journey, you just lose people, they overwhelmed, they don't think they can make that whole thing. But if you start with, first, we're gonna get something up in the air that can get into space, and then we're going to orbit. Once we're gonna maybe send something to the moon unmanned, then we're eventually going to antics. So, with that, what you would say, that transformation to the data. That's, like, a major stepping point, but, but a concrete achievement in itself.

Yep. Very much, I think, this is not too.

be disrespectful to any insurance businesses, but, uh, doesn't the insurance Business law, not nicely? as progressive as some of the other financial institutions.

And so, you have to kinda how the organization along in this journey.

And so, the data, if it has been actually quite significant, just thought, Oh!

Opening up the appreciation that there is a different world that is shaping up around the organization and the competitive landscape inherently is actually forcing the organization just start dealing with it.

And so that's putting a man on the moon approach.

And having everyone starting to rally and draw and building momentum over time was actually quite critical to help ensure you can get to a point where, especially in a digital transformation, given the pervasiveness of it, you do need all hands on deck element towards a meaningful outcome for the organization.

You know, I interviewed for my book several inner insurance executives.

one of whom is the Chief Investment Officer for Aflac in the United States, which is a large, a very large insurance company.

And in our conversation, he said to me, Insurance companies don't go bust, because they didn't sell another policy next month.

They go bust because something goes wrong with the way they're running the company.

Right, and that can be, of course, an investment portfolio, or it can be blowing up your IT. And so there's a Pervasive. As you said, there's a pervasive culture that don't blow this up. That's nice. You want to improve it, but more importantly, don't blow it up.

And I, you have to understand that if that's, that's the way they're thinking, but it's great to see that you were able to make a huge progress on that. OK, another question.

So, looking at the benefits the organization has achieved from digitally transforming, what you've eliminated.

Meaning, what would you say?

I think I know what you're going to say to this, but let's say, what would you say the toughest part has been to actually achieving this, people, processor, technology, or however you want to answer it?

So I think the answer is pretty easy.

It's kind of people, yeah, take does what it says on the tin.

The practical issue is actually getting people to participate, and because the digital transformation actually enables the organization to solve problems in a different way.

You need to get people's heads faced for appreciating what that opportunity actually looks like.

You quite easily can get fooled by getting your technical staff trained on the new technologies. Now, suddenly, you're good to go.

But the real hard yards is actually getting your business to start appreciating what that paradigm shift look like, and how that actually significantly adds to their ability to solve problems going forward.

So now I'd say, kinda 80% of the problem is people, in a digital transformation. The risk, typically is pretty easy.

What would you also say that 80% of the solution is people?

You know, it's, it's the paradox, right? 80% of the problem is 80% of the solution is the people.

Definitely. But you also don't need to have the percentage of the people who are really.

I'm glad you asked, and we require. You just need to get enough of a critical mass of this movement.

But I'd say that's find out about it: 23% Movement within the organization that suddenly starts getting a bit of a catalytic effect in the organization that quite quickly over time, translating that 80%.

And all on board.

Right? It said, Yeah, that critical mass is actually a nuclear term term, but the critical mass to get it to go forward, right? That 20% that lead.

Yeah, yeah. What's going forward? You know, I have found and I, I've been using this expression for awhile and I don't know if kind of fell in love with this expression. But helping humans be heroes.

And it feels to me, like, in so many organizations, human beings don't feel like they have any potential to necessarily be heroic, or do something bold, or bright and new. And you get far less of what they're capable of as a result of that.

And if you can stimulate that, you, too, I call it, be going on the hero's journey from Joseph Campbell.

But if you can get people to see that, hey, this is the next thing that you're going to grow and expand and be stimulated by.

and it's going to be exciting to think what this digital transformation will do in a way that resonates with them.

Which obviously you did in this organization. You had to do that or you wouldn't have gotten the support you got.

So again, back to that hero's journey and getting that 20% to then become more more than 20%. There's always those people at the end to kinda jump too much. So let's think about going forward.

So if you said, now that you've gotten to a point where you can come on a webinar, talk to hundreds, potentially, thousands of people and be very proud of what you've accomplished. And that's a great thing. You know, no one else has done it somewhat. You know, Patch on the back but that's your own hero's journey that's what you did.

But now you look for it and you say, Well, you could get complacent.

And, as I say, be like Bilbo Baggins and sit in the Shire in the movie The Hobbit and just, you know, sit on your laurels and chill.

Or you can embark on the next challenge in your organization. So if you hear your call to adventure, what is the next call to adventure for your organization, and what's the next challenge facing you?

Yeah, so I think the next challenges, we've now allow the organization to introduce new abilities.

And if we don't start using those new abilities, we're actually not going to get the value of what they represent, nothing part of the uncomfortable reality that the organization needs to deal with this.

Those abilities actually started allowing you to create value in different ways that we haven't done traditionally, in the call a traditional insurance business model.

And so, especially when you start looking at what a platform business looks like and playing towards an ecosystem environment, we could actually start getting into business engagements that create real value for our customers.

But it's not our traditional insurance business.

I think that is kind of the next frontier here, to ensure that you can actually capitalize on those abilities. But actually start pushing a bit of the envelope.

In the wrong way, the organization can actually create more value, because at the end of the day, insurance, business, especially if you want to go and play a platform game, our focus or customer would be to increase the value to our customer, that increasing our Value Modifier selling secondary cost to our customers.

Because it actually helps the customer who saw the intent of saving for his kids first call through one of the investment policies that he's taken out with us, right?

I mean, you can hear that that conversation sounds like a bit of a mind bender because there's no one in our organization that's currently selling second ed costs.

But you're actually starting to lift off the value stream, and the benefit that the customer can get from the organization, into the azzurri, that we can put towards our customer.

So, I think that'll be the next frontier of this journey.

So, I couldn't, I experienced, you know, again, you and I had not met before this session.

An executive by the name of Allan Kohlberg ran the company, Assurant, in the United States.

And the only reason I know that is because he is quoted, in my book, I interviewed him and their company.

In fact, it thinks exactly the way you just said is how can you add value in a variety of different products or services goes far beyond. So, I mean, that's one leading minds in your business, or doing Alan recently retired. I think he's gonna go be the chairman of the board somewhere at another company, and unfortunately he's not allowed to consult on what he did insurance, but I'm glad to hear that Oscar, you, and one of the leading insurance executives in the United States have similar mindsets on this.

And he probably doesn't know much about enterprise architecture, but he knows quite a bit about insurance. Will look Oster, Thank you very much for taking your time to take us through a journey.

I hope everyone, and I say this, you know, as a, as a master of ceremonies, or a chairman of an event like this, you, you really hope that people bring presentations that are compelling, that are interesting, that people go away from this and they say, Well, I can act on that. I can do something with that.

And without a fault, I would say the presentations have done that. Everyone has different styles, different slides, different, whatever.

But I certainly enjoyed listening to your story, and I love your South African accent.

South Africa is one of my favorite places on the planet. Are you there now? Are you living in South Africa? Where are you right now?

I am inside Africa actually just in the Capitol toria.

Oh fantastic.

I recently took a vintage train ride from Cape Town to Johannesburg.

You and I can talk about that. That's a jewel of the offering in South Africa. So, anyway, everyone, very, thank you very much, Oscar. We certainly enjoyed you being here and giving a presentation.

so little little warmup for what the top top of the hour is going to be. a surprise.

And, I will ask you, if you're going to be joining us back at the top of the hour, we got an agenda shift. We had to move one of the presentations later.

So our executive from Mars will be presenting, and an hour from now.

However, there is a compelling story at the top of the hour.

It includes money from drug running, crime.

Federal enforcement officers theft, intelligent automation, tracking GPS products, and it's all about how humans can be heroes in the age of intelligent automation.

So I gave a presentation two days ago, different presentation on this. This is a real story about a Hot Springs down in Colorado, that directly links to how intelligent automation and noble automation are real possibilities in the real-world. So I wasn't teasing. Those are all true, True parts of what the story is. Join us at the top of the Hour. And I will see you for that presentation that back an hour from now, and we'll hear a great journey from the Mars Corporation until then, see in about 15 minutes.