In a complex landscape, where the need to undergo digital transformation is now pressing for organisations in every sector and of every size, expert guidance is invaluable. Steve Farquhar’s team at CGI exists to help our public sector clients navigate this challenging journey and implement the most cost-effective and successful digital transformation possible. It’s a truly meaningful role which he has detailed more about in this article.

May 2022

COVID-19 brought forth an unprecedented need to accelerate digital and data capabilities across all business types. The smallest to largest organisations have been forced to implement new digitally-enabled ways of working.

The bare fact is that no organisation, regardless of sector, history or size, can avoid maturing their data and digital capabilities. Luckily, however, cloud-based tools have made this far more accessible to all businesses.

My primary aim at this time is to help my public sector clients embrace the opportunity and accessibility of the cloud when it comes to successful digital transformation. This in turn will support citizens and communities using those services.

Driving transformations for our clients

Throughout my career I've always been focused on how data and digital initiatives can incrementally advance business performance, using a customer/user-centric approach.

I’ve worked across most industry verticals over my career, and considered most user types.

This experience has put me on firm footing when it comes to adapting to any business type and challenge quickly.

Working on a public sector account at CGI really made it hit home how fast digital practices have taken over as standard in the private sector but this has left more critical services playing a frantic game of catchup. I recognise the complexity and pain this journey can hold for these organisations and as such, I am excited to offer a service that exists to simplify the way forward for them.

My advisory team at CGI is helping organisations to achieve their business ambitions and transform effectively for the digital world, and the improvement in services to consumers is vast. Working with clients in this way – establishing a path through the complex change required to do the right thing for citizens – brings with it a strong sense of purpose.

Collaboration and innovation is key

The complexity of the business environment we operate in these days is not something one individual can have a full grasp of. There is no such thing as a business transformation scientist who knows everything about how to optimise business outcomes. If they think they do, their knowledge is already out of date.

Therefore, we need a capable, collaborative team, with diverse knowledge and experience that can be brought to bear on a client challenge. We also have to be collaborative with clients to build trust. I like to think of our team as an extension of our clients – we’re all solving the same problem.

To optimise performance, organisations need their data and insight, their ways of working and their consumer experience to all be trained on the same business outcomes. With this in mind, anyone who is a good listener, is comfortable making firm suggestions backed up by evidence, and can speak fluently across these concepts (or deep into one of them), is a suitable fit for our team.

A breadth of work experience and real-life experience is essential, as is the ability to empathise with both our clients and their end customers to gain a balanced perspective. In fact, that is perhaps the most important thing of all!

Innovation is only as good as its relevance to your client

These days, due to the complicated landscape, innovation is often found in simplicity. By this I mean understanding the complexity of a situation and untangling the knots to find a simple solution.

That’s why I believe that the most important skill relating to innovation is building genuine understanding of a client’s business and then being able to recommend appropriate and executable improvements that achieve real outcomes. These improvements may be game-changing technical innovations or just better ways of working, but at it’s heart, innovation can be described as a new approach which drives a step change in business performance.

Does this sound like your area of expertise? I would love to hear from skilled digital transformation specialists who can add real value to my team. Please head to our careers page for more details.