Closing the Technology Confidence Gap With Babble

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[00:00:27] Why do so many business leaders believe technology matters while feeling less confident about how they put it all to work? Well, in today's episode of Business Tech Perspectives, I'm going to be speaking with the Chief Revenue Officer at Babble.

[00:00:45] And we're going to talk about the findings from its Technology Performance Index, which was based on responses from 1,000 UK SMB leaders and C-suite executives. And the research reports that 88% now see technology as important to business performance. But only 47% feel highly confident about adopting it effectively.

[00:01:11] So, Mark will join us today and explain why panic buying AI, cyber tools or cloud services can all leave a company with higher costs, but the same underlying problems. And we'll also discuss the habits of separating tech vanguards, emerging adopters and tech bystanders. And at the end, I want to ask you which of those three pots you think your organisation is in.

[00:01:38] And we'll also talk about a few practical ways that smaller businesses can improve adoption using the budgets and people that they already have. We've got a lot to get through today, so let me introduce you to my guest now. So, thanks for joining me on the show today. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? Yeah, sure, Neil. So, my name's Mark Weirter. I'm Chief Revenue Officer at Babble. I've been here for just over a year now.

[00:02:07] And my remit is reasonably broad. I have an exciting, I have the responsibility of helping to shape and direct the product portfolio. So, that's really critical in terms of understanding what's going on in the market and how do we identify the right things that make the most impact and can be delivered in the best possible way to the S&B customers in the UK.

[00:02:30] And also, of course, is the opportunity for or the focus and responsibility for driving revenue and sustainable profit moving forward, which, of course, is very important to my paymasters. But the two, of course, Neil, are intertwined. Without the right product and strategy, it's very difficult to be able to either keep customers or sell new stuff to them. We will have people listening all around the world. I know you're talking to me in Kosovo today.

[00:02:56] And for people listening, hearing about Babble for the first time, what problems do you solve for your customers? And what makes you different from other solutions out there? Yeah, I guess that's a really interesting question. Myself, I actually came from working. I've been working across sales and across cloud technology for the best part of two or so decades. And I guess Babble is unashamedly very focused, first and foremost, on serving the S&B market.

[00:03:25] So really sort of businesses from 10 employees to 500. I actually myself come from a background of serving, working across places like SAP, Tata, working with some of the largest corporates. And, of course, those corporates often have huge amounts of resources, large investment power, large employee pools.

[00:03:46] And I think the reason why I came to Babble was that I could see that a lot of the S&B businesses, certainly at the lower end of the scale, are not afforded the same opportunity, Neil, to get. You know, they don't have the same employee base. They don't have access to the right skill set, especially in things like cyber. You know, you look at it, there's what, an 800,000 shortage of cyber skills. Employers in the UK, jobs open in the market. And a lot of the people that do get them will go to the HSBCs or Barclays of this world, not necessarily, you know, 100-strong business.

[00:04:15] So I think the thing about Babble, what we try to identify, is to really deliver that enterprise-level service. So how do you, it's not just about reselling stuff, which customers start to get really frustrated, just, you know, you're turning on technology and then walk away. It's how do you actually deliver that as a service? How do you show up for the customer and make that acquisition, that cost, that service, that cloud technology work for them?

[00:04:39] And I think certainly from my background, having done that for 20-odd years, bringing that into the S&B market, I think that's a real standout differentiator for us. We truly understand the challenges that S&B is facing. And we are looking at how can we really step up from just reselling software to delivering a true service that brings the outcome and achieves the outcome that the customers are looking for. And much of what you said there echoed some recent research that I found that you guys have done there.

[00:05:07] And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the stat was 88% of S&B leaders see technology as important to business performance. No surprise there, but only 47% feel actually confident about adopting it effectively. And it's easy to see that as well, I guess, with the speed of technological change at the moment. But why is there such a large gap between believing in the tech and actually knowing what to do with it or how to get it implemented? I think it's nuanced.

[00:05:35] I think certainly if you look at certain areas, I think the first problem that a lot of businesses face, and it's not just to S&Bs, but a lot of people will panic buy or, you know, certainly in things like cybersecurity, they'll identify there's a breach, right? I need to buy this software. Or AI is a great one. And I'm sure we'll talk about the reality of AI. But it's like, you know, I joke often with some of the businesses that I meet with is, you know, AI is the answer. Yeah, but what's the question? Yeah. What are you trying to solve?

[00:06:04] So obviously, if you don't have clarity, or you're just trying to keep up with the Joneses or buy the latest technology, you're likely not going to get the right outcome or deliver the right value if you didn't know what you were looking to achieve in the first instance. So having clarity on what you're looking to do and what the real business impact is one challenge. The other one truly is that you might want to, you might go and buy a Ferrari, but can you drive it? Yeah. You know, can you actually drive it properly, not stall it every second?

[00:06:32] But do you have the, do you have the, have you got the training? Do you understand? And again, in the UK today, whether that be in cyber or whether that be in AI, technology is not always the answer. It's about how you bring it in, how you intertwine it with the business and how you apply it. And too often today, there is a massive gap between that desire and direction and actually being able to manifest it within the business to actually deliver it.

[00:06:57] And often that comes down to things as simple as the correct project management, understanding what you're looking to achieve and setting a program plan to do that, or just having the skills on the ground to understand how you implement it within your environment. And I think you mentioned early, it's really challenging technology. Just, you have to have a PhD to understand, you know, just what the latest Microsoft jargon is in terms of that for fun, they change their names for co-pilot security security, co-pilot.

[00:07:25] But, you know, it's a full-time job and that's why they have within their business things like black belts, they call them, to people that understand that portfolio. But, you know, most businesses do not have the time to invest that time, that resource to focus on doing it. So they need people that can point them in the right direction. Yeah, completely agree. And you mentioned panic buying there. And I think we've seen so much of that over the last three years around all things AI.

[00:07:50] And looking at your research again, it also divides businesses into tech vanguards, emerging adopters, and tech bystanders, maybe sitting on the fence there. So what behaviours separate those groups? And what are the vanguards doing differently that other SMB leaders listening could realistically copy? Yeah, I guess I think the first thing is it sort of ties on what we've said. I think the thing that stands on as a tech vanguard is generally they have a, firstly, confidence.

[00:08:20] And that confidence may very well come from the fact that they've delivered positive outcomes on a couple of deployments before and seen it work. It's delivered value. So, you know, there's nothing that breeds success like success. So that would be the first thing. I think from that also having real clarity on what you're looking to achieve. Yeah, not just turning technology on. And you see it all the time in AI. You know, the CEO has asked for, we need to be doing it. We're losing, okay, let's just buy some co-pilot licenses.

[00:08:49] Wait on, but what's that going to do? That actually could just create more of a problem and a security risk. But if you truly know what you're trying to point it at, that's where the magic starts to happen. That's where you start to create differentiation and better outcome in terms of how you go to market. I think that would be another strand. And the other one is really, truly understanding that to deliver it, it needs the right skill set, it reads the right focus to go and deliver the project in the truest sense and deliver the outcome.

[00:09:18] You know, just turning it on won't do it by itself. It has to be intertwined. Everything is connected today. Your billing system will be connected to the cloud in some way. That cloud is connected to identity data for new starters. Everything's connected. And you need to think about it as a whole organism, not just individual parts. So, and again, that's why thinking of it holistically as an outcome starts for you with the right people to address how you go about building the right program, the right project to deliver

[00:09:48] the outcome you need. And the leadership and governance gap is something that also particularly stands out in your research. I mean, a big stat here, 84% of the tech vanguards, they're saying they have strong processes for technology-led change compared with just 3% of those tech bystanders. So, does this suggest that the biggest technology problem facing SMBs isn't really a technology problem at all? It's more of a process. And I think you're right.

[00:10:16] I mean, the research obviously clearly points to that. Yeah. And again, I think, you know, if you look at things like cyber or AI, just, you know, if you don't have the right leadership direction, if you don't have the right processes, then, you know, there's no good putting cyber controls in place if then a number of people turn it off and go, well, that's a real pain. It actually is making it longer. I don't want to do multifactor authentication to dial it with my phone to do it. So, I'm going to turn that off. Okay.

[00:10:43] Well, you've just completely disarmed the purpose of having it in in the first place, not putting the right controls in to manage AI and how people are using it. So, it's so important. Often businesses, I see today, and certainly bigger ones as well, will just go, well, that's an IT project, so it's IT's job. But most IT jobs will succeed or fail by the backing of the management team and the leadership to make sure that it delivers the goals that it's set out, that it's intertwined in process.

[00:11:13] But people understand why the cyber is there. It's there to protect them. It's there to protect their customers. Why are you using AI to deliver that outcome? Because it's delivering value for these reasons. So, I think just from having that engagement and having backing the processes in the right way is so critical to a successful project. And predictably elsewhere, AI appears to be widening the divides that we're talking about here.

[00:11:37] And 57% of those tech vanguards already reporting measurable value from AI and automation compared with only 21% of tech bystanders. There's been a big focus on that return on investment from some of those expensive tech and AI projects lately. So, are we in danger of creating a two-tier economy where businesses that were already digitally confident accelerate even further ahead? What are you seeing here? Yeah, it could. It could, truly.

[00:12:05] I think, however, there are some... I don't want to play a gloomy picture because it doesn't need to be. I think there's a lot of people that... There are a very small number of businesses that are truly leveraging AI across their business in really outstanding ways. And often have built their business to be leveraged on that, to be built on it. But for most businesses, I'd say 80% or 90% of them, they're at the beginning of the journey of AI. So, the gap and the barrier to access to that market is not as material.

[00:12:35] So, there's really an opportunity to still catch up. But I also think there's a lot of those businesses that have already made mistakes. So, the first thing is, you know, don't learn by those mistakes. Don't replicate them. So, you can... I think there's a lot of learning out there in the market now that new businesses or entrants that aren't quite sure, and we see that every day. It's not the people that don't want to use AI. It's like, where do I start? I don't want to get a big bill at the end for no value.

[00:13:01] So, therefore, it's working with trusted partners or buying the right people and resource to do it. And the opportunity is absolutely affords businesses today. They can leapfrog. They can get on there. The key thing is being prepared. Understand that just turning AI on by itself is not going to get it. You need to be prepared. You need to have the right setup. You need to train your people. You need to have the right security controls in place. But once you do it, what I'd say is, unless... I'll go back to your question.

[00:13:28] Unless businesses realize the danger of not harnessing it, you can absolutely walk into a two-tier model and a two-tier market. And I do worry for businesses that don't embrace it in the right way, how they are going to be able to compete, either in speed to market or cost management and differentiation in three, four years, maybe even sooner. But the good news is you can move fast if you move smartly.

[00:13:54] So that opportunity still exists to close that gap of tech bystanders up to tech vanguards. And so many great points there, because I think there's enormous pressure on every business to just do something with AI. And I've spoke even a few years ago to some businesses that were saying, we want to be part of the AI narrative. And it was like you said earlier, AI might be the answer, but what is the question? And the thing for smaller companies is they cannot afford endless pilots and expensive mistakes.

[00:14:23] So for those SMBs and people listening, what should they be doing to actually assess before investing? And how can leaders listening distinguish that genuine business case from fear of being left behind? A bit of a balancing act. And it's easier to jump in after getting a little too much FOMO, but what should they be doing here? Yeah. I think the first thing is we're in an end of a position where we talk to businesses every day about this and with some of our partners. And I think the first thing is understanding that you want to change

[00:14:53] and identify that there might be a problem. I am not leveraging technology to the best. And honestly, if you look at the group, tech bystanders would maybe still be of that group. They're saying, I don't really need it. I'm performing quite well. But the problem is that you're going to be performing well in two years if you carry on. So the first thing is realize there is opportunity to be had. I think the second one is understand there is what we call AI preparedness. And, you know, within that, there is we provide consultative reports.

[00:15:22] Other businesses do as well. It's not just us. But look at your business. How is it? We often call it, and again, the way we frame it is our core operating system. Every business has a core operating system. But how well connected is it? How secure is it? Because if you put AI into either a core operating system, a business's environment, where the people aren't trained, well, what are you going to get out of it? A lot of cost or people not using it in the right way. If you go and turn it on and allow people to do it, but you don't have the right monitoring

[00:15:52] in place or you're not managing things like data security, you potentially have a huge site security risk where your IP can be going out into the wild. So being prepared is critical as a next step. But even with doing all of that and having AI, so let's say your people know they want to use it, you have the ability to be ready and prepared to use AI.

[00:16:17] The next thing is to really understand the business processes that can benefit from using AI. Yeah. And I love a lot of people when I think you mentioned the word automation earlier, a lot of people get confused between automate. Automation has been around for decades. Yeah. So, and you know, sometimes automation is as good. You don't need, you know, prompts to drive a natural language and interaction with an AI bot.

[00:16:44] But in some areas it's critical, whether that's, you know, off the back of a CX platform, a contact platform, you know, there's some real things. But understanding where you think there's bigger bang for buck is the next critical thing. And again, the message here is you don't have to do that alone. You don't know what you don't know. And that's what stops people from sometimes getting ahead. But therefore there is a lot of advice out there. And it's not just about using it in AI.

[00:17:10] You can talk to real people who've gone through it and help you jump that hurdle. Yeah. So get your people trained, understand you want to do it, be, make sure your network and your, your, your, your core operating system is ready. Your business is ready to benefit from it. And then identify the parts of the business or the processes within the business that would deliver you the best outcome. And what I'd also say as a tip is don't do everything.

[00:17:35] Don't go AI everything, pick ones, build, and then deploy incrementally. It's a bit like cyber. It's a journey and you don't have to, you know, you don't have to bore the ocean day one. Again, so many great points. And you mentioned cybersecurity there, and there does appear to be quite an interesting confidence problem because organizations believe that they're well protected right until something goes wrong, which is what we see on our news feeds all the time.

[00:18:01] But where does your research suggest SMB leaders could be overestimating their cyber resilience? And what should they be doing to get a more accurate picture? Because as I said, we've seen all the horror stories on our news feeds, but where does this overestimating come from and what should they be doing? Okay. I'll touch that. I always think of that, you know, they think they're there until they've had a breach. And it is so true. It's like where you think you're a really good boxer until you've been punched in the face. Yeah. So it's the analogy I sort of see.

[00:18:31] And it does feel like that with a breach sometimes. So your question was why, what can they do? Why do you think there is? Well, I do think there is a complacency. I think there is generally, you know, look, there isn't one solution that just fixes it with cyber. Cyber covers such a broad area, whether that's identity, whether that's email security, whether that's endpoints, whether that's, you know, cloud protection, AI. So it's a constant iterative journey.

[00:18:59] What I would say is that, and let me ask you a question, do you think cyber criminals, do you think they just learn what they're doing and then stop there and just carry on doing it? Or do you think they are continually trying to learn their game? Yeah, of course, continually upping their game and using old tactics, but different new technologies to bring those old tactics back to life. Yeah. One of the biggest injuries is cyber crime as a service.

[00:19:24] So you've got states now providing code hacks that they sell to your man in a room somewhere going out and using really good high tech at low cost to go and perpetrate the crime. So I really feel for businesses. You've got all of this going at you. But the problem is you have to be vigilant. You have to change constantly. And so I think it's easy. It's an easy mistake to slip into as a business leader.

[00:19:50] I've just spent a huge amount of money on doing all this security stuff. But the reality is it's only as good as well as it's protecting. And it's definitely layering the protection up. But you have to continually be assessing. OK, you have to continually be assessing where the gaps might be. We have a cyber portfolio called Hidden. And it really is from that word is understanding. You know, you need to look at where things are hidden. Where are you?

[00:20:17] Where are the gaps potentially in your armory that people may know? Now, constantly, it might not be worth the money to plug it. You may take that risk. But at least be aware of it. But the other thing I think that you see, and especially at the SMB level, is that you have a lot of businesses buying security from, say, MSPs. And I say MSPs as opposed to MSSPs. So IT specialists as opposed to security specialists. And what you find is you go to them and you say, well, yeah, I've known these guys for 10,

[00:20:47] 15 years. And they've really looked after me. OK, when was the last time you had that validated by a third party? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, if you look at the NCSC, they would always recommend that, you know, even things as simple as everyone knows what a pen test is, I think. But they would recommend you change your pen tester every couple of years. Yeah. Why? Because there is a laziness that creeps in. You need a different look. So I think it's tough for business leaders because it has cost. It's constantly changing.

[00:21:16] It's not like in the days when I started selling you buy a network and that worked five years and then you do it. It's moving so much faster. AI is making it move faster. Other things are making it. Cloud technology is making it move faster. But I do think there is a danger of being complacent. You just have to be aware there's a risk and trust in people and trust in other partners to be able to just do that third party validation. Just take a moment to check. At least be informed of where the gaps may be.

[00:21:45] And then you can only solve what you know is a risk. And I think that's where people feel and they almost stick their head in the sand. And that needs to be, that's something that people need to be aware of. And earlier we talked about FOMO and more than a quarter of leaders in the research admitted that they fear losing new business to competitors that are adopting technology faster than they are. On the flip side of that, there are others worrying about losing customers or damaging their reputation.

[00:22:12] So at what point does technology confidence stop just being an IT issue and become a competitive business issue that actually belongs in the boardroom? Are you seeing that move as well? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And again, from my space at corporate or certainly within that corporate environment, I started probably seeing the shift eight, nine years ago, 10 years ago with elevating. For a long time, I mentioned Networker. It was a commodity. It was a spend. It was something that you needed to turn off.

[00:22:40] But cyber now and how you can use technology and AI, it is a board discussion. And it's not about talking feeds and speeds. It's about talking outcome. Yeah. If I am not secure, what is the impact to my business? You know, I went over, you know, I can't remember the stat, but it was, it was jattering. It was 50, 60% of businesses in the SMB sector will go out of business within a year of a material breach. So it is.

[00:23:10] And that's no different. Yeah. You look at Jaguar. It took a long time to get over from the breach that happened then and crippled their business. So it's the same across all. So I think, I think it has to be a board matter because it is, it is massively revenue impacting. It is brand impacting. And, you know, so I think as well that when you look at, can it damage your reputation? Yes. If you don't have technology by the way, or if it's the main way that customers are accessing, look at people, how many people go into shops today versus online. Yeah.

[00:23:38] But if, if that online is not secure, it would, you go to an online website. If you knew it was not secure, there was a risk of your data being exfiltrated. Nope. If you try and access that and it's not working because the capacity is not up or the site's not up, what do you do? You probably go to somewhere else after swearing a couple of times. So in answer your question, is it, can it be a differentiation? Well, we've just said just that one example, it will make you choose a different partner. Yeah.

[00:24:08] If you don't get it right. So I certainly think that using technology that gives you more resiliency, that enables you to maybe differentiate your service in terms of the speed of offering or how you get to it or the experience. And just generally the customer experience when you're on that platform, whether we like it or not. And I call it out that the death of the high street, people are buying in different ways today. And that is technology enabled.

[00:24:34] And we will have many SMB leaders listening to our conversation today that don't have the luxury of suddenly receiving a bigger technology budget for next year, but more or more people or extra hours in the day. So if you're running one of those emerging adopters or tech bystanders today, what practical changes would you make with the resources you already have to start closing that confidence gap? Any tips or advice there? Yeah. I'd say firstly, look at it. And again, we do begin these discussions all the time.

[00:25:04] Yeah. Don't rush in. Take a holistic view. What we haven't mentioned earlier, we have a view of a business's technology and processes and people is a core operating system. Okay. And that often has been built up over many years. You know, it's been building by an IT manager coming in and putting these laptops in and this cloud thing in. And then, oh, we've got this other new app that's the next new thing. And often what happens, it creates a patchwork.

[00:25:33] And if that patchwork is not proper connected, it delivers things like spending efficiency. It's not connected in the right way either. It stops you from leveraging technology because the APIs aren't the way that you connect the into systems. So the first thing I say is look up or use people to look at what you're doing holistically because nine times out of 10, we find that businesses are spending in their current spend inefficiently. Yeah. They may be, they haven't checked that latest contract.

[00:26:02] They're spending too much in a certain area. We see it with Microsoft users a lot. They make, they're buying third party software to do an app to do a job that the Microsoft stuff will already enable them through their license spend. So often you can fund stuff by being better, better informed on your current spend. I'd say the other thing is, you know, you're not an island. You don't have to have all the answers yourself. I remember working with a CTO of Carlsberg and we helped build out their network.

[00:26:30] And they were like, you know, we realized we went to the experts because we know you were no good at brewing beer, but you were really good at building networks. And it's the same thing here, you know, as a business, your business, maybe, I don't know, delivering retail, manufacturing widgets, whatever. It's unlikely to be about building a world-class IT environment or building a cloud, optimizing a cloud environment or leveraging AI.

[00:26:55] But the good news is there's people like Babbel that can support you on that journey and can take a lot of the guesswork out, which is what you said earlier. They don't have the time. They don't have the cycles to spend. So we deal with four and a half thousand customers. We've learned ourselves the hard way doing the mistakes. We've seen them in businesses. So don't make that mistake. Leverage the understanding and the knowledge that's out there to help you get ahead quicker. And I think that's a powerful moment to end on.

[00:27:23] And for everyone listening, I will include a link to your technical technology performance index based on the findings of a thousand UK SMB leaders and C-suite executives. It covers a lot of things around that growing technology confidence gap that we've talked about today and how it's becoming as important as the technology itself. But for all things Babbel, maybe people listening want to connect with you or your team. Where should they go? Yeah. I mean, obviously, the window to our environment is babbel.cloud.

[00:27:53] So that website will also be on social media, et cetera. But babbel.cloud would be the best place. And indeed, if there's contacts, there's all of the stuff in there. There's a view of the technology. There is the report that you just mentioned. So that would be the best place to kick off. Well, we covered a lot today around why AI is almost creating this two-tier market between organizations that can adopt it confidently, those that can't, why some SMBs are overestimating

[00:28:20] their cyber resilience despite growing threats. And also, the three types of SMBs emerging from your research. And a challenge to everyone listening there, where do you see yourselves? Are you a tech vanguard, emerging adopter, or a tech bystander? Let me know. I'm at techtalksnetwork.com. I'll include the links to all things Babbel, including that research in the show notes. But more than anything, just thank you for bringing all this to life today, sharing your insights. Thanks again, Mark. Thank you very much, Neil. It's been great speaking with you. Thank you.

[00:28:51] I think Mark's Ferrari analogy offered a useful way to think about technology adoption. Buying an impressive system achieves very little if nobody can drive it. Connect it to the rest of the business or even explain the destination that you're going to. So that advice for smaller business is refreshingly practical. Review the technology that is already in place. Remove duplicate spending. Assess whether people and data are ready.

[00:29:20] And then choose one business process where improvement can be measured. And cyber resilience is also something that needs regular outside validation because confidence can become complacency when the same supplier and same assumptions go unchallenged for many, many years. And I have a feeling that everybody listening knows what that looks, feels and sounds like.

[00:29:44] So thank you to Mark for joining me and turning a broad debate around digital change into decisions that SMB leaders can make today. And you will find Babel and its technology performance index at Babel.cloud. And is your business a tech vanguard, emerging adopter or tech bystander? Let me know. TechTalksNetwork.com. Bet that's it for today. I'll be back again real soon with another guest. But thanks for listening today.

[00:30:14] Bye for now.