2892: Four Pillars of Growth: Accenture's Strategy for Software and Platform Companies

[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the Tech Talks Daily Podcast. I'm your host and today

[00:00:06] we're going to be delving into the heart of the software and platforms industry with a

[00:00:11] special guest, Kevin Jalowitz, and he's the global lead for software and platforms over

[00:00:17] at Accenture. And in this ever evolving landscape of technologies, companies face a myriad

[00:00:23] of challenges and opportunities, particularly in the realm of innovation, growth and

[00:00:28] internal dynamics. And Kevin brings with him over 15 years of experience, advising and

[00:00:35] growing companies at the intersection of business and technology, making him the perfect guide

[00:00:42] to navigate through the complexities of this dynamic industry. And he's also going to

[00:00:48] provide us with a roadmap of four essential pillars that every company should prioritize

[00:00:53] to embrace the next chapter of growth from leveraging generative AI to enhancing user

[00:00:59] experiences and fostering greater employee engagement. We'll explore together how

[00:01:05] organizations can unlock their true potential from within. So buckle up and hold on tight

[00:01:12] as I beam your ears all the way stateside where today's guest is waiting to join us.

[00:01:19] Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:01:23] Yeah, I'd love to. My name is Kevin Jalowitz and I am the software and platform industry

[00:01:29] lead at Accenture. And I think that industry name is somewhat intuitive. But that's basically

[00:01:35] where we work with digital natives, some younger, some older, and then all of our

[00:01:40] SaaS clients as well. And it's as you well know, you have you have a podcast on

[00:01:45] this topic. It's a fascinating space that changes just about every quarter. And it's

[00:01:51] an area of our business that we've really been investing in for well over it's become

[00:01:55] frankly, one of our largest industries at Accenture. And as part of that, and I think

[00:02:00] this is maybe less known, we've really become part of the fabric of tech and Silicon

[00:02:05] Valley, both enabling operational growth in both the front office and back office,

[00:02:10] you think about the massive complexity required as you grow a business from a billion

[00:02:17] dollars or half a billion dollars in revenue to where many players are now in this space.

[00:02:22] And there's a lot of complexity, both in the front office, the back office,

[00:02:27] and even in parts of the organization that may seem less obvious like engineering.

[00:02:32] And we're also the largest digital agency in the world. So we do lots of work with clients

[00:02:36] helping to make their product more customer friendly, in certain cases acting as an

[00:02:41] actual advertising agency of record for them. And then been fortunate enough as well to

[00:02:46] work with our clients on big strategic bets to de risk their next growth wave. And that spans

[00:02:53] new products, new markets. And sometimes it's forecasting where do we think tech is going to

[00:02:58] go and how should we place our bets? So it's a really fun part of our Accenture world,

[00:03:02] but also the economy at large. And knowing where to place those bets

[00:03:07] is incredibly daunting and overwhelming for a lot of people. It is an exciting time

[00:03:12] right now, especially with the way technology is helping speed up hyper growth for businesses.

[00:03:17] I think you would agree with this, but it feels that I mean, in this space,

[00:03:22] the pace of change over the past 20 years has been quite rapid. But over the past

[00:03:28] three years or so, it's been it's really accelerated. And I think that's actually

[00:03:32] represented in some of the folks you talk to on a daily basis. And we sort of see it

[00:03:37] in the industry and hear from our clients. 100% I mean, first of all, there was the

[00:03:41] COVID thing and almost overnight, everyone having to work from home at scale globally.

[00:03:47] Things move pretty quickly there. But you kind of thought, well, OK, we're moving fast now.

[00:03:51] We didn't see this coming. And then AI just kind of blindsided everyone over the last 18 months too.

[00:03:59] Yeah, it did, which is somewhat fascinating because for those that have been immersed in

[00:04:04] this space, AI is not new. I mean, we've seen players large and small. And this is something

[00:04:12] that the CEO of Google, Amazon, Microsoft has all said publicly recently. I mean,

[00:04:17] this has been something that's been going on behind the scenes for them for a decade.

[00:04:23] Many are further ahead than I think most think. And then there's also a bit of a line

[00:04:28] blurring that's happening between what's generative AI and what's AI. And obviously,

[00:04:33] generative AI depends on really good AI, which has a lot of other dependencies that

[00:04:38] are hard to stand up that are now getting solved really quickly.

[00:04:42] Yeah. And I think it's that adoption thing, that mainstream adoption. It just needs something

[00:04:46] to secure that. We look at other technologies, maybe blockchain and some of the Web3 stuff that

[00:04:53] equally has so many great promises and has been around for 10 years,

[00:04:56] but it's still waiting for that huge adoption piece, aren't we?

[00:04:59] Yeah, no, that's right. But I think with generative AI, it feels like we're entering

[00:05:05] the middle miles, if you will. And I don't run marathons. Do you run marathons?

[00:05:10] I've done a half, but that was a long time ago.

[00:05:13] Well, you can still apply this analogy and a half. I mean, the beginning of the race,

[00:05:17] I do 5 and 10k is not real marathons. But at the beginning of the race, there's all this

[00:05:21] excitement. You're out of the gate and your pace is, unless you're really, really diligent,

[00:05:27] is probably a little faster than what you might like. And then you get to the middle miles where

[00:05:31] you really have to slog it out. And I think that's where we currently are with generative AI.

[00:05:37] The excitement is obviously bubbling in the background, but now it's time to get moving

[00:05:42] to make this real. And some of the realities of what it takes to have great generative AI,

[00:05:48] i.e. clean data or data that's not fragmented and disparate across organization,

[00:05:54] that's hard stuff that takes time. And a lot of clients we work with are very much now focusing

[00:06:00] on how do we go make this real, both to drive efficiency in our organization, but also to create

[00:06:04] better customer experiences? Yeah, I completely agree with that.

[00:06:09] I went to a lot of tech conferences all around the world last year and I saw a lot of vendors

[00:06:13] promising the world with AI, with gen AI, while business leaders were looking increasingly

[00:06:17] nervous about, hey, well, this is my personal or company data that's being used to train

[00:06:22] these machine learning algorithms. We've kind of overcome that now to a large extent and we're

[00:06:27] all looking at making it real. But I'm curious, from everything that you're seeing, what are the

[00:06:31] most, let's say, common internal blockers that software and platform companies are facing as

[00:06:36] they strive for this hypergrowth there? Yeah, so on gen AI, and I think it's worth

[00:06:42] just spending a tiny bit more time on this, because we're in these middle miles,

[00:06:49] we think that there's an opportunity to freeze, right? There's an opportunity to say,

[00:06:56] we don't know which foundation model we want to work with. Our data is a mess, but we need to,

[00:07:01] we're going to focus and invest on cleaning it up. But we're not going to go all in on

[00:07:05] baking this into customer facing product, right? Because we can't trust the output. We see that

[00:07:10] at one end of the spectrum. And then obviously at the other end of the spectrum, if you look

[00:07:13] at what an Adobe or a Salesforce or Microsoft is doing, it's really putting gen AI front and

[00:07:19] center in the product with clients. Our view though for most players is that in this phase,

[00:07:27] you really need to be placing bets that allow optionality, right? You need to not be going

[00:07:32] in necessarily with one single model, but ensuring that you are building for an eventual

[00:07:41] future that obviously is going to be very heavily dependent on gen AI. But we also

[00:07:47] don't know exactly how this is all going to play out, right? The leaders in gen AI are not

[00:07:51] fully determined yet. And I think having optionality will be a benefit for most.

[00:07:57] Yeah. And I know last year many businesses hit that knee-jerk reaction and just banned

[00:08:02] everyone from using it. And we've all seen what happened with BYOD and Shadow IT to

[00:08:08] know you can't stop that kind of progress. And I know you're very passionate about using

[00:08:13] generative AI as a pillar for growth. So for anybody listening, how can companies

[00:08:18] effectively integrate this technology to scale new growth opportunities? Because there are a

[00:08:23] lot of opportunities there, aren't there right now? Yeah, it's interesting. The use cases that

[00:08:30] we're seeing get the most traction today candidly are the internal use cases, right?

[00:08:37] They're using gen AI to ensure that one customer support agent or one salesperson

[00:08:44] can be a bit of a superstar and be in the top 1% of their cohort. And that we think is obviously

[00:08:51] a big opportunity because it does allow you to scale faster. Sometimes it actually has

[00:08:55] implications on the size of the team that you actually need. But that's something that

[00:09:00] we're seeing happening now. And we think that's going to become real much more quickly.

[00:09:05] I do think though, that as we look at clients of ours in the ad side of the business,

[00:09:11] there's some really interesting ways that gen AI can enable ad driven platforms to reach

[00:09:19] their small and medium business customers in a way that they never have before right to

[00:09:25] actually help them create physically create their own ads without the scale of an agency,

[00:09:31] for instance, or score an ad to give them a view of how likely this is to be successful.

[00:09:37] That adds real revenue implications if you get that right, you know? So we're excited about

[00:09:42] those use cases and it we should spend a bit of time talking about the barriers,

[00:09:46] the organizational barriers that, you know, frankly could prevent all of this from happening

[00:09:51] if not handled correctly. But I think that we're now sort of a line that there's real

[00:09:55] money to be made here. It's just not necessarily something that will materialize until

[00:10:00] the technology is put in the hands of customers and managers.

[00:10:05] Yeah, that's a great point about talking about the people aspect, the culture aspect,

[00:10:09] because I think we've both seen many times before you can put all the latest, greatest,

[00:10:13] shiny new technology solutions in place. Well, that culture needs to be in place too, doesn't

[00:10:18] it? Something often gets neglected. It is and it's evolved a lot over the past 18 months,

[00:10:23] right? I mean, if we look at what's happened in tech since March of 2020, we had an

[00:10:30] extraordinary run up in market cap, which enabled really hiring like we've never seen before in

[00:10:36] the space. And then over the past 12 months or so we've seen, I would say, a sort of a

[00:10:42] reset, right? That actually did not take most players in this space to numbers of employees

[00:10:48] that are smaller than before COVID but something that's more in line with a normal growth rate

[00:10:52] during that period. So I think there's a bigger implication here that we're starting to hear

[00:10:59] CEOs in this space talk about, which is all driven by markets rewarding operating income

[00:11:04] more than growth alone, right? I mean, that is sort of the underpinning of what's going on

[00:11:10] here. And in many cases, as players that run 85% gross margin business like ad-driven

[00:11:16] platforms are investing in new areas, those new areas are not the same gross margin profile.

[00:11:23] So it sort of has an implication that we need to have leaner organizations in this space.

[00:11:28] And I would argue, we would argue that the success of most is getting back to rewarding

[00:11:37] what really was rewarded about being highly innovative over the past decade.

[00:11:41] It's less about how gourmet your lunch is at work and more about solving big problems that

[00:11:50] impact the world, building great product and creating real value. That was the main

[00:11:55] driver of engagement for employees in tech since let's look at the 2007-2008 boom, right?

[00:12:01] It wasn't necessarily the cushy perks. And I think that cultural reset will go a long ways to

[00:12:09] retain great employees. But the competition for great employees is going to be fierce.

[00:12:13] And we see this now with AI engineers, right? I mean, it's a scarce resource and lots of

[00:12:18] competition. And there's a quote I use on this podcast, I must be nearly 10 years old now from

[00:12:24] a former IBM chief. And she said that the less best experience that anyone has anywhere,

[00:12:29] that becomes the minimum expectation for the experience that we want everywhere. It's never

[00:12:34] been more appropriate and creating outstanding user experiences is indeed crucial in the tech

[00:12:39] industry too. So what are some of the innovative strategies that companies could maybe employ to

[00:12:45] can consistently deliver these winning experiences that we increasingly expect as standard?

[00:12:50] Yeah, so we see there's a few traits of highly successful companies that are known for

[00:12:56] great user experience. And I think the fundamental one gets back to something that's

[00:13:01] frankly transformed the global economy, which is systems thinking. So it's stepping back and

[00:13:07] rather thinking about user experience from a simple product perspective, thinking about

[00:13:13] end to end, how do we make something 10x better, 10x cheaper or 10x faster and really

[00:13:20] refusing to settle for incremental gain? If you think just think about how that was applied at,

[00:13:26] let's say, an Amazon, for instance, solving delivery of a good to your house in a matter

[00:13:33] of hours, right? It changed the way we buy things. But in order to create that experience,

[00:13:37] it actually required a reinvention of the entire process from finding what you're looking for

[00:13:44] to delivering that package at the last mile. And that type of systems thinking we think

[00:13:50] can be and is very applicable in purely digital product well, but it requires a few things,

[00:13:55] it requires really good upfront planning. And frankly, using data to actually qualify an

[00:14:02] investment rather than saying we believe we know what customers want. So we're just going

[00:14:06] to go and do that. And a willingness as companies in this space get larger, a willingness

[00:14:10] to break down silos and organizational barriers that directly prevent great experiences. If one

[00:14:17] side of the organization is trying to sell a customer one thing and the other side is trying

[00:14:22] to sell a customer another thing, it's kind of impossible to actually have a unified

[00:14:27] value proposition unless you're working together. And we're seeing that start to

[00:14:32] take shape. But I think the key is don't settle for incremental. That is not what defines the

[00:14:38] best experiences for customers. And on the flip side of user and customer experience is

[00:14:45] employee experience, which is equally as important to a growth roadmap too. So how

[00:14:50] should companies in the software and platform sector approach improving employer engagement

[00:14:56] and satisfaction is something that businesses have been trying to solve for as long as I

[00:15:00] can remember. But what are you seeing here? Well, mentioned this earlier, I think this gets

[00:15:06] back candidly to having employee satisfaction tied to doing big things that have a big impact

[00:15:13] on the world and less on individual benefits. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what's

[00:15:19] built Silicon Valley in the tech space broadly. And I think we're going to see a pivot back to

[00:15:24] that. So for us, it's less about the comp package while that's important, but really

[00:15:30] ensuring employees have the wherewithal and the opportunity to feel like they did the

[00:15:35] right thing and built something that impacted the world. And you're probably unable to

[00:15:41] name any particular brands or businesses here, but are there any examples that spring to mind

[00:15:46] of how organizations have unlocked value from within, especially those struggling with tech and

[00:15:52] organisational debt, etc. Is there anything that you've seen now or anything you would

[00:15:56] advise around that? Yeah, so there absolutely is. And as we look, I mean, as you go through

[00:16:04] hypergrowth, it is incredibly messy, right? That's the reality of it. We see companies

[00:16:12] that I will not name that have thousands of internal tools that they've built, or very

[00:16:17] high paid developers doing testing work and or Harvard trained data analysts doing dash boarding.

[00:16:25] And I think that it starts by identifying what is at your core, right? And being willing to

[00:16:32] let what is not core for you and what defines you in the market either be done by someone else

[00:16:39] or be done by a different workforce in a different way that allows your top talent to focus

[00:16:45] on what customers are buying and paying for. It gets back to our customer experience point,

[00:16:51] right? And there's been a number of ways to unlock this. I mean, famously at Amazon,

[00:16:56] right? This you read all about this and in Jeff Bay business is biography, but the two pizza

[00:17:02] team was desired to get around this, right? It was designed basically to ensure that no one

[00:17:06] team could get so bogged down by complexity that they could actually move quickly.

[00:17:12] Years ago at Metta, they saw this by creating very targeted growth teams because they found

[00:17:18] that once you had seven friends on Facebook, you would you were highly likely to remain engaged

[00:17:25] on the platform and see your number of friends grow. And this is something we've been

[00:17:29] recommending to clients, right? If you're building a new business or you're trying to

[00:17:33] expand a part of your business to a new market, enabling a team to be maniacally focused on the

[00:17:39] metrics that matter and drive that can really help unlock those barriers. There's other

[00:17:45] players though. And in fact, I would say many large players in the tech space that have

[00:17:50] incredibly fortified silos that have been built up and within those silos, there's obviously

[00:17:55] an amazing product being built, but it creates barriers when you're trying to solve quickly

[00:18:02] and turn a very large ship. And one of the things we're seeing to do that besides just

[00:18:07] totally reordering the business, which is obviously creates lots of drama and sort

[00:18:11] of freezes things, is to focus OKRs on things that drive collaboration. I'll give you one

[00:18:18] example. At many clients that we work with in this space, there's a pretty big divide

[00:18:23] between product teams and support. So when a consumer has a bad experience and they're

[00:18:28] talking to support about it, support has some levers, right? But they can't actually solve

[00:18:33] the problem that's creating the support volume and bringing together a set of OKRs that allows

[00:18:39] product and support to be metriced on the same thing, which generally is going to be tied

[00:18:43] to customer satisfaction, can help solve that. So there's large things that are a little bit

[00:18:48] disruptive, but there's also tactical things that we think can be done now and have real

[00:18:53] impact. Considering the rapid pace of innovation in the software and platforms industry,

[00:18:59] how can companies maintain agility whilst also managing the complexity of their own processes

[00:19:05] and operations? Because it is often quite a tricky balance to achieve. So what are you seeing

[00:19:11] here? Yeah, we have this is a tough topic. And I think we're seeing this with generative

[00:19:18] AI, right? I mean, there is a generative AI has the potential to sort of rewrite the leaders

[00:19:26] of tech for sure. And it also has the opportunity to disrupt very profitable core

[00:19:32] businesses that could theoretically change in such a way that new entrants are now going to

[00:19:39] be in the lead. I think search is a topic that comes to mind very quickly on this.

[00:19:44] So for us, we're seeing the most successful players in the market,

[00:19:50] really focusing on ensuring that their organizations are really wholly focused around

[00:19:57] a galvanizing topic area. And that the employee base knows exactly where the business is going.

[00:20:04] This is leadership's responsibility. But also they're using this as an opportunity to address

[00:20:10] some of those organizational barriers that I mentioned earlier that are really the sort

[00:20:15] of the blockers here, right? And a willingness finally to address the walls between silos,

[00:20:21] and really creating those OKRs or metrics that allow shared success and focus on this.

[00:20:27] But it's hard because in some cultures do not reward success, whereas others very much do.

[00:20:35] So we think that organizations that reward failure are probably going to do better here,

[00:20:42] right? There will be successes and losses along this journey. And you need to really

[00:20:47] reward your employees for taking risks and taking bets. And that's not something that's

[00:20:51] core culture at every single company in the space. And you mentioned leadership there.

[00:20:57] And although our news feeds are all about technology at the moment, how it's changing

[00:21:01] the world, it does feel like every business needs a guide of some sort to help them navigate

[00:21:06] through these uncharted digital waters. What role do you think leadership plays in overcoming

[00:21:11] internal blockers? And as you said with that ship analogy, they're steering companies

[00:21:15] towards sustainable growth. It needs that leadership, right?

[00:21:19] Yeah, it's a requirement without a doubt. And I think we've seen a gradient of this

[00:21:24] over the past couple of years, right? We've seen players that have effectively outsourced

[00:21:30] their innovation arm. We've seen others that have done it entirely internally and have gotten sort

[00:21:35] of bogged down in some of the organizational pairs that we talked about earlier. But we believe

[00:21:42] that leadership really setting the vision and the DNA of the organization, and not just

[00:21:48] encouraging but requiring companies to move at pace towards some of these very disruptive goals

[00:21:55] is incredibly important. And I know that sounds far easier to do than it actually is.

[00:22:01] But if you look at the DNA of some of the major players in this space,

[00:22:05] customer obsession is one thing that continually comes up. And that's one of Amazon's,

[00:22:10] for instance, core principles. And I think that there's something in that, right? Because

[00:22:17] that's a perpetual piece of their DNA that allows them to very quickly greenlight or kill

[00:22:23] new initiatives that enable or drive towards the common goal of the organization. And we believe

[00:22:30] that the companies that keep that DNA, that got them to where they are today,

[00:22:35] probably going to be the most successful.

[00:22:38] 100%. And one of the things that I've learned over the last 18 months is it's become almost

[00:22:43] impossible to predict the future now. You'd probably disagree because you're right in the

[00:22:46] heart of that space and successfully able to do some of that stuff. But if we do look

[00:22:50] towards the future, are there any emerging trends or technologies that you think will

[00:22:55] significantly impact the S&P industry in the next few years? Anything that makes you want to jump

[00:23:00] out of bed or you're just monitoring from afar? We believe it's not impossible to predict the

[00:23:06] future. It's just impossible to predict the future with 100% certainty, right? With data,

[00:23:11] you can be at a pretty high confidence interval of how things will shake out.

[00:23:16] For us and for me personally, I think obviously we talked a lot about Gen.E.I.

[00:23:20] But I think where Gen.E.I. is going to be really interesting is in some of the use cases that

[00:23:26] benefit sort of the human good, right? As we start applying Gen.E.I. to health, for instance,

[00:23:31] being able to get second opinions immediately, we think is a use case that's going to cause a

[00:23:37] lot of public good. Outside of Gen.E.I., though, I think spatial computing is one we

[00:23:42] need to watch. I mean, with the Apple Vision Pro, I think we're starting to see immersive

[00:23:47] computing as something that's now very much real, maybe not at the current price point,

[00:23:53] but something that could actually change how we work and also how we consume content at home.

[00:23:59] So I'm excited about that. And I think that's probably at a tipping point.

[00:24:03] And then the other area for me personally is space. We have between SpaceX, Amazon,

[00:24:10] and others. There's now a lot of heavy equipment up in the sky that is going to enable connectivity

[00:24:18] to reach really the final billion Internet users. You think about places like Africa that

[00:24:24] really don't even have high fidelity connectivity yet. And I think that's going to

[00:24:28] unlock some really interesting behavior. It's going to unlock obviously a whole new set of

[00:24:32] potential users, but it's also going to unlock a set of new innovators, right? Who have new

[00:24:38] ideas and have a new perspective on how to solve problems. It's really only enabled if they have

[00:24:43] great access to the Internet. So I'm excited to see how that plays out in the next couple of years.

[00:24:49] Well, thank you so much for coming on here, sharing your time and sharing your insights with

[00:24:53] everyone listening. But before I let you go, we have a bit of a tradition on this podcast.

[00:24:57] I always ask my guests to leave everyone listening with a book that they'd recommend

[00:25:01] for our Amazon wishlist or a song that means something to them. Guilty pleasures are

[00:25:06] allowed that we can add to our Spotify playlist. But all I'm going to ask is what would you like

[00:25:09] to leave everyone with and why? I'm going to leave you with a book that I bet no one

[00:25:14] has recommended yet. And it's a book called Dangerous Flights by Kerry McCauley. And I have

[00:25:20] a bit of a bit of a bias for this book because I'm a pilot on the side for fun.

[00:25:26] And this book is about this guy in this cohort of people that ferry planes across oceans.

[00:25:32] And oftentimes we're talking about planes with one engine. And the book has some really interesting

[00:25:39] takeaways for me about how to behave in very disruptive environments. It's about the reality

[00:25:47] that no matter how much planning you do, there are going to be things that come up that you

[00:25:52] cannot foresee. So really putting in the time to plan and have optionality keeps you alive,

[00:25:59] frankly. And I think that it has a lot to do with foresight and the willingness to

[00:26:04] think about every possible outcome but be willing to accept the fact that something's

[00:26:09] going to happen that you probably did not forecast. I would highly recommend it. It's a great read.

[00:26:13] Oh, man, I'm going to be checking that out. I'll get that added straight to our wishlist.

[00:26:17] And obviously, Accenture is a huge website. You've got a lot of work on there, a lot

[00:26:21] of reports, a lot of cool things. Where would you point everyone listening that just wants to

[00:26:26] find out more information and explore some of the things we talked about today?

[00:26:29] Yeah. So Accenture.com is our website. We showcase all of our perspectives on the market there.

[00:26:35] And if you go to Accenture.com and you click on software and platforms,

[00:26:38] you can learn more about specifically what we're doing in the tech industry. We really

[00:26:43] prioritize building proprietary data that sort of represents this unique purview we have

[00:26:48] on the market. And I think your listeners would find that to be quite interesting.

[00:26:51] Well, again, thanks for coming on. Discussing the internal blockers often hinder

[00:26:56] performance in the future and also for providing that roadmap of

[00:26:59] the four pillars to prioritize software platform companies so they can embrace

[00:27:04] and scale new growth with generative AI, creating and delivering winner user experiences,

[00:27:10] focusing on employee experience engagement. So much value there about unlocking value from

[00:27:16] within the organization too. I think this is stuff we could talk about for hours, but

[00:27:20] just thank you for coming on here and sharing your insights today.

[00:27:23] Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.

[00:27:25] And that concludes our conversation with Kevin today, global lead for

[00:27:31] software and platforms at Accenture. And we've been able to gain so many invaluable

[00:27:35] insights into the internal blockers that can hinder performance and growth in the

[00:27:40] software and platforms industry, along with that strategic roadmap for overcoming some of

[00:27:45] these obstacles and embracing future opportunities. And as Kevin emphasized,

[00:27:51] the pace of change and innovation in the tech industry demands a more proactive approach,

[00:27:57] one where organizations prioritize strategic bets with AI and focus on delivering exceptional user

[00:28:04] experiences ultimately by fostering a culture of employee engagement and collaboration.

[00:28:12] So let me know your thoughts on anything we discussed today by emailing me techblogwriter

[00:28:17] at outlook.com, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, just add me or see Hughes. But remember in the

[00:28:22] world of technology, the possibilities are limitless and the journey is just beginning.

[00:28:28] So let me know your thoughts on the future of software and platforms and everything in between.

[00:28:33] Let's keep this conversation going.

[00:28:35] But that's it for today, so thank you for listening as always, and until next time, don't be a stranger.