Cloud control

Companies are reassessing their software needs in the light of COVID-19 and rapid technological change. What tips do professionals have for successful implementation?

Technology’s advance is relentless: the Internet of Things promises to be a game changer, while digital twins – virtual replicas that professionals can use to run simulations before devices are built – could revolutionise health and safety.

The pandemic is also having an impact. As Rodolphe d’Arjuzon, managing director and global head of research at technology analysts Verdantix, says: ‘In the middle of a crisis, you have to leverage your existing tools, but there’s been a massive realisation that digital is going to be fundamental to the “new normal”.’

More broadly, the sector has undergone a late and rapid digitisation. ‘Five years ago, paper-based processes were still common, even at some quite big organisations,’ says Rodolphe. ‘The learning curve has been tremendous as technology decisions have moved back to the functions.’

The introduction of new environmental, health and safety (EHS) software should be simple, he says. ‘It’s a mature market, solutions are well built. They’re extensive, there are options. It’s not the most complicated bit of software ever released. But, actually, as an industry, we make a lot of mistakes.’

Kurt Coelho, a health and safety consultant and interim risk/health and safety director, admits he learned the hard way at Capital Radio Group.

‘Their issue was about protecting a workforce that was mainly office-based, enthusiastic and hard-working beyond the normal working week, which posed a risk of ill health related to DSE [display screen equipment].

‘I met several companies who had DSE offerings and most of them were rejected because the software would not have held the creatives’ attention. Everyone’s used to iPhones, tablets and downloading apps. There are no instructions on these devices, they work because they’re intuitive. However, it turns out the software we chose was more looks over substance. It worked, but it would fall over and glitch. The back end of the reporting side of it wasn’t as strong as it should have been.’

Get it right from the start

To avoid a disappointing result, Rodolphe identifies three key questions to begin with:  

• What are you trying to achieve? ‘People often put the horse before the cart by trying to select the product before they have a written vision or strategy for what their software investment is going to deliver. If you don’t do that, you can’t sell it across the business and you’re going to change your scope as you go along, which will increase costs.’  
• Have you assessed your processes? ‘It’s painstaking, but assessing your existing processes and systems is vital. It may be that you just need to fix a few processes. Shiny bits of tech are never the silver bullet that solves all your problems, but people are always drawn to them.’  
• Have you thought about data? ‘People overlook the need to feed data into the system to make it work. Unless you’re thinking hard about data, you’re not going to get the value that you’re hoping for.’

Sally Philip, digital transformation specialist, also has advice around decision-making and managing organisational behaviours:

‘One step that’s often overlooked is around stakeholders,’ she says. ‘It’s not only pinpointing the champion/key sponsor, it’s what’s driving their decisions, how will they make those decisions, and who else will influence them?

‘Where you’ve got the chief information officer, procurement, compliance and legal, and so on, you need to get those people in a room and say: “We need a clear understanding of the decision-making process and who is going to make the final decision.” Everyone always assumes it’s the champion or the sponsor, but that person will often defer to others.’

A related aspect is organisational behaviour. Sally says: ‘If you’re in a business not accustomed to moving at pace and you’re asking them to implement software quickly, there will be resistance.

‘You’ll need communication strategies that allow for the typical change curve. You need to prevent your team dropping into the anger/confusion stages. There’s going to be a dip while they’re storming and forming before they come back out into the norming cycle. Productivity will slow down at certain key points. This is normal.’

Rodolphe also makes the point about starting small: ‘You’re much better off working on a smaller scale and making sure it’s adopted. Getting people behind you is generally the recipe for success rather than huge overambitious scope that gets bogged down.’

Who to involve?

‘A classic mistake is to exclude corporate IT,’ says Rodolphe. ‘Sure, they’ll have lots of questions and they might slow things down but, actually, it’s for everyone’s long-term sanity. IT will be on top of security requirements and you’ll need their corporate view so that everything’s going to work together without creating gaping flaws. Also, 
they’ll have really strong project management capabilities.

Kurt agrees: ‘IT has to be involved from the beginning. They’ll also tend to favour software-as-a service and cloud-based systems, as they represent a lower impact on their resources and potentially IT security.’

He adds that he’s learned that sales teams are ‘hard-wired’ to say: ‘Yes, we can do that.’ ‘Some organisations build software on the hoof. They nail the sale and then they build. Watch out for those who show you mock-ups with nice images, but nothing working.’

His advice for securing organisational buy-in is that ‘you have to take your people on the journey’. ‘It may be a health and safety professional’s enthusiastic idea, but it will never have life breathed into it unless the end-users have been consulted in terms of what it should look like. You must have them engaged and have them in a working party. Because if you don’t have that, your product won’t work, it doesn’t matter how good it is.’

Rodolphe adds that people will often overlook what he call the ‘edge users’. ‘A wealth of data comes from mobile apps, directly from assets,’ he says. ‘For example, an organisation’s truck drivers. If you don’t get any of their feedback, how are you going to achieve buy-in with them? They’re often missing from the list of key people to get input from.

The final word goes to Sally, who points out that organisations don’t have unlimited time, nor budgets. ‘If you have peers who’ve gone through a similar process, have a chat with them. Find out their learnings and whether they like the software supplier they’ve chosen. Don’t reinvent the wheel.’