Agile Businesses: Ismail Amla Of NCR Corporation On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of Disruptive Technologies
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
…I think probably the biggest mistake is reveling in the success, because if you don’t think there’s any need to change, then you’re headed in the wrong direction. If there’s no burning platform, there is a problem. Whether your business is doing well or not, you should be ready to change and be disrupted. The second point is, once you recognize the early signs, how quickly do you react? Getting attached to strategies and not wanting to unlearn and relearn is something I’ve seen time and time again. Lastly, you must be able to communicate a burning platform for change. You must be able to mobilize the whole workforce to do things differently.
As a part of my series about the “How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of Disruptive Technologies”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ismail Amla.
Ismail serves as the Executive Vice President responsible for the strategic direction and execution of NCR’s Global Professional Services business. His team is made up of a global network of NCR technologists who deliver technology strategy consulting for the banking, retail and hospitality sectors and technology implementation services covering platform integration, data analytics, AI, cloud, security, and customer experience.
Prior to his role at NCR, Ismail served as Chief Growth Officer for Capita, headquartered out of the UK.
Ismail has also served as Managing Partner for IBM’s Global Business Services in North America, CEO for Capco North America and a senior Partner for Accenture, where he was a member of the Accenture UK leadership team.
Ismail is a non-executive board member for Network Rail and UK Sports and has co-authored a book, “From Incremental to Exponential: How Large Companies Can See the Future and Rethink Innovation.”
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your back story and how you got started?
My parents immigrated from India to the UK, and they came to work in the cotton mills in the sixties. There was no history of anyone doing higher education, so they were pure economic migrants. I happened to be pretty good at math and the pivotal moment for me in getting started was in 1986. The first computer came out as a math computer in the UK and it was actually sold by the BBC, if you can believe it. My father who knew nothing about computer programing, or anything other than cotton mills at that stage, decided to buy me a computer. That was the start of me getting into programing technology, which then resulted in all sorts of fun things throughout my career.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? And can you tell us what lessons or takeaways you learned from that?
Early into my career I would often end up at parties or events. I remember my first job with Logica. They had asked me around the first Christmas party whether I had any preference around food. I just wanted to fit in. I didn’t want to really make a big deal about the fact that there were many things I wouldn’t eat out and said, “anything vegetarian would be great.” I turned up and they’d given me chicken. It was a good early lesson about being clear in your communications and authentic and comfortable with who you are. This of course, took me a lot longer than a couple of years to get right. It was one of the stories that will stay with me, probably forever.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are today? And can you share a story?
I go back to my father, who when he came over from India, was one of the few English speakers in the immigrant community. He became the de facto community relationship officer. He’d be working the night shift at the cotton mill, and then during the day, there’d be all different languages. He acted as the liaison to the local council and communicated on everyone’s behalf so they were heard.
That was a big lesson for me. The inclusivity of his network was something that stayed with me to this day. It came full circle on a night in 2010. I was working at Accenture, and I got an opportunity to move to a small startup company called Capital which asked me to move to the US. I actually turned down the opportunity to move to the US. I remember telling my parents about it and saying, “You know, why would I move to be uncomfortable? I’ve got a great job at Accenture, et cetera, et cetera. My father was appalled that I was not taking the risks for potential, because it was something I had always wanted to do. I dreamed of working in the US. He reminded me of all my dreams and aspirations and taking risks. That was nearly 15 years ago, and it is something that has been reinforced consistently in my life.
Extensive research suggests that purpose driven businesses are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision and what was its purpose?
I’ve been at NCR since late summer 2021. They’ve been around 140 years. If you look back at the history of our founder, John Patterson and when he created the business, it becomes clear that he essentially created the business to enable commerce via cash registers. That was the core of the business at the time, and it was pivotal to enabling commerce. As NCR has grown and developed across the world with different offerings, I still think it has a purpose around enabling commerce. However, I think it’s gone beyond just that, and evolved into changing the way the world lives and works in the sectors we operate. Whether it is in retail, in hospitality or banking, I believe NCR sees itself as somebody who wants to create better outcomes for all the impacted stakeholders in those communities.
Can you tell our readers a bit about what your business does? How do you help people?
At NCR we serve our customers by making sure they get access to services in the most efficient way. We are always striving to help people have better experiences. If you think about our ATMs, which traditionally allow people to get access to cash, the way we roll out our ATMs and our ITMs, interactive teller machines, is that we don’t just provide services to get cash but provide ways to conduct financial transactions from your teller, or your kiosk. A large focus for us is helping the underbanked. If you think about how many people are excluded from being able to benefit from many modern-day financial service offerings, it’s astounding. What we do is enable anyone to not only get cash, but deposit cash. You can also do all sorts of financial services from these teller machines. A big focus for us right now is around financial services inclusion. In retail and hospitality our major focus is also on helping our customers to best serve their consumers. The data we have really steps up the sort of things we can do in ways we’d never imagined before.
Which technical innovation has encroached or disrupted your industry? Can you explain why this has been disruptive?
An area I’ve written a lot about is thinking about technology in all aspects, whether it’s sensors, whether it’s networks, whether it’s a speed of computer, whether it’s the size of computers, cost of computers; whatever it might be. The coming together of all these things, at the same time, has created the disruption. It’s not just one technology, it is the convergence of technology. Coming out of that, is this idea that data is available everywhere we never imagined. Everything is a sensor. Everything we can imagine, including ourselves, are sensors that the computing power must make sense of in all that data cloud computing, which allows us to store all of that data and have access to it everywhere, whenever we want it. We now have insights and all of that is captured by new experiences in what we’re beginning to call the metaverse. What it all means is that we now have the systems needed to make sense of the data and action it. Disruption is everywhere, and we are only beginning to see the tip of it across all sectors.
What did you do to pivot as a result of this disruption?
I look for the disruption, to be honest with you. I love to get engaged with businesses and organizations who are helping clients deal with disruption. It is something I am naturally very attracted to because I feel we are in a period of change. This fourth industrial revolution we all talk about is where there will be a huge amount of creation around how the world lives and works. I didn’t want to observe it. I wanted to be part of it. Since the beginning of my career, I have always looked for a community to get engaged in related to the creation of new services with disruptive technologies.
Was there a specific AHA moment that gave you the idea to start this new path? If yes, we’d love to hear the story.
I think it was institutionalized for me when I was at CSC Computer Sciences, and they decided to create a startup which was going to do all of the innovation work with new innovative clients. They asked me to run it. I was a very young, 33-year-old and a very new vice president going into running this business. This is just when the internet was crossing the chasm from being slow and kludgy to being something that might become really operationalized. We worked with a lot of clients creating new experiences and new web platforms. I think that was my ‘AHA’ moment because I realized how big the thinking was from some of our clients and how impactful the technology could be. It was probably the pivotal moment when I realized that new technologies and the impact they have on changing the world, was here to stay.
How are things going with this new direction?
In 2007, we saw convergence really come to life. This was the period in which the first iPhone came together. If you look at the number of technology companies that were launched then and became part of our everyday life, 2007 was a big moment that had a steady trajectory until COVID hit. In times of crisis, innovation suddenly gets accelerated. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said in five months of the pandemic, we’ve done 20 years of acceleration of innovation. In my last role at Capita, we had 20,000 people sitting in call centers at Microsoft and we had been talking about whether those call center agents could be working from home for about 20 years because the technology was there. However, nobody was quite comfortable with the idea. The clients weren’t comfortable, the people weren’t comfortable. We weren’t comfortable. Would we trust the people? Would the technology work? On March 8th, everybody was sent home. There were 20,000 people who were suddenly working on call centers from home. It quickly became the way to work, and it was created by a burning platform. Now everybody sees the potential of how things could be done differently. I think the pandemic really accelerated a golden period of change.
Can you share the most interesting story that’s happened to you since you started this pivot?
I joined startup companies and I moved from the UK to the USA. My kids became Americans. This is a life changing philosophy for me. I wrote a book on change and innovation called ‘From Incremental to Exponential: How Large Companies Can See the Future and Rethink Innovation.’ It really sums up the major pivots of my life as well as describes my life’s passion. I’m also now on the Board of UK Sport, which is an organization that looks after elite athletes and identifies how data and technology can drive innovation and performance in sports. I’m also on the board of Network Rail, which is investing billions in creating the national infrastructure for the UK. Looking into the future with technology is going to be absolutely monumental in deciding what the future transportation infrastructure looks like.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during a disruptive period?
I think getting your teams comfortable with being curious, with being resilient and having a growth mindset is vital. I think getting teams to be in a place where they are looking through change with a lens of opportunity rather than a lens of risk is so important. It’s probably in my mind, the most comfortable way to get through periods of disruption. Somebody very wise said the change we are going through right now is probably the slowest pace of change we will go through for the rest of our lives. When you change the meaning of disruptive periods, the ability to deal with change must become a critical competency. To me, curiosity, resilience, and growth mindset are key fundamentals to deal with that.
When the future seemed so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
I’ll start with the mindset. It must focus on what success looks like and how to deal with failure. I think teams must possess the ability to learn from failure and the ability to have resilience with ups and downs. Then there is the building of confidence through small wins. Uncertain times seem overwhelming but breaking that down into bite-sized chunks of what you can do and where you can get a win is important. That, of course, breeds confidence, and the ability to jump off that confidence and do things in an agile way. Agility is really important to success both today and in the future.
Is there a number one principle that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?
Unlearning old rules pertaining to agility and mindset. I think those are the things that will allow organizations that are going through this sort of change to reinvent themselves. When you see them stop doing things, or doing things differently, you’re seeing them change the metabolism of the company. I think those would be the big ones for me.
Can you share three or four of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make when faced with a disruptive technology? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
I think probably the biggest mistake is reveling in the success, because if you don’t think there’s any need to change, then you’re headed in the wrong direction. If there’s no burning platform, there is a problem. Whether your business is doing well or not, you should be ready to change and be disrupted. The second point is, once you recognize the early signs, how quickly do you react? Getting attached to strategies and not wanting to unlearn and relearn is something I’ve seen time and time again. Lastly, you must be able to communicate a burning platform for change. You must be able to mobilize the whole workforce to do things differently.
Here’s the primary question of our discussion based on your experience and success. What are the five most important things business leaders should do to pivot and stay relevant in the face of disruptive technologies? Please share a story or an example for each.
I would start with the burning platform, which is the most important thing to winning the hearts and minds of organizations. To go back to the purpose-driven question I talked about earlier, it’s all about being able to tell your community, your employees, your ecosystem, your clients about why you need to change. I think we’ve had lots of organizations doing this well, but lots of organizations also doing it badly. One brilliant success story is Satya Nadella. He took on Microsoft in 2014 and now it’s the most valuable company in the world. But, if you looked at them when he took the job, he spent a lot of time communicating to engineers about why they had to unlearn and let go of a lot of what they were famous for. He also focused on explaining why the company’s empathy was going to be so important and why emotional intelligence was going to be so important in driving everything forward.
The second important thing a business leader can do is to create a learning culture, a culture where you get comfortable with unlearning and relearning and doing things differently. The third thing is look at the company’s pace and metabolism of how long it takes to invent. That speaks again to how agile you are and how quickly you’re going to work when you’re presented with issues. The final thing is leadership styles today must be different and responsive to the needs of employees, customers, and the market. I think hierarchical and control command and control focus leadership styles are out of date. I think there are great examples all over the place. If you look at Marc Benioff at Salesforce, and what he’s doing with his people and his clients in service to the community is a wonderful example. I think today we need a more servant leadership style rather than command control.
Can you please give us your favorite life lesson quote and can you share how that was relevant to you and your life?
The quote is, “Diversity is a fact, and inclusion is an act.” Later in my career, I became aware of the responsibility I have to encourage diversity. It is very easy to get depressed once you start looking around at gender, or ethnicity, or other sorts of representation. If you look at my corporate world, what really makes this come to life for me is it takes several acts of inclusivity to truly step toward more diversity. Instead of getting depressed and really down about how much work needs to be done, I think you can get quite encouraged. Quiet, powerful acts of inclusivity quickly puts an organization on the road to getting proper diversity representation. Everyone can easily be a part of this change if they want to.
How can our readers further follow your work?
We are going to have an NCR Institute, which is going to be launched in the first quarter of next year. I think a lot of the thought leadership will be sitting on NCR.com. I can also be reached on Twitter at @ismailamla and on LinkedIn at: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ismail-amla-b981891
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
