Real Business Innovation Starts with Collaborative Imagination
By Matt Jackson, VP & National General Manager, Digital Innovation at Insight

In my role guiding Digital Innovation at Insight, I have the opportunity to cross paths with many dynamic, forward-thinking individuals who understand the best way to differentiate yourself is through the experiences you deliver. Dave Coplin, chief envisioning officer at The Envisioners Ltd. and formerly chief envisioning officer at Microsoft UK, is no stranger to thinking creatively through technology. You can follow him @dcoplin. We connected recently to discuss the current state of business, focusing on the most exciting technologies and how they’re shaping IT and organizations at large.
In the first part of our conversation, Dave and I discussed what technologies are most impacting business. What follows is part two of our conversation on artificial intelligence (AI), security, innovation, and the challenges and opportunities businesses and IT are trying to navigate as a result. The questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length.
Matt Jackson:
I believe there are many misconceptions about innovation that are important to debunk in order to enable and encourage companies to move forward.
There is a tendency to look at new technology enablers as gimmicky. Innovation in some organizations gets a bad name — like pet projects that people do on the side but don’t relate back to the business. When you’re driving innovation in an organization, you have to be willing to take risks; you also have to fail fast and learn from those failures.
Some of the most successful organizations tier out their innovation programs: What could disrupt our industry in 10 years, in five years, in two years? Things that are near-term are a little bit more practical and have a closer return to the business. The ones that are further out are more experimental, and thus a business may take longer to realize their benefits.
Organizations that set up standalone innovation groups that do not return anything to the business are destined to fail. Experiment, take risks and try new things — but understand there needs to be methodology around innovation.
Can you talk about some of the misconceptions about innovation that you think are important to debunk in order to continue enabling and encouraging companies to move forward?
Dave Coplin:
Absolutely. You see it happen a lot in organizations when the leadership team will pick the three trendy people they consider to be innovative, have them go sit in a corner — innovate — and then report back. They may well innovate, but it’s in isolation and they’re not taking the rest of the business with them.
In terms of misconceptions and debunking myths, the premise that technology is for the young people really boils my blood. Yes, younger people have had greater exposure to technology growing up, but I look around and see every generation, every age, and every background fully immersed in what technology can do for them. Rather than getting a bunch of younger employees together to figure out what their ideas might be, it is better to get a cross-section of the organization — possibly some people who are even less engaged in technology than others — and get a really balanced view.
Bias is one of AI’s biggest challenges. AI research indicates the power of a diverse production team is the best inoculation we have for bias today. I think the same is true in innovation. If you have a diverse sample of the organization coming together to find new ideas, those ideas will have a greater chance of delivering sustained opportunity to the organization.
Matt Jackson:
That’s a great point. Innovation doesn’t just come from one group. Everybody in the organization can innovate, and having that diversity of opinion can help validate those innovations and lead to better outcomes and better experience for the end user.
Dave Coplin:
There’s an onus on the leadership of those organizations about empowerment. If we want everybody to be innovative, they’ve got to be made to feel like that’s OK. In many organizations, that’s a challenge, especially I’ve found in smaller businesses, which tend to exert more command and control than they do empowerment. That becomes an impediment to getting employees engaged because they’re always seeking permission.
Matt Jackson:
I also think it depends on the age of the business. Startups tend to have a lot of innovation occurring right out of the gate, very informally. Then there is this middle period where companies mature, have had success in the market with their initial product, and they don’t want to rock the boat. If they don’t come up with an innovation program, they will likely remain where they are and be averse to any type of disruption.
I think companies can come out of that stronger if they put in processes and cultivate a culture to drive innovation. As they scale and grow, they will start to have the resources to support true innovation programs.
Dave Coplin:
There are other classic misconceptions for me, like the thought that technology will solve all problems. I see it a lot actually. In one of my last meetings before I left Microsoft, a big client wanted to have a conversation about what they could do with AI. But that’s the wrong way to think about it. The question should be, what are the business problems you’re trying to solve?
It’s this concept that if we get the technology right, it’ll do everything. But that is the least important challenge facing any organization. The most important thing is figuring out what are the problems we’re trying to solve or the questions that we need to ask. Leading with technology is something that I’d like us to do a lot less. Instead, get the humans front and center and figure out what they need most.
Matt Jackson:
Right. Start with that experience. Start with what you’re trying to create and how you’re trying to transform the human experience. Then the technology follows.
What would you consider to be the most game-changing workplace technologies of the past decade?
Dave Coplin:
For me, it’s about flexible working — anything we can do to make work no longer be a destination: it’s not somewhere I go, it’s actually something I do. As an individual, I should be able to choose the most appropriate location for the work I’m about to do every single day.
There are a range of technologies that have made that part of many people’s working experience. Smartphone technology, the internet, and even VOIP (voice over internet protocol) have released the chains of the workforce.
Matt Jackson:
Complementary to the connected workforce you’re talking about, the explosion of Software as a Service-based products for the workplace has changed the way people do their jobs and the way companies manage their business. When I log on at the beginning of the day — whether I’m checking my email via Office 365, using SharePoint, Teams or other platforms — my interactions with my peers are not on software that my company hosts. It’s on software hosted by a major cloud provider.
Similarly, the way we manage our sales process is no longer on premises, we’re not hosting these applications. For the vast majority of teams at a typical Fortune 500 company, much of the productivity tools they use — and to some extent, all of the tools they use — are hosted by external cloud providers. That’s a big burden off of IT, which allows IT to really focus on business transformation instead of keeping the lights on.
Consolidating those capabilities to these massive providers like Salesforce, Microsoft, Google and Amazon democratizes some of this new, innovative technology. In the past, companies that host a niche CRM tool likely could not invest the resources to highly tailor their tool and introduce technologies like AI to sales modeling. Companies like Salesforce can implement it at scale and make it available to thousands or millions of users instead of just company by company.
Dave Coplin:
Absolutely. It also levels the playing field. I don’t have to be a huge business anymore to have huge business IT. I think that’s made a huge difference — certainly in the economic landscape — in terms of small businesses being able to start up and innovate and do big things quite quickly.
Matt Jackson:
Before we wrap our conversation, I wanted get your take on a final thought. What would you say are the top challenges and risks companies are facing today, and how can they use technology to solve them? What solutions should they be exploring?
Dave Coplin:
I think the biggest risk is the impact of AI. I’m estimating here, but I think AI is going to offer most organizations about a 30 percent operational cost saving. Some of that will be head count — not entirely head count, but it’s a big number. Today, CEOs are facing a lot of pressure and are worried. For example, in the UK, it’s pretty brutal because we’ve got this Brexit malarkey going on. We’ve got all sorts of pressure on our economy. If I turn up and I say, listen, I’ve got 30 percent operational cost, they’re going to bank that saving. I think that’s the worst thing you can do as an organization because you effectively limit your capability to innovate and move with the market. You may survive a year or two, but you’re not going to survive much longer.
I think the biggest challenge for organizations is looking at the opportunity of technologies like AI. It’s important to see that AI takes the robot out of the human, and frees up the human resource to do stuff that only humans can do. Organizations can then use that savings to fund the retraining of those people who will be displaced by that technology — to reskill them or to look for areas where they can either progress the business or build on what AI is enabling them to do.
It’s pushing forward and extending the reach rather than simply automating what exists today. It takes a bold CEO to make that decision in a difficult marketplace, but that’s exactly what is required. We need to help organizations make this leap of faith into transformation. They can start to use new technology and push it harder, but as a result, they need to change what the humans do.
Matt Jackson:
I think there is a lot of truth to that, Dave. I’m going to take a slightly different angle. I think the biggest risk today is actually the side effect of what we just talked about with it being so easy to stand up really powerful tools. The democratization of these advanced tools means they are no longer consolidated within Fortune 500 companies. Now, smaller companies can pop up left and right and mature very quickly.
The pace of disruption in industry is ramping up because it’s easier for people to enter the market and leverage these tools and technologies. If you’re a Fortune 500 company, you can’t be secure in the knowledge that you own the industry, the capabilities and these expensive tools. Anybody can come — independent of their size — and threaten your business.
If you really want to stay ahead, you can’t be complacent. You have to be innovating in your core business and identifying new products and services that you can bring to market to stay competitive.
Matt leads Insight’s Digital Innovation team in the design of enterprise software solutions, focusing on modern enterprise applications and security architectures. His passion goes beyond achieving operational excellence and deeper into transforming organizations. Read more thoughts from Matt.
