Take a trip to any of the most popular technology and business conferences, and you’ll hear the phrase ‘digitalization’ mentioned throughout the day. The idea that not just companies, but governments, universities, hospitals, and homes need to be improved using the latest technologies is trendy indeed.
Of course concepts like digital transformation can be powerful motivators for change — people like to keep up with popular themes and lead the pack — but ‘digital transformation’ has become a catch-all idea for any kind of technology project, big or small.
Not for Josh Angel. As Siemens’ Head of Digital Solutions and Services for Energy Management for the whole of the US market, his job is to transform some of the biggest, most powerful companies on the planet by modernizing the technology that’s at the root of everything they do.
Improving our lives through tech
For example, we all know the importance of data — without it our smartphones are dumb, our connected homes disconnect, and the internet doesn’t exist. Every company that uses any kind of data has to manage all that digital information in physical data centers, and with society using ever-more data, these centers need to be efficient, technologically advanced, and ready for the next wave of innovation.
Josh’s team upgrades old technology and creates new, cutting-edge solutions to allow the biggest companies in the world to advance even faster for the rest of us.
Another example concerns the buildings that house us — the offices, the universities, the hospitals, the homes. Energy is required in different amounts, at different times of the day, for different tasks. And yet, we still struggle to manage this precious resource efficiently. We have too much when we don’t need it and often restrict it flowing to other places that do need it, and this can have an adverse effect on the environment.
When Josh talks about ‘digital transformation’, he is talking about bringing technology to life. “It would be the equivalent of driving your electric vehicle without a dashboard. You drive that electric vehicle down the road, you don’t know how much battery life you have, you don’t know what your tyre pressure is like, you don’t know what’s going on, other than your FM radio,” Josh explains.
Looking after the whole of the US is no mean feat either — especially when you consider how many of the leading technology companies are situated there. “Out of the top five technology companies, we do business with four. When we work on projects with these big-name companies, they realize the relevance of it. They can’t operate their data center without our technology application, and our experts tell them what information they need to better manage their facilities.”
For Josh, the buzz around digital transformation is clear: “If someone was to ask what I love about my job, it’s that I get to impact the future. I get to drive what my kids are going to experience, drive what the next product is going to be in the marketplace — the products that we don’t know are going to exist yet.”
Josh Angel majored in marketing and business, and worked in the healthcare industry before joining Siemens in 2008. He is based in Atlanta, USA. Find out more about working at Siemens.
Photography: Fernando Decillis
Video: David Parker
