Julie Bilodeau:
Welcome to BDO Digital Digest, where as curious leaders, we're here to explore how evolving technology propels our businesses forward and reshapes our work. So, I'm Julie Bilodeau, and my co-host here is?
Hamed Faghfoury:
Hamed Faghfoury.
Julie Bilodeau:
There we go.
Hamed Faghfoury:
And I'm very excited for this one. I'm very excited for this one because I think there's going to be some really good conversations we're going to have today.
Julie Bilodeau:
Oh, absolutely. And just a quick note, I'm a partner at BDO Canada and Hamed is our BDO Digital Project and Innovation team lead. And so he's here to pipe in on our conversation with Sonia Edmonds, who is our Managing Partner of Innovation at BDO Canada. Sonia, do you want to give a little bit more about yourself just for the audience?
Sonia Edmonds:
Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, thank you for having me, Sonia Edmonds, I'm the Managing Partner of Innovation and Change at BDO Canada. I'm part of our executive leadership team, and I'd say in a nutshell, our team is responsible for helping to future-proof our business, trying to transform what we need to stay ahead of the curve and stay relevant.
Julie Bilodeau:
Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us. We thought you were the perfect person to bring in today because of our topic, Embracing Digital Transformation. I'm sure, as business leaders, there's many of us that have heard of this digital transformation before, and we may have an idea of what that means, but Sonia, can you clarify a bit for us in terms of overall concept of what is this digital transformation exactly, and what's the trend these days of digital transformation?
Sonia Edmonds:
Yeah. So, right now, what feels top of mind for me, as it relates to digital transformation, is finding our path to how is AI going to transform really everything that we're doing, our business, our people, what they plan to experience, what they want to experience and work, and also, even for our clients? This is really about what we're envisioning as the future of work.
So when I think back even a few years ago, digital transformation might've meant something else, like what we used to do manually, how do we automate that through digital tools or unlock some power through digital tools? Instead of doing things manually, can we automate things? Can we integrate things to improve productivity and that sort of thing? Now, for us, what's top of mind is, is looking at AI and how generative AI is going to impact our future of work. And I know you're experiencing this bridging both sides. You certainly are looking at what we're doing with clients as well as how that's feeding into some of our own thinking as well.
Hamed Faghfoury:
Yeah, 100%. And I think the interesting thing about this type of transformation with AI in particular, is we're at such an early phase and it's accelerating so quickly, that although the possibilities are endless, we're kind of in that mode where there's still a need for an understanding of different phases of this transformation.
So Sonia, I think when I'm looking at things, and I've heard this from customers as they're going through their AI transformation journey, a need for certain level of success metrics, KPIs, something where you are measuring impact of this. How are you finding at 100-year-old company like BDO, I mean, we have a long way of being able to measure a number of different things, how are you finding ways and what can we tell folks that are listening to this about how they can look at measuring success when it comes to this kind of AI transformation? How are we doing it in-house?
Sonia Edmonds:
Yeah, it's a great question. With any digital transformation, and this is no different with ai, generative AI, everybody wants an ROI. "What's the ROI? What's the impact? Can we 10 times multiply the investment that we're making?" Everybody wants to see that business case. The thing with AI though, is that we're also, like with any new technology, there's always this hype cycle.
And I don't know about you, but I hear it as well. Sometimes it's like, "Oh, it's not as big as we hyped it up to be. It's not going to be as impactful." I think that's not the case, that things are changing and they're moving way faster, that we have to be able to do both. We need to be able to modernize the things that we would normally traditionally do as part of our digital transformation, and integrate, automate, figure out how AI can improve productivity. Those are things that we want to say, "Okay, we're going to make investments. This is the impact, how we measure it, is it saved hours? Is it better quality? Is it improved experience?" There's all these things that we're trying to measure.
But then beyond that, you also need as an organization, an ability to experiment on things that you're not sure about yet. And that is the challenge that many organizations will have because they can't yet figure out what is the ROI or the potential impact that it's going to have, and you just can't bank everything. When we're talking about innovation, you need to be able to iterate and experiment on many things in order for that 1 out of 10 that's going to be the real shining star, the thing that's going to knock it out of the park. Those are the things that can be so impactful, that it's not just transformative, but it can be disruptive to your industry.
Julie Bilodeau:
And that reminds me actually of that cultural aspect to this, where you have to be okay to fail, know that it's not the end of the world. You're learning as you fail, so you can get to that 1 out of 10. And that 1 out of 10 may be the biggest impact you've ever seen, let's say, right? And you don't know until you're there, right? And it is a risk, but it is a cultural, I think, attitude that has to be there in order to be innovative and continually be innovative and not just be stuck in old ways. Right?
Sonia Edmonds:
Yeah, yeah.
Julie Bilodeau:
That makes sense.
Sonia Edmonds:
For us, one of the things that we've done is actually, this actually came out of a Gartner study as well, that we look at things from different quadrants. And so there's things that we have to do to continue to modernize through technology, automation, integration, all these things that we need to do that are foundational to our day to day.
And then we've got another area of focus that we've got, and it's even a separation of different people focus on them that bridge together as well. And where we are looking for how we're transforming how we're doing what we're doing today. And that's a bit more harder to put a specific ROI on today, and you need to get through some of that experimentation to actually quantify the impact.
Hamed Faghfoury:
100%. Yep.
Julie Bilodeau:
Yeah. So Sonia, is there any advice that you have for an organization that is looking for, in this case, specific to an AI digital transformation? Is it just a, "Let's experiment and play"? Is it more a targeted approach like, "Well, let's focus on one area of our business to see where this can be adopted," or whatnot? What advice would you give to an organization these days?
Sonia Edmonds:
We even as an organization, are going through this, too. And to me, part of this actually starts with knowledge and leadership. And what I mean by that is that, look, everybody's talking about AI and how generative AI may be, or, "I can't be bothered. We don't have enough technologists to deal with that." AI, and especially generative AI, starts to bring forward the rise of the non-technologist, where there's actually a pull from the workforce that is demanding.
And if you look at university students, how many of them are already engaging with generative AI tools without being formally educated or suggesting that you should. This stuff, it's like we never said that you should have phones in your pockets to make you smarter, but isn't it making us smarter? Can't we do more, know more with it? We didn't work it into our school system. It just happened.
So evolution's going to continue to happen. We shouldn't be discouraging the user embracing of these tools, where just because we haven't figured out all the things that you might want to consider. I remember a couple of years ago, hearing lots of companies just shutting out, like, "We're shutting the doors on ChatGPT, they'll be no any of this."
And that wasn't the direction that we took. We wanted to allow our people to explore in a safe way, and we put guardrails and guidelines in place so that we can do it in a safe and responsible way, but part of that was to have people stay curious and engage. So for us, part of that too was specifically focusing even at our leadership level. If our entire leadership has even just the knowledge of AI that I have, and I'm not a technologist, like a pure technologist, but I'm super curious, so I will always be experimenting and playing myself.
But if we have our leadership knowing how impactful this can be to our business, the future of work for our people, our business, our clients as well, our strategy, the way that we think about how we need to embrace it and how it can be so impactful for everybody, it's going to have a huge impact. And so that's what we're actually starting to see. So some of my advice would be making sure that you're fostering this culture where you want to allow curiosity and experimentation in a safe way, but at the same time, to me, it starts with the mindset of your leadership as well.
Julie Bilodeau:
Yeah, absolutely. I agree. I could see how it needs to come from the top, because those like even myself that are experimenting, you need that support knowing that, "You're okay, you have the green light to go do so," and discover what the gen AI tools, for instance, can do for you. And I got to say, experimenting myself has really led to surprises, and how far I can push the boundaries of gen AI and learning what the limitations are of it, too. So yeah, without that support from the organization, from leadership, and certainly would be a different feel, and I wouldn't feel as free really in order to push it as far as I have, so cool.
Sonia Edmonds:
Yeah, I agree. I think that one of the blockers that I see sometimes, even across many organizations, is this fear of even trying. That, "I don't understand it, so therefore we're just going to keep doing it this way." And the thing is, is that technology is advancing things so much faster than it was even 5, 10 years ago. If you're not thinking about it, somebody else is, and you are [inaudible 00:12:02] get disrupted, right?
Julie Bilodeau:
Yeah, exactly. And if you're not familiar with it, it's going to be even harder to adopt it later when it's a bigger beast than what it might be today.
Sonia Edmonds:
You won't have time to catch up. That will be [inaudible 00:12:14]. Yeah.
Julie Bilodeau:
Exactly. It's quite the risk.
Hamed Faghfoury:
In the spirit of that constant change and some of the innovation in action. Sonia, we have a co-host here and it's not really on screen, so you may say, "Well, where is this co-host?" Well, this co-host is AI, this is Jenny. And Jenny, we prompt a little bit ahead of time. Jenny is part of our podcast and contributes in the form of a question. And if it's okay, Julie, I'll jump in and read-
Julie Bilodeau:
Go for it.
Hamed Faghfoury:
... a question from Jenny that Jenny sent my way, that Jenny was dying to ask you. So Sonia, here's a question from Jenny. "BDO Canada with its century-long history has seen numerous changes over the years. As the leader of the Innovation and Change team, how do you approach the challenge of embracing digital transformation in a way that honors the firm's rich legacy, while driving it forward into the future? What role does innovation, and in this case, AI innovation, play in balancing tradition with modernity?" This is from Jenny.
Julie Bilodeau:
Thank you, Jenny.
Hamed Faghfoury:
That's a great question, Jenny.
Sonia Edmonds:
Thank you. Great question, Jenny.
Hamed Faghfoury:
I think Jenny kind of nailed it. We have a 100-year-old company here. How do you bridge the best of what we do over the last 100 years with some of the best of the technology that's out there? How does that come to be in action?
Sonia Edmonds:
Yeah, so the thing is, is that along with the change and change management that's required, it took us 100 years to establish this reputation and who we are. And it is difficult to shift this entire organization to start thinking differently, and where this is the way we've done it for so long. But you kind of ground yourself with, "Who have we been known for and what are we continuing to anchor on?" So these are things the way that we show up, with practicality in terms of how we engage with our clients, the fact that we want to show up with our technical mastery, that this is the expertise that you are engaging us for, so you're expecting a level of quality that should be an expectation when we set foot in the door as well.
And then also, clients love the way that we engage with them, the fact that we're personalizing their experience, that we actually have this level of care, as opposed to just coming in as consultants and letting you know what to do. But how we deliver that, that experience is what we're kind of anchoring on, that that stays true, holding onto that tradition, and why clients value what it is that we're bringing to the table. But we can't design the future looking in the rearview mirror, right? It's not only just about looking and driving forward, it's now exploring and imagining a brand new horizon that we've never imagined before. And that's where AI is going to really be accelerating as they are. But anyways, I hope I've answered Jenny's question.
Hamed Faghfoury:
Look, Jenny is happy. I can't show the emojis, but she seems very content.
Julie Bilodeau:
She smiling at least? Yeah?
Hamed Faghfoury:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:15:25].
Sonia Edmonds:
All right.
Julie Bilodeau:
Thank you, Jenny. Well, I think that's where we're going to have to end for today. Thank you, Sonia, for joining us, and thank you for your insights into embracing digital transformation. It is going to be something I think is obviously going to touch on every single one of us, and it was great to kick it off this topic with you today.
Thank you all for those of you who are listening and for tuning into our BDO Digital Digest. Join us next time as we continue to explore the future of technology and how it impacts us day to day. Until then, stay curious, stay innovative, and bend that arc of possibility in your world. Take care.
Hamed Faghfoury:
Thanks everyone.
Sonia Edmonds:
Thanks everyone.