[1. A title slide is displayed on-screen featuring the text ‘Navigating the Digital Journey: What’s Next for Manufacturers?’ and an image of a woman working at a computer in a manufacturing facility. The BDO logo is in the top left corner. Calm, happy music plays.]
PAUL DOSTALER: Hello, everyone, welcome to our webinar on Navigating the Digital Journey: What's Next for Manufacturers? My name's Paul Dostaler and I'm joined here by my colleague, Rob Rovina.
[2. Rob waves in greeting.]
PAUL DOSTALER: Perhaps we'll start by posting the agenda while I go through today's webinar format.
[3. A slide appears on-screen displaying the webinar’s agenda. Agenda items listed are:]
- The Changing Landscape: Trends Shaping the M&D Industry
- Hyper Automation with Low-Code Platforms
- Unlocking Productivity with Secure Information Management
- Instantaneous Productivity Powered by Al
- Strategically Mapping Your Digital Journey
- Navigating Forward: Opportunities and Next Actions
- Q&A
PAUL DOSTALER: So for today, we'll be having three speakers talking to us about the insights that they've gained from our work in the field. We do ask that we keep Q&A for the end, time permitting. However, we do encourage you to add your questions to the chat during the whole presentation. So, let's get started. Perhaps Rob, you can help me set a little bit of industry context before we move on to our speakers.
[4. A slide featuring headshots of the webinar’s speakers appears on-screen.]
PAUL DOSTALER: Okay, quick introduction. That's fine, let's go to the speakers. So Rob and myself, we are industry leaders here at BDO Canada for the manufacturing industry, and today we'll be hearing from Jason Cigan, who is a partner in our technology consulting practice, as well as Rosa Jamal, who is a leader in our secure productivity practice. And also, Darryl Stock, a leader in our digital advisory practice. Rob, this is where you can help. It feels to me like we've been talking about digital transformation for the past few years. How is it different today?
[5. A slide appears on the screen with the text ‘The changing landscape: Trends shaping the M&D industry.’]
ROB ROVINA: Paul, I want to first thank you for the opportunity to spend a couple minutes with the organization at BDO today across different service lines. And, really—if we could just move into maybe the next slide—we can talk about, you know, the observations from the field. So as we sit back and work with different manufacturers and processors across the country, we noticed a common set of scenarios and some current context that we can bring to the table to, kind of, start our conversation today. And the underlying common denominator is that many Canadian manufacturers have moved to cloud systems or are on their way in the journey moving to cloud systems, including modern work and productivity. What's been noted by several different types of operational firms is that despite adoption of cloud technologies, many, many companies are still struggling with integration and they're recognizing there's a lot of room for optimization. And then, let's layer on, Paul, emerging technologies, Industry 4.0 and IOT, if we can still reference them as emerging. They bring promise of new efficiencies and yet the realization is that there's still a requirement for alignment in regards to digital business practices in order for them to deliver their potential.
PAUL DOSTALER: Okay, cool. So, you know, over the years, we've been advising our customers to take the initial step by moving to the cloud. Is that still the case?
ROB ROVINA: Well, if we go to the next slide, and think about the initial steps taken, what we're recognizing is that, again, there is this shift to cloud-based digitalization and it was done essentially for the need for scalability in the minds of many operations and manufacturing firms and, frankly, a reduction in infrastructure costs. What they report back to us is that the benefits they realized was accessibility improvements, but again, many, many manual processes persist across the organization. And there's a bit of an aha moment and a bit of an awakening to Canadian manufacturers and processors, that the move from manual or semi-manual to digitalization highlighted the concept of change management challenges.
PAUL DOSTALER: Right, so I think what you're saying is that simply being in the cloud isn't the end of the journey at all, is it?
ROB ROVINA: Very good point. So we look at it more—when we're consulting with our colleagues and associations and the sector—as that there's a foundational stage that many are taking, right? And let's look at that for a minute. The foundational stage includes productivity tools like modern work, a lot of promise of improvements in collaboration and streamlining of automation, right? And frankly a better access to real-time insights. However, what they’re reporting back, having started this journey in setting this foundational stage, is that the productivity gaps persisted and that they struggle to optimize digitalization of workflows. And the bottom line is that they report back, there's still a need for optimization when they've adopted these technologies.
PAUL DOSTALER: Okay, so we've gotten the industry to a certain point, but with all of this then, where would you say that the industry is at?
ROB ROVINA: Great segue, Paul, into the rest of our hour here today. We call it the common current state. What we've noticed is despite the digitalization, again, reference these silos, these manual processes, this cross-functional collaboration is still siloed. So while modern work is on the rise, full integration of these systems is required to reach the potential. The common current state as we've observed it in our field work is application and process optimization is probably the next step in this digital journey.
PAUL DOSTALER: Really good summary, digital but not fully optimized. With that, I'd like to invite our first speaker, Jason Cigan, to come talk to us about hyper automation with low-code platforms, Jason.
JASON CIGAN: Great. Thanks a lot, Rob. Thanks, Paul. I think that's a great segue, right? And I want first start by saying, at BDO we look at technology from an advisory-centric approach and we always look at practical solutions to solve real business challenges. And, you know, we keep a close eye on what are the big trends coming in the next 12 to 18 months. And, you know, automation, we know it's been around for years, however, hyper automation is more of an advanced approach to automation that combines multiple low-code technologies, including robotic process automation and AI, machine learning, and several other technologies to really help you identify, assess and automate your business processes. So, you know, this is a key trend in technology, you know, we at BDO are seeing now and I think it's going to play a very important role in efficiency and productivity and optimization.
So I'm sure most of you are somewhat familiar with what low-code platforms are, but I'll just take a quick minute to give a brief explanation. So typically, low-code platforms are, you know, cloud-based, SaaS software as a service tools. And what they do is they allow people and your employees to create automations, integrations, much quicker and easier than say, you know, your traditional programmers or coders would. You know, these platforms provide a familiar and simple user interface like dragging and dropping objects, making those connections and making it really much faster and more accessible to make these types of automations and apps. And it's really democratizing this type of, you know, automation. You know, we've seen a significant rise in the adoption of low-code platforms.
You know, at BDO we've been leveraging this technology for several years. We’ve built thousands of automations and applications using low-code platforms and almost all of our customers have some type of low-code platform deployed across their line of businesses and supported by IT. And I think we've seen the rise of this for several reasons. I mean, low-code has a very strong value offer. It enables rapid app and automation creation, enabling you to have a faster time to market for these types of applications and automations. It has a lower cost than, say, your traditional coding platforms. And because you are quicker at solving these business challenges, you're solving those business challenges rather than, say, solving technology or architecture or infrastructure challenges. So it gets to solving those business objectives quicker. Another benefit is it can allow you to quickly prove out the value of apps and automations with proof of concepts and prototypes. So it gets you to prove out the value and realize that value quicker and it also enables you to help you fail fast, quicker. And finally, along the theme of sort of democratization, it enables citizen developers, those with out coding skills to build these automations, you know, with simple and familiar tools.
[6. A slide displayed on-screen mentions two additional value drivers of low-code platforms, which include that they help maximize process insights and efficiency using process mining, and they allow you to do more with less by automating business processes to improve productivity.]
JASON CIGAN: A few more reasons why we're seeing our customers invest in low-code platforms is, you know, in times of economic softening, you're able to do, you know, more with less by leveraging low-code platforms. You know, you can implement the technology projects and do business process automation with less investment and less time. It also reduces the burden on IT, by putting these technologies into the hands of your business users that are technically savvy. And all of this can have a significant impact on improving your productivity and efficiency across your business and at the organizational level.
[7. A slide displayed on-screen lists additional reasons why companies are investing in low-code platforms, which include optimized costs, faster digital transformation, improved speed and agility, and improved business and IT productivity.]
JASON CIGAN: So I wanted to jump into a transformative customer story where BDO leveraged the Microsoft low-code Power Platform to empower their connected workers. We worked with this national processing manufacturer to build out an entire suite of automations and mobile apps for their field service workers to improve their equipment maintenance and reliability, to improve the safety of workers, and improve the collaboration and efficiency. So when we started working with this manufacturer, there was a lot of manual communication, you know, a significant amount of still sort of paper-based processes at the field level. For example, using paper-based paper to do inspection of equipment. There was really a complete lack of visibility into, you know, construction teams and shift teams transitioning, a lot of error prone and inefficient processes. And all of this resulted in, you know, multiple delays, you know, disconnected communication, and, essentially, the real problem they were trying to solve, which was prolonged turnaround events that was leading to potential loss of revenue.
So we worked very closely in collaboration with our customer, leveraging the Microsoft Power Platform to digitize and automate processes through a set of mobile apps deployed directly into the hands of their field workers. This was referred to as the digitalization of the connected workers. Some of the benefits that were realized as part of this, you know, hyper automation and digitalization was instant visibility into their production status and issues. This allowed for real time addressing and sign off. You know, countless worker hours were saved by automating these paper-based processes and streamlining those approvals. There was live real-time visibility for stakeholders to see what was going on and improve their decision-making. And, ultimately, it did satisfy the objective of reducing that turnaround time.
[8. A slide displayed on-screen lists the various solutions implemented as part of the connected worker program. These include implementing a suite of mobile apps powered by the Microsoft Power Platform, leveraging hyper automation, implementing integrations with line of business systems, digitizing paper-based processes, streamlining and optimizing production processes, improving safety and reliability, and centralizing all activities in a single source of truth.]
JASON CIGAN: So the program was considered a resounding success and was often referred to as a revolution in production efficiency. So, you know, just wanted to share a little bit about what we're seeing within the marketplace and with manufacturers around hyper automation. And with that, I'm going to hand it off to Rosa.
ROSA JAMAL: Thanks so much, Jason. As Rob mentioned in the beginning, it's not just about moving to the cloud, it's about optimization. And this optimization will lead to an increase in productivity while still maintaining the security of your information. So next, I want to talk to you about the importance of managing your content securely so you can allow your employees to be more productive in the areas that they work and some actionable insights here for you to get started or carry on with your cloud journey.
So I'm going to start with an industry story here. This industry was working on automating their information governance. So this is a story of 100-year-old manufacturing company. They had 75,000 employees around the world. They have evolved into a technology company, really focused on innovation and better solutions for their customers. Now, this company had over 400 unique record types with specific retention and classification. So record types being like, these are the different types of documents we have, this is how we need to manage them, these are the types of documents that we need to keep forever, these are the types of documents that we need to remove after seven years because of liability, et cetera. So they had 400 different unique record types that they needed to be able to implement. Couple that with 100 years worth of data, 75,000 people. You can see why introducing any kind of automation would be essential for productivity. So you may be asking how does automating information governance actually have anything to do with productivity or creating space for innovation? So we'll talk about this story and then also some actionable insights on what you can do going forward. So next slide, please.
Let's dig in a little bit deeper into what this company did to automate their information governance, any challenges that they had with managing information at scale. And I just want you to start thinking about, you know, perhaps your organization and the content that you have and the challenges that you have around governing this type of information. So for this company, you can imagine what 100 years worth of content might look like. You know, even if you're not a 100-year-old company, I'm sure you've got a lot of legacy data to manage. You've got a lot of active data to manage.
So for this company, they had a lot of sensitive data related to product design, to customer data, HR, you name it, you know, common data that all organizations have that is sensitive or a lot that needs to stick around for its entirety. There was different regulations here. So this was a multi geographic company, but even if you have like Canadian regulations or U.S. regulations, you need to consider those when you're managing your content. A lot of this data was unstructured, meaning it's like documents, files, et cetera. That's really difficult to classify.
Another issue that they needed to address here is they were really getting ahead of the game by thinking about how their information could negatively impact their use of AI. So they really wanted to start preparing for AI because they had all of this information and they knew that layering AI onto it could be hindered by that content. Also, there's a lot of information at an exponential growth. So you probably are seeing that within your organization as well, that you know, lots of information is being created and there's challenges with the life cycle of that. How do you get rid of that content or how do you archive that content so it's not in front of your face all the time, it's there maybe in an archive or you've deleted it. So you just really have what you need in front of you to work with and collaborate on.
And lastly, when it comes to having a lot of information that's not managed well, it actually inhibits your ability to collaborate with other people. A lot of times, people will start, you know, collecting information, downloading it to their desktop because that's what they're working on and then they won't be able to collaborate with other people, perhaps put it in your OneDrive. But then what happens with data security when end users are starting to move things around?
So these are a lot of the challenges that they face that they wanted to start automating information governance. Think about maybe some of the challenges that you have that might resonate here with you. Next slide, please.
So a couple things that this company had done to automate governance that we can learn from. The first thing was around licencing. So I won't get too technical here, but essentially there's different types of licencing within Microsoft. There's one called E5. This allows you essentially to start automating some of your governance of your content. So for example, if you have those record labels, you can automatically apply that to content, not having your end users do that. Again, that allows you to increase productivity because end users aren't applying manually those labels to content. They were able to use those labels to then automatically get rid of a lot of content that didn't need to stick around. So using those labels to apply to the content actually said, this content's been around for more than seven years, you can go ahead and delete that or put it in archive. And so that was like an automated approach to be able to do that.
The third thing they did was they joined an early adoption program for Copilot, so for AI. And this was a strategic move, and this is a move that we've seen some of our other companies do, as well, starting to use AI and then starting to see how AI actually uncovers some of those blind spots when it comes to how information is governed. And by uncovering some of that, we'll talk a little bit more about that later, they were able to sort of identify where there might be some concerns with their content, some security risks, and then be able to rectify that. A couple other things they did was just around automating the records management and implementing sensitivity labels.
So again, these are some more advanced ways that you can manage your content so that end users aren't needing to apply labels to content that is sensitive, for example, keeping them confidential. So these are some of the ways that they addressed those challenges. So they did a lot of good work to improve their information governance across the board. They used automation and that allowed them to even start preparing for AI. So let's see, next.
What is it that you can start thinking about for you and your company? So when it comes to information management, there's a couple different areas that we look at here around, you know, content storage, how you access information, classification, how you secure and protect that, the life cycle, as I mentioned, you know how to lock that down. And so this for us is sort of the comprehensive view of how to manage information. And each one of these pieces is important to the entire strategy around how you manage your information.
A lot of times, we see with our customers getting a few of these pieces, right? So for example, you know, getting the content storage, you have your SharePoint site set up, everything is stored properly, people can access that information, but then as a follow up, it's like, well, how do we get rid of this information now? And there isn't thought into the life cycle of that, how long should this information stick around for? Or the other way around where content is, you know, not managed very well in the content storage locations, but you're trying to apply life cycle to that content. Trying to say, you know, this content should be removed at a certain period, but it's very hard to apply that if you don't know where that content is stored.
So this is, sort of, the overall to think about or improve on in these areas. And again, it's a journey going forward. You don't need to get it all right in the beginning. The important piece is you're continuously moving forward with information management.
[9. A slide displayed on-screen goes into more detail about the six key aspects of information management. They include:]
- Content storage: Create storage structures to organized content logically and effectively.
- Security and privacy: Protect information from unauthorized access and breaches. Ensure compliance with data protection laws.
- Information access: Provide relevant content to employees where and when they need it and promote collaboration.
- Classification: Create classification systems to provide context to content for easy retrieval.
- Information sharing: Facilitate the distribution of information efficiently and securely within and outside the organization.
- Life cycle and records management: Manage data from creation to destruction according to requirements and regulations.
ROSA JAMAL: So what does this look like, sort of, from like a technology perspective? So what it is, is how you manage information using the Microsoft technologies is you've got the M365 side of things—this is where you store your content, you have it accessible by end users—and Purview is the advance controls on top of that. So for the industry story that I was talking about, they really doubled down on the information protection and data life cycle management side of things to be able to automate that, apply the labels for sensitivity, apply the labels for retention and deletion policies, right on top of the content that lives in SharePoint. With Microsoft Purview, leaders can focus on the protection, prevention, and governance of content in the source, including exchange. Information protection functionalities include sensitivity classification and controls and watermarks. Data lifecycle management controls include retention and deletion policies and managing workloads and files. Data loss prevention capabilities include policies to proactively protect sensitive information, and records management security allows for record keeping controls.
[10. A slide displayed on-screen goes into deeper detail about the key features of information management using Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Microsoft 365 allows leaders to focus on the proper management of content in the source using apps like OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint. Functionalities include tenant settings, group policies, access controls, site security settings, external and guest sharing, collaboration architecture, permissions model, and classification.]
ROSA JAMAL: So using these two sort of different technologies together allow you to have that comprehensive approach to information management. Typically, what we see is that one is done in isolation of the other. So as I mentioned before, if you've got sort of a mess in your content storage area and you're trying to apply labels to that mess, it becomes very challenging. Even with automation, it's not magic, you know, you do need to have some organization around that information to make it work well. So when we're working with our customers, we're keeping all of this in mind to be able to come up with that comprehensive approach and build that road map to be able to introduce some of these technologies to help with managing of that information. So hopefully those two slides helped you understand a little bit about, you know, what it is that information management is and how the technology can support with that.
So you might be asking, why do we need to pay attention right now? Well, we need to pay attention more than ever. The practice of information management and information governance has been around for a long time, but now with the introduction of AI, now with data being, you know, exploding at an exponential rate, we really need to pay attention. Now there's a couple of stats on here that help us understand sort of why we need to care more now than ever.
[11. A slide displayed on-screen highlights three data point related to AI and data. The first point indicates that approximately 402.74 million terabytes of data are created per day, and an estimated 90% was created in the last two years, according to Editor’s Choice. The middle point indicates that 43% of organizations said lack of controls to detect and mitigate risk is a top concern, according to a survey of 658 data security professionals in a March 2023 survey commissioned by Microsoft. The final point featured on the slide is that increased regulatory pressure is another reason why we need to pay attention to data and AI governance now. By 2027, at least one global company will see its AI deployment banned by a regulator for non-compliance with data protection or AI governance legislation, according to Gartner Security Leader’s Guide to Data Security, published in September 2023.]
ROSA JAMAL: As we've already talked about, data is exploding, harder to manage, we have a clutter of information, it's really hard when we're working every day to sift through that data so that we can continue to be productive. Really important here is the middle piece. This is around… There is a lot of organizations, a lot of companies, come to us, a lot of our clients, we talk to them about AI, we're doing a lot of Copilot implementations, and there is a fear about the lack of security around the data. So with AI, when you're asking AI to produce some information for you, you put a prompt in, it returns information, it only can access the information that you have access to. So in the backend, if there's oversharing happening and you have access to a lot of information, that's going to come up through AI. So there's a lot of talk around AI is sort of bringing the good, the bad, the ugly from content. So in the background, that foundation of how you manage information will make AI work better for you and it will also reduce the risk of oversharing, of sensitive content, old content, content that really shouldn't be up for end users to help them in their day to day. Okay, so there's a lot of reasons why we need to pay attention right now, and these are just a couple of them.
So depending on where you're at in your cloud journey, right, there is a lot of, especially with, you know, Covid, there was a lot of organizations moving to the cloud, turning it on, assigning licenses to everyone so that people could work from home. Well, optimize proper information management in place—so being able to organize that content well, classify it, secure it, et cetera—this really will hinder sort of your ability to sort of have long-term success. So we work with our customers at any stage of the journey, whether they're not in the cloud, whether they moved quickly to the cloud, whether they've implemented some things in the cloud but still need to optimize. But without that sort of proper information governance in place, organizations can expect to, you know, see there's security risks that come around, regulatory non-compliance, for example, not keeping records for long enough or you know, keeping them too long. Inefficiencies, can't find information, poor decision-making, there's a lot of old data that you're making decisions on, et cetera.
[12. A slide displayed on-screen mentions additional pitfalls organizations can experience without proper information management. These include increased costs, resistance to change, loss of competitive edge, and reputational damage.]
ROSA JAMAL: And so what we're seeing is that there's a lack of awareness on the importance of this. You know, maybe you've just gotten into the cloud and all of a sudden you have all of this, you know, data all over the place. You didn't know that that was going to happen, right? So that happens. There's also things that are very complex. There's a lot of moving pieces here based on what we've talked about. And so having that ability to, you know, have people like experts like us in the field be able to help you navigate all of that and really having that long view, that long focus of that long-term success.
[13. The slide mentions additional reasons why organizations may not prioritize information management. Around lack of awareness, organizations may not fully understand the benefits of information management. They may be facing resource constraints, as information management can require significant costs in technology, implementation, and training. They may underestimate the risks or have a lack of insight into security and compliance risks. Lastly, they may be focused on the short-term impacts and favour immediate results over long-term benefits.]
ROSA JAMAL: So lots of issues around information management and there's lots of ways that we can support in helping you through that journey here. Alright, last slide from me. So we've talked a lot about, you know, there's this industry story, they've done a lot of great things to be able to implement. We talked about why it's important today and what are the various pieces of that. So what can you do next? So I would encourage you to like have some internal discussions around some of these key areas, right? And so talking about like, you know, where does sensitive information live? And once you identify where that sensitive information lives, like, can you rectify any concerns with that? Can you put some additional permissions around that? Once you find where that content is, how do you protect that even further putting some of those Microsoft Purview capabilities on top of that. And then how do we retain content or remove content?
So starting to have this information will really start uncovering some of these different areas. And if you're already using M365, you know, there's lots of controls in place for this and kind of going through all of these different places will allow you to set that foundation for AI. So really having that good governance in place. So with that, I'll pass it on to Jason to start talking about AI. Thank you.
JASON CIGAN: Great, thanks a lot, Rosa. I think that's a great segue into continuing on the theme of productivity and AI. You know, earlier I talked about how, you know, BDO monitors the marketplace very closely, you know, not only from a technology perspective, but from an industry lens as well. And, you know, I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that's here today that, you know, one of these top trends is AI. You know, we've all heard a ton about AI over the last 12 or so months, and I think it's going to be, you know, a top priority for most organizations going forward, or it should. So, you know, Microsoft leverages their extensive resources to release an annual report that really focuses on the future of work, right? And you know, the top finding out of this year's report was that AI at the workplace is here. You know, employees are demanding access to AI at work and it's really up to leadership to drive the adoption of AI in a way that's pragmatic, but can be done rapidly and securely. And, you know, rapidly and securely are really the two keys there.
[14. A slide displayed on-screen specifies that the 2024 Microsoft Modern Work Trend Index Annual Report surveyed 31,000 people in 31 countries and analyzed trillions of productivity signals. It also listed the rise of the AI power user and AI’s impact on business process as additional trends in AI at work.]
JASON CIGAN: There was actually an article that came out yesterday within the Globe and Mail website that states that Canadians and Canadian organizations are significantly lagging behind the U.S. and other countries with the adoption of AI. And there was really two main things that I took away from the article that I'm also seeing with our customers. One, is it's taking Canadian companies much longer to roll out AI and get it any hands and people are getting tired of how long it's taking to see that return on that investment because it's taking so long to roll it out and get it deployed. Second, is the slower adoption of AI within Canada is going to continue to impact our productivity woes. You know, we're already lagging behind the U.S. and other countries in productivity. And us, as a country, and organizations in Canada, taking this longer is going to have an impact even more.
So it's a really good read. We'll actually share the link of this article at the end of the session. Again, it was on the Globe and Mail’s website yesterday and encourage everybody to, kind of, take a read. So at BDO, you know, we see Microsoft's Copilot as a perfect fit to quickly drive out AI into your organizations. And we feel it's an ideal place to start to drive out the next phase of that digital transformation. You know, Copilot is absolutely a leader in secure workplace AI that integrates directly into the flow of your work and directly integrates into the applications that we all commonly use and can have a significant impact on productivity. You know, Copilot is that UI for AI— it's your user interface into artificial intelligence.
[15. A slide displayed on-screen states that in the age of Al, every app should be intelligent. It explains that Copilot is a Microsoft-powered Al tool that focuses on amplifying your organization's creativity and accelerating productivity minimizing drudgery from your daily work. With Copilot, you can empower all employees to achieve more, regardless of their role or function, automate mundane tasks, streamline processes, including document processing and workflow management, and deliver a differentiated customer experience with generative and intelligent Copilot Apps to make your workplace more intelligent. The slide further states that Copilot is not just a tool, but the catalyst for your Al-driven digital transformation, unlocking the limitless possibilities hidden within your data. A graphic appearing on the slide indicates that the first step in an organization’s AI journey is becoming digitized and modernized, then automated and integrated, and finally, generative and intelligent.]
JASON CIGAN: I'm going to hand it back over to Rosa for a few minutes to just take us into a bit more detail about Copilot and how it can actually be used by manufacturers in an example scenario.
ROSA JAMAL: Thanks, Jason. So, you might have heard about Copilot out there. So, Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant for enhancing productivity and collaboration. What we wanted to, sort of, showcase here is there's a lot of Copilots out there. So if you started looking into Copilot and you know, kind of getting a little bit overwhelmed here, we wanted to just put on the slide, like, the portfolio of all the different types of Copilot.
So there's the consumer base. You might already be using that from the consumer side of things. This is meant for, you know, individuals to use. It helps with everyday tasks. You use it in your browser. You can ask a lot of questions, et cetera. The solution-specific Copilots, the one that we typically see customers focusing on right out of the gate is the Microsoft 365 Copilot. This is bringing in Copilot into your everyday type of tasks, in the everyday apps that you use. So in Outlook, in Teams, in Word, in PowerPoint and being able to have an AI-powered assistant within those apps. However, there is a lot more solution-specific. So if you're working in Dynamics, for example, you've got a specific Copilot that will help you with those tasks in there. In Power Platform, you know, in GitHub, there's a lot of solutions-specific ones. So commonly we start with customers with the Microsoft 365 Copilot because that really has the value across the board for all employees. And then there's role-specific, as well. So Copilot for sales, service, and finance, this is intended to help specific job functions. But across the board, AI and all of these different areas is about enhancing productivity and collaboration in those spaces.
[16. A slide displayed on-screen details the Copilot portfolio. Consumer-based applications include Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Pro. Solution-specific applications are within Microsoft 365 Copilot ecosystem and include Copilot in Windows, Copilot for Dynamics 365, Copilot in Microsoft Viva, Copilot in Power Platform, Copilot for Azure, Copilot in Power BI and Fabric, and GitHub Copilot. Role-specific applications include Copilot for Sales, Service, Finance, and Security, as well as Copilot Studio.]
ROSA JAMAL: So next, I want to talk about, you know, what is Copilot? This is just a really basic slide, should just give like a what it is and what it isn't. The reason why we kind of talk about this is because there is a lot of misinformation out there about what AI is. So Copilot is an AI assistant integrated, like I said, with your everyday apps. It's there to help you automate your tasks, to draft content, to, you know, offer data insights, to be able to stay on top of things and support you in content creation, productivity, skilling up, things like that. It's not meant to, you know, take over what you do. It's an assistant that sits beside you, it's your Copilot. So it helps you with collaboration and things like that. What it isn't, it's not a replacement for human creativity. It's not intended to, you know, take over your job It's intended to sit beside you. It's not a standalone application. You use it within your apps. It helps you do your tasks within the apps that you're doing. It's not going to be 100% correct all the time.
So again, Copilot, not autopilot, you're still part of those processes. Anything that Copilot produces for you, you should be reading through it, making sure that it aligns to what you're trying to communicate, what you're trying to create. And it's not going to solve any data challenges. So there's been a lot of things out there, well Copilot is not secure, et cetera. Copilot looks at your data. So as I mentioned before, if the governance behind the scenes has, you know, security problems, Copilot's just going to uncover what those security problems are, it's not a net-new security problem. So these are the sort of different comparisons here.
So next, I’ll just talk about sort of how this can apply to, you know, manufacturing. Here's an example of, you know, we call this, sort of, ‘a day in the life of’. So what we do a lot with our work is really try to identify that value for the roles in your organization and the type of work that you do. And we map it out into this, sort of, process flow, ‘day in the life of’, to say, here is how we can use Copilot in our day-to-day work. So here's like, you know, kind of six steps on, you know, first we need to do a supplier assessment. Here's the specific business chat Copilot that we can use, and here's the benefit of why we would use Copilot to support with that. So we can access supplier data from various sources, examine factors such as purchase orders, inspection reports, and it's able to synthesize all of that information so that it improves how we do those assessments. And then next step in the journey risk analysis. Copilot can help with that in Excel. Collaboration, we can use that with Power BI, et cetera. So there's a lot of different steps that we can map out. And then with that, we start looking at the different areas of Copilot that can support and we start identifying what the business value is there and this is how we help people start to use Copilot, by really putting it together with their work.
[17. A slide displayed on-screen details an example scenario of supplier quality optimization using Copilot. The first step is a current supplier assessment. In this example, a quality head of a manufacturer wants to proactively optimize their supplier base to drive rigour in high-quality sourcing of raw materials, services, prices, and faster lead times, while assessing the pertinent risks. Copilot Business Chat can be used to access supplier data from various sources to examine factors such as purchase orders, inspection reports, supplier performance ratings, and industry benchmarks to determine high, low, and underperforming suppliers.]
The second step is a risk analysis to evaluate suppliers based on the selection criteria such as product quality, processes adherence, business objectives met, certifications compliance, etc. Using Copilot in Excel can help highlight key insights from supplier performance records and create a summary of high-risk and potential pitfalls.
The third step is proactive collaboration with suppliers and sharing quality data and insights with them on the identified issues, such as material variations, response times, etc. Copilot in Power BI can provide suppliers with transparent access to quality data related to their components or materials, enabling them to understand how their performance impacts the final product.
The fourth step is to rationalize the supply base and determine the most valuable suppliers to streamline spend, capabilities, and overall performance. Copilot Business Chat can be used to synthesize data from all analyses, communications, and documents to pursue with the valuable supplier list.
The fifth step involves aligning on a transition plan, including timelines, budget, agreement, and cross-functional coordination for communication and leadership approval. Copilot in Word can help autogenerate a detailed record of the transition plan, actions, and next steps.
Finally, the sixth step is performing ongoing monitoring, reviewing suppliers’ internal processes, and amending contracts to improve transparency and trust, negotiate deals, and optimize the supply base. Copilot in Outlook can be used to capture and share supplier documents and updates across relevant organizations for ongoing collaboration and quality improvement.
ROSA JAMAL: So that's just a brief overview of Copilot and how it can apply to your day-to-day work. I'll pass it back to Jason here.
JASON CIGAN: Great, thanks, Rosa. You know, we've been supporting our customers over the last year or so in terms of, you know, planning and rolling out Copilot and supporting them on their journey and, you know, we're able to support your organization regardless of where you are on your AI or your Copilot journey to really, sort of, help jumpstart and accelerate that AI journey.
So some areas where we've been supporting organizations and where they're asking BDO for help is, you know, they require a business case to say, you know, we need to put together a business case to support the purchase of Copilot licenses and the support we need from a partner like BDO to help roll it out. And we can support with that. If, you know, some organizations are saying, you know, "We want to start small and put together a pilot group or a POC," you know, if that's something that we can help enable. You know, to Rosa's point, if you're concerned about oversharing or data security, or privacy, or if you're looking to, you know, you've already done the pilot and you're looking to roll out Copilot across, you know, a larger user group, whether it's hundreds or thousands, you know, we can provide that scale, that change management, that training. And finally, those that have already, kind of, gotten to that part of their journey, they're starting to look at other ways to further realize value from Copilot and do deeper, more meaningful business-specific use cases and they start to connect Copilot with other line of business systems. So these are kind of the top areas where we're seeing some of our customers start to go on that Copilot journey and where we're supporting.
[18. A slide displayed on-screen provides a deeper explanation into the six common areas where organizations are requesting support with their Copilot implementation.
The first challenge is listed as design lab and strategy, which relates to defining use cases, creating a Copilot strategy, and building a business case for licenses.
A second area where businesses require support is getting started with Copilot. BDO offers an accelerator that guides clients through high-level technical readiness, deployment, and functional training.
The third area where organizations are requesting support is around strengthening security, privacy, and the governance of their data to eliminate risk of oversharing and overexposure in Copilot.
A fourth area of concern where organizations require support is adoption and change management, which involves defining use cases, creating a Copilot strategy, and building a business case for licences.
The fifth are where organizations require assistance is in developing an ongoing support program to ensure clients are sustaining change management and maintaining custom experiences.
The final area where customers require support is around enhancing and pushing the boundaries of M365 Copilot by implementing custom experiences including integrations, extensions, and agents.]
JASON CIGAN: So, you know, a lot of what we've been talking about so far around hyper automation and controlling your data and adoption of AI, you know, all of this really focuses on enhancing and optimizing the employee experience, right? You know, putting your people at the centre, making them more productive, more efficient, staying engaged, using all of these advanced technologies. But we got to make sure that your data remains safe and secure and that you've got the right adoption in place through change management. And, really, all of this comes together with BDO's accelerator framework called EXP Central, Employee Experience Central. And it brings everything that we've talked about together using a framework powered by Copilot, Microsoft 365, and the Power Platform.
[19. A slide displayed on-screen explains that BDO’s Experience Central offers a modern, out-of-the-box cloud solution that centralizes the employee experience while reducing the burden on IT.
The solutions that fall under Copilot implementation include AI advisory and strategy, getting started with Copilot, data security and privacy, adoption and change management, autonomous Copilot agents, Copilot studio extensions, and Copilot plugins.
Solutions pertaining to Microsoft 365 involve intranets and portals, extranets, frontline worker program, workplace analytics and employee feedback, employee communications and communities, learning and knowledge management, and goal setting and OKR management.
Power Platform solutions include application development using Microsoft Power Platform, governance and security, scoping and planning, design and development, application modernization, business process automation, user experience, and robotics process automation.]
JASON CIGAN: So one final customer story that we want to share is with a Canadian petrochemical manufacturer that specializes in the production of various chemical products. We engaged with them last year to help them out with, you know, very common problems around employee experience and productivity. You know, they had an aging suite of employee productivity tools and communication tools, you know, their systems were out of date, disconnected, you know, provided a really poor employee and user experience. And, you know, because they were aging, the adoption and usage had waned and there was very little engagement. So, you know, we started working very closely with this organization, leveraging our EXP Central accelerator to create a modern and comprehensive employee experience platform in very close collaboration with their corporate communications, their learning development, IT, stakeholders and it was launched across all of their lines of business.
[20. A slide displayed on-screen goes into deeper detail about BDO’s manufacturer success story. The petrochemical manufacturing company published a request for proposal in January 2023 to update its organization-wide intranet/employee portal for it’s 2,450 employees.
The slide further indicates that BDO delivered three key solutions as part of its engagement: an Employee Experience Platform design and strategy, a modern SharePoint intranet, and a Viva Suite and line-of-business application integration. Microsoft 365 supporting technologies included SharePoint, Teams, Viva Suite, Copilot, and Microsoft Power Platform.]
JASON CIGAN: So this was successfully launched earlier this year, you know, enabling a modern employee experience platform. And it was commonly referred to as, you know, a benchmark in modernizing the manufacturing workforce experience. So something we're really, really proud of. So yeah, I think with that, you know, I'm going to hand it off to Darryl to talk about our next section here.
[21. A slide displayed on-screen read, ‘Strategically mapping your digital journey.’]
DARRYL STOCK: Appreciate it, Jason. Thank you very much. So in addition to all the technology that we've heard today, I'm sure everyone on the call in the age of hyper modernization and the speed at which technology is advancing has either thought about, heard about, read about the technology that promises to work the magic and unlock the efficiency that's just waiting to be released in the organization. And while this technology can certainly be a catalyst for unlocking that efficiency, as we've heard from Jason and Rosa here today, not having a plan or a strategic approach to mapping out and measuring the uses of the technology advancements, can certainly, assuredly, keep those thoughts and wishes as a pipe dream at this time. So if we can jump to the next slide.
The good news is I'm going to spend the next four and a half minutes or so talking to you about how you can approach these strategic choices and planning that is required to kickstart your digital journey no matter where you are today on your digitization plan.
[22. A slide titled ‘Unlocking efficiency with the power of digitalization’ appears, highlighting six benefits of digitalization. The first benefit is streamlined operations, which includes reduced paper-based processes, reduced change of errors, and smoother operations.
The second benefit is enhanced collaboration between teams, driving efficiency and alignment.
The third benefit is that low-code and no-code solutions make digitalization faster and more accessible, which in turn enables a faster time to market.
The fourth benefit is that businesses can gain immediate access to data and real-time insights, enabling better decision-making and enhanced visibility.
The fifth benefit is that digitalization reduces downtime and labour costs, making events more cost-effective.
The sixth and final benefit listed is that customized solutions like tailored apps and automations adapt to a business’s unique needs, boosting productivity.]
DARRYL STOCK: Next slide, please. So where are you in your digital journey? Are you still using stone tablets and smoke signals or are you optimizing large language models to further develop predictive analytics?
[23. A slide depicts four stages of the digitization journey. The first and least developed stage involves limited controls, data validations, and manual and time-intensive processes, such as the use spreadsheets.
Businesses in the emerging stage of their digitization journey have some point solutions and efficiencies gained on data transfers between departments, but still have siloed actuals, budget, and forecast data.
The third stage is when businesses are integrated—their main processes are in centralized solutions and they have significant efficiencies from centralized data, workflow, automation, and administration.
The final stage is strategic, when a business’s financial and operational data can be trusted, its planning processes use an integrated predictive model, and analysis and reporting are available to support real-time decision making.]
DARRYL STOCK: But in all seriousness, whether you're just exploring or taking your first steps or maybe you've already made significant strides, the thing is, it doesn't really matter whether you're ahead of the curve or just beginning, the time to think about your transformation, your transformation goals, and your next steps, is now. Because in manufacturing, as all of you know, standing still is not an option. The Canadian manufacturing landscape is transforming faster than ever, you know, with new tariffs we've heard about, shifting market demands, the evolving supply chains, and as we've talked about, the acceleration of technology innovations. It's not just a challenge, but it's a big opportunity and we want you and your organizations to think about this as a journey that you're going on and ask yourself and your teams, kind of, the right questions. It's what is the next bottleneck that we are trying to solve in our organization? Where can technology drive the most value for our business? And probably most important, how can we empower our teams to adapt and drive this value in the organization? Next slide, please.
[24. A slide featuring an infographic of a race track in the shape of two figure eights connected together, symbolizing the iterative transformation journey towards manufacturing 4.0. The track is split into 10 steps along the journey. The first step is to re-imagine your business model and operations in a way that aligns with your forecasted future. This step is ongoing throughout your entire journey and acts as your foresight to the future. The second step is to assess your current state as to where your organization is today in comparison to peers, as well as major market leaders and challengers. The third step is to model your future state and synthesize your strategic vision into a visual representation of the critical capabilities. The fourth step is to analyze the gaps, which involves identifying the people, processes, and technologies needed to enable your organization’s future. Next is to map your journey and connect the dots between future state and current state in small, achievable increments. The sixth step is to figure out financing by building a solid investment case for each incremental project along the way. The next step is to define a project-specific vision for your business and operational incremental success. The eighth step is to prototype, test, and iterate. This means building an iterative, incremental, and innovation pilots to enable fast decision-making, implementation, and flexibility. If your prototype fails, restart that step. If you succeed in building a successful prototype, you can move on to the next step, which is preparing your people. This involves setting a mindset shift that hinges not on business capabilities, but on the adoption of those capabilities. The 10th step is to execute the plans and continue to refine and evolve the vision of the future. An arrow indicates that this final step leads back to the start of the transformation journey, which is re-imagining your business.]
DARRYL STOCK: So as many of you on this call are on your transformation towards manufacturing 4.0, as Rob talked about at the start, it's important to remember it is a journey and whether it's the hyper automation or connected worker program, secure information management, or, of course, the AI and Microsoft Copilot that Jason and Rosa just talked about, each one of these technologies can advance you on your journey and they can be done in parallel, they can be done sequentially. But it's not always super clear on when to do which one and what value you'll get out of it. And it can be difficult. And these choices represent different levels of risks. So if you as an organization and a leader in your business are struggling to get started, not sure where the value will be for your organization, we recommend start with a strategy that'll kickstart that digital journey, making sure that it aligns to your business goals, to your technology investments, and along the way are assessing the people that it’ll impact, the processes that it supports, the data that's required, and the governance that underlines the decision-making throughout that journey. Next slide, please.
[25. A slide appears on-screen depicting the business transformation methodology. Part of this methodology is that a multidimensional view of the organization allows the deployment of a holistic business transformation action plan, linking business and IT strategies.
An infographic on the slide shows that evolving environment and market realities prompt organizations to consider business transformation. Business and digital strategies help define the goals for their transformation.
The infographic further depicts that business transformation entails making an organization evolve through a coherent deployment of initiatives and continuously adapt to an evolving environment. Business transformation management requires the identification of strategic pillars, such as client experience or operational excellence. Each pillar is operationalized through specific programs, projects, and initiatives, and each of these is driven by the organization’s culture, processes, and technology. The entire operationalization is underpinned by governance.]
DARRYL STOCK: So before I hand it back to Paul and Rob, I want to leave you with this, that digitization and leveraging technology is not a new trend. It is, in fact, a reality, very much of manufacturing in Canada. It's how you are going to meet the rising customer expectations, navigating complex supply chain requirements, and as we've talked about, unlocking the new efficiencies and opportunities. But the real value for digital transformation isn't necessarily in the technology, but it comes from getting started, from taking the first step, aligning your teams, and committing you and your leadership teams to a future that is smarter, faster, and more resilient to the changes that are coming. So by starting today, you are gaining or taking advantage of that competitive edge, starting to streamline your operations, making better decisions and having that agility to adapt to whatever comes next. So I'll leave you with this today: ask yourself, what will be the first or the next step that we're going to take because the time for that technology adoption was probably yesterday, but the second best time is getting going right now. So Paul, Rob, I'll hand it back over to you.
PAUL DOSTALER: That was great. Rob, we're back. Thanks so much to our speakers. So we're talking about digital journeys, Rob, how do we continue on the journey?
ROB ROVINA: Paul, it's a great question. It's one we spend a lot of time thinking about. We covered a lot of ground, demonstrated a lot of expertise that we bring to our customers in this sector and other sectors. But we always talk about what are the two most important points that we want to land or say in another way. What are the minimum elements of the discussion that we're looking for participants today to take away? And one is: make an investment to fully reach your potential. You've started the digital journey, it includes modern work in today's age, and what we're really focused on is encouraging and working with this sector and our customers, to engage in a focused, optimizational journey and engagement. Really, what we want to do is we want to enhance the operational efficiencies, the benefits that this digital journey promised when we started a number of years ago, for some firms. We really want to automate workflows, integrate and optimize tasks. And, really, the goal is, let's get to a status of data-driven decisions, which will provide, you know, new agility to this sector.
PAUL DOSTALER: Very good, but is it the only way to move forward?
ROB ROVINA: Yeah, not at all. As I mentioned, we're always trying to discuss the two possible, you know, takeaways. And the second one is what we refer to as the informed next move, right? If we move the slide, we can see that, really, it leans into the conversation that Darryl just walked us through, which is, you know, if we're not sure what the next step is, make it an informed next step. Develop a road map tailored to your specific operations. Align your technology with your business process and, you know, develop a roadmap that's going to incorporate some of the findings that many colleagues in your industry have already uncovered, which, change management is also a part of adoption and optimization of technology.
PAUL DOSTALER: Well, that makes a lot of sense. Before we wrap up with Q&A, I wanted to leave the audience with a note from our grants and incentive teams, which is that, well, to support the use of AI technologies across all industries, the federal government has designed a specific grant to spur innovation and adoption of AI, which includes the Regional AI Initiative and the Scale AI Supercluster. So our grants and incentives team can help you apply and access this funding. We'll go ahead and put their contact information and relative links in the chat if anyone's interested to learn more about those grants. So perhaps we can come back, Jason, I think we want to address some of the common questions that we received.
[26. A slide appears on-screen featuring the headshots and emails of the webinar’s five speakers. They are:]
- Paul Dostaler: [email protected]
- Jason Cigan: [email protected]
- Rosa Jamal: [email protected]
- Darryl Stock: [email protected]
- Rob Rovina: [email protected]
JASON CIGAN: Yeah, great. Thanks, everyone. Yeah, we've just got our contacts up here. You know, feel free to reach out to any one of us to learn more or if you, you know, want to have a one-on-one session or if you have any questions. Just monitoring the chat here.
So, you know, one of the common questions that we get specifically around, sort of, AI is, again, there's a bit of, you know, wanting to get started, but not knowing where. And, you know, specifically around, you know, Copilot, you know, how to get started. And, you know, there's a lot of our customers, you know, tried it out earlier on and they saw some success, you know, but they're kind of stuck to know to figure out, you know, how do we move forward and roll it out across the larger part of the organization? Or some, you know, really want to get started, but they're just not sure where to start. And so what we always say is, you know, get started as quickly as you possibly can, whatever that least path of resistance is, you know, go to those people that are really excited about AI and start with them.
You know, you can start with a small pilot group and you know, with some training and some change management, you know, over the course of just several weeks, you can start to realize the value of Copilot in saving quite a few hours. And then you want to take that to the next step and say, okay, there's a lot of instantaneous productivity that can come straight out of, sort of, the box with some of these AI technologies, but the real value lies within mapping it to your specific business processes or mapping it to roles within your organization that can leverage AI and Copilot in, sort of, your day-to-day to really optimize your business processes. Like that example that Rosa gave around supplier, and we work with our customers to say, okay, let's understand a day in the journey and then start to leverage and map the different parts of Copilot and AI that can really help optimize that.
So, really, the message is, get started, you know, get your AI quotient up, get it into the hands of your people, and you'll start to see that benefit and that value and then you can kind of plan and go from there. So that's kind of a common question that we have.
PAUL DOSTALER: Awesome. Thanks for that, Jason. And with that, it's a wrap. So thanks to our team and thanks for everyone for joining us today. Take care.
ROB ROVINA: Thank you.
ROSA JAMAL: Thank you.
[27. Rosa waves goodbye.]
JASON CIGAN: Thanks, everybody.
[28. Jason waves goodbye.]
[29. Calm happy music plays.]