Episode #13: Innovative uses of emerging technologies post-Corona, with KMD, CTO, Hans Jayatissa

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Welcome to the IBM Keep It Simple Technology Podcast, where each episode we discuss technology, but in a simple way. We keep the explanations simple, but what we spend our time on is emphasizing what this technology means to you and how you can best utilize this technology for you and your business. Your host, as always, Thomas Anglero.

Hello and welcome to the IBM Keep It Simple Technology Podcast. I'm your host, Thomas Anglero. And once again, once again, I am so fortunate, we are so fortunate to have another amazing guest. Today on this episode, we have Hans Jaja Thyssa, the CTO of KMD, an IT technology company in Denmark, one of Denmark's biggest IT companies, if not the biggest. And Hans, are you there?

Yes, I'm here. And thank you for welcoming Thomas.

Did you disappear on me, Hans? You're so quiet.

No, no, no. I'm right here.

All right, there we go. Hans and I were talking before going live on air. And we're talking about all these amazing things we could talk about. But we wanted to talk about, really start off by talking about Hans, about how KMD— first of all, why don't you tell everybody who KMD is real quickly? And then we're going to get into the real topic, which is how does KMD use technology? Right? KMD, you guys are one of the biggest companies in Denmark and in the Nordic countries. You do a lot. You do a lot of innovation and things like that. And in this post-COVID-19 world, technology is a very different type of thing. So please, Hans, tell everybody a little bit real quickly about KMD, and let's have a discussion about that. So go ahead.

Yes, I'll do that. Thank you, Thomas. So, so first of all, very briefly about KMD. Yeah, we are actually the largest IT company in Denmark and We focus on creating software products for complex case management, typically for restricted sectors like banking, insurance, utilities, public sector, central government, those kind of things. So typically large systems handling complex processes with a lot of data in it. Um, yeah, that, that's, I think it's the really brief story about KMD. We've been around for, yeah, more than 40 years.

Okay. And in 40 years, you went from nothing to running some of the biggest, uh, infrastructure government projects in Denmark. That is impressive. Um, that's, that's really impressive. So, so your view, and you're the CTO, so So you're the man to be asking this question. How do you view technology now in this post-COVID world? I mean, to me, that's the most relevant perspective that's possible, right? Because the pre-post-COVID technology, we knew what it was. But going forward, companies have unemployed their people because everybody's in quarantine. Their revenue model has been shattered. Their business model has been questioned. Companies had to be digitalized and overnight, right? Everybody had to do Zoom meetings or Microsoft this or Webex or something like that. Technology is paramount and core. How do you guys see technology going forward?

So, we have, as I said, a legacy from creating central government systems and systems for the municipalities. So, actually this about using technology to you know, to help people is not new to us. And I think here in the COVID era, it's really important to use technology to, yeah, to help people. It may sound a bit flossy, but actually to create a better world because technology has so much potential in helping people in many different ways. So I think that's the The key learning here is to, to, yeah, move even more into that direction. And whenever we look at a technology, think about how can it actually help people.

Do you have a way of measuring which technology will help people more than others? And let me frame that. There's a lot of companies out there who are not tech companies. And they need to get— they need to be more technically oriented. How would you recommend they go about doing that journey, going from not being digital to, you know, the digital transformation journey, right? This is— yeah, how do you— what recommendation would you make some of these people and these CEOs or whatever, mom-and-pop shops? Do you have any recommendations for them?

Yes, yes. And of course, my recommendation will be a technology guidance recommendation. So, so basically when you're, you're in those positions, you hear a lot about a lot of different technologies. You, you know, constantly get bombarded with now you should focus on this and now you should focus on that and this technology. And you get a lot of different salespeople telling you, you stories. So basically what you first of all need to do is to map things. You need to understand what is my priorities, you know, right now, and what is more, you know, interesting, but it's not now, it's for the longer run. And what we have done in KMD is that we use a concept called the technology radar. The technology radar is basically a division of emerging technologies into 4 different groups. And that helps us guiding, okay, what should we focus on now? What gives the immediate help, the immediate effect, that we need and what is more something we need to follow, but it's more on the long run. So the 4 categories are, first of all, yeah, this is what is ready. You need to look at this right now. It will give you the immediate effects. Second one is the things you should try out. It may not, you know, completely suit you. It means it's something that you need to experiment with. It gives some advantages, but it's not completely clear for your organization. The third category is assess. So these are the technologies that clearly works, but it's a bit, you know, it may not have been tried within your sector or within your industry. So it's still a bit of explorative to do that. And the last category is then hold or park. So technologies that is out there, it could be something like quantum computers or you know, human augmentation or other technologies that are a bit further out in time and not something you should spend a lot of time on now. That's the, you could say, a good way to navigate this area.

Let's go back to number 1, your first recommendation, because I think that was really important and we need to keep this as simple as possible. Your number 1 recommendation was to make a list of the company, who you are. And that wasn't— that's not a technology list, which is interesting. I thought you would run straight to tech in your answer, but your first recommendation was to assess your company. And I think that's great advice. And I don't think enough companies actually do that. Assess who— where are you at the first of every month? And a lot of companies, when they assess themselves, they assess themselves based on an Excel spreadsheet, right? This is how much money we got. This is where we are. But that's not where you are. That's where you are financially. Can you just elaborate more on that? Because I think that's really important because that's a lesson that a lot of business leaders need to spend more time on, right? Your company is not the equivalent of your revenue. Your company is the equivalent of you and your customers. I'm sorry, Hans, go ahead. I'm talking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Your customers, but also your capabilities. And of course, especially in this post-COVID area, it's really important to focus on what is actually our our capabilities and how can we bring these, you know, how can these capabilities survive? You know, if you have a high street shop, it may actually not be the location of the shop that's the important part. It may be the way you sell, the capabilities you have in customizing products or whatever, and that is not dependent on a physical store. It could just as well be Yeah, and yeah, you could say a store on the internet. So, focus on what is actually your core capabilities and how will they survive in this change situation.

Yeah, that was really good. That's really good because again, it's not the store. I love that example. It's not the store. It could be your customer service, right? It could be the way you answer people and all the years of experience you have. And that translates on the internet. You know, you can set up Zoom, right? Everybody's talking about Zoom in the news. We'll keep on talking about Zoom. You can set up a Zoom session and talk to your clients and customers over the internet. But it's your mastery, your capabilities of communication that differentiates your shop. So, it may not be your location on High Street. It just can be your voice that is your differentiator. That, I mean, Hans, you're nailing something that's so important. But so many people thought, "No, it's our location. It's the fact that we've been here 20 years. That's what makes us special." And what you're saying is, "No, it's the capabilities, it's the people." Fantastic, Hans. What have you seen? Have you seen a huge change? I mean, we're only a few weeks into this post-COVID. So I mean, we're not far in. But have you seen any dramatic changes in your experience as being the CTO of KMD in this short time frame? And if you have seen changes, which companies are changing, which industries are moving? Can you give some examples?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And definitely we can see a change within, you know, the central government sector. Not in the, you could say, the Nordic countries, which is, yeah, very well advanced in that area, and I think all the Nordic countries are in the top of United Nations list of most digitized governments. However, since we are also working internationally, we see a lot of other countries in the world that hasn't, you know, to the same degree digitalized their government. And that basically means that if you're still dependent on a lot of paper and you send, you know, send your, all your employees home, well then nothing happens because all the papers are still at the office and the whole, you know, central government actually stops. And we really hear, you know, a lot of attention on, you know, how has Denmark been digitalized and what do other countries do and would like to get our advice on that. So I think even though that was also before the corona situation, this has really shown that you could say the non-digital governments of the world, that this is not just something that's nice to have, it's actually about whether you have a, a running government or you don't have.

Hmm. Can you, can you elaborate more? It's very interesting. Not many people take into account the significant role of a government being digitized, not digitized. Which also reflects on the maturity of that government. What countries are you in and what governments are you dealing with so people understand more in detail what are you talking about?

Yes, yes. So, we have, as I said, our historic basis in Denmark and has been part of the digital journey that Denmark has been through for the past 40 years since the Central Personal Registry was invented by— oh, '69, so I guess more than 50 years. Nowadays, which more and more has focused on that you're able to do everything online. So you have a digital signature that you can use for legally binding documents. You have access to a central mailbox called eBox where you get all your mail from not only the government but all public institutions. So there's a number of, you could say, infrastructure components that that helps in this. When you then look at other advanced societies, you could look at Germany, you could look at Japan, where we, you know, in general think of those as highly advanced countries, then a lot of their public administration is still about you having to turn up in person because you have to sign with your pen, or in Japan you have a small stamp that you need physically to stamp on the— whenever you make a, yeah, enter a form for something, apply for driver's license or apply for, yeah, whatever you need to apply for, for the central government, you need to do that in person. And then the whole process is based on paper. So it is about papers going from one office to another where they review it and send it back. And then in the end, you end up getting the paper back. And that is even in those advanced countries that that happens. And of course, when you're not allowed to meet people in person and you're not, you know, you don't have access to the papers, yeah, then you have the problem in a situation like the one we have now.

Let's turn this back to technology and let's look at it from the customer point of view again. What top 3 technologies, again, for a company who's going through the digital transformation and is just beginning that journey, what top 3 technologies do you think they should be looking at and why? And then, if you can, what 3 or whatever technologies you think they should avoid and why? So let's start off with, I'm running a company, We've been talking about being innovative. We've been talking about being more digital. But now, because of Corona or COVID or whatever, we have to be. We're being forced to. What should I be looking at right now, Hans?

Yeah, from a technology point of view, you should start looking at the data. So, data is typically— of course, it depends on the business, but for most businesses, data is one of the core values you have. So are you taking advantage? Are you using the data you have? And data could be, you know, about your clients. It could be about the transactions that you do with your clients. And you know, if you're doing some kind of production, it could be data under production. But basically start with the data. And when you have the data, Then you have the possibilities of doing, you could say, typically starting with basic analytics in order to understand what are the mechanisms in my business. And of course, the more advanced you get, you introduce more advanced analytics. You even, if you get really advanced, start doing machine learning, you start being able to do predictions. So not only using the data to analyze the past, but actually can use your your IT to also start predicting the future, helping you in, in, in, yeah, in, in the handling and in understanding how to handle the future and helping you drive the company. So I think definitely data and the, and the different technologies that's around that is, is of key importance. So, so, so that, that's one technology. I think the, the next technology I, I would imagine that No matter what company you are today, you would have some kind of IT operations. You will have some systems that need to run. You, you, you, there are some systems you are dependent on. So no doubt looking into, to, yeah, being more flexible and, and more, more, you know, not, not, not getting, getting more elastic in your use of, of, of IT in the use of operations. So of course, looking into cloud solutions and those kinds of things that makes it both more fault tolerant, but also make increases the flexibility in that your IT can actually run on different, yeah, in different settings. So it's not depending on you being physically at one side or the computer running physically at one side, but you continuously have access to your, your, yeah, your IT infrastructure. Um, I would say that, that, that would be the second one.

Yeah, let's just, let me just, before you give us the third one, if you have a third one, I just want to simplify what you say because I think it's quite profound. And that is, a lot of some people listening may be wondering what is cloud computing and all that, or they think they know, but what, what you're saying and the way you're framing it is that If you are on your digital transformation journey and you do have some type of IT infrastructure, or maybe you don't, by putting your infrastructure on the cloud, there is tremendous amount of operational savings, CapEx savings, because you don't need to buy a server anymore. You don't need to have a data warehouse. You don't need to have that room in the basement of your building that's overly air-conditioned that makes a lot of noise. You can get rid of all that. And you even can possibly outsource it to a company who will maintain it for you. So you could have the latest state-of-the-art IT infrastructure with all the capabilities that will lead into future innovations and IT infrastructure solutions and applications like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, all these things that are coming, blockchain, you name it, and whatever is coming in the future. And you're not managing anything. Is that a good description of cloud computing, Hans?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And of course, you could add the elasticity. So in this corona crisis, some companies have experienced, you know, having a certain amount of work and then suddenly nothing, or suddenly 10 times as much. So this flexibility in rapidly scaling up your infrastructure or scaling down your infrastructure to cut costs is also a benefit of using cloud services.

Again, Hans, you're nailing stuff. You're so right. I didn't think about that. There are so many companies who have thousands of servers. Maybe you had a couple hundred servers, or maybe you just had a cost for all these servers that you're running. And because of COVID You have to pay for these machines to stay on or pay for the rent for that room. You have to pay for the bandwidth. You have to pay for the electricity, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you're on a cloud platform, if the server— there's no customers, then nothing's running. Your costs are very little to almost nothing. Hans, you're nailing it. Did you have a third technology? You're on a roll.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say definitely the third one would be cybersecurity. So especially in these times, we have also seen that people try to take advantage of a lot of people now going online that are not used to do it and try to take advantage of it because now they are sitting at home, not together with their colleagues that may be more IT savvy than themselves, so no one to ask. So there's been a lot of different, you know, phishing attempts, which means, you know, trying to send mails to get passwords from people and things like that. So looking into that, introducing software that ensures that you won't be vulnerable to these kind of attacks is definitely also an important technology to look into.

Hans, I am so impressed with you now because I interview a lot of people And I think you're the first one who's brought up security as being one of the top issues. And that— and it should be one of the— probably the number one, right? Because if your infrastructure goes down or you're attacked, or in these post-COVID days where you have very little amount of money in your bank account, but if you get hijacked, right, and somebody gets your password and gets access to your bank account, now you lost everything. So really, really, security is number one. And we don't spend enough time overall talking about it or informing people how truly important it is, right? Hans, that's your top 3 technologies that you think people in this post-corona world should look at. Is there— let's say, let's open it up. Are there any technologies, or where I want to open it up to, is there any mindsets? Because you're a leader. Right. So this is about leadership. Is there anything as a leader, any advice you want to give other leaders out there that are listening in your experience going forward that they should have in their head from your lessons learned from all the years you've been a leader and now the CTO of KMD?

Yeah. And again, if we focus on the technology area, it's also to be, you know, have a sound skepticism whenever someone comes and presents, you know, a new technology to you and all the fantastic benefits, especially if it's a new technology, you should have that, you know, skepticism trying to understand what does, what is it really? And I think one of the areas is actually artificial intelligence nowadays, where, you know, there's been huge advantages or advances in the development, the research within artificial intelligence. And it's quite incredible what is possible nowadays with AI. However, sometimes when you read the press or hear, you know, very overenthusiastic salespeople talking about AI, it, it actually sounds like what we call artificial general intelligence, which is, you know, a computer that is just as smart or even smarter than a human, already exists. Um, and it doesn't, and it It won't be for the next 50 years or whatever. I don't think anyone would dare to put a timeframe on having such kind, if we ever, ever end there. So be skeptic, understand what is it actually. There's a lot of benefit in this vaguely defined term called artificial intelligence, but we are still not there where it can handle any kind of question or any kind of problem you just Stroh added. So, don't believe those stories. I would say that would be one recommendation. Another recommendation would also be that sometimes for some technologies, it's, you know, you have a company, you are doing, you are in a certain kind of business, you are doing, yeah, you have a shop or you're having a production company, but you're not typically producing IT. So, some of the technologies are actually more for IT companies to come up with brilliant products which has this feature. And I think blockchain is one of the technologies. Blockchain is this very hard to understand complex technology that for— if you, you know, if you have a shop or is running a production company, then you shouldn't think about blockchain. You're most probably from one of your IT providers get a solution one day that will include blockchain, but it wouldn't be something you would be aware of. That is, you could say it's a technology that's so complex that it would be, you could say, an IT company building it into something else that you would end up getting. So there's no need for a person like you to try to understand blockchain and spend a lot of time on that because that's actually not core to your business. Others will help you in that. I think that's my second recommendation.

So let me be on the defensive because you paint the interesting picture of these technologies. So AI doesn't have to be better than us. And what I'm coming from the perspective of these companies out here who are struggling and everything. Right? AI doesn't have to be the complete replacement for human beings in all capacities.

Exactly.

That's too big a picture for your struggling company today. What you need is AI just to help you in that area that you're struggling. That's it. You don't need it to be the replacement for your employees. Um, you know, that's the, the big picture. That's the Hollywood version of it, right? So AI today can look at so many different pieces of data, your own private data that you have, public data, data that you could license so that you have, like for example, the weather, weather data. You pull all this data together and you can look at correlations and connections as to when this happened historically over the last, let's say, 100 years, when not just this, but when these 30 things happen simultaneously. In the last 100 years, this occurred, which means that if this happened again within the next week, there is a 92.47% certainty that this will occur again. That's the power of AI. And AI also will look at it from your perspective. So to you, you're like the daddy and it's the little child. You say, well, if this happened, believe it 100%. If this happens, only believe it 50%. So you're in total control. People out there should understand that AI is not just one AI for everybody. Your AI reflects you, and it will prioritize whatever you want it to look at. But I agree with you, Hans, it's not the replacement for all of us. That's a whole other— I don't know what that is. That's bigger than AI. But AI is ready today for very specific tasks and bigger tasks. Um, so I just want to just paint that picture because I think I'm a big believer in AI because I see it all the time helping companies out, but I'm not a bigger believer in Hollywood's version AI. That's still a noise.

Exactly, exactly. Very, very good point.

Yeah. And then, you know, your blockchain story. Um, blockchain is still in its early days, but this— I think something called the Food Trust And there's a shipping company thing where I had somebody on the show a couple of weeks ago. She was fantastic. And where all the shipping containers around the world, all the items being shipped in shipping containers around the world, from the time a, let's say, an avocado is picked from the field in Costa Rica to the time it shows up on your dinner table in Denmark, they can track that avocado. They know how long it stood in the port, how long it was in the container in the ocean, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's revolutionizing and putting transparency to business. So for me, blockchain is putting transparency to business. That's huge. And that's why I'm a big fan of blockchain. Hans, um, we've covered so many great points and you brought up so many cool things, um, and you gave a lot of people things to think about. Do you have any last things the way you want to wrap up and leave and leave these— leave our audience with an incredible impression of you, which they already have? An incredible impression of KMD, which they already have.

Yeah, yeah, as my last point, I would just say, yeah, look at the technologies and how it can help you in this situation, because there are a lot of benefits from technology and a lot of things where you can actually move your business in the right direction by looking at some of the right technologies here. I think that's the the key point of this conversation.

Fantastic. Ladies and gentlemen, that was Hans Jørgen Thyssen, CTO of KMD in Denmark. Hans, we thank you so much for your time. Ladies and gentlemen, please subscribe to this podcast. It's available on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, everywhere. We hope you like it. Hans, thank you so much. You still there?

Thank you. Yes, thank you for inviting me. It was a pleasure.

You're welcome, Hans. Hans, thank you, everybody, thank you. Till next time, take care, everybody. Bye-bye for now.