welcome to the latest episode of the service now executive Circle podcast today I'm joined by Our Guest Andy Morgan CEO of smart C hello thank you for having me so Andy if you could just start by telling our listeners a little bit more about who smart C is and what you do that would be great so smart C we're a uh technology life cycle Services business uh operating on behalf of it uh customers um we essentially get spare parts and Engineers to site to keep technology connected um within as little as 2 hours anywhere in Europe brilliant now obviously keeping everything connected technology wise transformation is a is a big thing and I think you know business has been talking about digital transformation for years but I think what's interesting in our conversation a while ago we were talking about the fact that actually digital transformation isn't really the right term to use anymore because it's not a one-off transformation um so you know what's your view on that well for us um it's it's about continuous Improvement um and whilst we have a digital transformation program there is a big underlying part of continuous Improvement um it's actually part of our shared values um because I just don't see it as being a complete one-off um you know the the the excitement of a program is great uh but afterwards it still needs to evolve exactly it's not a one hit wonder and it's done you've transformed and it's finished but I mean how do you bring your business and your your staff along that Journey because you know if you keep saying okay we've done one digital transformation we're going to do another and another you know that change management is quite difficult how do you bring your colleagues Along on that Journey yeah so um I think we were talking about a bit like a was it a New Year's resolution but really it's about constant action within our business um constantly checking in to make sure things are enhancing but one thing that I do with in our business is we set every staff member a kpi so at least one pro C Improvement or customer experience Improvement per month um because I believe that the compound effect of that will add up to something big but also it keeps people on it for us which is super important um and it does lead to a lot of experimenting so some of the ideas don't quite work out but there are some great ideas that really do um I probably look at it like the the 8020 R so uh famous par uh law um you know 20% of ideas do generate some big gains 80% are pretty small but it's great to keep that Evolution within our business definitely so it's built into your DNA um into the core of your business which is amazing I guess the employees you know buy into that and at the end of the day you know you're improving your business to help your customers to improve you know your bottom line but at the end of the day you've got to make your employees happy so they need to be able to see and use the processes themselves don't they so it's about building excitement with people because where we all make some change it's quite exciting when you see the outcome of that and um I think we talked around a you know a rebellious good behavior um so it's it's it's it's really great to see people do that and given them the ability to do it themselves um so it's not all you know nothing has to go through a change program perhaps some of the larger technical changes do um but giving people the ability to do it themselves um we got a great example in our business with um a new entrance to the workforce um we kind of shared with him that you know if you see something that you think can improve go for it um and what he did is he whiteboard it out well here's the start to the end process of my process I'm having some challenges you know in his case it was collecting some parts um so he whiteboard did the whole solution out and he looked at well where are the where are the blockers within that um and he came back with some recommendations that he spoke to his colleagues about so there was more people now involved so around three people involved they said well I recommend we make this change now I'm new here so you know can I make sure that we can do it um and it was just great to see that he came up with those ideas he validated it with his peers he presented it to his manager who then presented to his manager because it quite a big process in the end but it was just great to see and he was so proud of doing that um and everyone else was so happy being involved in that part of the you know continuous evolution of you know his role and his colleagues roles that's amazing and there's something there to be said as well around the kind of the upskilling within the team as well within the business because obviously you might have to think about yes I can think about what's broken in the process but actually he may not know all the tools and systems and solutions to be able to fix it so there's a way to kind of bring in those new skills and new learnings as well absolutely and kind of having it part of our culture was really important because you know he can validate it with his colleagues and they'd be open to having those discussions um ultimately this uh this this this chat was uh promoted pretty quickly so he saw the benefits and everyone else saw well he made a major change in that area um and you know he got the rewards of that so it's encouraged a bit more you know kind of uh behaviors of of of of of enhan and things and I guess your customers have seen that benefit as well and have you had feedback from customers saying wow you know previously that was taking x amount of time and actually recently it's changed and you can say well that's come from the business that's come from the team yeah absolutely and um you know we've been introducing uh certain digital tools for our customers to to to gain more transparency um and they say okay well that's that's helped and I'm definitely seeing those those changes happen um and it's probably a question probably two years ago asked when I in introduced it and shared out with our customers they say okay well you know maybe and they all start to go oh I can actually see those changes which is just super super great to see that's brilliant I mean we we talk in the industry about this idea of total experience so employee experience and customer experience coming together because they are so intrinsic and actually you've just encapsulated that perfectly in customers seeing the benefits and Improvement of how you're improving your employees day-to-day lives absolutely and uh it certainly hasn't happened overnight but uh we're on a we're on a constant push uh and we've still got a long way to go so uh we're uh you know it's great that people are engaged and uh people are making the suggestions because um we can't just do it at the board um we've got to get everybody really engaged in the program so you're putting your own suggestions as a CEO into the suggestion box as well uh yeah certainly so I do encourage the team where uh you know they kind of uh you know going to grab a coffee um you know ask people what they've been up to and we have those uh discussions as well as we kind of just talk around the business which is um which is good sometimes I have to kind of Step myself away to say you know that's not yours to do so but uh just making sure the team are you know aware that I'm interested um because I've got to leave by example yeah definitely but obviously as a CEO you know looking after a growing company um how do you balance those priorities you know you've got your employees looking at your processes you've got to make sure your customers are happy you've got to run a cost-effective and efficient business how do you prioritize when everything's a priority yeah um it's uh it's it's a tough part uh of the job really um but um it's it's about making sure customer experience is first um but we also put the continuous Improvement as part of the culture as part of our kpis so then it naturally becomes part of the Habit um it's quite tough to start and then stop then restart big programs um so what we do is we encourage the smallest changes it could be a minute a day of a repetitive process it could be 10 minutes it could be an hour um it doesn't have to be Monumental um it can be a super small change but you know uring that if it's going to take five minutes longer to do it but I'm going to save myself you know 10 minutes next week on something I do weekly well let's just go and do it and people are really embracing that it's a delicate balance isn't it as well between the people and the technology and the systems and the customers and where those priorities are like you say so customers come first but actually if your employees aren't happy and actually if the technology and the solutions aren't working it's ultimately not going to improve the customer experience so it's just that balance isn't it all the time yeah it is a fine balance and certain things where they need Improvement that require um it to go into a digital roadmap perhaps um that can sometimes cause frustration that I want to make that change it seems really simple so it's put it into a road map and in operating really like a software business would do with their agile methodologies of software development so how do we do with process Improvement um ultimately customer experience Improvement within our business so we frequently review those and make sure we prioritize them and give feedback and transparency to people um it's it's it's a really important part um at service now we're often talking about the big macro Trends impacting businesses today um we've already covered sort of the empowered consumer the future changing Workforce and obviously we know businesses are impacted by inflation recession but one of the other priorities and Trends is ESG and I think you see a lot of seite pushing that to the bottom of the priority list but for you that's not the case is it well no absolutely we've um we we're highly motivated to do it and um it's probably two years ago when I looked at it more seriously I found it a bit overwhelming really there's so many standards um you know what do you start with how do you build it into your business that it's part of something that could be maintained um so for me I engage somebody who does it day in day out we got an expert team in to help us structure how are we going to do it but how are we going to maintain it and consistently approve and that that area of continuous Improvement falls into that as well it's quite nicely fits into it yeah definitely again that's a key point isn't it for people to listen to this and think don't think of ESG as a separate track that you've got to look at think of it as part of your continuous digital transformation absolutely um and uh we we actually developed a committee of people from different areas of the business so we had more people engaged so rather than it being a full here a corporate push P down to what we're going to do you know we got teams involved different departments involved to make sure that they could play a part in it um and that's really helped us about how we integrate it into the business um which which has been great to see we've made some really quite simple but um you know major improvements into the business again long way to go but we've been making some really great progress so as a CEO speaking to other CEOs what are some of the top tips that you would give to look at tackling ESG as a as a big big piece yeah I think I always look at things as the top three things to look at I got external guidance um with a focus on how do we maintain it rather than just do once um we got employees engaged interested multiple departments involved um and it was all part of the integration to people's objectives um as well brilliant brilliant tips and and again you know this SE Suite listening to this podcast um what what are the next things for you as a CEO of smart CT are you going to look at are you going to tackle yeah the future things for us around more digital engagement with our customers um we've we've kicked it off um working with some industry leading Partners uh I wonder who um and um really giving greater transparency and greater access to making customers make decisions with us digitally that's the way we go we've made some great strides in putting you more simpler things in place but we've got to really evolve that so it becomes a more integral part of our organization amazing and obviously we can't not ask the question around generative AI um is that something that you see becoming part of your business or is it still that bit of enigma of you know how do we integrate it how do I use it well we've certainly looked at it but uh the stage of our organization as we are growing it out into different um services for different product sets for our organization we felt that as we learn more we need to make sure those processes and operations mature and once they mature we think we can apply it in more cases so we've looked at it we're just not quite there yet so we're really looking at to see what other businesses use certain use cases they apply to it uh I'd love to say yes we're using it already but uh we we we're not quite there yet definitely it's a delicate balance isn't it sort of say to the board we're using AI but actually what's you know no one's put a value to it yet no one's got those use cases to share to say you know this is this is the ROI it can bring so stay tuned absolutely and the thing is the from our customer experience we're focused on that if it doesn't have a material gain there then it tends to fall low down on the priority um and as it matures in the market we'll uh we'll be keeping a close eye perfect it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you today Andy and I hope the listeners have really taken away lots of tips tips and ideas from you so really appreciate it thank you for having me