I don’t need to highlight the impact of the last few years on the world and its businesses. Companies that once completely dismissed the idea of remote working now embrace online offices, with many now operating fully remotely. Externally, the marketplace is shifting too, and opportunities for creating and realizing value can be found in new, less familiar places.

Like every business sector, Financial Services has been on a rollercoaster ride over the past couple of years. The pandemic forced a change in the way businesses work, and the way products and services are delivered to customers. Deloitte summed it up beautifully in the introduction to its ‘Finance 2025 Revisited report’1: “COVID-19 has sped up business innovation and stress-tested the concept of 100% remote work.”

Every enterprise is now facing the same challenge: to do more with less in a demanding economic environment. Releasing value to customers sooner while at the same time controlling the costs of their infrastructures, retaining skilled staff, and reducing risk. With technology now central to the way many enterprises offer, package and deliver their products and services, it has a big part to play here. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella summed it up perfectly in the keynote to Microsoft Inspire 2022 when he said.

I was recently joined for a live webinar by Tony Maddonna (Microsoft Platform Lead, Enterprise Architect & Operations Manager at BMW) and Hamish Watson (DevOps Alchemist at Morph iT) to discuss their experiences with digital transformation and the impact it had on them, their teams and the wider organization.