Sustainability, innovation and partnership series - Episode 1

#KingstonCognate introduces Prof. Sally Eaves and Neil Cattermull

Prof. Sally Eaves

Prof. Sally Eaves is a highly experienced Chief Technology Officer, Professor in Advanced Technologies and a Global Strategic Advisor on Digital Transformation specialising in the application of emergent technologies, notably AI, FinTech, Blockchain & 5G disciplines, for business transformation and social impact at scale. An international Keynote Speaker and Author, Sally was an inaugural recipient of the Frontier Technology and Social Impact award, presented at the United Nations in 2018 and has been described as the ‘torchbearer for ethical tech’ founding Aspirational Futures to enhance inclusion, diversity and belonging in the technology space and beyond.

Neil Cattermull

Neil has over 35 years of experience working with technology across multiple sectors and brings a unique perspective on technical strategies that are easily understood to technical and non-technical audiences. Technology Analyst and social media influencer across emerging technology sectors. Leading Industry analyst across multiple business sectors, including Cloud, Blockchain, 5G, storage and many others as well as the CEO at the Future as a Service - Enabling consumers of technology to make the right choice, one service at a time.

How to optimise your IT infrastructure - evolve, build or replace?

Many businesses today are navigating within the juxtaposition of ‘doing more with less’ - needing to keep tight reign over cash-flow and costs, yet also needing to innovate. Every situation is different, so the overarching advice is always to personalise strategy to your specific business context along the incremental to transformational innovation continuum - and to continually reflect and review this.

With capital to invest - and its noticeable that many organisations have ‘stepped-up’ to offer more flexible finance options - this investment in innovation will reduce operational costs both short term and over time. For example, the DC600M SSD can reduce license and capital costs by up to 39%, improving productivity from AI, machine learning and big data analytics to cloud computing, software-defined storage, operational databases (ODB), database applications and data warehousing.

Equally, and embedding in circular economy value principals, we can also optimise what we already have and get ‘more life’ out of existing technology infrastructure. As an example, memory and SSD upgrades offer cost effective means to significantly increase laptop and PC performance. Everyone is aware of the benefits migrating from HDD to SSD, we are now seeing the next SSD evolution from SATA to NVMe. Kingston’s entry level SSDs are 10x faster than a spinning hard drive. With this approach, you can enable cost optimised incremental innovation that grows when you do.

What are the key pillars of Tech partnership?

Overall, there are 5 key pillars behind strong enduring partnerships, namely Trust, Cost, Performance, Flexibility, and Innovation. As part of this, longevity can be pivotal to develop not only trust in the technology itself, but also the people, culture, values, and relationships behind it. Indeed, this goes to the very heart of human-tech partnerships. In today’s context of continual change across economy, society and environment, the nimbleness or ambidexterity to adapt, both in attitude and capabilities is critical - alongside the capacity and willingness to personalise experiences. In fact, this has probably never mattered more.

Individuals and organisations alike; from a 1-person start-up, to a rapidly evolving large enterprise, need support to navigate the noise, to distinguish hype from reality, and hope from fear or resistance to change. Drawing on Sally's personal experiences with Kingston Technology, and underpinned by free highly accessible services such as ‘Ask an Expert’ this approach really comes to the core – it is centred on facilitation, guiding people through the choices available and personalised to you - your business - your specific context. The very ethos of a trusted partnership.

Concluding, in this ‘Tech Foresight’ exploration of how we can move beyond business continuity to resilience, adaptability and growth, embedding sustainability by design emerges as core, alongside the 5 Pillars of trusted partnership and organisational agility across culture and capabilities alike. To support the dualities of innovating but controlling costs, and increasing simplicity at a time of rising complexity, having the right technology infrastructure is critical – and we have seen that can be achieved with both incremental and transformational approaches to innovation, tailored to business context every time.

Watch this video to find out more from industry experts on sustainability.

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