Tony Tenicela
Global Leader, Workforce Diversity and LGBT Markets
IBM Corporation
Having just flown in to Hong Kong this morning for the conference, Tenicela opened his remarks by saying that, “The Digital Revolution is upon us.” He pointed out that Hong Kong rated the highest in the world for amount of people who browse the internet on their smartphones, 96% and levels of social platform penetration, 64%. Further to that, he made of point of saying that 90% of world data is created every year—showing that digitalisation is a force within the world and it is becoming ever more relevant for HR.
With such ease of access, more people want information instantly, they are more sophisticated in how they use it and people will use it to do their homework on the products and services of our companies. With this, he introduced the thread for his talk which surrounded the need to develop “Social Business”.
Social Business is all about having the best ideas, breaking down barriers, leveraging management to share ideas and leveraging the online community to boost business. It is all about connecting society and creating social layers, insisted Tenicela. With this, he talked about the culture shift that was needed in organisations. This was not just about having a conversation and networking but employers and employees need to understand that Social Business is about advancing business and making our inner workings more efficient.
Such an approach is important when one considers the up-and-coming Millenials generation. Tenicela stressed that these people have a different style, “Millenials will not be dictated to and want their own style and pace.” As such, he explained the importance of embracing mobile technology and having a system that enables multi-national business to speak with one voice.
To illustrate his point, he talked about IBM’s “Smarter Workforce” initiative which has been designed to empower employees, allow flexibility and enable to use of tools any time, anywhere. Importantly though, the initiative embraces collaboration and he made a point to explain about IBM’s ‘Innovation Jam’. This Jam allows employees to share discussion and he talked about the time they asked their staff, ‘What does it mean to be an IBMer?’ The collective output of this 72-hour exercise went into producing the 3 values that IBM now lives by. He emphasised that while businesses like IBM can reinvent themselves for the needs of business, the values of bringing people together stay steadfast.
For the future, Tenicela predicted that the social intranet will become more expansive and will eventually fuse with social media. He even went as far to talk about a ‘Mobile Revolution’, which will one day replace desktops and laptops. Tenicela also predicted the future will rely more on analytics and game layers produced by software. The use of these will enhance understanding, which can be used to predict scenarios for business. Lastly, he felt that while email would never go away, it will certainly change to become more dynamic.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
