The five-day programme was packed with fascinating, visionary sessions and a multitude of networking opportunities – a hard task to decide which sessions to join.

For SER the event already started off successfully by hosting the Sunday VIP dinner. This gave us the opportunity to discuss the Digital Workplace and related challenges with relevant CIOs and IT experts. The international attendees and idea exchange indicated that ECM Excellence is a crucial part of the workplace of the future.

Nevertheless, the main part was reserved for sessions and presentations. Approximately 100 sessions and roundtable per day covered the full range of IT. Attendees handpicked their individual agenda according to their business priorities. Session revolved around they key topics Renovating the IT Core, Drive Business Growth and Leadership. Especially, all sessions themed Plan for the Digital Future were insightful and worth sharing. The key messages can be wrapped-up as follows:

1. Disruption becomes more and more relevant as driver of innovation. Nowadays, disruptive innovation are mainly not driven by industry peers but digital companies, who challenge the market from “outside”. This e.g. is the case with Google and Tesla – both work on the car of the future, but are not traditional car manufacturers. Therefore it is important to drive disruptive innovations from within the company and to look into digital business models – quite a range of companies try this via acquisitions of technology companies (“techquisitions”).
2. The Bimodal Organisation creates (future) growth by integrating innovative technologies and software. And yet, CIOs have to think in two modes and align their activities accordingly. On the one hand there is the traditional IT, which is mainly about stability and security. On the other hand, in mode two, departments require fast, unconventional solutions from IT.
3. Algorithms and Smart Machines are going to take over a multitude of tasks independently. Not only the people themselves need to get used to this scenario, but also the company strategy needs to be adjusted in this regard. The supermarket of the future for example assembles a shopping basket according to an elaborated stock-keeping system automatically after the order has been received and optimises the processes and delivery times.

The CIO is a crucial partner and experts for topics like this, who supports the CEO and departments in all business relevant questions.

SER’s presentation on the implementation of multifunctional document management and its resulting advantages at DHL Express was also a huge success. Conversations continued after the session and will be proceeded in due course. Find out more about DHL Express and how they have transformed their business into a true digital workplace with the help of Doxis4 processing more than 5,000,000 new documents per day. https://www.sergroup.com/en/references/detail/dhl-express-338.html

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