Lenovo Work Reborn - Podcast Interview with Patricia Wilkey

the reason we have AI is there is to help enable the end user help us be smarter help us use our time wiser in being able to do that so it never can be just a computer play all by itself right it's not just a software application that sits there it needs some information it needs the smarts around it so we've got to take advantage make ourselves be able to be quicker faster and get that business outcome with the tools that we're given to be successful 3 years from now most workplaces will be unrecognizable the companies that aren't preparing for AI today won't just fall behind they'll disappear so how do I stay ahead of the shift according to Lenovo's workreborn thought leadership study which surveyed over 600 senior IT leaders around the globe organizations are already seeing the impact of generative AI and reshaping productivity innovation and employee satisfaction this is not just a trend it's a fundamental shift in how work gets done the question now is how do businesses prepare for this transformation generative AI and automation are rewriting the rules of productivity innovation and engagement and Lenovo is leading the way in helping businesses stay ahead to help us navigate these critical changes in the marketplace we have Patricia Wilkkey senior vice president and general manager of international sales at Lenovo as our expert to help guide this conversation let's get started [Music] thank you so much for joining me today with Patricia welcome how are we doing doing great nice to see you today it's so nice to see you are you enjoying the event so far i am very busy but that's good i heard you just did a keynote presentation i did what was your topic on it was the era of uh being reborn in the end user environment well that's actually great because I have a few questions I wanted to ask you kind of related to that topic bringing new life to the modern workplace um and specifically we had a really fantastic uh research study that we've conducted at Lenovo so part one of four uh we called it the Lenovo work reborn research study look at that so close to you you're speaking right so um I wanted to go ahead and start really talking about exploring what's really shifting in the marketplace um you know what's possible and what leaders kind of should be looking at or or need to know as we kind of explore this topic overall so my first question for you is you know you and the team at Lenovo you aren't just thinking about the future of work you're actually helping to build it what does that mean to you well it comes back on the the future is now but also tomorrow right so we always have to be thinking what is an end user going to need in their role in their profile today but how do they take advantage of technology to constantly modernize and bring the next best thing right because how do you make uh sure that we can help them close a deal quicker they can satisfy a customer quicker all coming down to the ROI and the bottom line around that right those outcomes are so important absolutely but it is a big change trying to address these things so I'm excited to dive into that in just a second sounds good great so before we get into that though I really want to ask you a question was there a moment in your career when you realized like this is the future of work i'm somewhere where I'm excited to be and this this is just this is it kind of a thing well you I will say maybe when I was little and younger I did uh around the mobility side and recognizing this is the first steps of mobile that mobile wasn't just a voice call wow but the power of data and what would happen if that device was in the hands of everybody so working with the intercom um and the telecom union looking at how do we make sure that end users have access to information and making a call but making a decision I would just it is so powerful and to see it today of what we have in devices we always kind of say from the pocket to the cloud it's it's really that was the moment that I saw the potential and it's great to be experiencing it real live today right I mean the way that technology is moving it's moving faster than ever right and being a part of that is so great it means that we're instrumental in that in that change so based on that I would love to know um what excites you the most about how AI is transforming the workplace not just for businesses but for people kind of that it has that same feeling of like wow we're really in the moment doing something different you know it's amazing to see i mean there's maybe sometimes a little frightened of the potential right but to see what it can do from basic experience out to the enterprise seeing it in the hands of the young right looking at those users who are at home or playing a video game and seeing the next play picking out where they want to go to dinner just not by going to a map and picking but saying "I'm interested in Chinese food tonight okay here's some ideas based on what you like that might come into play." So seeing that's just so amazing to be able to take step by step and bringing it forward i think the other piece is that is that it doesn't have to be one application or one use case so just as you said whether I'm at home and I'm being a mom whether I'm helping in school and advising or mentoring to whether I'm in the office whether I'm with a CIO or a CMO every aspect AI can come in and play not to mention the things we don't see that are running in the infrastructure be it in the public cloud or the private cloud behind the scenes that we don't even know that are gobbling up but producing the outcomes we want right it's amazing to me and part of our research that at Lenovo that we did in the work reborn research report we found an interesting statistic so I'm going to read it for you you're going to tell me what what you think so we surveyed over 600 senior IT leaders around the globe and it turns out only 36% of IT leaders say their workplace actually supports engagement why is this still such such a challenge so there's a couple factors that come in one is always the investment right where where if you're thinking as a CIO how do I do more with less so there's always the pressure of budget and you want to be able to bring these new things but how can I do that economically and get the business outcome and ROI that I want the other side is how do you bring the wealth of applications out there and centralize down to the end user it's not easy right you have to look at from a security play who owns the data where is the application sit so there's a lot of complexity and many times we've seen that enterprises haven't even taken the first steps of change management so if you don't have the change management you're probably not seeing the impact at the end user or the business process that you want to act in upon that's crucial because if there's not someone there to help guide and make the change feel less overwhelming then it may not be as likely to happen especially from some of the data that we've seen from our report as well absolutely and it might not be a big bang but you're right some are very slow to adopt and they have to see how do you bring the CMO the CFO the CIO the CISO from security who might block you a bit and how do you bring all these different groups or people together to make it happen right it doesn't take one person it really does take the full team right right so you know that really makes me think about a quote where we had in the report it said "The best workplaces don't just work faster they work smarter." So what's one unexpected way that companies can rethink productivity i think the the first piece is to come back that there's two very key assets that a enterprise or government entity have one the data that they have and two the people the people assets incredible and so the first steps can be around how do you enable the end user to be productive more every day how do you use this technology be it AI etc to make an impact for them in their role so the first thing you can do is give the proper access and allow them to be creative so if you can start that you're going to see day one some changes coming through whether it's a low code application that they're bringing or maybe it's just how they use an application that the enterprise is using every person operates and interacts with that differently but it's a first step to get there from my understanding one of the offerings that Lenovo has is care of one and from my understanding it seems like care of one really can help with that type of productivity and getting that personalization that creativity going what are your thoughts on that uh right on absolutely so if you think of the people that are out there in that organization there's roles but even with roles each one of those end users interacts differently so what does that mean you have to understand the persona the profile of that end user and with care of one it helps us recognize take data feeds of what's taking place in there but then we can really get the education the knowledge of that information and apply the needs to that end user to that profile so whether it's making sure they have the right application the right release of it and the other piece is you have to understand that each end user has to have rights to the data so how do you use this type of information to set the step and make sure it's all automated so that you're not manually having someone to go get the application but based on their profile you make it seamless experience for them can you give me a small example of a use case for care of one for example um if someone were onboarding a new employee or something like that or maybe something that I'm not even considering that's even more innovative no but that's a great one let's use that okay so first of all right many times you know that um that person has a start date right so how do you make sure that based on the profile information that Karen one might come through is that that device is going to be whether it's at their home or in their office in their hands the day that they start first right the second piece is we have to make sure that the applications required maybe it's even the first orientation class is lo ready and access to that end user the third piece is well what if they need support how do you make sure again there is support for that end user to be able to take it so care of one gives a knowledge base on what that profile what that user needs so they can take advantage immediately that's a really big factor is that employee engagement as well and um what we're seeing being a huge focus in today's uh modern workplace as well and actually 63% of senior IT leaders say that personalization is key to that engagement so at the same time though yet many struggle to actually implement it so what's getting in the way of that the piece let's take it from two sets okay first the end user and that end user experience you can have the best tool but if you aren't educated on how to use the tool it's going to be right slow slow to the adoption to be able to get there so the first is making sure you have that if you don't you could put the best thing out there and you're probably not going to see the business benefits but the other side is back to how do I make sure the employee has what they need but has access to what they need and that means the identity management identity management to the information so what's that really behind the scenes security and if you don't have the right security play your organization might say look I am coming out to the extreme zero trust i'm going to black label everything right so how do you control how do you manage so that you can be successful and getting to that next step yeah security was a main concern that was noted within our research because we want to be able to integrate these changes to accelerate innovation and productivity and personalization and all of that but if security is a really big barrier how would you advise someone um specifically that senior IT leader to overcome that and maybe one step they can take to to get there well first I'll say is bring your teams together okay so make sure that the CISO is with the IT leader right from the beginning start early and set the groundworks around your data what is the data policies that you're going to be able to take those steps that is the first because once you have the data policy you can set up the environment you know Lenovo could come and bring an endpoint solution we could bring a managed security solution depending on what the technology need that the customer has but even when we get there it's going to be what are the security policies that the the CISO feels you know comfortable with as well as I got to say legal team as well right how do you protect your own data but make sure that your team can be successful and productive at the same time wow so that's a lot of factors to consider it is so and I'm sure it can that's probably why it's a barrier to adoption that sense of overwhelm for for this type of innovation right like how do we coach our senior IT leaders to not maybe view the entire picture but but take the next step but but even let's go to AI right make sure that you educate the senior leaders what it is now it might be your first board conversation so the CIO I met with one CIO and he had seven days to go to his board and be able to say this is how we're going to use AI this is how AI is going to make you know an impact but the first question he said was I need to understand what are the options what are the considerations the risks as well as the productivity opportunities that I can take so it comes back to education educate yourself first understanding that and that's that can be the easiest step because then you can say all right I'm going to create this policy or I'm going to get access to this tool and when you have that education even if it's something created outside of your organization you understand how you want to use it so education education around AI can be the very first step right that's a really great point um you know kind of tying into the report just a bit more okay our report actually predicts that AI will transform 85% of workplace tasks in the next decade isn't that a fun fact yes what's one insight from this report concept that we should act on right now right so if anything like with AI transforming the workplace and workplace transformation being a huge point of discussion what's like a key factor of AI that senior IT leaders may not even be considering could be helping to innovate or you know change the way we do work so the first piece I'll say well is in your own organization typically you have a team that is there to help your end user so the very first piece is bringing it in and I don't like to say just the call center or the help desk but having a strategy around the service desk how do you bring the right service and the first easiest step is using a AI technology around the knowledge center the knowledge that back to data and data that is key the application and AI that can make a difference can really be the easiest and first step that be it a a government agency be it a a private enterprise that you can take those steps in and you know in in Lenovo we have something called the AI fast start the AI what faster okay so what it does is it takes the idea of what you want to do around that use case puts it into a design and validate mode so that within 90 days you've really assessed and looked at this use case this AI piece makes sense and you don't design it for just once and throw it away you design it to be able to be productive and how do you take that forward so it's a quick fast play fast start to help what I call not just proof of concept but proof of value wow how do you really get the value around and it's could be one baby step one use case that you can be ready to make a decision i'm going to go forward or not before you spend too much right right because this is a big investment and we want to make sure that it gets the outcomes that that we're looking for yes i've also heard from some of our conversations about the fact that the work that we're doing can it can actually be proactive with our with our tools that we have so instead of having to provide AI a prompt it can be actively working in the background to make the changes or um provide the the progress and productivity that we need um can you tell me a little bit more about that and how that even is that's so cool to me it and you know it's very different an in aspect whether it's in the device itself to whether it's around the device so let's take the device the first step is that with AI technology and automation sensorings sensors that exist you can be able to grab that data literally but you can grab that data and be able to know if something doesn't seem to be working right so before it fails you can either automat autoatically make an impact uh remotely or if needed you can make a a physical intervention around that so that's the first piece around the device but let's come to the enduser right that's I think what we're talking a lot about today so in the enduser world with some of let's say our care of one solution we are seeing the activity we understand and can sense back to sensing the data around that end user we can find predictability so the analytics around how that end user is working or not working can set alerts back to be able to make an impact for that customer whether it's their devices breaking their application isn't working we're seeing a slowdown of the information to the end user especially if someone's in a virtual desktop right they're relying on that network activity and if it's not there to give them their app there goes their productivity so these are different ways that you can use automation and AI without even knowing and sensing that it's there helping you okay so question for you and as far as application of this concept goes let's say I'm a virtual employee and I have a workplace laptop and I've received c can it send me a notification before I even know that like my battery needs to be replaced for example so I don't log in one one day to work and my computer's just dead right could it do something like that there there are the capabilities and that's from what we are seeing today and what we're going to continue to drive is being proactive around that helping and sensing for the end user so you have zero downtime uh to be able to make sure so yeah that downtime could be costly so if we talk about ROI from that different perspective too right right and there's different tools that exist in different ways and so what Lenovo does is we look at that ecosystem and we set up a model to support whatever end user right whether it's somebody out in the field somebody at home somebody in the office we've got the right tool tools integrated together to support that end user experience i think we should pull up another fun fact here and get your reaction to it okay companies using AI according to our Lenovo Work Reborn research report the companies that use AI see up to a 30% productivity boost but some some still hesitate like we were talking about earlier to use it so what's the most common fear holding them back and is it justified i'm going to say there's two that I see in here most often first is AI going to take away my personal differentiator in my role in my job right am I going to be you know seen that I'm not as useful anymore so that's the first piece and again why does that exist because most users aren't educated on how it can help them product on that side the other one comes back around again security and that not only is it the business information but my own personal information and this starts to blur in the consumer experience to the enterprise experience your data your profile is starting to come and impact so me as an individual I don't know if I'm ready to take that step sometimes right your information is getting out there are there risks of your information being out there and that's why we're even seeing regulations come in country by country that we have to understand how do you support whether it's a government piece or something called a group called a work council that's kind of like the unions of business enterprise we have to understand that so those are the two things that get a little hesitant but once you put the framework around it you can see the adoption come right i mean the AIdriven tools that we've seen can cut up specifically the admin work by 40% and that can free up people to do more of that meaningful work we're not trying to take away their job we and we're not trying to make them feel like we're reducing their importance we want to take away the minutia of the dayto-day so we can empower them to get creative and productive right yeah you know today I did my keynote and I asked a question of the audience about using AI tools um didn't I don't want to say what brand or whatnot but using the AI tool how many of them in the collaboration effort be it on a conference call in a meeting where they're taking notes how many of them are using these AI tools to take their actions to know what the next steps are to gather the information over 95% of the people in the audience raised their hand and said that's the step they feel comfortable with because it's immediate that they can see and it's something they can have the data and reuse so again it's use case and steps but it's out there yes it's so exciting to to hear that 95% of the people in your keynote were like yes we use it so that means there's there's a potential for even more adoption and different facets of AI i want to go back to a little bit talking about that employee engagement because what's surprising is if employees like we were saying a second ago aren't doing the admin work we have the proper protocols in place to implement workplaces with that high employee engagement see a 21% boost in profitability so what's the single easiest thing a leader can do tomorrow to improve the employee engagement so the first comes back to education maybe that's the single one education that needs to be our education education but with that education is the communication right how are you going to use it how does it make me feel safe how are they recognized by the leadership of the organization to really show them it is a tool to help them and get that productivity because again if you put the tool out there they don't know how to use it or they're afraid to use it you will never get that ROI to improve right so it's the adoption of the employee to start using and once they start to bring that into their own environment again start to use it whether it's first in the personal experience at home as a consumer to being to see that used uh back in the enterprise office as well thank you for that really insightful comment but I wanted to talk about the future of work and we don't have to get into specifics i wanted to call out a statistic actually that we pulled from our work reborn research report and it says that 89% of senior IT leaders believe that Gen AI is critical for workplace transformation but it's a challenge to kind of face that reality so um does that statistic surprise you or encourage you like what's your reaction to that i'll say I'm not too surprised right and the reason is cuz my background is I used to be in finance i used to be a CFO right so every time my team said I need another dollar another euro another pound they had to come back and give me the business case right so unless you see the business case to do that and experience it it's hard to take that step but also if you can't measure something very easily it's hard to prove that use case right we might be experienced something that makes us feel good makes us feel more productive but can I go and show my leader that hey on my laptop I did something and I made this even more beautiful more contentrich because I used an AI tool they might not be able to put that and quantify it so it becomes the measurability of that outcome that we have to work hard on and show our leaders take that step because you need to get there and then maybe the last point is you better embrace it because if you don't your competitor is I'm so glad you brought that up because of how fast these innovations are moving and our competitors they're looking for ways to stand out right and I think it's very clear to me as we've been having this conversation that it's the technology is here and and if you're not ready to learn about it and adopt it you're going to be left behind right exactly exactly and you take your cautious step okay right take that first step get in there understand it because you really got to move fast so Patricia if an IT leader is listening to this this whole conversation and they don't take away anything but they can take away one thing what's the one thing you would tell somebody to to kind of keep in mind as they as they wrap up listening to our conversation today keep your mind open and make sure that you're educating not only yourself but your organization to the benefits and steps on how to take forward one by one the use case around AI whether you're in a healthcare organization let's say you're looking at the next generation operating room right we all want that to be secure in there but if you can put information at the fingertips of the team that's in there using AI to bring that tie in with their devices it's key right there's a use case if I'm a financial banker and I need to make some decisions quick because we know I'll be at Wall Street or wherever you are on the financial play decisions have to be quick so having that information at the fingertips or guiding me what my decision might want to be and using that all the way to manufacturing you're bringing the next generation plant floor how do you use technology at the edge with AI to make the quick decision to be able to find defects immediately and cut down the the cost that you might have to do to repair something that's going out the door so every industry has a use case scenario so don't forget to take what's core to you and your business or your organization and really experiment around that use case i love that you gave us different examples about various industries that may not naturally think that this is a solution that they could even implement right we're saying that there's a use for this in in every application that we can even think of the possibilities are endless totally totally it is say this so would you agree that your the company's AI strategy will either make you indispensable or irrelevant there's not really a middle ground anymore oh uh I still think there's going to be a middle ground for a while right i I think that you know the reason we have AI is there is to help enable the end user help us be smarter help us use our time wiser in being able to do that so it never can be just a computer play all by itself right it's not just a software application that sits there it needs some information it needs the smarts around it so we've got to take advantage make ourselves be able to be quicker faster and get that business outcome with the tools that we're given to be successful so I think it's you know it's not going to be the Terminator world tomorrow it's how does it come in and use successful and go to what's core how do you close that deal quicker how do you get more revenue how do you make the customer happier with this technology and I guess Lenovo could help you do that if you're wondering how absolutely for sure well thank you so much for taking this time for me if anyone listening is interested in learning more about the report this is only part one of our four-part Lenovo Reborn work report research series and we're so excited to continue the conversation we might see you at another booth someday but for now that's a wrap thank you so much Patricia thank you great [Music]

2025-04-02 08:05

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