James Farrelly of RLB Digital on how digital needs to start with data rather than software, the challenge rather than the solution
Digital and technology have often been confused with software innovation. What I have realised 24 months into my career at RLB Digital is that software is only part of the picture and often selecting which platform to use comes at the end, rather than the beginning of a client’s digital journey.
At RLB Digital, we spend days speaking to clients across our industry about their digital challenges, ambitions and roadmaps. A pattern has emerged. While many of the built environment are now on the way to digitalisation, many invested heavily in large software products as a way to uptech their organisations and improve decision making, only to find the systems becoming out of date as soon as they been implemented or that they incorporate mass functionality but little relevance to their individual need.
For others, the challenge has been configuration, or lack of it. So many times, we have seen a client having to adapt or change their ways of working to fit into the software they have brought. Instead of the software being the facilitator of change, it has become the driver of change.
However, the industry is evolving. Where it used to be about the shiny, newest and latest tech, and a deferred responsibility of not understanding technology and therefore reaching for the largest, most expensive assuming it was the best, there is more acknowledgement that we need to stop and think before sign on the dotted line. One where we assess need and customer functionality and strategise before we spend.
We need to go back to basics: Managing the data
This includes a back-to-basics approach. Instead of looking outside of the organisation about what we can bring in, we start to look inside the organisation, analysing pain points and problems that need fixing.
This normally leads us to data. Most organisations are not short of data. They might have culminated it from their own working practices, from their clients, even brought some in. Often the case isn’t the quantity of data but the quality.
We know that data, particularly real-time data, can lead to real-time insights, an understanding of those pain points and the challenges a company is facing.
That’s why it is important to understand the complexity in data, driven by factors such as fragmented information flows, legacy data and more and more information being created without anyone maintaining it. Data needs to be managed in a standardised, consistent way to avoid the risk of incomplete, poorly aligned and incorrect data.
Creating smaller module solutions
It is only when a clear plan of data management and an ongoing process of data cleaning has been put in place that we can begin to think about the solution and the software to help with the solution.
This robust information foundation acts as a core starting point before adding on digital solutions that can drive decisions about your assets and estates.
Instead of creating a behemoth, we believe that building smaller solutions that can solve individual problems is the way forward. These smaller solutions are faster to integrate, are more affordable and therefore are more likely to get financial approval and bring quicker and more measurable value for money.
Once one small solution has been deployed, we can then look at the next challenge and how we solve that through another module and then the next, and so forth. A module pipeline develops where investment delivers incremental benefit, each building on the last step. It is a challenge, solution, measurable results, repeat.
Yet over time these small deployments become substantial, adaptable and are based on clients’ need rather than keeping up with the latest piece of software.
Of course, this step-by-step approach also allows us to keep up with advancements like AI and natural coding maturity resulting in the ability to deliver bespoke innovative solutions that have little risk and are tailored to organisational need and requirements. A fit-for-purpose rather than one-size-fits-all approach.
Tech and digital will always be a moving feast. Unlike other areas of the built environment, it will move faster and without thought or consideration for the industries it serves. Yet, it is our responsibility as the masters of tech to harness it, to understand its appropriation in our sector’s context. Perhaps the most important lesson of all is the simplest: start with the problem, understand the data and let the technology follow.
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