Jean-Sébastien Charest - 2 Years Later

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this follow-up interview, Jean-Sébastien Charest discusses his digital transformation journey over the past two years, emphasizing the challenges and successes experienced in adapting to the rapidly changing technological landscape. He highlights the importance of digital transformation, its integration into operations, and how businesses can use AI to drive efficiencies. Charest also shares insights into how these technologies are being used at BDC and offered to Canadian SMEs to bolster their productivity and competitiveness. His closing advice stresses curiosity and adaptability in an evolving digital world.

Highlights

BDC’s journey from a traditional to a predominantly digital organization is ongoing, marked by adaptability. 🌐
There's a fine balance between digital convenience and in-person relationship value in client interactions. 🤝
Adapting to post-pandemic norms requires continuous digital investment, not just project completion. 🔄
Three-step model for AI adoption: immediate tools, tailored models, and future disruptive innovation. 🔥
AI integration in SMEs is crucial for maintaining competitiveness in the changing economic landscape. 💪

Key Takeaways

Digital transformation is a journey that requires adaptability to meet evolving client expectations. 🚀
A mix of digital and physical interactions is essential; not all value interactions have to be digital. ⚖️
AI offers vast potential to increase productivity but must be approached with a strategic and measured adoption. 🤖
Awareness and education on AI are crucial, especially for SMEs, to gain competitive advantages. 📚
Incorporating AI into business strategies should be realistic and align with organizational goals to ensure value creation. 🎯

Overview

In the realm of digital transformation, Jean-Sébastien Charest illustrates BDC's evolution into a predominantly digital entity. The transition underscores resilience amidst rapid technological advancements and shifting client expectations post-pandemic. Charest draws attention to the necessity of maintaining a balance between digital convenience and the value of personal interactions, ensuring clients receive optimal service.

As for future tech trends, AI takes center stage. Charest emphasizes a strategic, phased approach to AI adoption. This includes embracing existing AI capabilities, developing customized models for specific needs, and contemplating revolutionary changes in business operations. He underscores the imperative for Canadian SMEs to embrace AI to stay competitive, given its potential to boost productivity significantly.

Throughout the conversation, Charest's insights highlight the importance of curiosity and adaptability as vital traits for navigating the digital future. With a focus on measurable outcomes and continuous evolution, businesses are encouraged to foster environments that adapt to technological changes to maintain relevance and growth.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:30: Introduction and Recap of Past Discussion The chapter starts with an introduction and a brief recap of a past discussion between the narrator and John Chastian. The narrator expresses gratitude for meeting again and notes how the technology world continues to change rapidly. This sets the stage for their conversation, with the narrator poised to ask the first question.
01:30 - 05:30: Current State of Digital Transformation This chapter discusses the progress in digital transformation efforts over the past two years since the last conversation. The speaker highlights the changes and developments that have occurred in this fast-paced environment, focusing on their specific implementations and advancements in digital transformation.
05:30 - 10:00: Changes in Client Expectations and Business Dynamics Chapter 1: Changes in Client Expectations and Business Dynamics - The chapter discusses a digital transformation program initiated with a clear structure and expected outcomes. The program outlined the deliverables, the reasons for undertaking the transformation, the anticipated value generated, and the estimated costs. Two years later, the team expresses satisfaction with the results achieved, indicating a successful implementation of the program.
10:00 - 13:50: Digital Transformation Accomplishments and Future Strategy The chapter discusses the adaptability observed during the digital transformation program around the year 2024. It draws comparisons with similar programs in the industry, emphasizing that no one could have predicted the massive changes over a five-year span, including the pandemic, the shift to remote work, and the evolving demands of clients.
13:50 - 30:00: AI Adoption and Strategy: Part 1 (Internal) In this chapter titled 'AI Adoption and Strategy: Part 1 (Internal)', the discussion focuses on how digital habits, which were adopted rapidly due to various circumstances, have altered people's expectations for digital interactions. The speaker highlights that these changes are particularly relevant in their field, where aspects like inflation and interest rates play a significant role. The chapter underscores the importance of understanding these evolving digital expectations as they are driven by broader economic factors.
30:00 - 45:30: AI Adoption and Strategy: Part 2 (External) The chapter discusses AI adoption and its strategic importance from an external perspective. It emphasizes the need for businesses to adapt to changing expectations and impacts, with a focus on inclusivity. The conversation touches on how organizations like BDC are collaborating with entrepreneurs to navigate these changes.
45:30 - 53:00: Closing Thoughts and Advice for the Future The author reflects on the return to physical interactions in business post-pandemic. Despite returning to in-person dealings in manufacturing and services, there remains an expectation for the ease and convenience introduced by digital methods. This chapter emphasizes the integration of traditional physical presence with modern digital practices to enhance business efficiency.

Jean-Sébastien Charest - 2 Years Later Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 so John chastian thank you very much for uh meeting with me again and following up on our discussion from a couple of years ago now and uh of course as we've just been saying the uh the world continues to change very very quickly especially the technology world uh the first question I've got uh is really
00:30 - 01:00 around uh what you've been doing since we last talked uh and uh you know how your own implementation of digital transformation has progressed thank you um happy to have this followup conversation two years have gone by it's a it's a it's a fast-paced environment so a lot of stuff so let's start by your question is what have been we've been doing so um in our digital transformation we are now um
01:00 - 01:30 within a program that we had put together for digital transformation any program comes with um here's what we think we're going to deliver this is why we're doing it here's the value we think it's going to generate and how much is it going to cost obviously it's the construct of a typical program two years later um we're pretty happy with the results of what we've been able to deliver and um most of all I think we're happy with the
01:30 - 02:00 the the adaptability that we were able to uh provide during the program because think about it were in 2024 and it's a program it's a digital transformation like a lot of program you've seen out there like a lot of different players in the industry I called it a digital transformation um no one could have known five years ago everything would happened uh and whatnot think about the pandemic think about remote working think about the new new way our clients
02:00 - 02:30 are now expecting uh to be able to interact uh the new habits the digital habits that maybe sometimes were forced on uh on on many people how this changed the expectations uh with regards to digital and obviously in my line of work um everything around inflation and and the rates and everything have a have a big impact also because at the end of the day um it's a big driver for either um
02:30 - 03:00 harvesting our business but also make making sure we cater to everybody that are um impacted by these rates so it changes also the the posture you want to take and and the way the expectations have U have unfolded is a as a game changer so so so two years later you know think about we so we at BDC we work with entrepreneurs so everybody is
03:00 - 03:30 basically you know back physically either you're you're in manufacturing you're back if you're you know you you have your you know in Services you're going to be with your your clients you're going to be on the road so um the world has gone back to a physical world but people still today um expect the um the the the like the ease of doing business that we were introduced by digital so this is this is something
03:30 - 04:00 that is um is a good opportunity to pursue our work into continuing to invest in digital but also um accepting that we need a balance of of both right so there's a big expectation that for certain key moments in the relationship between the service provider and the client or or or vendor and and the uh and the operations that for certain key areas
04:00 - 04:30 we have um let's say higher um when you look at the relationship so higher value interactions would be made in person and then the ease of doing business comes with stuff that you now expect to be able to do uh on your mobile or meetings you can have from a distance because that's not something that you need to to to have the expertise or the relation you built with the other person so digital becomes uh part of the way of
04:30 - 05:00 doing business so um I would stop by saying we've read and we've seen a lot of literature and a lot of documentation and a lot of white papers and whatnot studies on how many digital transformation failed or actually were able to fulfill what they said and and I and I like to say that we if you look at did we deliver
05:00 - 05:30 exactly what we said we were going to deliver five years ago no but did we because that's what the world was you know that's what we thought we we must do back with the lens that we had five years ago um so no we did not deliver so if I would strictly measure myself against what we said we would deliver in what five years we delivered no we didn't deliver everything but did we bring value did we demonstrate the the the the the adaptability to be able to
05:30 - 06:00 correct course of saying okay we were alligned to deliver this functionality but now we have a lot of demand coming from this domain so we now remember I talked last time about agility and the way to build multidisciplinary teams and the way to have um ability to adjust dur because of the way you prioritize your product backlogs and stuff like that so we were able to use these collaboration
06:00 - 06:30 um methods and and and and ways of working to adapt to everything that the external environment send our sent our way during the past two years so that at the end of the day we're going to close our digital transformation program and my biggest um you know um uh I would say takeaway from this that I like is
06:30 - 07:00 we are now a digital organization we now are able to have um you know clients interact with us and cater to clients in the digital channels that are the web transactional web mobile but also our our people in the field are equipped with better digital enablers and and and and and productivity tools so we are not a digital organization so what's next for us right now I'm going to jump maybe to the third question but it's it's a good segue it's now that we have all these new digital capabilities this is
07:00 - 07:30 another good opportunity to not look at it with a traditional lens of a project or a program because a project or a program typically by default has a beginning and an end right so I want to do this this is the scope this is the budget this is the timeline and once I'm done with that maybe I'm a bit over budget maybe I'm a bit under scope maybe I'm a bit over calendar but we're going to close the project at some point and move to something else one of the key takeaways here here is if you enabled a
07:30 - 08:00 bunch of new digital capabilities in our world a digital transactional channels so you are not able to distribute your product in digital channels once they're enabled then you need to make sure you maintain them you evolve these Channel you continue to invest you continue to listen to the the feedback from your clients from the the people and your colleagues using these Solutions on a daily basis and the expectation as that that they evolve right so we're we're
08:00 - 08:30 going in a world where digital transformation will become something we did at at some point in time because we had to you know uh uh invest to enable these new capabilities and we are now in a world where we do continuous investment in digital I like to say maybe 50 years ago some companies decided to build a brick and mortar Network to distribute their products while the day you've built the buildings
08:30 - 09:00 and you've staffed and you have people in those building well then you continue to invest you needed to uh in Canada plow the snow in the uh in the driveway and pay your bills and do improvements and then you know break down cubicles have different layouts but but you continue to invest because you you there's there's an evolution and the expectation of what your clients expect you went from doing your day-to-day operation at the branch and bring bringing the branch much more in high value touch points when you have bigger
09:00 - 09:30 transaction and you need somebody to help you so so these are these channels they evolve because the world changes while digital channels are the same the the slight difference when you look at um traditional Industries such as Financial Services is that um people no longer compare us to to other just Financial Services when you go in digital they'll compare you with with all of their other different uh digital
09:30 - 10:00 uh providers so the expectation is not be as good as the other Bank in my world or in an insurance no the expectation is if in a daytime I pick up my phone and I you know I I work with uh you know Solutions coming from Google or coming from uh you know a Nate cloud or mobile native Solutions when I turn to my service providers it the experience the expectation is there so we need to
10:00 - 10:30 continue to invest because this world changes um every day every week every month so it's a it it shifts a bit the expectation of uh making sure that you get the most lifetime value out of these Investments so I'll stop there but that's that's that's the sort of mindset where we are up here yeah your answer is fascinating it there seem to be a number of elements to it uh you you mentioned that in the period 2022 to 2024
10:30 - 11:00 you went from being mostly online in 2022 to now have having to uh deliver to a world or to live in a world where PE to some degree people have gone back to work but at the same or gone back to physical work and and but at the same time uh there is this continuing expectation around digital at the same time you're saying that almost the BDC has hit the Tipping Point if we want to
11:00 - 11:30 call it that of becoming a digital organization so it's almost like you've gone from uh say 2022 or 2020 maybe when you did digital things but you were mostly non-digital or most of the customers well were were somewhere uh you know on on the spectrum between digital and physical but that things have now moved to you being
11:30 - 12:00 predominantly digital but also uh having to deal with the real world so that's it's interesting that you describe it that way but then you go into uh talking about well how do we behave now in this new world which is mainly digital uh to maintain what we've now got but also to build on that in the direction that the company will take in the future uh and
12:00 - 12:30 that is the all these elements are there in what you've said and it really basically seems to say that you're adapting to deal with the way the world is now after covid and the expectations of our clients so one thing I like is we've talked about a return to office right that was the word on the street uh we like a lot return to clients for us it's we always put the client at the
12:30 - 13:00 center of the way that we build uh our strategy the way we want to collaborate help interact with our clients so saying that in terms of volume we're much more operating in the digital world because a lot of the interactions we have with our clients are not value added right you need to you know sign a paper you need to provide me with this thing you need to on an annual basis give me back some
13:00 - 13:30 information so I can update your file and stuff like that everybody today expect these interactions to be to be digital or at least you know e signatures be able to inter and think about security around that and everything cyber security so people expect this so in terms of volume of interactions you're right we we've we've did a shift in digital channels because nobody wants to drive and go sign a paper in a branch no nobody wants to do that but but where it's where the balance came back is that now people
13:30 - 14:00 that they have these capabilities now they still need the relationship they build with in our world the business developers that are interacting with them the knowledge that these that that that we can uh you know provide the experience so so really it's it's we've gone back to a fine balance of if it's if it's something that I expect to be digital we have to be there and and be able to service them in the digital but
14:00 - 14:30 it it it it it puts us some pressure to be out there in the field and to be able to fulfill our mandate by providing this advice this shoulder toosh shoulder that we can do that only today um you know is is is built through uh human relationships and we haven't said it's uh 20 minutes in and we haven't said AI once but uh AI uh definitely uh also comes to a bit Chang
14:30 - 15:00 this this spectrum of of what do you expect from a human versus uh versus the rest but I'm sure it's questions we're gonna be able to to go to yeah yes that you know that really you started to talk about what you're going to be doing in the future what your future plans are uh but maybe we could just expand on that a little bit maybe uh include AI in that discussion if it is part of your future
15:00 - 15:30 plans because of course you know at the moment we're at early stages probably with AI and it's going to mean more to some than others probably yeah so I think it's a good segue um what I observe on the market at large when I talk about the market is um technology Investments because because one other thing that is a good takeaway from a digital trans is that if you go back to these
15:30 - 16:00 documents that everybody wrote four or five years ago when they started these things they weren't solely directed at we are going to deliver a bunch of technology stuff right you can't just throw technology at everything I mean making sure that it's aligned with your objectives like it's not like technology is not a solution looking for a problem right you need to understand you know what am I solving in for how can I measure um the different
16:00 - 16:30 technology enablers how can I bring them back to um observability how can I observe that you know once you deliver we were there with these new en labelers this is where we are but these will never work if you don't also adjust the processes of the people that work with this technology on a daily basis like so for instance I can deliver uh uh new electronic forms or something like that to people working in the field but if
16:30 - 17:00 they don't use it and then and or they don't you know it's not um reviewed as a group that everybody uses it on the same equal basis and capture feedback well then you're GNA have scarcity in the way it's going to be deployed and don't expect to have the results so it's like digital transformation started more with a a a more broad adoption of saying if we're going to be a digital organization we need to design our product in a digital way and we need to re-engineer our processes be able to and and we've
17:00 - 17:30 done a pretty good job at BDC but what I observe in the market is that it tend over the course of time because it's hard trans the word transformation means that you're going to introduce massive change in organizations and people don't like to change a lot right so uh we've been lucky enough at BDC to put it in the middle of our strategy and it's been it's been it's been something it's been quite a journey but we were able to build a model where we're not only delivering technology on
17:30 - 18:00 our side and then we expect the rest of the colleagues out there to use this thing and and and no there's no hand off we we're working together in this in the way we prioritize and the way we design the products and everything so so this is good but the one thing is it's not only technology deliverables at the end of the day and and that's where a lot uh uh kind of with the course of time because it's hard to transform because it's it's there's some push back because
18:00 - 18:30 of all the constraints we have um if you only end up at the end delivering technology capabilities then there's there's not the don't expect to get the value why am I saying this because now saying hey when I observe the market investments in in digital portfolios they've gone uh pretty much flat like we've we had like years where from like 2016 2017 to 22 everybody was investing so there was
18:30 - 19:00 a lot because there was a lot of catching up because there was a lot of hype and so you saw it on the job market there was no it resources digital it was it put a lot of pressure on the market you could feel it everywhere hiring not being able to hire enough and lot of investment not always optimal because you put a lot of money but then it it was you know hard to integrate so we've seen this and now most organization will either there's no there's no body in
19:00 - 19:30 Canada that I that I observe that massively cutting on technology budgets like people are either flat slight increase slight decrease what does this tell us well it means that from everything we need to rationalize there's still a lot of confidence that technology continues to be an important and a and a Strategic investment for for your or organizations well the thing is you know with it the
19:30 - 20:00 inflation when you when you built in the inflation in your portfolio it means you if you have equal money well you have less money because of inflation so you're expected to do at least the same or more within that money so at that point the game changed a bit and people still trust that investment in technology will help contribute to the strategy of organizations but there's a big expectations on productivity increase efficiencies and using technology for
20:00 - 20:30 the whole organization to be more efficient so couple of years back user experience digital channels Omni Channel experiences everybody wanted to be out there for their clients there's a bit of a shift right now where okay we want to make sure we're efficient and Technology could be an important part of this so this was before we even talk about AI now ai we've been talking about AI for a while now and I have a AI team for for
20:30 - 21:00 four or five years right now but the conversation shifted from us trying to explain it it was it's complicated right machine learning and stuff like it's not easy Concepts but what generative AI changed is that it democratizes AI because because of the conversational aspect of it anybody now understands and started to interact with AI and sort of Boom started to see the possibilities and understand and then
21:00 - 21:30 put on that everybody's saying it's the it's for industrial generation uh you know transformation so so now everybody's like okay we know this this big thing is there we were we we went from a concept to actually interacting with it so everybody's sort of okay we know this is going to be a a game Cher and then cross that with the fact that everybody's looking for efficiency that the timing is is pretty good uh right now to start thinking about introducing
21:30 - 22:00 AI uh at many levels uh in the organization so I'm going to pause there for a second I can talk you about how we're doing Ai and how we want to help our clients to that plan yeah yeah and which is something that it would be good to hear about but what you said before AI was basically that there's more emphasis now on getting value for the business from the technology Investments this is a common theme also in the people that I talked to um that I spoke
22:00 - 22:30 to two years ago along with you and and they also you know they are also saying that there is this increased emphasis on what are we really doing with the technology and uh you know and how are we going to make sure we get the benefits we're paying for okay maybe we should go on to what you're doing with AI because there is a lot of interest amongst the people who will be watching this uh around you know what people are doing with AI
22:30 - 23:00 and and you know things that will help them think about what they'll do as well okay so I'll I'll I'll segment this in in two different aspects right I can talk to you about how internally we're starting to deploy Ai and the strategy behind it and then I can talk to you about how we think we can help Canadian entrepreneurs adopt AI in their own because there's a big difference between how a bank is using Ai and you know a small business can use but but both can
23:00 - 23:30 so so bear with me so so so internally I like to think about um been talking this a lot three Horizons on on AI okay so for us Horizon one zero to six months when we started four or five months ago was um Horizon one is if we have like our current vendors and Cur current technology solution
23:30 - 24:00 providers that have ai embedded in their products on which I don't have any differentiator in the market I should start adopting it and I should start piloting it and understanding if it can bring value it's basically just flipping a switch to get the license to get it and I don't need to deliver a big project around think about productivity tools like Office 365 did you not have co-pilot on it think about um co-pilot for GitHub which in our
24:00 - 24:30 world in the Pro programming and software development World means it's a co-pilot for software developers um these are the the the type of things that are Orizon one I will never have a competitive advantage of developing my own way to uh uh synthetize documents or draft emails or presentations or helping I will never have a competitive Advantage with that but there is a lot to gain from that potentially because touches a lot of people everybody has
24:30 - 25:00 collaborative tools and everybody writes emails and does presentations and stuff like that so so these are sort of early easy wins that you can start deploying so that's what we're doing so we started to deploy uh Microsoft co-pilot for GitHub meaning our software developers we started with an additional pilot about a month they tried it all right explain sometimes you can use it with context right you feed them context going to help you debug it's going to help you investigate but it's also going to help you do coding is repetitive
25:00 - 25:30 right so it's going to help you go over some of the repetitive tasks to focus yourself on the debugging the architecture the design of software and let's say for instance um I can say this because I'm a software developer myself and we hate generating tests and stuff like that well AI today co-pilot will help you generate your your unit tests it's going to do it for you now I just want to put a b caveat here if you're
25:30 - 26:00 going to use tools like that to generate code then you'll be able you need to be able to explain your code and you need to be able to defend it right because at the end of the day when you do submit it's Peter Carr's name there but even if the code was but as as much as you used to go on the internet and find uh you know you put the something out there and use a bit of a bit of a an algorithm you found online you copy paste it you adapt it to your world so you used to do this it's just not faster to do it right so
26:00 - 26:30 so this is the type of thing we started to introduce um but it it brings a lot of culture of accountability right you need to be you need to be accountable for the stuff because even if it it was given to you by by an AI model then you need to be able to say okay well how do I maybe I'm in an exception so let's just check that this works for my field and everything so this is this is the type of thing you start to introduce in your 06 months and I was talking earlier about how in our different channels you
26:30 - 27:00 want to have high relationship value added interactions with a real real person and then let digital do the rest well there's a parallel to do here like if I hire a good software developer um you know I I much rather that he or she spends time thinking about designing the software and everything and then you know generating some bits of piece of codes that that are uh you know a commodity out there well have the help to to to go faster or understand someone
27:00 - 27:30 else's code faster because the co-pilot is there to help them so so there's a way that uh uh we change a bit the way we work we're more productive because doesn't mean we're going to have less developer it just means that with the same base of developer we can expect them to be more productive at producing better quality code but but but maybe more volume uh within that so that's the same for our our colleagues that are starting to Pilot the new capability around productivity tools so that's
27:30 - 28:00 Horizon one Horizon 2 is more okay now you know we have needs within the bank that are not the same as everybody else there's maybe sometimes competitive advantage that we can have on certain capabilities that will not come out of the box of my Orizon one right there's nobody out there thinking about a machine learning uh uh uh model that fits a particular BDC need right so that's where um you know we're we're we're Horizon 2 it's going to take you like four six nine months to design your
28:00 - 28:30 own models so that we've gone better at doing this gen is absolutely helping us because there's more tools out there there's more solutions but we still need in that world you know data engineers and data scientists and we need major collaboration with the you know the folks in the bank for whom we're deploying these models so this will you'll shape the you you you'll be more in a shaper mode you'll shape some something for you so that's on a bit of
28:30 - 29:00 a longer Horizon because it takes time you need to make sure that you understand the value you want to deliver you need to understand um how you're going to measure that value you need to understand when you kill it or scale it right data is good for that you know maybe on a hunch sometimes you'll build a model because you think oh okay I'm gonna cross this this this data then I'm gonna learn something and it's I'm you know with data some days you're smart some days you're not you know you're going to do the model and it's not going to do it well kill it right or if it's good well scale it then then you need adoption and then you need what I was
29:00 - 29:30 saying earlier you need your processes to integrate this in the day-to-day work of the people using it so this will take you a bit more time and then the third Horizon is like disruption right it's like some companies may say wow this is this AI model I'm going to completely change the way I interact with my clients that they're going to use AI today because it's better and that's what's going to sh change the business or even in traditional sectors like manufacturing um you know a bunch of
29:30 - 30:00 stuff that I'm doing right now in operations will be changed and replaced by an AI model yeah well maybe but that's you know that's Horizon 3 that's you're going to need to work your muscles up to that point of understanding how to work with it the limitations around it the ethics the way that you're going to need to you know the laws are also going to evolve in the next 10 12 months it's like there's going to be lots of stuff out there coming out in terms of compliance you're going to need to so steps right so we are in step one and
30:00 - 30:30 two right now we are piloting out of the box stuff on which I don't have a competitive advantage that I have instant results and and and starting to see how we're GNA Harvest and and and see how we're going to work with this productivity increase number two is we're working with the colleagues to you know bring more advanced models that are more fited to our needs and start iterating on that so that's that's the way we see it internally so after that I can I can talk to you about external but if you have any questions on that one
30:30 - 31:00 well what you've said is very useful for people who are looking at their own use of AI and haven't really moved very far forward with it you've given them a three-step approach which I think is a great model for them to learn from uh so yes you were going to talk about it with entrepreneurs yeah and on the three steps model I mean it's just it's also understanding that technology is just like I said earlier around digital
31:00 - 31:30 transformation technology is just one of the pieces around it right so when I talk about working your muscles is I'm going to integrate these new capabilities um so some people will be initial more power users they'll find more value others not and whatnot so if I'm talking to students or people that are looking to change jobs and everything if you ask me today it becomes a new skill that that that that you need you know we talked a lot about
31:30 - 32:00 prompting and prompt engineering and stuff like that but it it becomes a new skill in your toolkit and from an employer side of things I'm under the thought that if I don't provide these tools to my team well I'm not helping them progress as a professional because their professional field now has this new game Cher and so so it's also would do them disservice not to have them be able to have these
32:00 - 32:30 capabilities because I know we like to play around computers at night and on the weekends but you progress in your career at work so you need to be working in an Environ a modern environment on which we're we're we're integrating these capabilities but like I said it's muscles because it needs to be within a code policy conduct making sure that people don't share um you know sensitive client information so the first thing we did was make sure that we bubble wrap all this
32:30 - 33:00 technology uh in in in in a way that people can experiment with it but without putting out of our um our uh our uh the different you know either data governance or cyber security and whatnot uh obligations that we have so that's that that the final advice I would say is walk with your eyes open uh but uh if you don't experiment with it um at some at some at some point if you're too far
33:00 - 33:30 behind it's going to be hard to catch up because a lot of people are are getting there I was in a conference the other day with a bunch of other um SE suite and Technology Executives and and the person on the the stage asked who started to experiment with with AI so everybody raised their hands and then and then she said you know who's able today to have demonstrated benefits no no more hands right so I just want to say it's still it's still early days we all we all know it's going
33:30 - 34:00 to bring benefits but we need to start slow and and and understand the the end game we nobody well at least not a lot of folks can can talk to that so um going to entrepreneurs so so so think about this um so in Canada it's known we have a productivity lag with the US and and other uh ocde countries why because in because in Canada we have the great
34:00 - 34:30 pleasure and and waterl is is is is one of of the many um universities and schools that are able to provide Talent right so so so in Canada we we always had access to Talent um so you know if I if I see a something I want to expand my business or I have a a challenge I'm gonna hire people I'm gonna hire smart people we're going to work so so productivity wise you know what the um what the labor shortage has put some
34:30 - 35:00 emphasiz on is like when you stop having access to Talent OR Talent gets expensive then you need to maybe start thinking automation you need to start and it's not it's not all going to lead to AI by the way but um process Improvement automation everything that could go into your productivity Canada Falls a bit um uh behind the uh the other countries and in Canada it's uh the vast like
35:00 - 35:30 40% of of of companies in in in Canada are uh are you know small businesses right so so so and it's it's I think it's even bigger than that well depending on the numbers you're taking but if no no no sorry small businesses contribute to 40% of Canada's productivity I a GDP per hour produc there's much more smes on that sorry I should have known that but it's they contribute 40% of of productivity so
35:30 - 36:00 think about it if small businesses don't integrate AI which we think today would be a big contributor in helping us uh be more productive um it's going to be hard for the Canadian economy to be able to um to to to to meet these challenges of of productivity so um big players out there a lot of them are thinking about um Ai and doing AI as we are because we are a large player and we have the and everything it becomes a bit intimidating
36:00 - 36:30 for for smaller players because they don't they maybe they don't have an IT department maybe they don't have an IT strategy maybe they depend mostly on vendors so it's it it can become intimidating for for small businesses to see okay I understand the concept so there's like this scale right there's awareness I'm aware everybody's talking about it but like what's that step how can I what does it mean for me I'm a I'm a small business in Ontario with 20 employees what does it mean for me AI where do I start uh you know is it going
36:30 - 37:00 to cost me a lot of money and then and so this is where there's some awareness and then there's some education and then there's a bit on how do I start taking action well go back to the model I explained earlier you don't need to start thinking about how it's going to disrupt your business or are you going to be a business disruptor you can start saying hey is there baby steps I can take is there stuff that is available out there that can help me and we've seen a ton of examples on that we've done a did a recent study on the sort of
37:00 - 37:30 the state of AI with the Canadian smmes and we we worked with a A company that is doing digital marketing it's it's a digital agency right and uh and and they they do also traditional marketing and what they're saying is Well for them it meant well giving an example they're going to pitch for a contract and uh for the agency and they're going to use AI to generate uh by feeding the AI
37:30 - 38:00 precisely what they want and the AI will generate an image like a art image of something they're going to put that in the pitch deck uh and and they're goingon to have their internal graphic designers play a bit with with the you know with the image to make it uh good for the deck and everything and then they're going to pitch it to their clients and if their clients they win the contract then they're going to hire a professional photographer and they're going to give them the the sketch and this person will take copyrighted pictures of it but so everybody still
38:00 - 38:30 works graphic designer still work photographer still works but there they're they're faster to Market and you know whenever it doesn't work well they move on to the next idea and they haven't invested as much money as today in in building a pitch deck so for this company well this is this is productivity increase it means that they can go faster to uh to answer the client's question so that's you know good for business for the time to Market but it's also so not having them work on
38:30 - 39:00 on sometimes stuff that you know if you don't win the the the contract well you know you're gonna all everything you've invested so far will be lost right so there's so so there's there's also cost avoidance that that can come into that so this is the this is a good example of um how you know BDC we we think we can contribute to our advisory Services of of of of sitting down with entrepreneurs and helping them take this first step and what once you start working these organizational muscles starting to see what it means maybe sometimes who we
39:00 - 39:30 tried this didn't work perfect move to something else but then it's easier to start seeing how this can have a bigger impact or go go go further in the uh the adoption of AI and acknowledging that the industry is moving so fast right now more and more there's going to be like tailored solutions to meet precise needs so we need to always make sure that AI is not a solution looking for a problem
39:30 - 40:00 it's important that everybody all understand what am I trying to achieve am I trying to increase sell am I trying to have more productivity in my operations am I trying to you know do more of this less of that and from there maybe sometimes the baby steps to get to AI to my Horizon one is maybe a step before is getting your basis right right if you like did you secure your infrastructure if you're working with a cloud provider are you meeting
40:00 - 40:30 all the different best practices around this cloud provider of you know protecting your data and your data governance and the way you allow access in your organization so I mean the a of the Box Solutions will be pretty easy to integrate but there is still you need to get your basis right because then you can introduce issues that you don't know you have today because of the power of of what AI can bring so walking with your your eyes open baby steps and making sure you have your basis right
40:30 - 41:00 and and once you start working with it work your organization muscles of understanding how it's going to help me it could be Peter it could be stuff like I want a new HR policy or I want to job po I want to have a job posting well today's world maybe sometimes it's opening up a blank page and writing a job posting maybe tomorrow's world is saying hey I'm looking for accountant so give draft me a good version of what a
41:00 - 41:30 job posting for an accountant means does it oh I'm in Canada so this is the the the Norms they need to understand okay that I'm in manufacturing so maybe if the person has you know experience in manufacturing boom it's going to do it so you're still gonna work but maybe you're gonna go faster and this this is something every business owner has to write job posting so it's small examples like this on on which I think we can get the conversation going with the every level of any organization that has a process internally can potentially use
41:30 - 42:00 AI to to gain productivity yeah yeah and what you're saying is very important because of course if smemes don't adopt AI where it would be valuable for them to do that then they're at a disadvantage to larger companies and you know there are Economic Consequences to that in Canada too because we see smes as uh you know where new jobs are going to come from or a significant proportion
42:00 - 42:30 of new jobs and New Economic value is going to come to the Canadian economy so it's important on a Canadian level but it's also important for the survival of existing smmes they to be able to compete effectively they need to understand this and you know what you've said uh hopefully helps them move a little bit further forward in their confidence to deal with
42:30 - 43:00 AI exactly and and and so I am I'm um pulling up my numbers here just to make sure I'm good so 98% of Canada's business have fewer than a 100 employees and these companies are responsible for nearly 40% of the GDP so this is why I'm saying it's important and to your point the thing is when you look at um when you look at the way that the small business versus uh big big organizations are are
43:00 - 43:30 looking at AI today's world the adoption when you survey uh larger business so then more than a 100 employees uh 16% of them are saying they plan to adopt some new AI within the year but when you look for small companies of five to 19 employees then it's 5.5% of of them that and this is a report from Di AIS it's a policy think tank in Toronto metropolitan University
43:30 - 44:00 that that did this survey so so you you can see that we're a bit behind Canada and then when you look at small businesses they're even behind the larger businesses so it's a it's important that uh that we started and when you say it's important for Canada well when you look we we published a recent study at BDC saying that you know between 2015 and 2022 the Canada's Real gross domestic product our GDP per hour
44:00 - 44:30 is work it grew by 4% compared to to our peers the rate is lower than both oecd countries and G7 by seven and 5.9% so as productivity decreases well um our our the output Canada's output Gap uh it it continues to widen and when you talk about AI why am I talking about productivity in AI well there's a study that says that gen AI such as chat GPT
44:30 - 45:00 and other conversational AI could enable labor productivity uh from 0.1% to 0.6% annually through 20 2040 so depending on adoption and everything but you understand it can play a very big role in closing this Gap but if we don't do the adoption the Gap will only grow uh wider if others adopted so it's really it's a team sports and this is why we want this to be a as inclusive as it can uh at every level of business so that
45:00 - 45:30 can so that team Canada wins we have a great opportunity in Canada I'm talking about waterl Toronto Montreal big hubs on AI we have the brains we have the researchers we have the people well we need to make sure that we don't only export this knowledge or the adoption is made outside outside Canada but we need to be as an industry uh sensitive to to to bring the these
45:30 - 46:00 capabilities um here domestically so that we can uh we can help shape a better future for all yeah very important okay I got one last question I'm conscious of your time and uh and I'm grateful for how generous you are being with it uh but my last one is a is kind of a catchall question in the because it's what further advice would you have for people who might be watching this what do you think uh that
46:00 - 46:30 it's really important uh beyond what you've already said which has been really important uh what do you think you would want to make sure they knew after watching this and I'm trying to remember what I said last time but I'm gonna go and say be curious and I think I said that last time it's fine if it's still important it's still important to be curious and be very open-minded okay
46:30 - 47:00 um Ai and the new world that we're going into can be intimidating but there's a like I explained I think in this call there's a lot of mundane AI uses there's a lot of way you can start introducing this but be able to stop think uh be able to defend to explain we we need to build accountability so so what I would say to people looking at this new world is it's
47:00 - 47:30 going to change about every line of work out there I don't know that it's going to eliminate a lot of line of work but it's going to supplement the way that uh that we're going to work and it's going to supplement basic skills so you need to have your basis right even as an individual I'm an engineer I did maths where I had to do you know all the calculations uh because that's how you do math once you know them then you can
47:30 - 48:00 use the calculator so make sure you learn how to do manual calculation before going to the calculator but the calculator then it's going to become dayto day used for you so you need to understand how you can use these new technology in um in a in within the confines of uh a basic framework of Ethics a basic framework of making sure that you'll be able to have explainability around it traceability and um you know most it's
48:00 - 48:30 mostly Market driven right now everything around AI um because honestly everybody was surprised a bit at the the the pace that which it catch up so this is not something um you know legislative you know like legislation did not follow as fast as the market uh GRE but we're going to need as a society to come together with
48:30 - 49:00 something that makes sense so be curious explore these things make sure you have your Basics right make sure you invest in in in in in what you need to have in either line of work you you uh you you want toh to have a a brilliant career well invest time in that be curious of looking at these things that are coming out and um and going to accountability be critical or or
49:00 - 49:30 sometimes you know look at these things but try to find the right balance of of how this can uh because because in in five years time no job interview will not have a question that goes around how do you use this I may be wrong it may go to you know it may go but I don't know for you uh Peter I was there when the internet started and you know I try I have three three young boys
49:30 - 50:00 they cannot understand I used to live in a world without internet I think gen AI has shed some light on something that your kids will not not understand how you lived without AI so so it's the the train has left the station and uh and uh make sure that uh you um uh you are future proofing uh uh with this and your part particular line and the way you see thing and the way you you build your uh
50:00 - 50:30 your judgment and and the way you're going to work with these things because I don't think they're going to go away and uh think about productivity think about how in today's world in in the in everybody trying to see value of what everything was delivered in in in in technology and digital I think one key learning is everything new that you start it needs to be measurable by by Design so by Design means I think I'm
50:30 - 51:00 going to previously would have said okay we're going to do this website and we're think it's going to drive 15% new business in this territory today I think you need to look at this and say If you think the objective is 15% look at uh stuff around okrs and stuff like that and objective key results and stuff like that make sure that if that's the stretch objective that's your objective how do you walk back this objective in
51:00 - 51:30 everything you do so that over the course of time that you're delivering on these Solutions you know if 15% is your objective how will you know you're at three four five seven like how how you're going to measure that or understand at some point you've plateaued and then you're not going to go to 15 while move on to something else so so this is this is the the the type of advice I think we can all take away from these major end overs we went in digital transformation measurable by Design and go get partners that will be
51:30 - 52:00 able to defend these things with you if it's solely technology driven you're gonna have a hard time integrating these capabilities in your in your your Industries or your organizations if you're not able to explain the stickiness how it's going to change their ways of working and how you're going to have people to support you championing and sometimes forcing usage of these capabilities because if you have the best solution and nobody uses
52:00 - 52:30 it it's just some fancy tool on the Shelf great advice and and a great conversation John Sebastian it's been great to talk to you again and um I'm really grateful for you doing it for the people at waterl ah perfect well happy I can help and uh like I said last time don't hesitate some of your student connected with me on LinkedIn and uh and uh so you can look me up and if you have any comments questions or whatever and and and you Peter also always happy to help
52:30 - 53:00 the the the the student Community uh in in my world yeah