A few years ago, we interviewed Ricky Knox, the founder of Tandem Bank, right when fintechs and challenger banks were really taking off. Ricky himself seemed to embody the disruption that was rippling through the industry. He was bombastic, unapologetic and had a message for the incumbents: “we’ll be eating your lunch.”

The world of tech is one that can be fairly accused of there being too much going on. The collective attitudes towards different technologies ebb and flow and in general, sum up a generic fickleness in the industry - illustrated nicely by Gartner’s Hype Cycle. As tech commentator Ben Evans writes of tech today, “none of them are The Thing, and all of them are full of questions”.

It has been a year since we spoke to the CIO of a major high street café chain, who told us that “cautious optimism is hugely important”. He was leading the optimism movement at the time, and it’s a sentiment that we’ve only seen grow and grow: business leaders are leading through precautionary principles of risk management and modelling macroeconomic shocks, with more organisations than ever saying that they have a business continuity plan in place in the event of a crisis.

Tech commentator Benedict Evans asked in 2018, “we hear that Tesla is ‘the new iPhone’ - what would that mean?... How do we think about whether something is disruptive? If it is, who exactly gets disrupted? And does that disruption mean that one company wins in the new world? Which one?”

Earlier this year, Rest of World published the stories of nine workers across the world who turned their homes into makeshift offices during the pandemic. They ranged from a logistics specialist in Kyrgyzstan, a chef in Bangkok, a marketing consultant in Bangladesh and an environmental campaigner in Seoul. Their jobs are varied, but the pain points are similar: distractions at home, less effective team collaboration, connectivity issues, blurred lines between work and personal lives.

Today’s manufacturing industry is awash with huge amounts of data that could offer significant insight into operations and strategy. However, many enterprises face challenges with data quality, accessibility, literacy and insight within their organisations. Research produced by Cognizant and MuleSoft in partnership with Nimbus Ninety highlighted some of the key areas for improvement for manufacturers, as well as outlining the steps needed to achieve data maturity. Manufacturing leaders gathered online to hear the headline insights that came out of the research, and to discuss the path forward to data maturity.

When COVID-19 hit, many organisations had to accelerate digital transformation overnight and security strategies were placed under the spotlight. Now with privileged access management giving malicious hackers more opportunity to exploit organisational vulnerabilities, businesses are repeatedly putting themselves at the risk of having exposed assets, costly damage and a difficult path to recovery. In a new era of cloud-first and movements to Azure Active Directory, 90% of organisations worldwide have concerns about storing access credentials in the cloud. In addition, many organisations struggle with complexity of environments, leaving gaps that are vulnerable to attack. Members gathered on Zoom to discuss how to utilise zero trust frameworks and how to streamline access processes to drive business continuity and operational agility.

With the UK on its third national lockdown, consumer trends have shifted, behaviours have ingrained and businesses are having to adapt. The push for emotionally intuitive interaction across industries has become stronger, with 69% of business leaders agree that humanising customer experience will become a key differentiator for brands in 2021 (Digital Trends Report 2021). Organisations today face a paradox: customers demand efficiency and speed, but they also want to be understood with empathy and a human touch. As we move into an increasingly digital world, technology will drive change. Members gathered on Zoom to discuss the challenges around humanising customer experience and how to leverage cloud, automation and AI to deliver efficient and emotionally intuitive customer experiences.

The journey to analytic maturity is long and complex. CIOs worldwide prioritise investment in data analytics and the ROI of robust data strategies is clear: a 30% year-on-year growth is enjoyed by organisations that make significant use of data to differentiate themselves in the market. And yet, organisations struggle with cultural and technological barriers when it comes to modernising data strategies and unlocking real-time analysis capability. IT, data and business intelligence professionals gathered on Zoom to discuss the steps to achieving analytic maturity and data excellence, and how to bring teams and organisations on the journey.

On a bleary January morning, my phone pinged with urgency. It was telling me that an army of amateur investors, captained by subreddit r/WallStreetBets, had collectively spiked the stock price of GameStop against the predictions of downturn from Wall Street hedge fund managers. The battle that ensued gripped the global imagination with somewhat of an underdog story, but what underpins this narrative is the power of perception to rapidly transform the value of something.