2020 irreversibly changed the global economic and social landscape, resulting in fundamental changes to how we work and the way we live. Everyone has been forced to consider the implications of these changes, reviewing their plans and resetting expectations.
James Cunningham, a founder of cybersecurity specialists Core to Cloud – a business specialising in solutions for the Healthcare sector – James sets out his expectations for the changing landscape and how they are influencing his vision for their own business.
2020 Defined: On with the future
Covid-19 will always be the most defining memory of 2020, but it’s the impact of Covid-19 that’ll determine our future. After a period of continual growth, this next year and beyond could have been defining for all the wrong reasons. Instead, James remains upbeat about the future, but only for those ready to embrace change.
“We’d been struggling for some time to reconcile our vision of digital transformation with what most people expect from it,” says James. “Global leaders were talking about the 4th Industrial Revolution and how the digital economy would change our lives and, as an industry, we were being asked to automate legacy systems and businesses were calling it transformation. It just seemed a bit half-hearted”.
Healthcare systems, beyond the Pandemic
As the fall-out from the Covid-19 begins to settle, the critical focus will move to healthcare systems, how prepared they are to deal with future pandemics and the future healthcare landscape in general.
“It seems inevitable we’ll see an increase in data-enabled systems and virtual care, with an emphasis on prevention and an increase in personalised care delivery. The success of these data-enabled systems is reliant upon best-in-class cybersecurity to protect the highly sensitive and personal data at its source”. James recognises the responsibility placed on companies like Core to Cloud. “By providing the right technologies, we’re committed to playing our part in helping to transform healthcare for the good of all”.
Embracing the opportunities change brings
He thinks Covid-19 has changed all that. “Covid catapulted us into the digital future, with new practices being implemented that we’d only expected to see 5-10 years from now.” He continues, “the need for remote working alone changed how and where we engage, increasing the complexities and challenges we face daily. As cybersecurity specialists, established security practices were turned inside-out almost overnight, placing data and communications outside the security perimeters frequently relied upon. If ever there were a game-changer, this was it”.
“You can approach situations like those we now face in many ways” he added “and we chose to see the positive opportunities”.
Success is more than just the bottom line
James and his team saw something else in the pandemic, too. “We’re very ambitious and of course we’re always looking at how to grow our business. Yet Covid exposed a vulnerability and need for global wellbeing and how we all contribute to it.
Collectively, we want success to be more than just the bottom line, we want to be able to demonstrate how we’re making our contribution to a better world as well”.
World Economic Forum challenges us to change our ways
“Many of those global leaders building successful businesses are members of the World Economic Forum and they’d established an initiative called The Great Reset,” James tells us. “They challenged us all to change our ways and to adopt a framework for sustainable business performance. It’s clear the digital economy is central to this initiative and we wanted to be an active part of that”.
Securing the Digital Economy
James explained why he believes Core to Cloud can be so influential. “A digital economy can’t be sustained if it’s not secure and, as more operational activities migrate to the digital space, everything a business does relies on security and how it performs”.
“The World Economic Forum identified some key initiatives, most of which related to digital enablement” James explains “and we used these as a framework for our business strategy and vision”.
Business change, not process automation
Called Reset Your Plans, the strategy addresses critical aspects for sustainable business.
“Business Model Transformation is about business change, not process automation,” James tells us “It enables our customers to move towards more inclusive models that are more resilient and will stand the test of time. This is Process Re-imagining and it’s our overarching ambition,” says James.
Cybersecurity as a competitive advantage
“Data fuels the digital economy” he adds “and there’s a clear change in business emphasis from a focus on efficiency to one of value”. James points out that with change comes risk and organisations face a dilemma between exploitation and responsibility, governance and control. “With secure Data Management, we can unlock the value without the risk. We can turn cybersecurity into a competitive advantage, helping organisations plan how best to protect their data while, simultaneously, increasing its social and economic value”.
“Governance will only get tougher” according to James “and this can be a constraint without the right security measures”. Core to Cloud harnesses cybersecurity to help organisations shape and scale corporate governance into a power for good, not a constraint on growth. “The digital economy is powered by the sharing of information and intelligence, with an expected 70% of new value in the next decade created by ‘digitally enabled platform’ business models,” James tells us “By giving our customers the freedom to share information freely and in an orderly manner, we want to release them from these constraints and to enabling them to fully realise the potential for greater economic prosperity and inclusion”.
Better business, better way of life, a better world
James acknowledges that his vision is ambitious “Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m not a half-hearted type of person and, if you’re going to do something, you may as well go all the way. Our vision goes all the way – we want it all. A better business, a better way of life, a better world”.
