Future of work insights from IT leaders at MGM Studios, the NBA and the Department of State

At the BoxWorks 2019 Day 2 keynote, we placed the spotlight on our customers and their business transformation stories.

We're incredibly fortunate to work with thousands of customers, from rising startups to large enterprises in the Fortune 500. As part of the morning, I was lucky enough to host our "Future of Work" panel, featuring Doug Rousso, EVP and Chief Information Technology Officer, of MGM Studios, Krishna Bhagavathula, Chief Technology Officer, of the NBA, and Karen Wrege, Chief Information Officer, of the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls at the Department of State. Throughout the panel, Doug, Krishna, and Karen shared how they are enabling new ways of working across their global workforces and leveraging technology to transform their organizations. 

Here are some of the key takeaways we heard during the BoxWorks Day 2, Future of Work Panel:

"You are never done, never transformed and must commit to iteration."

The NBA leverages technology to deliver their experience as a league to their global audiences. While the NBA has a huge following on social media platforms, equally important for Krishna as their CTO is the technology that he chooses to deploy internally to employees. With a background in software development, Krishna prefers the term "digital iteration" when talking about technology. His perspective as a developer helped him learn that you are never done building, never finished with transformation and must learn to commit to iteration. He believes companies must work on projects in sprint cycles that are between six and 18 months long. No matter the project, deployment or initiative, things are constantly going to shift and evolve, so with transformation efforts, leaders must accept change. 

"It is an evolution of how you take work and how you move it from the concept to the consumer."

For media and entertainment companies, Doug at MGM Studios believes his industry peers should approach architecting their technology stack by envisioning their digital supply chain. It's about making the processes as frictionless as possible for his employees, external partners and at the end of the line, content consumers. This is a best practice that's true not just in media and entertainment, but for any organization thinking about their everyday business processes. Every enterprise can benefit from thinking through how work moves through their organization and how that workflow can be optimized, automated or improved.  

"Attract and create a very robust environment for people to work."

The evolution of how we work has influenced the tools available to us at the office. The ease of use and access to information in our personal lives creates new expectations for how technology should work for us while we work. Not only do we need these tools to enable communication, collaboration and connectivity, but the different tools must integrate together. During the panel, Doug at MGM noted that this approach to technology implementation and adoption makes his organization much more engaged and efficient. 

"It's not the technology, it's the people. It is how they feel about the work."

Across the board, our panelists agreed that technology transformation must happen with cultural change. Karen at the Department of State noted that empathy and talking to her employees through town halls and internal meetings is critical to any technology implementation initiative. From her experience, it works best to meet people where they are, address concerns and provide an outlet for conversation. It has helped her team address challenges up front and assure her employees that new technology changes will get better with time. 

Krishna at the NBA also highlighted that enterprises also need to set more context for employees about technology changes. It's not just understanding what needs to change but why it needs to change. Employees want the transparency and rationale behind programs leadership is driving. For the NBA, goal-setting and providing specifics around the measurement of those goals have helped shaped his organization's culture and strategy.

Missed the Day 2 keynote or BoxWorks? Check out the BoxWorks keynotes on the Box YouTube channel here.