Collaboration Now: How We Need to Work for 2023

What does collaboration now mean for businesses across the globe? Discover more in this roundtable debate as the panellists discuss how they need to work for 2023.

A collaborative work environment has been proven to encourage more problem-solving among teams. In working together, individual members of a team are able to learn from each other and move the company forward. What does collaboration now mean for a variety of organisations and what do they need to do in 2023?

With Keme Nzerem moderating this roundtable debate, the speakers include:

• Ravi Malick, Global CIO, Box 
• Brian Brackenborough, Global CIO, Channel 4 
• Nick Reeks, Director IT, Tata Steel UK
• Andy Caddy, Group CIO, PureGym 

What does collaboration mean?

Moderator Keme Nzerem began the debate by asking the speakers what collaboration means for them in their respective companies.

Drawing from the universal definition, Channel 4’s Global CIO, Brian Brackenborough, said that collaboration is working together. However, he added that this could look slightly different in the broadcasting industry. “We are fed ideas or support other production companies in producing the content that we then broadcast”, he said. Brian explained that the company works with a number of third parties. They work and collaborate closely with these parties to ensure that they’re “envisioning the dream” the company is looking for.

“If you can’t collaborate, you can’t move forward can you?” Keme asked Andy Caddy, Group CIO at PureGym. Andy explained: “We’re a low cost business, and that means technology has to be at our heart”. He believes that collaboration is how you work with your colleagues in the workplace. It’s also about getting the most out of the ideas that they produce. 

When discussing the pandemic, he stated that it was a “tricky” period for the company where a large portion of their members left. In order to make up for this loss, they had to come up with different technology solutions for these people. In the end, they had to: “Collaborate with business colleagues to come up with the right solutions”. 

Global CIO at Box, Ravi Malick, stated that Box is essentially a collaboration platform. “At a higher level collaboration is bringing together the people, the process, the technology to accomplish business outcomes”, he said. Ravi believes that in this newly established hybrid environment, collaboration is occurring globally in a number of ways. 

Director of IT at Tata Steel UK, Nick Reeks, picked up on Andy’s earlier point about the importance of CCTV. “We also use a lot of cameras to spot the quality of steel”, he said. He stated that a personnel driven technology platform is needed to “pass that information on down the line”. Nick later added: “Collaboration for us, particularly in the UK now, is around what does our value chain look like?”. For Tata Steel UK, he believes it’s all about analytics and supply chain planning.

Security threats and collaboration

When asked what things are forcing him to rethink collaboration now, Ravi mentioned security. “With threats increasing in volume and sophistication every day, collaboration has to be secure”, he explained. In this “distributed” working environment, Ravi wants technology leaders to make sure that customer experiences are seamless and secure. He later added: “When asked what keeps me up at night, it’s always cybersecurity”. 

In his view, Brian believed that data used to be secure and easily accessible. “Now it’s up in the cloud”, he said, highlighting that the data could be anywhere in the world. Brian stated that this makes it a target for hackers. In order to prevent any cyber attacks, he wants staff to be aware of phishing and other potential threats. “Our responsibility isn’t just to educate the staff of Channel 4, it’s also to educate the other staff from other companies we’re working with”, he said. 

A few weeks back, Nick ran a cyber resilience session for a large majority of the company’s key suppliers. He explained that the aim of these talks and sessions is to help them become aware. This includes being made aware about the organic collaboration that goes on. “Nobody ever wants to talk about cyber but it’s important to collaborate on that as a topic as well as the work content”, he said. To raise the profile of cybersecurity, Nick said Tata Steel uses the National Cyber Security Council and a few of their key vendors to get the message across.

This roundtable was recorded at The Studio and made in partnership with Box.