Recently our CEO Anthony Sullivan, CCO Scott Barber and COO Michael Vamos had the opportunity to participate in the Innovate Technology Leader programme run by Stanford Graduate School of Business.

The immersive experience, held at this prestigious US-university, hosted global leaders for a residential course during which Stanford’s world-class educators provided updates and insights on a range of business, technology and innovation topics.

Discussing everything from Strategy to storytelling

“The time spent on campus immersed in the beautiful environment, listening to world class educators and enjoying the time with newfound global associates will forever remain with me”

Stated Scott on his return.

The sessions were far reaching in the content covered, including strategic leadership, culture of prototyping, design thinking, change management and customer experience design.

“It was encouraging to hear the investments Quantaco has been making to advance the Australian hospitality industry through the adoption of technology is exactly what contemporary global businesses need to be doing right now, reflecting on lost brands such as Kodak and Blockbuster is always a strong reminder of excellent businesses that failed to adapt to the changing environment”

Michael reflecting on the alignment of Quantaco, and the topics discussed in the course.

The growth of technology and data will only increase

One of the most salient points included a discussion on the need to maintain both a physical and digital mindset. In the session run by Professor Robert E. Siegel it was highlighted that it’s almost impossible to differentiate a digital and physical organisation today; plane makers for example, while delivering physical assets in the form of aircrafts, none of them can get off the ground without complex digital systems transmitting data streams both within the aircraft and to supporting services.

The applicability of this isn’t lost when considering the Australian hospitality industry, while good service and the built environment remain cornerstones to the industry, the introduction of at table ordering, apps delivering alcohol and the accessibility of data to better plan menus, workforce and profitability are all signs that the digital mindset should be well established in any hospitality operator.

The advancement of digitisation was further discussed in Professor Charles O’Reilly’s session where the pace of technology change was highlighted. As an extreme example he highlighted the fact the analogue telephone took over 120 years to gain critical reach across the world’s population, conversely the cellular phone took less than 10. It’s therefore critical that business leaders have a digital plan and they operate with ambidexterity; maintaining current business excellence while pursuing growth and evolutionary opportunities as the next disruptive trend may be closer than we think.

“I’m delighted we were able to participate in this world class program, the key takeaway for me was that we need to continue our focus on building technology that connects data and delivers insights so our customers can operate in both the physical and digital worlds remaining competitive on a global scale”

Anthony’s reflection on the time spent at Sanford

Naturally the team has some down-time and were able to sample some fine Californian food and wine.