When airline Virgin Australia came out of administration in late 2020 following a horror year due to COVID lockdowns, its IT team needed to grow rapidly from a shop staffed by around 100 people managing systems with limited funding to one that would spend $100 million annually on projects. This has meant that a significantly expanded tech team has been retooled to deploy new technologies and delivery capabilities.

Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly as he chats to David Hogarth, chief information officer at Virgin Australia about how a more diverse team has helped the airline grow and transform over the past two-and-a-half years.

This will discuss:

• How Virgin has moved from an organisation that underinvested in technology to one that is now halfway through a major digital transformation program.
• The ways in which Virgin has attracted women to the IT team, which now employs 300 internal and 600 external staff (40% of permanent technology staff are women).
• Why 80% of all transformation projects across the airline are technology-related and the projects that are at the heart of this change (fixing tech debt across data centres, deploying network infrastructure and physical security, a digital ecosystem that includes a new mobile app, loyalty and baggage systems to reduce customer stress, a new ERP system, as well as a website).
• How a refreshed culture has helped strengthen the tech team.

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Gallagher Bassett is the largest third-party claims administrator in Australia – it manages claims on behalf of insurers, brokers, government bodies and self-insured organisations. In recent times, automation technologies have been used by the organisation to streamline activities such as the processing of invoices and workers compensation claims.

Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, as he chats to Gallagher Bassett’s chief information, product and strategy officer, Nathan Pilgrim, about how the organisation is using data generated by these automation tools to create new products that it is taking to market.

They will discuss:

• How this data is being used for service provider scoring and reviewing to identify high and low performing providers.
• A new legal scoring product that uses data to recommend a provider that will provide the best outcome based on a customer’s particular circumstances.
• The organisation’s plans to sell this information to legal firms and clients as a future revenue stream to drive superior outcomes.
• How this type of data analysis is also used to alleviate the problem of not being able to find skilled people in the marketplace.

A five-year digitisation programme at ADCO Constructions, one of the largest construction private business in Australia, has helped increase create operational efficiencies and consolidate data across its Australia operation.

Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, and ADCO Constructions’ chief information officer, Doug Zuzic, as they discuss the role digital transformation has played in helping the organisation achieve its objectives.

They will cover:

• How ADCO has shifted from legacy processes to integrated platforms under a digitisation initiative.
• How this program has improved project controls and transparency, and better data.
• Key digital projects that have streamlined procurement and reporting and helped to improve workflows across the organisation.
• How digital workflows have supported the company’s ESG strategy and driven sustainability initiatives.

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· Creating a winning data management strategy

· Mapping the wins and challenges

· Ensuring the source data in the analysis is timely and

trustworthy.

Approximately 30% of the world’s data volume is being generated by healthcare, and the small slice of that generated at GCHHS is used to improve the quality and efficiency of care. Following the digitisation of our electronic medical record in 2019 GCHHS are now truly in the realm of big data and all of the opportunity that brings, but data and analytics maturity in public health care organisations in Australia lags behind industry at large.

Join Phil Bailey to explore GCHHS’ journey to a modern data platform. This will include:

• Building the right platform for you
• Start small, prove value, and learn quickly
• Engaging partners to accelerate delivery
• Leveraging the brilliance of your organisation

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Barry Mather, chief digital officer at Anglicare Southern Queensland hesitates to use the word ‘transformation’ when he discusses how legacy technology infrastructure is making way for new systems and applications. Technology is not changing the way that the large aged, community and home care provider operates, but it is helping to provide more efficient ways of providing services to residents and clients. A big piece of the puzzle is how data is analysed, using machine learning algorithms, to determine how around 20,000 clients are responding to its care services.

Join Sit-Down’s director of research and production, Byron Connolly, as he chats to Barry Mather about:

• How the organisation completes sentiment analysis that helps determine how people feel about its home care service delivery.
• How this data is used to improve the organisation’s service delivery.
• How this same approach is used to determine the reasons why internal staff leave the organisation to help reduce attrition.
• Data analysis that enables the provider to work out which clients are most suited to its services based on predicted spend (and the ethical questions that need to be asked when making these decisions.)
• The road to getting access to clean, well governed data across the organisation as legacy systems are slowly being replaced.

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Partner presentation

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In today's fast-changing world, digital transformation is essential for businesses to thrive. However, just adopting digital technologies and analytics doesn't always equate to tangible business outcomes such as increased revenue, profitability, or market share.

Our panel will explore:

• The difficulties in aligning digital projects with overall business goals
• Assessing the return on investment (ROI) of digital initiatives and measuring it effectively
• How can we determine whether our digital transformation journey is successful and identify areas that need adjustments?

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Digital transformation has become a critical priority for organizations seeking to stay competitive in today's rapidly changing business landscape. However, CIOs face a range of challenges in driving successful digital transformation initiatives, from legacy systems and siloed data to resistance from employees.

Join us in this session as we discuss:

• Strategies for modernizing legacy systems and integrating data across the organization to enable data-driven insights.
• How to engage with stakeholders across the organization to build buy-in for digital transformation initiatives and ensure that employees have the necessary skills and training to succeed.
• Strategies on how to acquire, develop and retain digital talent in a competitive labour market for non-tech companies.

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Technology implementations require a clear vision, strong leadership, and a collaborative approach across departments and stakeholders. Through real-world case studies, we can learn best practices that lead to successful delivery.

Join us in this session to gain an understanding how various factors contribute to executing the initial vision:

• Finding the right timing to push a vision, and the right path to execute. How to get buy-in from leadership and accept uncertainties as a leader.
• The importance of alignment across departments delivering the vision and how to manage conflicts of priorities across the teams.
• Communication and change management are critical to the success of any technology implementation: how to ensure everyone is on board from business stakeholders to tech people needing to upskill.
• Thinking “after” the build: thinking on how to manage the a new technology in the long run, the change of operating model from your teams to partners and suppliers, and the finops considerations.

Join us in this session as Sourabh discusses:

• How is your corporate strategy defined and what role does the CIO/ CDO play in that strategy formulation?
• How do you align your technology/ digital roadmap to the broader business roadmap?
• Do we measure the execution of that roadmap with effective OKRs?
• What are the skills needed for the execution of that roadmap and is there a dedicated talent strategy in place to support with the execution?
• What does good look like and what are the challenges/ mitigations in that digital transformation journey?

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This presentation will explore how the concept of "just culture" in aviation can be applied to improve cybersecurity in companies. A just culture, developed around 20 years ago, is a workplace environment where employees are encouraged to report errors, near misses, and other safety-related incidents without fear of retribution.

This same culture can be applied to cybersecurity, where employees are often reluctant to report potential breaches or vulnerabilities for fear of being blamed or punished. By creating a just culture, companies can encourage their employees to be more proactive in reporting cybersecurity issues and working together to address them.

Join us in this session as Serge provides practical examples of how this approach has been successfully implemented in aviation and how it can be adopted to improve cybersecurity in a variety of industries.

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ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) model that uses deep learning to generate natural language responses to user queries, has created a lot of excitement around the potential for AI in our work and personal lives.

But what are the different types of AI and how can they best be used across your organisation? What do people mean when they talk about machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI?

Join us in this session as Alvin discuss about the questions that organisations need to ask before deploying these automation technologies:

• How the IT team are explaining these technologies and concepts to the wider organisation and identifying where AI can be best used.
• How ChatGPT provides the interface that is needed to drive AI.
• Why organisations need to take a fresh look at each team’s work practices if AI projects are going to

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IT leaders face significant challenges due to interconnected business problems. They are tasked with driving revenue, improving business decisions, enhancing efficiency, agility, and experiences. To achieve these goals, CIOs must select the right digital solutions, data, and processes to create comprehensive technology ecosystems that cater to the diverse needs of functional and business units. However, this is easier said than done. In this panel discussion, we will explore how CIOs can overcome these challenges by:

• Integrating functional elements into an effective IT architecture that can support business needs.
• Modernizing core IT infrastructure through the transition to cloud-native, internet-based, modular architecture, microservices, and open API.
• Integrating siloed technology solutions to enable interoperability and collaboration across different units.
• Optimizing cloud expenses to avoid unexpected costs in the future.

By addressing these critical issues, the panel aims to provide insights into how CIOs can optimize their technology ecosystems, enabling businesses to achieve their goals, enhance customer experiences, and drive sustainable growth.

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