By: 📷 Greg Moore, defence and security expert | Defence IQ 10 December 2019
Digitisation is not a new concept in Defence. Back in the days of Network-Centric Warfare and Network-Enabled Capability, armed forces started to explore how digitising our systems could provide operational advantage. This delivered some successes, but 25 years on many of the original aspirations have not been met. Yet the need for them is greater, as highlighted in numerous speeches this year by the Chief of the Defence Staff and Chief of the General Staff, the character of conflict is changing dramatically with battles being fought more in the virtual domain than the physical domain.
We had hoped that technology would address most of the blockers. However, it is often culture, leadership, organisational structure and process that has caused digitisation to stumble. In PA Consulting’s recent survey, less than a third of business leaders felt their workforce and culture was adapted for the digital age. It is these areas that need focus to bring about not just digitisation but digital transformation.
Build from the top down…
Technology has always been the poster-child of digitisation. It is tangible and attracts attention. However, decisions on technologies must be driven by an understanding of the value they add to an organisation. A clear view of the services an organisation delivers to its customers (in the case of the British Army, this is frequently the deployed user) is essential. This includes knowing who relies on data and the implications of not having it at the right time to the right quality.
This approach is being used to develop the Army’s Information Manoeuvre capability which is putting information from cyber and electromagnetic environments in the hands of commanders so they can plan and operate more effectively in both physical and the virtual domains.
But don’t forget the bottom up…
The foundation of any successful digital organisation is generating and maintaining meaningful data. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Analytics are only as good as the data they have access to; this is not just about establishing data lakes and APIs but empowering those who own the data. That is the best way to ensure the data is not kept in silos, duplicated or inaccurate or subject to inappropriate security classification.
This is not just being addressed by the Army’s Data Sub-Strategy but also by MOD’s Digital and IT Transformation initiative which is looking to nominate owners for key datasets throughout Defence. The initiative is also proposing Centres of Excellence for specific technologies which will harmonise technical approaches to data hosting, security and exploitation.