Keith Daser Podcast Transcript
Keith Daser joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Keith Daser. Keith Daser is the Founder of Deliver Digital, which helps to guide business and IT leaders through optimizing and managing their technology partnerships and spending so that they can elevate from the day to day and focus on delivering business transforming initiatives that are truly needed right now.
This work is reshaping the technology solution provider landscape by helping to reduce cost and duplication. Welcome Increase vendor performance and implement effective and sustaining governance models. With 15 years of experience across the technology channel, Keith has orchestrated the digital transformation of some of Canada’s most progressive companies, led distributive teams of over 100 people, and brought several new services and products to market.
Well, good afternoon, Keith, welcome to the show!
Keith Daser: Thank you so much for having me.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Appreciate you making the time again, today, another podcast outside of the continental United States. I appreciate you hailing out of the great country of Canada there and making some time for us today to have a conversation across time zones, really.
So, Keith, we’re going to jump straight into your question here. If you could start by giving us an overview of Deliver Digital and what inspired you to found this company, specifically, how do you see Deliver Digital altering the landscape of technology solution providers?
Keith Daser: Of course. Yeah. Well, I’ll start off with, I guess, where my career began.
And I really focused on helping I built my whole career around. Helping companies get value from technology, whether it be in the last decade, which I spent building an MSP or even before that, where I would help companies select the right talent or the right hardware really to deliver on their specific business goals.
You know, over the last 15 years there’ve been a ton of positives that I’ve been a part of, but there’s also been something that hasn’t felt quite right. In terms of how businesses are really forced to consume and buy services. So, I’ve really had an observation that as technology has become more and more complicated, that there has been more and more pressure that’s been put on these service providers to generalize and to broaden their horizons. And really to try and find a way to add simplicity in a world that’s becoming more complicated, they’ve actually done the exact opposite. So, unfortunately, that simplicity really has a dark side, which is the idea that as companies become more and more generalized, they’re also introducing more and more watered-down versions of the services that are provided.
And when you think about more and more services being offered around some of these emerging technologies, that snowball is going to continue. So, if you couple that then with the idea that most small and midsize businesses across North America don’t have things like vendor management, and that responsibility is rolled up and really a bunch of other roles, you end up in a scenario where customers don’t have clarity on what they’re buying.
What they’re paying for, or even if it’s good at all. So, Deliver Digital was founded to help solve this challenge and to help business and I.T. leaders add clarity to what they have, right size their services. To help them deliver cost savings and ultimately help them use that exact momentum to drive their organizations forward through technology partnerships.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate you giving us a little bit of backstory, obviously, but then also kind of highlighting those things that you specifically get into in the technology shops and companies that are focused on technology and how you can help them be more efficient and more effective. Appreciate that.
Keith. Switching gears here, digital transformation is a buzzword, right? But it’s fraught with challenges. We all know that been, been there, done that from your extensive experience. What are the most common obstacles businesses face in this journey and how does deliver digital help overcome them?
Keith Daser: Of course, and first of all, I will acknowledge that digital transformation is definitely a buzzword.
I have a swear jar on my desk that I’m probably going to have to contribute to here right now for even using the words there. But I think that there’s a few obstacles that organizations face specifically that have remained relatively constant during my experience. So, you know, the 1st, I think, is that a lot of people Aren’t willing to invest in the foundation, you know, there’s a lot of you know, quote unquote, unsexy stuff that’s required for all of the other cool work that happens, you know, these are dollars that have to be spent on things like architecture, security, a lot of the stuff that nobody ever sees you know, and we’re seeing this issue with AI right now where there’s a huge push from senior leadership teams to adopt AI but many of the fundamentals around things like data structure, security, privacy, et cetera.
Yeah. Haven’t been addressed in order to not be able to create some sort of user experience or PR disaster. The other key myths that I’m seeing, and hopefully I don’t offend anyone here, but I feel like everyone has somehow self-proclaimed themselves as strategic and the emergence of VCIOs and a whole industry of selling these digital transformation and roadmaps.
However, there’s a bit of a trap where It’s all fine and good to have a technology roadmap, but the execution of that roadmap is where I see a lot of organizations and people fall down. You know, it’s super easy to sit around a boardroom and theorize the order of operations of projects, but actually implementing them in an organization that doesn’t have the ability to hit pause while you do that work is another thing.
You know, and the fundamental truth and a key reason that generalists create a bit of a trap here. Is it having the right partners around the table is so key to not just having a plan but executing on it. And that’s really where I see Deliver Digital coming in as well to help make sure those right partners are around the table and to make sure that they’re helping organizations actually execute on those visions and strategic roadmaps.
Brian Thomas: Thank you again, expanding on that first answer you provided to the first question around again, companies, it shops can navigate some of the challenges because, and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen a lot of presentations where digital transformation, there’s some money for the tip jar, the customer, but, but and I truly have seen that happen.
So again, I appreciate you expanding on that a little bit more Keith. And Keith, the next question I have for you is that you’ve successfully brought several new services and products to market. What’s your process for identifying market needs and developing solutions that not only need but exceed those needs?
Keith Daser: Of course, I think one thing that’s really simple here that is often overlooked is simply listening and talking to customers and people. I think that having those. That direct line and connection to customers is a wealth of knowledge and having those conversations with those customers helps you understand where to make the right investments, where to follow your customers where needed and where they also need help.
And there’s gaps in what they have. You know, I think that a great framework that I like to use to help Determine whether or not something is worth pursuing is actually something that comes from Jim Collins’s book. Good to great. You know, I’m not sure if you’re familiar, Brian, with the framework, the hedgehog, but, you know, really what the hedgehog says is that there’s really 3 things that are important to determine whether or not you should pursue it and really build it out.
1.) Can you be besthe best the world at it? 2.) What are you deeply passionate about? And 3.), you know, what drives your economic engine and, you know, in the book, they explore this idea of the fox versus the hedgehog and that foxes are really good at a lot of things. But hedgehogs are really, really, really good at 1 specific thing.
And I think that taking that approach into product management into product development has always resonated with me and helped to create things that. Really will propel businesses forward and help add real value to customers and not just solve a kind of soft meat off the bat.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. What I really like about the podcast here, this particular episode, Keith, is you sharing some analogies as along the way, as you talk to some of the services that you obviously are an expert in.
And around again, bringing some things to light around the I.T. Leadership and on some of those projects that need to get some dust blown off basically to get moving things forward really do appreciate that and keep the last question of the day looking towards the future. How do you see the role of technology solution providers evolving and what emerging technologies or trends do you believe will have the most significant impact on digital transformation efforts?
Keith Daser: Of course, so there’s a few things that are happening right now that are incredibly interesting, you know, firstly and this is a bold prediction here, but I think you’re going to see the role of service providers, especially when it comes to it outsourcing or it services change really dramatically over the next 5 years, you know, something that’s on the tip of everyone’s tongue, which is the, the acceleration of AI and AI tools right now.
Is really, you know, my prediction is going to change the landscape of support from the perspective of what can be automated, but also for removing or for those specific touch points that are remaining what opportunities to this technology introduced to personalize those service experiences in a completely new way.
You know, I think that we can agree that the commodity right now. Is a lot of that service delivery and I think that a lot of the traditional metrics, like your traditional speed of answer uptime 1st call resolution, you know, are all going to be commoditized more and more and become the base elements of the service.
And, you know, things like that experience and service personalization are going to be those things that really shift that buying criteria for end customers. And then when we think about things that aren’t customer facing things in the back end, you know, there’s going to be a huge push to inevitably automate those leveraging some of those same technologies, really changing a lot of the financial models of these service providers.
And I think that this shift in requirements will also change the buying criteria for customers when they think about the right partners that will be implementing and delivering these services. And so, I think the need for some of the scale through, you know, these giant service companies and generalists.
Shifts back towards creating demand for really true experts and true specialists. And I think conveniently, that’s where the ability to select, manage, govern those same partners become so important. And I think the ability to properly do this is what will really propel customers forward.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. Again, appreciate you shedding some light on some of these things that a lot of emerging leaders, technologists across the board that listen to the podcast here. I’ve certainly gleaned a few gems out of the podcast this evening. So, I appreciate that. And Keith, I just want to let you know, it was such a pleasure having you on today.
And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Keith Daser: You as well. so much. The hello from Canada and the pleasure was all mine here. So, thank you for the opportunity to be on here.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Keith Daser Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
