Meet the host: Fractional IT leadership for UK SMEs

Welcome to Leadership Insights, a new podcast where we're going to start off a little bit differently today. I'm going to interview the host of the podcast, David Bailey. Thank you. The aim of the podcast is to interview interesting IT leaders across the sector and talk about their experiences and interesting stories. So, David, could you start by giving us an elevator pitch on leadership services?

Who are you and what do you do? Sure. So, Leadership Services are a company designed to provide part-time leadership for companies that don't want or need full-time guys. So, although this this podcast is predominantly about the IT component, we provide finance leaders, marketing leaders, and HR leaders as well. So, it's designed to bridge that gap for small to medium enterprises between not having anybody at all and needing a full-time person.

That's great. Thank you, David. And perhaps we could start off with uh how you started off in your career. Sure. Okay.

So uh I I started life after school in the uh in the Royal Navy where I was a an engineer which led upon leaving the the the Royal Navy into uh IT engineering. Um my first job after leaving was working with a telecoms company. Uh the telecoms company hired me as a I think the the phrase was a telecoms and IT integrations officer. um basically because they didn't really have it within within telecom's kit at that time and they were just starting to provide us they needed IT help. So that that bounced me into um an IT management role within the same company within uh within a couple of years and um after leaving that company I went on to start my own which was an MSP which is managed service provider.

So the first managed service provider um grew over a period of about five years before I uh before I moved on from from then covered everything from telecoms, photocopers and general server and maintenance and support. Um then moved out to Singapore didn't have to twist my arm much to make to make that move but uh did the same thing again. maybe a glutton for punishment, I don't know. But uh we we moved out to Singapore and set up the a similar kind of business doing the same thing out there. And that took a took another couple of years for um at that point the um the delivery mechanism for the managed service provision at least in in in the way we were providing had changed slightly and we'd got much more involved in um helping companies with strategy and we started to see evidence that people were needing part-time strategic consultancy not just you know a break fix solution or a or a how to how to manage and maintain your systems type stuff.

So when I came back to the UK, I got involved with um consultancy on that level um working at kind of director level within businesses from an IT perspective to help build and and and deliver their strategies. So that's that's my background. That's how I got here. Yeah. You worn all the hats then.

Yeah. Yeah. And certainly in in in the IT environment, I've been involved in quite a quite a number of uh different industries. um all of which are enjoyable, all which have their own challenges but uh yeah I think it's I think it's been an interesting journey. What were the main things that you learned running an MSP that you now apply being an IT leader?

So what so with being an IT leader? One of the one of the first and most critical things that we have to do is choose the correct partners to work with us in whatever business we're assisting. So part of that selection process is choosing people that make us look good. for uh for one of a better phrase, we need people that we're going to be able to work with and people that understand the needs of the client. So finding an MSP that can demonstrate uh understanding of not just technology but business is is critical in that.

So once we get the right provision of support partners in place, we're kind of got that that blank canvas or the or the the building blocks to to push the business forward. So that's great. And uh you sold an MSP, but what did you learn from that process? Okay. Um yeah, so but buying and selling businesses is certainly an interesting journey.

Um making a business look good for sale is quite different from making a business look good for ordinary growth and function. I think um my takeaway from from selling selling my shares in the business anyway was that uh I think for me I like working in the small to medium sector and as a business grows the the business can increase to that point where it starts to become more corporate um and I like the kind of faster paced and quicker decision making ability of the small to medium enterprise which is which was my take away from that you get out you know when at the right time so you can keep working in the arena you want to work in. That makes sense. Yeah. Great.

So, I guess over the the last few years, what's your expertise? What's the kind of specialist? boy. So, I've been kind of I've been kind of working a lot in the manufacturing space um in different types of manufacturing, but a lot focused on enterprise resource planning, ERP for short, which is a a massive piece of software that runs a manufacturing process end to end from helping automatically order raw materials through to measuring production waste and waste and loss and through to the output and making sure that the goods get to the right customers at the right time. Um, various different challenges within this as well which make it a little bit more interesting such as working with fresh food, for example, means you have a a a life cycle.

Things have to be ordered just in time and leave the shelves at the right time so they don't waste. Um, and then there's there's there's a massive layer of complexity and a lot of people involved in this. So, it makes for quite an interesting, but it also makes for a genuinely tough and long project, which is something that's I I like. I I I I can get my teeth stuck into it and it's 12 to 18 months and there's a there's a big overall change, a massive impact on the business at the end which which I enjoy. So that that probably the largest focus has been manufacturing.

Okay, great. Every time I've spoken to people about ERP systems, they always say that they're expensive and they go off the rails. So what are the guard rails you'd put in place to help keep those projects on track? Um I I start off with reminding them that they're expensive and they often go off the rails to to to be fair. Um, I think the the biggest the biggest predictor of what could be a a badly run ERP project tends to be around lack of lack of business processes before we start the project.

You have to understand within the business from end to end what you want to achieve in each section. So whether it's production, whether it's engineering, whether it's finance, what, whatever aspect of that of that manufacturing cycle you look at, you need to have already drawn up where you want to go. Otherwise, you're going to put in a piece of software that's going to try and guide you to what you want to do. It's going to be unfamiliar to all your guys. you're not going to be able to to understand or or or or kind of or kind of know how the project's going to finish and you're going to keep making mid- project edits and changes which which is normally what leads to that kind of um kind of elongated process.

They're hard things to do and there's a lot of moving parts. So, we build plus minus 20% into these projects in in in the interim. But, uh you know, like everything, it's bite-sized chunks, isn't it? cut it into into sections and then and then do your do your best to to to deliver them all in time. Yeah, that makes sense.

What what's your views on adapting the business to the ERP system or adapting the ERP system to the business? So, there are some businesses which um might be still using procedures which are which are are kind of best suited to a more manual rather than a digital process. So you have to go through and kind of encourage them to change their processes internally in order to work with a more with a more modern method which suits an application better. However, there's some areas where people have made giant strides and they've then they've got digital systems throughout the business but they're disparate. So they have a finance module which is separate from a production module which is separate from a stock ordering module for example.

So they all might be quite good modules in their own area, but they need a bit of cohesion to bring them together to allow that full end to- end view. Um, and and I think there's a little bit of give and take to be had in every project, but generally you want you if you have a clear picture of where you want to get to within your business, the the software should always follow what you want to do. Yeah, that makes sense. I think in terms of uh manufacturing then and your expertise then what do you see kind of changing over the next couple of years with the adoption of AI and stuff? Yeah.

So AI is the interesting point. So AI in manufacturing um so let's take the the the the kind of probably the easiest module to to to integrate for for an ERP which is the finance module generally. So with AI, a finance operative will come in and log in in the morning and the AI will have guesstimated what the job priorities are for their for their day and it will have done that on the basis of how quick they are potentially at doing these particular roles. They will nominate them to pick up some other roles if one of the other members of staff is overburdened. Um, and it will help create that team environment, making sure there's there's the priorities are met every day in in in in what they do.

Now, this obviously takes a little bit of time to learn and adopt and it's not something you can just switch on and walk away and hope it's going to work. But uh I think in the next five years as these larger ERPs, the big the big players in the market learn from all the all the installations they've had, it will become better and better at at estimating how to how to distribute the workload throughout the business. That makes sense. In terms of I'm I'm going to be spending six figures probably getting a ERP system in place. Um what value would having a leader like yourself on the project help?

Because it's going to be more cost. So where would you see yourself helping me with that project? So, with an ERP project, there's plenty of people out there that will resell and provide project management and an end-to-end delivery of an ERP project. However, they work for themselves or their own their own individual company. We act on the behalf of the client.

We are client personnel. We want to argue the point of what suits us, the timings that work for us. Um, we want to be able to hold to account the the person delivering the project and we basically meet their project manager on a face to face to make sure that we we get we get we what we want from the project and what and what and what they can deliver. um we help interpret all the many many acronyms and jargon that IT people are prone to throw out so that board level can understand exactly where we are with the project, what we're achieving, what we expect to deliver in in in common English rather than bamboozling people with our with our jargon. Um so the the the biggest difference I notice is when we act on behalf of clients, the projects are delivered in a reasonable budget within a reasonable time frame.

If left unmanaged, this is when you tend to get this massive scope creep, project creep, and then cost creep as well off the off the back of it. So, so we so we put that one to bed. That's the that's the takeaway that we give that we give clients for ERPs. That makes sense. Great.

Uh, why did you become a fractional leader? So, I so this this leans back to the 8020 rule. I firmly believe that a fractional leader, not just in IT, but across any of the disciplines, can deliver 80% of the output that a standard full-time person can can can do in 20% of the time. Um, we don't need to take holidays. We don't stand around a water cooler.

We we you know, we can we can work when we choose to work. We're measured on deliverables rather than bums in seats. So, um, what this does is it allows me to have much more exposure to lots of different industries and clients and types, which allows me to cross-pollinate the things I learn from all these customers, thus making that process more efficient and faster for all the clients that I work with afterwards. So, it's just a a faster way to to to gain more knowledge and to gain more experience and to stand back a bit, I guess, from the office politics a little bit as well. not not everybody's not everybody's um forte, but um it allows us to focus on on what we need to deliver um kind of more forthright.

Yeah. And what's a typical sort of client engagement look like? Walk them through what that might. So, every one of the the fractional people work slightly differently, but the common theme tends to be we we we start off probably in the IT world anyway around about say two days a month and this is delivered in probably half a day a week. Um, and we do that because it provides consistency and consistency is the key to that drive and that growth and delivering projects.

So, we would at the lower end of uh of of that interaction, we would be working with the internal teams, making sure there's a plan and a strategy in place and then making sure we're driving it forward every week, making sure that they're successful with last week's and making sure that they understand exactly what to do for next week's plan. Then we uh we work on that board basis of delivering them reports and whatever the frequency of their of their kind of senior management team meetings are, board meetings, wherever they want us to report. Our engagements typically tend to expand and contract. This is one of the and contract. This is one of the benefits of um of of fractional leadership is if you're going to roll out an ERP, you're going to need more time.

It's heavily intensive on time. Um so we can quite quickly flex up and flex down again depending on what you need. So we can disappear into the general background running the smaller projects keeping the lights on or we can we can come to the forefront and and deliver large business change depending on what you need and where the where the needs of the business take you. That makes sense. So my organization I've already got an IT manager.

He's helping you deliver projects. What value is an IT leader going to bring above and beyond? So IT managers are often quite worried when uh when when we're we're brought into uh we're brought into businesses but first and foremost we're mentorship we what we want to do is guide that IT manager to hold in the reigns themselves. We want to be able to teach them all the methods and practices that separate directors from managers. So in order to se separate a director from a manager um a director has some key responsibilities and has to understand business process on a more foundational level than than managers.

managers in my experience an IT manager tends to understand how to break fix all the rest of the kit around the different departments in a business but potentially doesn't understand which direction the business is going in and how it can be used end to end to help that that that larger kind of higher level oversight. Um the the the bottom line is we can help guide these guys towards towards where they want to get probably if they're an IT manager, they might have their their design set on becoming an IT director one day. So we can help with that. Yeah. The second thing is that sometimes people are struggling.

Sometimes an IT manager in place hasn't had enough exposure outside to other solutions. So after a period of time in post begins to become quite blinkered. So an outside personal person coming in can can deliver quite a lot of different ideas uh and options for them to deploy and put in place and it just acts as a bit of a catalyst. You know if you bring somebody into your business that's full of ideas you normally instigate change. Yeah.

And that's what that's what keeps businesses growing. Great. So do you see a lot of kind of coaching when you get into a business helping mentorship and those individuals massively. So um so it's the whole the whole teach a man to fish type type thing that we do here. So if you've got some day that's we we've been in situations where the IT manager is woefully at his depth.

He's having he's having an awful lot of communications from an awful lot of departments that are underhappy. And it's not because he can't provide the service that they need, but because he's probably doesn't feel like he's equipped to approach the board to ask for the ask for the cash that he needs to spend on the services to deliver something different. And sometimes just having somebody else there to back them up to to give them the confidence to move forward is is all they need. Um sometimes it's different, sometimes it's from the board level. Sometimes they've got a very enigmatic and enthusiastic IT manager or even an IT director that's trying to drive the business in a certain direction and it might be a bit of a new direction.

It might be a bit of a different one and they're just looking for somebody else to come in and say, "Is this right? Can this work? Are we sure we're on the right path here?" and um being able to be able to come at that that approach and and and mentor these guys into how a lot of it's communication as well to be fair and how they can communicate with the rest of the people in their business in order to to to get what they want out of the out of their position. What are some signs then as a CEO of a company or a managing director that I might start to need that IT leader that this is the right time to get you in? So when businesses are ambitious, there's there's different pillars and there's everybody has um different ideas about how to grow businesses.

Some people do it by hiring people. Some people do it by putting it in place. Investment, you know, there's various different areas, various different levers you can pull as a managing director to try and drive the business forward. In reality, you know as well as I, you've got to pull all of them in order to get where you uh where you need to where you need to be. So, if you're a managing director or you're a or a or a CEO that potentially doesn't have full-on IT knowledge or even if you do have a good understanding of IT knowledge but don't have the time to fully invest in this, you need to you need to get in touch when you're going through a period of growth because you need someone who's going to be there thinking 18 months ahead.

Where's this business going to be in 18 months and what do we need to be investing in now and putting right now in order for us to facilitate that growth further down the line? There's plenty of things as we as we both know to think about when you're running a business. And if you can trust somebody else to think about those things for you and they can communicate effectively why that you should be doing these things, it takes an a massive amount of stress and pressure off you. So, I guess it's when you begin to feel like you need you need you need more time. You need you need to uh you need to feel more comfortable about the decisions being made in the in the technology area and uh and and and leave it to to somebody to to to drive that for you.

That makes sense. I guess one of the challenges is that IT people can be very technical. So an IT manager is obviously off about the solution and what technologies in place. So as a leader, how would you translate my requirements as a CEO, what I'm trying to achieve with the strategy versus kind of getting the right tech in to do that? This is the probably the the most asked question during a sales process for for for leadership services is um you know our our IT director or IT manager he um gives me these reports and to be honest I don't really understand them but they seem to have green arrows going in the right direction and stuff so I don't question them.

The bottom line is it's communications back to what we were saying before. You must be able to educate people on how to communicate and you've got to do that by communicating with them on a non-technical level. You should be able to even running an IT department not have to use any acronyms or any weird jargon or anything. You should be able to run an IT department using business language. And if you can do that and if you continue to do that, encourage people within the team to do that, that will then roll over to the rest of the business so that when they're when they're talking to people to use a language that they understand.

It guys quite often have this tendency to think, oh, if I keep using this jargon long enough, then everyone else will eventually understand what it means and then but but they don't. They've all got their own day job to do and they're busy enough getting better at that without having to learn it as well. So, put it in a language that everybody understands and you'll you'll do a lot better. Makes sense. Yeah.

So, we we've got the CEO, he's involved, we've got the IT manager. Uh how how would you get buy in from the rest of the business, the rest of the senior leadership team? Personally, I always ask to see if I can present um a a senior management meeting or a board. Um if more often just to say, I'm here, you know, if anybody's got any needs for their department, come come and talk to me. It's likely that I'll have that I'll have had interaction with um with with your with departments like yours before, so I might have some knowledge I can share.

Um, I like to I like to do a little bit of a a you know, what the future might hold for um for which is a lot of it's based around um AI is is the current current kind of phrase at the moment. AI is both frightening and both revolutionary for a lot of for a lot of business owners at the moment. They know they need it. They know they have to have it, but they're not really sure whether they can click the go button and if they do, what it will do to the business and how it will shape it. So, um, just giving them a little bit of a a speech on how to gently introduce them to AI and start getting used to it.

So, they quite like that. And then following these initial board reviews, you tend to get emails and phone calls saying, you know, I was interested in what you said there. Can you help me further with this? And then all of a sudden, you have far too many projects on your plate and uh there's there's there's requirements flying everywhere. But it's a good place to be.

You know, if the business is thinking about growth, then it's down to the MD to with the right communication be able to make those decisions on what what projects to do in what order. That makes sense. And obviously the world's changed quite a bit with COVID. Everything used to be on site. How how do you see the leadership working now with it being remote onsite?

So before COVID, probably IT people were I don't know, I might be challenged on this, but maybe one of the only departments that worked remotely more so than probably any other that that I I know of. um nobody wanted to go back to the o office after COVID and now it seems that there's been a complete turn of events and some larger organizations are insisting everybody gets back to the office 5 days a week now personally I like a combination of the two we've all got quiet busy work that we need to do I like that to be done at home where there's less there's there's less distraction but for information gathering and for that kind of creative piece and that understanding and that interaction getting in front of people is is is priceless as well. Um, so I with my clients, I always try to uh try to get in front of them as often as possible, periodically kind of kind of schedule that in so they know when I'm going to be on site. They can book in some time with me so they can get value from me while I'm there. And then I then I leave the the day with a huge to-do list that I do in the quiet time when I'm working remotely.

So that's that's how I divvy it up. There's there's other people that work in different ways. Some people are are are much happier remotely. They'll um depending on what their specific focus is, we have chief data officers working for us as well. Uh they specifically look at what they do with the data and how to commercialize that within a business and they don't necessarily after a few initial meetings need to be on site too much afterwards.

They spend a lot of time picking through the data and analyzing it, which they can do in their own time. Um, you would argue that probably a a chief technology officer might want to be on site a bit more often because they need to listen and understand the the needs and wants of the clients more so than than probably any other. Um, you know, everybody's different, but I think I think there's a happy medium to be had. Um, and I think as long as you're comfortable working in both environments, um, which which a good fractional leader is. Yeah.

Um, then, uh, then then you can just about work anywhere, I think. Well, you mentioned a couple of different things and you mentioned CTO, data scientist. So, what are the kinds of leaders that you put into organizations that can make a difference? Okay. So, from um from an IT perspective, we've got the the main argument uh which is ever ongoing between uh between IT people is the difference between a CIO, a chief information officer and a CTO, a chief technology officer.

I'll probably talk about this at a later date in in more detail, but predominantly the way that we um we identify at the moment is that a chief information officer looks after the profit margins. They're the efficiency people. They're the keeping the lights on. They're the the running and the operations and a CTO is more the creative design and um you know the more the customerf facing type aspect of the business potentially websites, customer portals, interfaces, how how the business is seen and perceived outside which is more of the topline stuff. That's up for debate.

Um that's that's my personal opinion on it. But we offer we offer both those and some of them overlap and do both. Um we provide chief data officers. I think I've just described that there's uh people that will take a look at the data that you collect within your office and see if there's a possibility to monetize it. Um which you know it's it's really surprising for quite a lot of companies.

They don't realize that they're sitting on quite a wealth of of data. Now this necessarily doesn't have to be um personal data. It can be you know something like how many people out of 100 clicked left instead of right type stuff. So it's it could be anonymous stuff. some of that interaction and numbers is is really valuable to to to people.

So we do sizos which are chief information security officers uh which focus on that cyber security piece which is obviously always predominantly in the news for all the wrong reasons at the moment but it's something that keeps I think a lot of business owners up at night. So um so we cover quite a lot of the bases. Um I don't think there's probably an area within it that we don't have a leader or leaders that can uh that we can that we can approach. Yeah, it's quite topical then. What do you think of the Marks and Spencers and the co-ops now?

Oh um biggies big organizations. Um I think the thing that we should take away from this is that no organization is invulnerable. You can take all the steps that that you possibly can. And I'm and I'm sure that Marks and Spencers have been taking probably a lot more precautions than maybe a lot of other businesses out there. And they've been uh they've been unlucky enough to be targeted probably because they're so high profile.

But uh it's been it's been quite a terrific attack as far as I'm aware at the moment. Um it's it's been it's been a week a week and a bit now and I think there's there's there they're still struggling at the moment. So uh yeah um my my approach to security for this is that you should be as secure as possible and as possible means take your home for example you could build a moat and a massive wall around that and you could put cannons on the walls and have helicopters flying around it for why in case they come in and pinch your lawnmower. You know it's it's potentially not really worth it. You have to look at the value of the intellectual property within your business and look at the insurance investment of your business and what it would cost if you were down for a day for two days for seven days and work out what that application to security expenditure should be.

Um, you've got to you've got to kind of keep it realistic. I think in in this this in this terms using software as a service online platforms like Microsoft 365, they're going to spend an awful lot more money on security than you ever are running your own mail server in your office type thing. So, all things to consider. Yeah. Um, so putting my CEO hat back on, how much budget should I be putting into it in my company?

How much should I be spending? So, Gartner releases uh releases a percentage based on turnover across different industries for this. Um, it ranges the top end tends to be around about 8% of your turnover for companies that are prolifically technology focused in a growth phase and the minimum is 2%. um we frequently get brought into businesses that are spending less than half a percent on of their turnover on uh on it and um it's our job then to showcase what an increased expenditure can deliver in terms of return on investment in in different areas. It's not an easy job to to to uh talk MDs and CEOs and financial officers into spending more money to save money.

They all look at you with one eyebrow raised usually, but um there is method in the madness and there's there's plenty of case studies that we can show to to to prove that this model works. You spend a little bit more and you get a lot back and generate growth for your business, which is which is what it's all about. Yeah, there must be a huge opportunity to save money with process automation, AI, getting rid of Excel. Yeah, there's um well, this is this is the the the bane of everybody's life from from its when you walk into a business and everyone's operating Excel spreadsheets everywhere. They're just a recipe for disaster, too easy to delete.

And uh yeah, it's a it's a it's a if you see manual files being sent away or sent around within a business, then you don't have the right software to run the run the business is the rule of thumb, right? Yeah. So what is the most important component for a fast growing business when you're looking at it? So for a growth business, it's the strategy. It's the plan.

You must have a plan in place. And that's not just your IT plan. You should have a business plan detailed out and that IT plan should integrate with it completely. So you should know when you need to deliver these phases and what you need to have in place for your expansion and your growth plans. It's um it's the the biggest issue that we see in any form of growth phase, not just from an IT perspective but from any perspective is when one pillar of the business is left behind during a growth phase.

It holds everything back. You're only as good as your weakest point within the business as well. you know, we all do SWAT analysis of our businesses and stuff and you then look at the weaknesses and fix those, don't you? To try to try and drive forward and and um that's that's that's the biggest critical aspect from an IT component. Know what you need for the next however long your business plans for, three, five years, what whatever it is.

Yeah, that makes sense. I think we've hammered quite a lot of tech questions. Uh just tell me a bit about yourself. Okay. Uh has a hangup from the Royal Navy.

I am still still quite a keen sailor. Um I'm uh I race etchel yachts whenever my uh wonderful lady wife lets me away from the house at weekends. Um keen sports enthusiasts all around. I train a lot. I cycle quite like to keep fit.

Um I have four children. Um one of them doing A levels. Uh when the youngest one is about to start school this year as well for the first time. So quite quite a big spread there. Um we live in in Cheshire.

I love it. Gives me good access to North Wales to to the mountains which is not dissimilar to where to where I grew up. Um and yeah, I've been running this business now for must be eight years I think. And um I like it. I I I really like this.

It's it's different every day. We deal with a lot of different clients. Um I couldn't imagine going back to um being an IT director in a in a single business. Now it's um I like I like the I like the kind of more flamboyant approach that you can have from from skipping between businesses and the the kind of need to deliver the the work a little bit faster as well. I like a bit more of the pressure and stuff.

So it's so it's good. I like what I do. bit more dynamic. Yeah. What about uh I think you're a bit of a data collection nerd as well when it comes to fitness and health tracking.

Oh, so um yeah, so I don't know how I feel in the morning until I've had a chance to check my Whoop out output. Um joking aside, I uh I do track metrics for everything. I do uh the whole biomarkers, blood tests, and all the rest of it. And uh I read a I read a a book a little while ago by Peter Ratia. I think it was called Outlive.

Yeah, it's a great book. And uh and that was what drove me. I really liked his he's he's got this thing in this book that's called the uh I think it's a centennial decathlon he calls it. And it's about being able to do 10 exercises in your 90th year in your 90s and still being fit and healthy enough to to do these. And he describes um how your your health if you're not careful can can can peter off as you age and ways to try and to try and to try and prevent that.

So it's these kind of activities that are put into to process to put into place to try and to try and track that as well. So uh yeah, I'm I am a bit of a data nerd when it when it when it comes to that stuff. Thanks for pointing that out. You're welcome. And then in terms of uh AI being the hot topic, can you give me some examples of how you're using AI personally or helping with your kind of day-to-day work?

So obviously personally uh again with the health metrics I keep my uh my AI up to date on exactly what I'm doing in terms of uh training and nutrition and uh recovery, sleep scores, blood markers, all that kind of stuff. And allow it to make suggestions. I don't follow it, truth be told, fully 100% at this point, but allow it to make suggestions on how I should adapt training to uh to to different days. I use it I use it quite a lot for everything. At the moment I'm trying to I'm trying to to select a new car and uh I've I've used AI for this to to to colle what I'm looking for um why I need a car, what I'm going to use it for, what styles I like and all the rest of it and asked it to come to the table with some examples to to have a look at.

And then even when it does bring examples, you can then further detail that down by by more features and bells and whistles that you like on on cars and stuff. So um correspondence. So I I use Apple products mainly um and the new iOS is is quite well integrated with this. So you can you can it can highlight priority responses which making it faster for me to to skip through. I get a lot of a lot of email traffic.

Don't don't we all? Um but I I use I use AI to try and prioritize the the messages and mails that I need to attend to um a little bit faster. So I have I limit myself to kind of three times a day to go through email so that it doesn't I don't every time I hear a ping I don't jump into my phone and and start having a look. But um in other ways we so we've got a a 20week old Viza puppy at home and the Vizla puppy was as a result of using AI to try and work out a perfect dog for me. Believe it or not I'm that much of a nerd.

So, um, so the reason with this is I do I do I do bit of running and we're quite outdoors and and the Fizzla is a great dog who's got high energy, so it's good for kind of long walks, long runs, that kind of thing. Our previous dog shed hair all over the house, which I really didn't enjoy. So, this one's very short-haired. Uh, doesn't does a low sheddder and stuff like this. Um, it's prone to eating the kids, but I can.

But, uh, yeah. So, um, I I use it not as I don't I don't use it as a verbatim answer to to purely make decisions on, but I use it to assist my decision-m process, I suppose, is probably the best way to put it. In business, probably like everything else, it's the automation piece. I want to get it to to do things for me that I spend time doing doing myself. So, little integration.

I don't want to get too nerdy here, but there's there's integration mediums online that you can use to, for example, automatically send bank statements to your accountant once a month type thing. So you can you can have it do that and automatically change it in from a from a CSV into a PDF before it sends them and that kind of thing as well. So it's just taking these it's little time consuming things that um if you spend a little bit of time with AI you can cut all this time out further down the line which I enjoy. It's one of the reasons I got into to it because I'm inherently I would like computers to do everything for me so that I can get on with doing the things I enjoy. That's the that's the point.

So, if no one was watching and money didn't matter, how what would you spend your time doing? Probably in a catamaran floating around the world, I think I would uh I would I would I would like to spend some time at that. But, uh with four children, it's probably going to be about 60 years before I can do that. So, I'll be floating around in a coffin, no doubt, at that point in time before uh before I get the opportunity. But no, um I uh I've had, you know, there's there's an element of of um of a heavy level of interaction that comes with running a business.

So at the end of this week, I at the end of the week, I like to unwind like anyone else. So that's that's where the uh the sport stuff comes in. So really, if no one's watching, I kind of take the opportunity to run out in the bicycle or something like that or uh or or or do a little bit of sports. I find it I find it therapeutic. Brill sounds good.

and what advice would you give a 5 million to 50 million business about IT leadership today? Okay. Um, first of all, if you don't have any, you need some. Um, we we we're waxed lyrical about about AI for the last little while here. So, I think um so I think if you haven't picked up on that already, you're probably understanding that you're going to need some direction to get your AI in a good place.

If you're not doing it, your competitors will be. So, you need to you need to make sure you're coming to the table strong. Um, I think making sure that even if you don't have an even if you've got what a lot of companies have, as I call a revolving business plan, so they update their plan once a year type stuff to to accommodate what they've got, you must then at least have an IT strategy for that for that year. Ideally, you want a three-year one, but the last two years can be flexible as long as you deliver what you're going to deliver within with within that year. So um the advice is to uh to to to get to get somebody in that that can understand the business as well as the IT and join the two together to deliver that to deliver that strategy that you need.

That's great. Thank you. And I guess that's all the questions that we've got for today. So looking forward to the roles being reversed and seeing the IT leaders and the podcasts that you go through with them. Good.

Brilliant. Thank you very much. Look forward to it too.