![\"Roman-eugenes\"](\"http:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Roman-eugenes.jpg\")
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With this simple equation, Eugene Roman, the Chief Technology Officer of Canadian Tire, set about transforming Canadian Tire through innovative digital technology.\u00a0 And in his recent session with McGill-HEC Montr\u00e9al EMBAs, he triggered a lot of soul searching among participants in terms of whether their organizations were being proactive or reactive in dealing with disruptions they face.\u00a0 His session was part of the program\u2019s module on Operational Excellence, serving as a live case on how to maximize the value of IT to enhance the performance of organizations.<\/p>\n
For Mr. Roman \u201cThe future is\u00a0ALL about the uber-connected customer, employee, and supplier\u201d and disruptive technology is the driving force.\u00a0 It\u2019s clear that\u2019s not just true for Canadian Tire; there are implications for how most of us run our businesses, and that\u2019s what had many of the EMBAs squirming in their seats.\u00a0 As Mr. Roman explained, given the new world we\u2019re already living in with respect to connectivity and information availability, Canadian Tire (and by extension, many of our organizations) needed to make the big shift from IT as a back office support function to IT as a strategic technology partner.\u00a0 The next step is innovation \u2013 how will they use disruptive technology to guide innovation and transform the organization?\u00a0 Eugene Roman thinks big, very big, and it brought home to many in the class how cautious and tentative we are.\u00a0 For example, in Canadian Tire\u2019s analysis, speed of reaction is crucial for the company to compete effectively in attracting consumers with a multitude of options. That led Mr. Roman and Canadian Tire to build their own cloud computing facility in Winnipeg where they have the ability to turn things up quickly and react at great speed. They\u2019ve created an environment that supports their Agile culture and have been able achieve successes that would not otherwise have been possible. And this is not \u2018just another data center\u2019, but also a testing lab, a core digital hub, a digital content warehouse, an \u201cApp Factory\u201d and a gamification lab.<\/p>\n
In Mr. Roman\u2019s approach, the answer could be anywhere.\u00a0 He\u2019s not interested in the \u2018best practices\u2019 that so many of us try to keep up with, but insists his team keep a laser focus on the \u2018next digital practices\u2019.\u00a0 He is open to ideas from other disciplines not just technology \u2013 he searches out people that are the best at what they do in their field (medical, scientific, artistic\u2026) and thinks about how he can learn from and adapt their expertise.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what he looks for in his team as well.\u00a0 He hires the best and offers them a work environment in which they can thrive.\u00a0 At Canadian Tire that\u2019s resulted in ”\u00a0SMART innovation \u2014 Simplified Managed Agile Responsive Technology\u00a0“. In the retail industry, Mr Roman calls these innovations \u201c<\/strong>phygitailing\u201d which is the combination of the physical store, digital and retail. As he explained to the class, it is all about using technology to connect to customers and to create an interactive customer journey through the synchronization of in-store and online experience. The key is to create a valuable customer experience enabled by technology throughout the entire \u201cpre-shop\u201d, \u201cshop\u201d and \u201cpost-shop\u201d process. \u201cBuyology\u201d- the science of human behaviour and what drives their purchasing decisions \u2013 is a critical element of the strategy.\u00a0Not satisfied with typical linear innovation where one idea brings another, Mr. Roman prefers to leapfrog the competition and to think a step or two ahead. In the retail industry, it means looking for social, interactive or immersive innovation at every single point of service.<\/p>\n Eugene Roman\u2019s accomplishments at Canadian Tire are impressive and an ideal example of how technology can enhance the performance of the organization, but for the class, the bigger message was that of being aware of disruption, of searching for new ideas in unconventional places, of staying open to learning and of making complacency the enemy. \u00a0The McGill-HEC Montr\u00e9al EMBA class felt privileged to learn from his phenomenal experience, and his inspirational approach.<\/p>\n Eugene Roman was only one of several experts the class met during the module.\u00a0 They discussed various aspects of operational excellence with Luc Pinard, Executive Vice-President, Corporate Performance at CGI, with Alain M\u00e9nard, Vice President, Retail Operations, <\/em>and Mathieu Lacoursi\u00e8re, Operational Excellence Manager both of Sobey\u2019s Qu\u00e9bec; and with Louise Murray, Vice President of Creative Entertainment at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.\u00a0 This integration of theory and practice is a cornerstone of the EMBA McGill-HEC Montreal.<\/p>\n With this simple equation, Eugene Roman, the Chief Technology Officer of Canadian Tire, set about transforming Canadian Tire through innovative digital technology.\u00a0 And in his recent session with McGill-HEC Montr\u00e9al EMBAs, he triggered a lot of soul searching among participants in terms of whether their organizations were being proactive or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[300,303,301,3702856,299,302],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9643"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9645,"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9643\/revisions\/9645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"eugene-roman_opt\"](\"http:\/\/www.embamcgillhec.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/eugene-roman_opt-473x300.jpg\")
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