Western Earthmoving’s Technology Transformation Manager, Ivan Bate, has made it onto CIO50’s ‘Ones to watch’ list.
Here at Carnac Group, we are incredibly proud of Ivan Bate’s success in this year’s CIO50 awards. Having worked closely with Ivan since beginning his role at WEM, we have loved witnessing him flourish.
Two years ago, WEM had neither a technology program, nor even an IT team. However, the company recognised a need to embrace technology to secure their future and enhance their operations. Carnac Group was engaged to help WEM with their technology strategy. One of our recommendations was for WEM to invest in establishing their own technology team.
That’s when Ivan Bate came in.
As Technology Transformation Manager, Ivan’s role over the past 2 years has been to adapt WEM for a digital world. Working closely with us here at Carnac Group, Salesforce was implemented at WEM, and a progressive and enthusiastic technology culture established.
After successfully implementing Salesforce, we worked with Ivan and the business to see how far technology could go to enhance WEM’s operations. These days, WEM is using Salesforce across most parts of the business, including in head office, out onsite and even in their machinery workshops.
Ivan Bate and his team’s approach to taking WEM digital was not just a point-solution to a single problem, but instead involved a business-wide transformation using the Salesforce platform.
“This single platform approach links everything. Broadly, the goal is to bring the entire business on this technology journey – consistent technology and process transparency is critical.”
However, the project has not come without its challenges. With little knowledge of an IT team’s functioning, WEM’s employees had a lot of adjusting to do. One breakthrough was helping executives recognise the need for a true partnership between the technology team and business to succeed. Steps were therefore taken to involve employees in all idea and requirement gathering and establishing a progressive technology culture. Engagement with employees became key to the technology strategy, with programs such as on-site visits, learning sessions and continuous idea sessions for development and improvement of the technology strategy.
Ivan Bate and his team’s work has completely transformed the way WEM operates and allowed them to embrace digitisation business-wide. Carnac Group is so proud to be working with Ivan and the whole team at Western Earthmoving. We are honoured to continue to develop WEM’s technology strategy alongside them.
Well done, Ivan, on the recognition you so richly deserve!