We've Always Done It This Way

This article represents a summary of the plenary session that Barry Vickery presented to delegates at the 2018 BIALL Conference in Birmingham. It explored the changing role of technology in a range of different markets and showed how different management styles, attitudes and strategies have created very different outcomes for those respective companies. Those that have chosen to ignore technology have generally suffered, fallen behind the competition and in ever increasing numbers, gone bust. Parallels were drawn between these companies and professional services today. Are there lessons we can take from these failures that we can use in our working life, even in our personal lives, or do we just keep our head down and convince ourselves that ‘We've always done it this way’?