On the lighter side of things, we ask Siyabulela Jobo, Global Digital Solutions Business Development Manager, Iron Mountain South Africa, what makes him tick.
What would you describe as your most memorable achievement?
My most memorable achievement would be the work that I have accomplished for my customers in my current position. Representing Iron Mountain South Africa as the Business Development Manager for Digital Solutions, I am tasked with uncovering customer business needs using Digital Transformation (DX), workflow and information governance (IG) solutions. We provide our customers with services such as information management, secure storage, secure destruction, data centres, cloud services, storage and logistics. I have been able to assist our customers lower cost and risk, comply with regulations and enable a more digital way of working.
What first made you think of a career in technology?
I was exposed to financial technology or FinTech at the early stages of my career and the technology has revolutionised the way people interact with financial services while disrupting the financial industry. This exposure enabled me to pursue a career in the technology industry. At Iron Mountain, I am at the forefront of bringing disruptors within the enterprise content management field.
What style of management philosophy do you employ with your current position?
In my role, I employ a democratic and results-based approach when interacting and co-ordinating with the team. Additionally, I still roll up my sleeves and get involved in the nitty-gritty to ensure that the best interests of the business are always served and we get the job done well for our clients.
What do you think is the current hot technology talking point?
Driving business efficiency through content management. This entails extracting value from data across varied content formats stored in disparate digital repositories (i.e, file shares, cloud storage, cloud applications, etc.), including inside storage boxes and backup tapes – which makes it difficult to quickly and easily extract critical business information. These diverse storage systems make it much harder to leverage information for the purposes of driving revenue, enhancing customer experiences, achieving greater efficiencies, collaborations and managing compliance.
At Iron Mountain, we believe technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and low code development techniques are crucial in delivering a flexible platform for companies to rapidly and strategically modernise their information systems while providing a federated search across multiple repositories to better extract value on from their data.
How do you deal with stress and unwind outside the office?
Family is very important to me. I spend most of my time with my family and I enjoy watching my daughters compete in sports and push themselves to be the best versions of themselves.
If you could go back and change one career decision, what would it be?
I wouldn’t change anything, each role I have held has presented a learning opportunity for me to upskill myself and has provided the building blocks for my current position.
What do you currently identify as the major areas of investment in your industry?
In today’s world, most organisations have embarked on their digitisation journeys and this requires added investments in technologies that assist with moving the physical to digital. Today’s digital enterprises are confronting a growing universe of content, often siloed in legacy systems across multiple applications and business users. Highly regulated and process-driven industries – in particular financial services, healthcare and the public sector – are feeling the pain and an investment in cloud-based content services can deliver operational efficiency, ensure data security and address the changing business climate.
What are the region-specific challenges when implementing new technologies in South Africa?
In South Africa, the global pandemic has brought about huge challenges to businesses that must now grasp the new ways of working. Businesses are now prioritising budgets to survive this period which means realigning strategies according to how customers are responding to the current climate.
What changes to your job role have you seen in the last year and how do you see these developing in the next 12 months?
Legacy enterprise content management systems have evolved into content service platforms (CSP).
CSPs are much better equipped to assist organisations unlock the hidden value of their content wherever it resides through modern, AI-infused content-driven applications. They also assist to better facilitate operational efficiencies and ease compliance with new and more demanding regulations and security requirements such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA).
What advice would you offer somebody aspiring to obtain C-level position in your industry?
To always act with integrity and genuinely value people you work with and the customers you serve.
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