Pwc Luxembourg Techtalk

Very often, we hear on the news about a cyber-attack, where malicious hackers worked to disable a security system to either take it down or to steal information, usually to get a ransom. But hacking isn’t only about illegal activities. In this episode of TechTalk, Luis and I talk with Simon Petitjean, Offensive Security & Red Team Leader at PwC Luxembourg, about “the good type of hacking” - the ethical one. And who’s better placed to tell us about it than an ethical hacker himself?

The term "Process Mining" was first coined in a research proposal written by the Dutch computer scientist Wil van der Aalst, known as the Godfather of Process mining. This is how this new field of research began, emerging under the umbrella of techniques related to data science and process science at the Eindhoven University in 1999. In this episode of TechTalk, we invited Maxime Hennau, Advisory Senior Manager at PwC Luxembourg, to explain to us, in layman’s terms, what process mining is.

The procurement function is currently changing, like most if not all business functions and operations, due to digital technology. Organisations are looking for solutions to advance procurement, which, among others, translates into cost savings and risk mitigation, while improving the employee and user experience with new digital tools. However, when betting on this transformation, there are challenges to face too.  In this episode of TechTalk, we talk about the digitalisation of procurement with Yoliana Bayona, Advisory Services Director, and Frédéric Chapelle, Partner at PwC Luxembourg.

In the last episode of Season 4, get to know TechTalk’s team a little better. They have inverted their roles from interviewers to interviewees and accepted the challenge to answer some of the intriguing questions we have asked our newly promoted partners a while ago. Give it a listen and see you back in September!

Every two years, we put together with the Institut Luxembourgeois des Administrateurs (ILA) the ILA/PwC Fund Survey to assess the governance trends. For those who participated in the survey, cybersecurity remains the main area of risk. Current times require boards to be more and more aware of security issues and reflect on, for instance, the risk of reading emails in public areas or sending confidential data in an unprotected format.  In this episode of TechTalk, we speak with Koen Maris, Cybersecurity Leader and Mike Delano, PwC Luxembourg Partner and ILA Fund Committee Chairman, about the results of the survey and the boardroom approach to cybersecurity matters.

We’ve all had some bad experiences as customers: waiting on hold for far too long, being bounced from one agent to another and another, looking for information on the website only to be left without an answer… The examples go on and on. That’s why Customer Transformation - or customer-driven business transformation - is key. In this episode of TechTalk, Patrice Passé-Coutrin, Director Technology Consulting, tells us how to deliver a great customer-centric experience that drives business growth too.

Social media manager, Blogger, App Designer, Cloud Services Specialist, Big Data Analyst...these jobs barely existed 10 years ago. What’s coming next? A smart design home manager, algorithm bias auditor and cyber calamity forecaster, just to name a few. It’s clear by now that the traditional path of getting a degree and finding a job for life no longer applies. It’s not only a generational and cultural phenomenon; technology is constantly evolving and hand in hand with it goes the evolution or the job market. This calls for people to continuously learn new abilities, be upskilled and get ready for the future. In this episode of TechTalk, we talk with Christopher Rossa, Emerging Technologies Strategist at PwC Luxembourg, about the skills for a digital world and what the future holds.

The concept of the Experience Economy was first used by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore in an article in 1998. While it has been around for a while, it is in the last five years that customer centricity and "everything UX" have seen a true takeoff.  While few can challenge the fact that good design centered in the user/customer supports successful innovation, does it also support operational efficiency? How can design, sometimes considered a “nonessential matter” in business, support growth? 

In today’s digital sphere, competition is fierce and people are constantly receiving information from every front. So, how can your organisation reach its audience more efficiently? Using corporate digital channels such as social media or a blog is a good way to go, but it’s not enough. You need an army of allies with the right networks to help you spread the message.  In this episode of TechTalk, Yasmine Meziane, who manages PwC Luxembourg’s Digital Employee Advocacy programme, tells us what employee advocacy is and how to implement such an initiative within your organisation. 

An increasing number of businesses are turning to the cloud to save costs and drive efficiencies, a trend reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode of TechTalk, we speak with Stéphane Zema, Technology Director at PwC Luxembourg about why businesses should move to the cloud and what’s the best way to go about it.

Customer experience, user experience...and the list goes on and on. In fact, “experience” has become a sort of suffix to which we add different types of actors, depending on the idea we want to convey. In this TechTalk episode, we speak with Armin Prljaca, Customer Experience Strategy Consultant at PwC Luxembourg’s Experience Center, about his work with a client in Latin America to boost their #customer experience practices.

In this episode of TechTalk, we speak with Kurt Fields, Director in Emerging Technology Advisory at PwC, about automating trust, one of the six technology convergences that PwC has isolated. But can trust, this precious and fragile human value, be truly automated? 

Imagine a future where everything has a twin, but that twin only exists in the digital world, like a simulation of reality that allows us to uncover new insights and test scenarios. Can you imagine the impact it would have on business? In this episode of TechTalk, we dive into digital reflection, one of the six technology convergences that PwC has isolated, together with our special guest Anand Rao, PwC’s Global AI Lead. 

Some years ago, PwC, after a thorough assessment process, came up with the Essential 8 technologies for business. In this episode of TechTalk, we speak with Scott Likens, Emerging Technology Leader for US, China, and Japan, about how the convergence of these technologies is unlocking the next wave of innovation, yielding new business solutions that are greater than the sum of their parts.

While we’ve come a long way when it comes to gender parity, and progress has been made in a number of industries, others remain behind. Such is the case of technology, where women occupy less than 7% of the industry’s workforce in Europe. In this episode of TechTalk, and on the occasion of International Women’s Day, we talk with Sonia Letaief, Technology Manager at PwC Luxembourg, about her own experience as a woman working in tech and her views about the gender gap in the sector.

Can you imagine what’s like to shift from 4,000 daily remote workers to 35,000 over just one weekend? In this episode of TechTalk, we speak with Ken Ducatel, IT Security Director at the European Commission’s DG DIGIT, about how his department pulled that off during the lockdown last year. He also shares his team’s experience in accelerating the Commission's digital transformation, in terms of technology readiness, governance, cybersecurity and culture.… and he shares some anecdotes too!   

Sustainable Finance and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance), arguably on the path to become a business paradigm, have taken a hold of the market and are moving from niche to mainstream by now. And with a new paradigm comes new regulation and reporting. In this episode of TechTalk, we talk to Ashraf Ammar, Director at PwC Luxembourg, about the importance of ESG data sourcing and analysis for adequate reporting.

In this episode of TechTalk, we’ve invited Andreas Braun to join us to explain to us, in a simple way, what robo-advisors are and how they work. Andreas is a Senior Expert on Biometrics & AI at PwC Luxembourg, and he leads a team of Data Scientists & AI Specialists. 

Prototyping isn’t new. Humans have been prototyping for centuries. With digital technology influencing almost every single sphere of our lives, it has become even more important. In this episode, we talk to Edouard Nollet from PwC Luxembourg’s Experience Center about what is and what isn’t a prototype as well as prototyping methods and best practices.

Imagine you live in a world where every action, interaction and movement is rated and each citizen has a score. Well, to some this might sound like a Black Mirror’s episode, but this world isn’t that far off from reality. In fact, it’s already here. In this episode, we will deep dive into what social scoring systems are, their potential benefits and flaws, and how they play out in different cultures. Our guest is Marco Preuss, Director of the European Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky Lab.