5 minute read
This month sees the first anniversary of the launch of R2 Factory – I can barely believe it’s been a year since we threw open our doors on Portland Place for hundreds of friends and customers at what felt (at the time) like the end of a long sprint, but was in fact merely the first mile-mark of a marathon.
And what an amazing year it has been! We have built the most incredibly diverse, talented team in a data science business, won contracts with genuinely game-changing industrial businesses, published ground-breaking new research, led intellectually challenging discussions with industry leaders and learned a huge amount in the process.
As a result, I’ve told our Rolls-Royce ‘origin story’ many times and been continually surprised at how many people genuinely seem to want to hear it.
Our customers want to know how we embedded a digital mindset in one of the world’s most trusted, safety-critical manufacturers, how we upskilled over 30,000 people across its global workforce and how we enabled the business to generate half a billion pounds’ worth of value through the application of advanced data analytics.
In short, what technology leaders in asset-intensive, old-world companies really want to know is “How can I build my own R2 Factory?”
As we demonstrated, enterprise-level transformation is a long journey with promising rewards, but without the right digital culture, value is impossible to fully realise. At Rolls-Royce, we implemented a digital transformation success framework catering for all learners, skill levels and domain expertise to get started on their journey. The great news for those companies is that this framework is the basis for our corporate membership programme.
Our customers are often among the 70% of businesses for whom digital transformation has already failed, usually because of a lack of cultural readiness. Our membership and digital culture programmes work to mitigate failure by identifying the pioneers in each business and equipping them with the tools, networks and education necessary to drive transformative success within their businesses. The old adage says - if you catch a person a fish, they eat for a day… if you teach them to fish, they will feed themselves for a lifetime.....we firmly believe (and can demonstrate) the value of teaching our customers to fish at an industrial scale!
Six years in the making, R2 Factory’s corporate membership programme is now available to help other companies succeed where others have failed. Our member firms are following in our footsteps to build thriving data science communities within their businesses. A year ago, I told guests at our launch event that we were building a safe space to do hard things, and we have. We’d love you to join us too.
To find out more, please visit our membership page or contact my team for details.
