As Joost says, the various topics addressed during the master helped him get a handle on his new role and advise the business on ways to approach and speed up the Heijmans Utiliteit business unit’s digital transformation. “Like many other companies, Heijmans wants to use digitization to improve our own processes and make them more efficient. A range of market developments contributed to this decision, labor shortages for example. Digitization is a great way for us to increase our efficiency and address those trends. Additionally, we want to transition towards new revenue models and will likely need to adapt our existing model to stay futureproof. Those are some pretty big issues.”

Insight into the relationship between day-to-day operational management, strategic needs and IT processes Joost: “At our company, insight into the relationship between day-to-day operational management, strategic needs and IT processes is highly relevant. It’s a huge part of my own role. I’m especially interested in the translation of that relationship into an IT strategy aligned with our business strategy. This topic is mainly addressed during the first part of the program, but continues to receive attention throughout. That was very useful in helping me translate our business strategy into an IT strategy in such a way that the two reinforced one another. We can see that IT and business strategies are starting to merge into a unified, digital business strategy. This is important if you are aiming to develop new revenue models which are strongly digitally driven. In such cases, increasingly, your IT strategy is also your business strategy. This portion of the program concentrates on how to implement that for your existing operations.”

Integrating information and business security Regarding the Security component, Joost most appreciated learning what a good security process should look like. “How to embed security in a company, how to identify the risks and which measures to take in response. It really helped me support our business in figuring out our greatest vulnerabilities. We do have a Security Office with a team of Security Officers as well, of course. While those people are deeply knowledgeable about information security and the various measures you can take, they won’t necessarily be aware of specific business risks. That’s much more my own area of expertise. For example, the utility buildings we build contain increasing amounts of smart technology. This is a trend that will only accelerate going forwards. This increases the potential attack surface for threat actors. That exposes us to new threats that are more easily understood from a business perspective. Thanks to this master program, my discussions with our Security Office are much more targeted, allowing us to manage those risks properly.

Business opportunities due to new technologies “What I appreciated most about the module on business opportunities generated by new technologies such as the Internet of Things, blockchain and similar is the insight that business and technology perspectives should go hand in hand. What often happens, including at my own company, is that new technologies are mainly considered on their technical merits: “Something new, ooh shiny! Let’s do it!” However, which technologies may prove useful is heavily driven by your business. You need to know what purpose they will serve, both in your company and towards your customers. What is the market doing? What do your customers actually want? How will you meet those needs? This is what ultimately determines which technologies to use. Understanding that well is very valuable, because it helps you make the right choices.