The Philosophy of Technology: A Q&A with Pero Dalkovski

“The technology landscape today can be intimidating,” Pero Dalkovski, RevGen’s Vice President of Data and Technology says. “There are dozens of leading vendors, and seemingly hundreds more behind them. The key to achieving success and sustainability is the ability to cut through that hype and pick the right technology services for your organization’s maturity and priority needs — for today and down the road, too.” 

RevGen Partners has been part of the technology consulting industry since its founding in 2008, watching tech become integral to operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. However, with that dependence has come increasing complexity.  

Pero, who is responsible for driving the leading-edge technology capabilities at RevGen, knows exactly how confusing this can be for our clients. That’s why cutting through the noise became a core tenet of our tech philosophy. He recalls a recent project, where our client had vendors knocking down their door. 

“One of our multi-national clients had accumulated a number of visualization and augmented analytics technologies through years of mergers and acquisitions. We helped this client inventory their current and anticipated needs for this category of tech, identify the most important criteria for their organization, evaluate their options, and select the right platform that met their immediate needs while enabling their future.”  

Of course, just providing a complete understanding of the technology landscape isn’t enough. Technology should function as an enabler for business goals, Pero says. “For instance, we also constructed an ROI-driven technology rationalization and migration plan for this client. This not only gave them clarity and confidence in their technology decision, but an actionable plan to get there.” 

So, how can one cut through the hype? 

“Avoid the shiny object syndrome,” he says. “Just because you hear about something that might be getting publicity, that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for your organization at that point in time. I follow the hype cycles that track technological innovations through various levels of market maturity and practical application. These cycles show that many bleeding-edge technologies — most actually — never live up to the expectations. 

For most of our clients, I typically suggest avoiding being the ‘innovator’ or ‘tester’ customer for a new unproven technology advancement. Allowing a new tech a bit more time in the market to determine if it can truly deliver on its promises, specifically in enterprise application, is usually worth the wait.” 

[Read More: What’s the alternative to hype-driven development?]

However, advising caution doesn’t mean Pero doesn’t get excited about the proven benefits of some of these leading-edge innovations. It’s quite the opposite, actually. 

“Cloud technologies have opened up a whole new world of possibilities for enterprises. It drastically reduces the administrative overhead associated with rolling out, enhancing, and maintaining technology solutions. 

“I am also very excited to see the introduction of more and more cloud services in the area of Artificial Intelligence. Specifically, those services that augment and accelerate the Machine Learning lifecycle and enable automation of resource intensive tasks.

“These innovations are helping data and technology workers create value without having to be expert programmers or attaining advanced data science degrees. There is still unlimited potential to continue to innovate in this space. Right now, we are only scratching the surface.” 

Elevating Technology Services to live alongside the rest of the RevGen portfolio was a natural transition, Pero says, as they all must work together to provide the best outcomes for our clients. 

[Case Study: How RevGen used RPA technology to help our client with the financial reconciliation process]

“Our technology expertise very much complements our other service offerings under Customer Experience, Digital Enablement, and Analytics & Insights (A&I). For example, we recently enabled an enterprise data governance program and technology platform for one of our Fortune 200 clients.  

“Through A&I, we helped to establish the data governance foundation, including roles and responsibilities, committee and working group structures, prioritization artifacts and processes, and high value data and analytics use cases.  

“From a Technology Services perspective, we enabled the inaugural data governance use case focused on cleansing customer domain data. To do this, we implemented data quality rules leveraging Informatica’s data governance modules IDQ and MDM.

“Our holistic efforts helped the client realize value from their data quality efforts while also establishing an extensible data governance technology platform for their future activities.” 

The RevGen approach to technology circles back to one of our core tenets of client service: Stewardship.  Pero adds, “The goal is always to leave the client set up for success both now and for the future.”  

Meanwhile, he has one important piece of advice for anyone entering the technology sector. 

“Expect continuous change — that’s what keeps this field exciting!” 

Pero Dalkovski is RevGen’s Vice President of Data and Technology. He has spent his career helping clients strategize and implement innovative data, analytics, and technology solutions that deliver business value.