At Daemon, our work isn’t just about helping clients to solve immediate problems. We want to set them up for future success, giving them the skills to deal with anything that comes their way.
For this to happen, we need to build strong relationships with our customers. We’re not looking for quick fixes. We want to create lasting partnerships that will stand the test of time. This is where Peter Ironside comes in.
As our Chief of Markets, it’s Peter’s job to ensure that we can evolve and grow without losing sight of our values. This means being client-focused in everything we do, taking the time to build trust and understanding before offering advice. We sat down with Peter to discuss his approach and principles, and what they mean for our clients in 2024.
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Meet Pete
Peter is fairly new to Daemon, having joined the company in August 2023. His varied career encompasses everything from senior roles at KPMG and Gartner to jobs at smaller consultancies and start-ups. As he explains, this mixed background has been a valuable asset in his work at Daemon:
“I’ve really straddled both sides of the fence from small founder-led businesses to partnerships and PLCs. I’m in the fortunate position of being able to bring all of these experiences to bear on my work with Daemon. I’ve seen good and bad over the years and I’ve built up my own principles around the ways consultancies should collaborate with their clients.”
This is clear in Peter’s approach to his current role. He’s keen to acknowledge the good work that has been done before him, and to preserve these elements as the company grows:
“Daemon is unique, not just in terms of consistently strong deep technical expertise, but in terms of its values and culture. I’m hypersensitive about keeping these in place as we go forward. I want to build on this great platform, amplifying the positives while taking a broader approach to the way we’re collaborating with clients.”
An exciting year ahead
Of course, keeping consistent values doesn’t mean standing still. As Peter explains, our vision for 2024 combines tried and tested ways of working with exciting new approaches to client engagement:
“We’re continuing to expand our client base, working with a variety of clients on some meaty business challenges. We’ve built a great platform of clients, and we need to continue to enable them to deliver strong technology driven business outcomes. This is the hygiene factor in terms of keeping our business on the right trajectory and building on what we already have.
Alongside this, we want to explore where else we can go, and who are the other key clients with whom we can form long-term partnerships. We’re conscious of our heritage in retail, financial services and the public sector. We want to target the right clients in terms of our industry experience and background, making sure we understand their common challenges and have the technical expertise to deliver impactful, business enabling outcomes.
It’s an evolution rather than a revolution. We’re fortunate to have a great set of clients, many of whom we’ve already worked with for a number of years. 2024 and 2025 will be about continuing to work with these clients, while adding new clients and partnerships that are mutually beneficial. We want to focus on industries and scenarios where we can really distinguish ourselves, adding genuine value for the client and helping them to solve their problems.“
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Getting you ready for the future
The world is changing fast and many businesses are struggling to keep up 75% of UK companies believe that digital transformation is the single most important investment they can make, but 30% have no idea how to make this happen. This is where we can help.
One of the things that separates us from the competition is our holistic approach to consultancy. We’re not just there to solve your current technical problem. We want to give you the skills to solve the next problem without us. As Peter explains, this is the real value we bring to our clients:
“The key reason clients choose us over other technical partners is that we don’t just implement change, we enable it. Helping clients embrace new technology is a fundamental theme of our work, and we’re very conscious about developing our own people to ensure this happens. We need the technical skills to solve the client’s problems, but also the consulting skills to have an open and honest conversation about their future direction and help them to enable themselves.”
Read more: How we empower your team to solve problems on their own
Changing mindsets
This isn’t just about encouraging the uptake of new technologies. It’s about changing attitudes towards technology itself. As Peter tells us, businesses often have quite a narrow view of digital transformation. We want to change this so that our clients can reap a wider range of benefits:
“Technology investment falls into three broad buckets. There’s optimising existing processes through digitisation, there’s using digital technology to open up new revenue channels and generate new business, and there’s improving the underlying enablers- the tools, platforms and skills within the organisation.
A lot of organisations, particularly those that rely on legacy technology, tend to default to optimising existing processes. This is a worthwhile investment, but it can get quite sticky. In order to optimise change, clients also need to be investing in enablers to make that change stick, and altering their mindsets to view technology as an opportunity to explore new ways of doing things.
It’s really important for clients to think about these three buckets, and to invest at least something in all of them. Without this, it’s hard to sustain change and to show a quick return on investment to stakeholders and shareholders. You don’t have to invest the same amount in all three, but it’s good to go through the thought process of considering these areas.”
It’s all about trust
We understand that we’re asking a lot here. Reshaping your approach to technology is a scary prospect, especially when your money is on the line. That’s why we strive to operate with complete transparency. As Peter explains, this culture of openness is the key to building trust with our clients:
“It’s all about trust and transparency. We need to be able to have a grown up conversation where we say ‘actually, there’s a better way to do this’, or ‘we’ve taken you as far as we can’. This has to go right the way through the organisation. Project managers, project teams, engineers and developers all need to be lined up. People need to be as informed as possible about technical decisions so that we can get the optimal outcome for everyone.”
Wherever you are on your digital transformation journey, we’re here to help. Talk to our team today to find out more. It could be the beginning of a beautiful partnership!