We are incredibly happy to welcome Alexander Hübel as our new Chief Strategy Officer at Turbotic. Alexander will have a key role in our next expansion phase.
Turbotic, which enables companies across the globe to be self-operating through the use of AI and Automation technologies and recently launched TurboticOS, is pleased to announce effective April 6th 2021, Alexander Hübel has joined Turbotic as Chief Strategy Officer.
“I’m delighted to welcome Alexander to Turbotic as our Chief Strategy Officer. We are entering a phase where we have launched TurboticOS and will now move into the next phase of building the ecosystem around the company and the product, as well as starting to plan international expansion after our initial launch in the Nordic region. Alexander will bring a depth of knowledge and experience to define and enable our strategic direction and growth leveraging his vast experience in the Automation and AI field.” - Turbotic CEO, Theo Bergqvist
As Chief Strategy Officer, Alexander will be responsible for overseeing Turbotic's company strategy including building up the ecosystem around the company, with an initial focus on technology and then on go to market partnerships. In addition, Alexander will drive global expansion efforts towards new markets, which are a confirmed product fit in the Nordic market.
Alexander joins Turbotic formerly from Ericsson, where he led their Global Head of Automation, Analytics & AI Transformation. In his previous role he oversaw one of the largest Intelligent Automation and AI based enterprise transformations across the industry. Furthermore, prior to his seven years with Ericsson, Alexander worked in management consulting advising various enterprises on major transformation engagements. He is a graduate of Linköping University of Technology with a MsC in Industrial Engineering and Management.
Turbotic had the opportunity to ask Alexander a few questions before his joining the company;
What do you think is the most exciting part of AI and Automation (RPA) right now?
With the growth of the automation and AI market, I believe that there will be a steady increase in the proportions of IT and business transformation expenditure towards intelligent automation and AI over the upcoming years.
However, despite the growth, many companies continue to struggle with getting the right value out of their initiatives. Either they go CEO level top down, and put all of their trust in a consultancy that offers a few PoCs at a high cost, and then miss anchoring the initiative properly. Or companies treat it as any regular IT project, and make the IT organization accountable and thus misses out on the transformation aspects of the change. Nonetheless, neither of these approaches are viable!
Some organizations get it right, and they treat this as a highly transformational program, with significant IT components attached, but not as an IT program. They manage to engage both top down and bottom up to ensure excitement and pipeline generation, while building the needed Automaton, AI and IT capabilities to manage their delivery and platforms in a secure, efficient and scalable manner.
However, the companies that get it right still struggle with collecting and showcasing the business value generated, as well as having a cohesive approach to e2e life cycle management, especially when they move from an initial standalone RPA or machine learning efforts towards a Hyper Automation based on several different technologies and platforms.
Why Turbotic?
I strongly believe that Automation and AI will fundamentally change the way companies operate. But it’s not a silver bullet, it requires hard work, investments and a multi-year approach to succeed. There are many companies out there with innovative solutions, however Turbotic’s business idea is quite unique to the market, and is spot on in solving the exact management problems that I myself experienced when leading automation and AI at one of the largest implementations within a Fortune500. I look forward to working with CEO Theo Bergqvist and his vast experience in building successful companies, together with leveraging my experience and contacts from my previous roles.
What would you recommend to companies that are new to AI? How should they begin their journey?
First, they need to have a strong belief that this will be transformational and important to get right. If it isn't given enough attention, it will not play out as expected. They need to approach it both from a top-down and a bottom-up perspective. Setting a multi-year vision, ensuring executive sponsorship and investments while at the sametime building the momentum from the bottom up engaging the workforce, their customers or other stakeholders, they are all important to get onboard. They should start small but be ready with a plan for scaling up fast. Don’t get stuck in details about business cases or individual use cases, rather focus on building momentum across the board and capabilities to move towards more and more transformational approaches over time.
What would you recommend for companies that have already started investments in AI & automations?
Take a step back, review where you are and what your roadblocks are. Don’t be afraid to do the necessary changes to be able to take it to the next step. And solve the financial and governance related issues hindering you to scale. Don’t see it as a technology problem, there is a 70 % chance it is a management and leadership problem. Therefore, with the right leadership and change management efforts you can get the technology part right as well.
