April 9, 2024
Meet Robin Bell, Chief Technology Officer at Long View Systems
As Long View’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Robin Bell helps define mid and long-term solution and product strategy for the company and its broader partner ecosystem.
In this Spotlight Series post, we get up close and personal with Robin regarding the Digital Organization. Over a career spanning more than 32 years – 22 of which is with Long View, Robin’s focus and purpose is a reflection of the company’s belief that “we’re not here because we believe in the power of technology, we’re here because we believe in the power of people.” Empowering people through digital transformation is an extension of that belief.
In your own words, Robin, what does the Digital Organization mean to you?
Up until COVID, and beyond a general awareness, there wasn’t a real drive to go digital.
As a result of the pandemic, finding new and creative ways to collaborate with a remote workforce or communicate with suppliers and customers more seamlessly and efficiently has elevated the urgency of becoming a digital organization.
In this context, when you think about accessing data securely between diverse and disparate personal technologies, an effective digital integration strategy is not optional – especially given the criticality of employees being able to access information that empowers them to do their jobs.
Once again, the digital value proposition has always been there, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that digital transformation progressed beyond a “will do” to “must-do” importance.
In your role at Long View, how do you make the Digital Organization tangible and add value to clients?
We had one organization that went through a tremendous transformation in that they no longer needed accounts payable – at least not from a “physical office” standpoint. Yes, they had a department with oversight, but with no people as everything was automated.
In explaining their decision to automate, and using the term "burning platform," the CEO said they needed to do it to become way more efficient to maintain profitability.
Like the CEO, and for the most part, all organizations face their version of a burning platform. As Long View's CTO, my responsibility is to define the mid to long-term solution and product strategies to address this requirement in the context of the broader partner ecosystem.
Why do you believe Long View is the ideal partner for clients?
We have the vision, and we know where we are heading and where people need to be from creating a consistent user experience to building an agile infrastructure that can scale up or scale down as needed.
When it comes to modern data management, enabling them to mine their data to gain meaningful insights to improve the customer experience is another crucial area in which we excel.
Finally, we help clients make better purchasing decisions through SYNCUp and SYNCSource, which provides them with the tools and intelligence to get a better bang for their IT dollar spend.
Perhaps the best way to sum it up is that Long View knows all the segments and layers to "build-out" the best and most effective digital model.