Exploiting Technology to Provide Exceptional Value to Our Customers

Terry Williams is keenly cognizant of today’s technology trends, evermindful of tomorrow’s, and is equally passionate about thoroughly training tech staff as they tackle the ongoing transition. 

As Belcan’s chief technology officer (CTO), he leads the firm’s strategic and operational technology initiatives, manages the evaluation and deployment of current and future technology platforms utilized throughout the company and oversees its domestic and global technology investments.

With trends shooting down the tech space pike at seemingly breakneck speed, Williams remains steady, successfully steering Belcan – a global supplier of engineering, technical recruiting and IT services to customers in the aerospace, defense, industrial and government sectors – on its customer-driven solutions delivery course. 

How does Williams, one of the region’s top tech leaders, do it? “I try to keep it as simple as possible while focusing everyday on how we can exploit technology in a way that provides value to the business and our customers. From a technology perspective there are so many paths you can take. It’s important to stay connected with overall company business goals to make sure we are making wise and timely technology investments. It is very easy to drift off into ‘technology black holes’ that can be costly and non-productive. 

“Choosing the right foundational technology architecture, tools, and platforms can be stressful for tech leaders today with all the options that are available on the market. I try not to get caught up in the hype of any one solution, There are certainly bad technology choices that are not a good fit relative to a company’s technology absorption tolerance and their business evolution cycle. 

“What I have learned throughout my career is you will have challenges. Even with the right technology choices, I have not personally experienced enterprise-wide ‘automagic.’ Plug and play solutions that don’t require a great deal of hard work, knowledgeable staff and patience. What it comes down to is persistence, realistic expectations, and technology patience.” 

One of the things William is passionate about is making sure Belcan has a thoroughly trained tech staff, no matter what foundational technology is adopted.

“I am a strong proponent of making sure my staff understands what’s required for any type of technology transformation we undertake, understands what’s expected of them, and that they are – from both an educational and a mental perspective – prepared.”

There is often a misunderstanding of the tech learning curve, he adds. “The expectation now is that people make technology transitions in weeks or months, not years. But it takes time to become proficient. Technology is only as good as the people who are responsible for exploiting their value. There’s often a lag in implementing technology and gaining proficiency that leads to the expected ROI.” 

Ignoring that proficiency gap, Williams maintains, is tantamount to a business risking its return on its technology investment. At the same time, the length of time technology remains useful or relevant today produces additional challenges for tech leaders.

“Technology and the needs of customers and internal stakeholders evolves at a rapid pace. Aligning technology, business needs and staff capabilities is a constant challenge,” Williams points out. “I’ve always told my staff they will have to reinvent themselves every 18 months to remain relevant. However, I think that time period has shortened.” 

Some technology leaders might be tempted to pigeonhole members of their tech staff, keeping a person in a particular role because they have become an expert, a go-to person, he adds. But that’s really doing them a disservice, causing them difficulty in making the next inevitable technological leap.

In fact, it’s Belcan’s staff development over the past year that Williams is proudest of from a business achievement perspective. “I think we’ve been able to modernize and continue to improve how we support the business, the relationship we have with the business leaders – the people actually out there delivering services to our customers. You can’t achieve this level of success unless you’re successfully developing your staff. Staff development is a core Belcan principle.” 

His Journey

Williams has logged 30-plus years of experience managing, deploying and delivering global enterprise technology. Before joining Belcan, Williams served as executive vice president and general manager for Standard Register’s customer-facing technology organization, responsible for support and development of its web-based software and services platforms, web design services, technology strategy and marketing platforms used by many Fortune 100 companies.

“My longest stint was at LexisNexis where I spent 24 years holding a vast array of tech leadership roles,” he recalls. He also built and managed a successful global technology service business, providing Software-as-aService, Infrastructure-as-a-Service, and cloud technology services to large global law firms and litigation solutions service providers. Expanding the business to Europe and Asia over a span of eight years, Williams generated more than $200 million in top-line growth. Before he left LexisNexis, William’s tech business saw year-over-year, double-digit growth and $40 million-plus in annual revenue. 

“Something I think necessary for any tech leader is to, at some point in your career, be on the other side, in a P&L role, generating revenue,” he says. “It allows you more empathy for the people in those roles, which I think is important because it gives you a good understanding of some of the challenges they face, and what you need to do to support them.”

Early in his career, Williams went on calls with his sales teams and spent time sitting in the customer support center – for two to three hours a stretch – listening to direct calls from customers, hearing about issues and how the company was addressing them.

“It really changed my perspective on our services, not only how to better deliver them, but how I could be a better contributor,” he says. “Once you go out and spend some time in the field, understand how difficult it is to compete, the challenges, the pressures, what’s important to customers ... it becomes a real eyeopening experience. At the same time, it opened up opportunities for incremental things we could deliver from a services standpoint.”

Keeping Solutions Relevant

With its global presence, technology will always play an integral part in what Belcan does and how it delivers flexible, scalable and cost-effective, customer-driven solutions to its clients. 

“One of the things I’m responsible for is making sure we’re investing in technologies that create value for our customers,” Williams says. “The key is focusing on the right ones, not chasing the ones that sound great but aren’t relevant to what we are trying to deliver to our customers. There’s always an incubation period before we decide to further invest in, or deploy, a particular technology.”

A tech leader, to be successful today and in the future, Williams concludes, must have a clear understanding of what is germane to each client’s purpose and goals. “That should really be your focus – at the end of the day, how does this technology impact your customers and create measurable value? That’s the way I look at things.” 

Belcan is headquartered in Cincinnati at 10200 Anderson Way, Cincinnati, OH 45242. For more information, visit www.belcan.com.