Digital technology represents the fourth industrial revolution of the U.S., according to CEO of Citadel Securities Kevin Turner at the Northwest Arkansas Technology Summit.
The former Microsoft COO and Sam’s Club CEO was the keynote speaker at the summit on Friday at the Hammons Convention Center in Rogers. The third annual event had 44 breakout sessions featuring 72 business and educational leaders.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson gave brief remarks shortly before Turner’s keynote and encouraged technological companies to think about doing business with and in the state.
“Arkansas is the right place to do technological business,” Hutchinson said. “Arkansas produces entrepreneurs. Now we are producing them in the technological sector.”
Turner spent 20 years at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville where he was named a chief executive at age 29. He spent 11 years at Microsoft before joining Citadel, an investment firm.
“You think about the opportunity you have, no matter where you’re at — small business, big business, medium-sized business; every company aspires to be a digital company,” Turner said. “I think it is fantastic that you have a local coffee shop that has an app that you can use and it makes them look and feel like a Starbucks. It is the great equalizer. Whether you’re small or big, it’s an opportunity for you to punch above your weight. It’s an opportunity for you to really convey a business presence that is much more beyond your footprint. That has never existed like it does today in business.”
Turner said he believes five technological advances will soon disrupt the business environment including artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and machine learning that leads to deep learning.
The technological changes are forcing leaders to change. The challenge, Turner said, was how to change while continuing to perform, as he said Microsoft was not able to take a fiscal quarter off to work on its Cloud network.
“When you think about this idea that it is hard to do two things at once; it’s not if learning is at the center of what you’re doing,” Turner said. “It’s important in this era that companies move from being a know-it-all company to aspiring to be a learn-it-all company.”
Turner said he has learned eight key ideas about being a leader in this digital age. They included the idea that the future belongs to the fast, done is better than perfect and finding the balance between performance and learning.
When it comes to hiring employees, Turner said he has found that energy and a hunger to learn are more important than experience.