Creating value where it’s needed most Industry perspectives

‘Gemba’ is a Japanese phrase that, in a business context, refers to the place where value is created. It’s therefore no surprise that creating value for customers drives the team at Gemba Advantage, a London-based software consultancy that is dedicated to making software that makes a difference.

In the words of Danny Alexander, the company’s head of delivery and relationships, Gemba is all about “delivering technology that helps our national security customers do their jobs and have the desired impact without the friction they might have had in the past”.

To achieve this, Gemba applies a combination of product thinking and software engineering expertise. It has developed a strong track record in cyber – enabling analysts to work smarter, such as by building applications that automate manual tasks – and data engineering. This latter area has become a particular speciality, with Gemba’s team delivering operational impact by dramatically reducing the processing times associated with moving data around customers’ systems.

This technical excellence has helped Gemba grow significantly in the national security space. But Danny acknowledges that this hasn’t happened in isolation: “Industry collaboration has been crucial to our success as a business. Without it, we wouldn’t be the size that we are and wouldn’t have had access to some of the interesting work we’ve been involved with, so it’s essential that we have the right relationships in place.”

Collaborating for success

While most small businesses rely on industry affiliations in some form to help them grow, this need is particularly acute in the complex and strictly regulated world of secure government. Working in this domain naturally comes with a considerable amount of governance and compliance, which can be a barrier for SMBs seeking to break into the industry.

That’s why working with larger organisations that have a heritage in the sector is so effective. This is something the Gemba team has found through its collaboration with BAE Systems Digital Intelligence, particularly around two key areas: process and pipeline.

Danny explains: “Working with a prime has helped us improve our compliance processes and ensure we have the right due diligence in place to support a government delivery. What’s more, the reach a prime like BAE Systems has is far greater than we could ever generate on our own, giving us access to a pipeline of interesting work that enables us to grow.”

That’s not to say this relationship has only been one-way. From a BAE Systems perspective, we’ve been able to tap into Gemba’s deep expertise in data engineering, cyber and business applications to deliver greater value for our customers and achieve our joint mission of supporting the people carrying out critical national security work.

Building an effective relationship like this doesn’t happen on its own. It requires both parties to contribute and be willing to truly collaborate and treat each other as equals in pursuit of joint achievement – all of which fed into Gemba’s decision making when choosing who to work with.

“It was clear when we started talking to BAE Systems that there was a genuine desire to grow an authentic relationship. We understood what it was looking for and seeing other organisations in its SME ecosystem be successful gave us assurance that BAE Systems was using these relationships to extend its capability rather than just ticking a government procurement box.”

Other factors such as BAE Systems’ reputation and history with UK government customers also came into play, along with an important consideration that can easily be overlooked: ownership. Danny highlighted how Gemba was looking for a collaborator that would give it the freedom to work in different ways and leverage innovative approaches to developing opportunities with customers, rather than being restricted to follow the same path.

“At Gemba, we’re always thinking of new ways to help our customers. We’re also very interested in owning outcomes – owning problems and solutions – as much as we can at our scale. This factored into our thinking at the beginning and BAE Systems has proven that it is willing to give us the autonomy to do that.”

Benefitting the customer

When looking across secure government, the overarching goal of any industry collaboration is, of course, to support the customer – enabling it to work better, faster, more effectively. This speaks to the heart of Gemba’s mission to “improve the working lives of the people who make a difference”.

As Danny said, the vast majority of organisations connected to national security operate in this space because they want to have an impact. But no single organisation has a monopoly on good ideas or good delivery, so truly making a difference for the customer usually requires some kind of cooperation.

“In the context of the challenging landscape the government is facing, we need collaborative solutions that we’re all working on together to help customers get to the outcome. Pulling together expertise and ideas from multiple organisations will help us get customers to the answer more quickly. That’s the key benefit.”

And it’s arguably more essential than ever before. Given the sheer scale of today’s threats at an operational level, through to strategically knowing where to focus and how to get the right people through the door, government needs industry collaborating rather than competing. By sharing ideas and delivery approaches, we as a collective will be best placed to have the required mission impact – ultimately benefitting UK national security.

It’s not just about technology achievement. In this sector, there’s a real society benefit to what we do, which can be enabled through a culture of collaboration between primes and SMBs – with the focus on value and impact rather than just volume and revenue.

Danny also highlighted other potential areas for improvement. For example, supporting government in a more efficient and cross-organisational fashion by solving problems once rather than several times across multiple departments, which he described as “a far more sustainable way to work.

Don’t forget social value

Gemba isn’t purely focused on delivering technical value. It also has a commitment to social value (an increasing topic of focus for government customers) ingrained within its culture – much of which has been driven by individual employees rather than company-led initiatives.

Being Chair of Gemba’s Green Committee, Danny is particularly well placed to comment. “A number of our people are passionate about contributing to social value. Sustainability and EDI are two areas our people are particularly passionate about, enabling us to punch above our weight in terms of impact,” he explained. “We recruited a CSR lead far earlier in our lifecycle than most businesses would. Activities have included introducing schoolchildren to AI using AWS’ Deep Racer, sponsoring women in tech initiatives and, one of our proudest achievements, becoming a partner organisation to the Cyber First programme.”

The company also took early steps to understand its carbon footprint. It has already started carbon accounting as part of its yearly account cycle, adopting a mindset that you can’t get to net zero unless you understand your emissions and where you need to start improving ways of working. 

Again, impact is at the core of all its social value activities. A lot of CSR activity doesn’t actually lead to a great deal of impact, and if it does, it can often be hard to measure. That’s why putting the processes in place early so that activities can be understood and directed to be as impactful as possible – exactly what Gemba has done – is so important.

Danny said, “We’ve had success in letting people lead. Let employees go and do the things they’re passionate about, then jump on the back of that to properly measure and direct activities a bit better to ensure you’re actually achieving an outcome rather than just having lots of activity.”

It’s an admirable approach and one that organisations everywhere can take inspiration from. At BAE Systems, we’ve seen the value in letting people on the ground go out and make a difference with the assurance that they’re backed right through the hierarchy of the organisation. 

We’re certainly proud to work with an organisation like Gemba Advantage that shares our values. After all, while technical outputs are what we are ultimately all judged on, social value has rightly become a critical piece of the puzzle – both in terms of working with government and being a responsible business.