Gaule: Give a brief description of the purpose of your venture, when it was formed and how the process occurs in your organisation.
Adcock: The vision of our business is “to transform the way the world delivers training”, primarily in the military market but also in selected hazardous civilian markets such as mining. We do this by the progressive use of gaming technologies integrated with higher-fidelity military components as required. We describe ourselves as technology agnostic and promote the use of open systems, which is itself novel in the defence market. We operate a number of high-profile training facilities in the UK, and most of our work is enabled by a long-standing transformational research programme that scientifically explores if and how emerging commercial technologies can be effectively utilised in training. We created this business two years ago, by bringing together com- plementary components from across the QinetiQ group. QinetiQ uses a “core, explore and test for value” model to focus its businesses and investments. Around 90% of the company is core – well established, major businesses that represent the resilient heart of what we do. Explore busi- ness units, of which this is one, are small businesses that have the potential to grow rapidly, thus becoming core in the future. As such, explore businesses are given the sup- port and investment to succeed, although of course this is closely monitored against business plans. Test for value represents individual and specific ideas or technologies which are tightly and efficiently managed through a series of stages to determine if and how they should be taken forward. A small proportion of these will then develop into explore business.
Gaule: How is this venture different from other businesses in the group?
Adcock: Our training and simulation business has trans- formation as a core element of the value proposition. We are doing everything we can to support the customer com- munities’ evolution into a different way of doing things. This comes with risk, the kind of risk that it would probably not be sensible to take with a core business unit. However, this clarity and commitment to a transformation agenda is then what defines everything we strive to do. This creates a self- reinforcing culture over time – if we can be transformational in our environment, in how we behave, in how we present, and in how we construct and deliver our services, then it becomes central to who we are, enabling us to be genu- ine about the transformation agenda for our customers. Clearly this is a journey that takes time, but metrics such as employee engagement, customer satisfaction and financial performance all indicate significant improvement thus far, which is very encouraging.
Gaule: Give an example of how the products and services vary from the usual business.
Adcock: I shall give an example of the close-range weapons trainer at HMS Collingwood. This is a facility we recently created. There you will find a series of rooms. In each room are one or two weapons on stands or turrets, exactly like on board a type 45 ship. These weapons look, feel and sound just like the real thing, and need loading and unjamming. Many of them are mounted on moving platforms that you stand on, and they point at very large screens. The trainer may select a programme that says “everyone is on the same ship, and the scenario is that you are being swarmed by a large number of small attack craft”. Instantly all the moving platforms start moving together as if everyone is on board the same ship on the ocean, and the screens show a stun- ning, computer-games-based representation of the world, complete with weather, landscape and enemy forces. The trainees now learn how to use their weapons on board a moving vessel, against moving targets, and also how to work together to achieve a common objective. It is not only that this kind of offering is in itself transformational, but that it can be achieved for a fraction of the cost of more tradi- tionally delivered military equipment. Moreover, because of our approach, it can be modified, updated or integrated with other systems easily and cost-effectively.
Gaule: Which new customer sectors are you developing? Adcock: Historically the majority of work undertakenby the former groups was for specific customers within the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD). The best business to be in is the one you already have, and so the MoD remains critical to us. We have also invested in relationship building in North America and will soon be opening offices there. Outside the military domain, we have done work with major transport hubs and have delivered high-profile virtual-reality training systems into the mining industry, particularly in Australia. This enables us to have a more resilient business as we reduce our dependency on single customers, and it also allows us to manage a healthier pipeline of opportunity where we can pick and choose those that are right for us and our customer. A key development has been with the coal industry in Australia, deploying a 360-degree immersion system based on 50km of detailed underground mines. In this environment we can train and test teams on their reactions to explosions, new scenarios and rescues. These training and simulation approaches can be delivered safely, more frequently and at lower cost in delivery and plant downtime.
Gaule: Give a brief overview of the people in the team and the partners you work with to deliver the new services. Adcock: Importantly, our team is a mix of engineering and scientific specialists together with training psychologists, many of whom have deep expertise in the customer com- munity. It would be hard to replicate what we do without bringing this mix together alongside decades-long experience in closely supporting the specific customer domain. Part of the transformational journey is a commitment to being more progressive with partner organisations. If we are going to respond rapidly to customer requirements and a changing commercial technology environment, then we need to move away from highly constrained supply chain models. We increasingly work with organisations that share a common commitment to the customer, and with which we can progressively learn to co-win and co-deliver work. Because of our belief in being technology agnostic and open in our architectural approach, we are less constrained by intellectual property restrictions. As these relationships develop it is important not to lead with heavy commercial frameworks that try to define the end state in hard terms. Instead agree to principles and attitudes – with some inevi- table commercial safety nets in place – that enable you to collaborate on the art of the possible without really knowing where it will take you. To avoid wasting too much effort you need to be selective on who you engage in this way, and there needs to be close engagement with leaders from both organisations, otherwise the lower-level teams will neces- sarily look to manage the interaction in a transactional and tactical manner.
Gaule: What do you do to relax?
Adcock: I live with my wife and three-year- old son, and we recently bought a house that needs renovating, so there is not that much spare time. I love to cook because, unlike work, it represents a project you can define, execute and enjoy all in the space of one evening.
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To contact Andrew Gaule and for future interview ideas email andrew.gaule@corven.com and tlewis@globalcorporateventuring.com