Digital Skills Global
Graduate Anton Cabral: Accelerating Business Growth Through Digital Transformation

Graduate Anton Cabral: Accelerating Business Growth Through Digital Transformation

For this graduate interview we spoke with Anton Cabral, a successful graduate from our BSc Honours Degree in Digital Technology, Design and Innovation. Anton is from Cape Town, South Africa, and is a partner and managing executive of the LR Management Group, in charge of their digital agency.

Anton what initially inspired you to join the International BSc Honours Degree Programme?

I am interested in the digital world, as the whole world is moving in that direction, and to understand what are the possibilities of digital transformation. As a result of this, I was looking for a Master’s Degree in this area, and did this as a bridging course to help upskill myself.

What skills did you learn on the programme?

I found most value from the Agile and Growth Hacking elements. In regards to the Agile methodologies, we implemented this approach into our organisation. For this reason, it was good to learn more about this and it has benefitted my own organisation’s activities. In relation to Growth Hacking, it was useful to learn about this also. I gained a much clearer understanding of how you can use it to help your business. Measurement of your activities needs to be based on the rate of conversion, rather than just digital engagement. It is good to realise this and look at your activities differently, with a clear focus on converting leads. I find this useful in helping to give me a clearer overview of what we do in our company.

How are you going to use the skills you learn in your current career?

I apply these skills in the day-to-day running of my business and will apply these in the Master’s Degree I am planning. In my role as the head of the digital capability, the goal is increased performance for our clients. This could be through using apps, portals, eLearning, or a range of other tools. The course helped me to sharpen up my skills in terms of assessing which elements will work best for any of the companies that we work with.

My background is in IT and programming, so I enjoyed the digital aspect of the course. It really helped me with my goal of with progressing my career into digital transformation. The course gave me a good slant into what the world of digital is, in a wider way than just studying digital marketing techniques. I wanted to do something like this, rather than a solely digital marketing focussed course, so it worked well for me.

What are the advantages of studying in a flexible online and part-time programme?

I found the flexibility a great advantage. Also, not having to go to a physical building and the comfort of doing it from home was a great help, particularly as I had my own work to do as well.

What benefits have you gained from working in an international cross-functional team?

I didn’t necessarily gain new skills in this area as it wasn’t new to me, however I did have a great group to work with. An interesting challenge for me of working in this way was that in a flat hierarchy everyone has the same power to decide. This can be a little different from a typical working environment where normally there is a clearly line of decision-making. Overall, our team worked together well, and it was an enjoyable experience, but it was the digital transformation piece that was most useful for me.

Overall, I found the course useful, and has helped me in my own career development. It gave me some invaluable insights that I have since applied to my own company’s working practices, and also a deeper understanding of what digital transformation is and can be.