The Digital Transformation Debacle
Imagine the opportunity loss and the frustration, that you’d experience, if, after a long and an arduous journey, you reach a place and realise that it is not the destination you intended to be! Whom would you hold responsible for this debacle? Who would make up for the lost opportunity and cost?
In a recently conducted Wipro Digital Transformation Survey 2019, in which more than 1400 C-Suite Executive who are along the journey of the Digital Transformation, responded with this “We got what we asked, but then discovered it wasn’t what we needed” when asked about the barriers to the success of Digital Transformation Journey. When a Digital Transformation Project ends up with this, it is nothing less than a debacle, considering the time, money and the effort involved in the implementation of the same.
“We got what we asked, but then discovered it wasn’t what we needed”
This post below lists 3 things that every enterprise must-do for a start, to not end up in a DT Debacle.
KPI as the Northstar
The technological advancement has no doubt opened up a myriad of possibilities. Endpoint devices like tablets, handhelds and mobiles have revolutionised human-machine interaction. The sensor technology has brought to life numerous passive things transforming the way data is derived from them, the way they are managed and maintained. This advent bundled with the reducing ownership costs has resulted in the faster adoption of these technologies.
What it also means is that the tendency to get enamoured by solutions, technology and the experience without validating if it addresses their core needs is also high. Consider this, not every “thing” needs to be connected at once, not every data point in a “Thing” needs to be tapped, not every workflow should be made available on mobile, not everything needs to be automated — This extravagance is further amplified due to aspirations of the internal departments to be the first to embrace technology and score points. It is at this stage the Digital Transformation Orchestrators must provide the right perspective to the customer, to choose solutions, prioritise projects that will address the core needs of the organization.
It is therefore important for organisations to articulate what are those critical performance parameters that they need to improve. Before kick-starting Digital Transformation projects, organisations must identify and baseline the target KPI’s. There can be cases, where some of the KPI’s are not measurable in the current state, in which case, at least the organisation’s goal must be to measure and baseline the KPI. Improvements can be targeted later.
This should serve as the Northstar for the organization and its Digital Transformation Partners at every stage of the decision making. One of the thinking hats must be tasked to think from the KPI perspective only and brutally call out the priorities. Having a strong KPI focus will keep the enterprises grounded to the business realities. Laser focus on the KPI helps enterprises to justify the cost and return on investment. This will help organisations in ensuring they don’t end up in DT debacles.
Phased Roll Out vs Big Bang
Having spent a good amount of time with the stakeholders of various shop floors, one common pattern that I see is the impatience to see it all coming together. This is imaginable given the time, effort and energy that is invested in DT, the stakeholder would want to see the results as soon as possible. I have had a countless conversation with key stakeholders to convince them to take a phased approach. The most common response to that is resistance. In hot pursuit of being able to justify the cost, and redeem the RoI, the transforming organization often in a race to replicate the plan into action in one big shot.
Any Digital Transformation project worth its salt will make a considerable impact on the stakeholder’s routine activity. It should. It cannot be Business as usual with a Digital Transformation underway. Therefore it is crucial to foresee the disruption that it might cause and ready the workforce and the deployment environment to be ready for the change.
What this also means is that attempts for a Big Bang approach will surely end up in DT debacle, because, the organization will most likely not be able to cope up with the magnitude of change that it might bring in without impacting the output. The only way to ensure the rollout is smooth is to introduce changes in a phased approach so that a coherent change management strategy can be developed and implemented in parallel.
For Digital Transformation to be successful, Enterprises must work with Orchestrators to define a roadmap with clear milestones, so that, at every small win we know that we are inching closer to the final goal. The biggest advantage of a phased approach also is the agility it brings to pivot at any stage with affordable losses. Enterprise can constantly evaluate the progress and make necessary course corrections if the results are not in line with expectations.
People at the Center of Transformation
Digital Transformation also brings with it a wave of people-related issues. Understandably, resisting any new change, the workforce commonly perceives Digital Transformation as an elaborate attempt to optimize human resources and cut costs. Ironic, that it may sound, but Digital Transformation & automation, does not target or result in the elimination of people. If workforce reduction is the motivation, enterprises should be advised that it is not “Digital Transformation” and are being ill-advised.
Digital transformation enables organisations to redeploy skilled resources. Successful organisations deskill processes (meaning eliminating the absolute need for a specially skilled worker to perform a specific process) so that the resource dependency for a process is reduced. They take this opportunity to use this skilled resource in doing more productive work.
One of the most critical factors for the success of Digital Transformation is to put people at the centre of this transformation. Organisations achieve this by doing the following — Enlist & Empower.
- Enlist — It is important to enlist people across departments, hierarchy and levels, to participate, contribute and have skin in the success of this transformation. Enterprises should ensure rewards linked to outcomes. When organisations populate siloed special task force for transformations, those promote exclusivity and hamper the success. Successful organisations, on the other hand, identify and enlist talent from all relevant departments and hierarchy, as part of this journey, which promotes an inclusive culture.
- Empower — Enlistment is just a start. An organization should encourage people to fearlessly participate in the process, raise concerns, share challenges and participate in solution design. This will immensely help the organization to identify and solve real problems. During a customer discovery process, I have experienced this first hand, where the plant manager let his ground force brainstorm and participate in the design thinking workshop. The result was that we could uncover problems/needs that otherwise could not have been discovered.
Conclusion
This list is not exhaustive, but this is the top 3. Digital Transformation is a journey (not a destination) where enterprises think intently to reinvent the way they create, capture and deliver value to their customers. It is an opportunity to explore different business models, newer ways to GTM, and optimize the operations. When Digital Transformation is approached with the right objectives, reliable partners, and a motivated workforce, enterprises can uncover profitable avenues.
The writer is a Digital Transformation Practitioner. The views expressed are personal and does not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s employer.