Digital Transformation – Is it all about the technology?
Digital Transformation is the jargon currently immanent in the corporate world wherein many organizations advertise it under a subset of elaborate technology-driven approaches and myriad of applications/tools. But is technology alone adequate to drive digital transformation? Aren’t there other factors that necessarily help the transformation journey? Let us dwell on this dimension here.
The innovative technologies and automation solutions at the core of digital transformation are usually an express resultant of the following concentric influences, making the journey wholesome:
Strategic roadmap supporting the organization’s big Y
Governance Framework for Sustenance
Process Optimization and Excellence
Culture and human capital are at the center of it
It is an interesting paradigm that a leadership drive runs from top to bottom while the culture reflecting in the organization is always bottom up. These both can be balanced when equal proportions exist at all levels i.e., leadership imbibe the culture and expertly guide organization’s existing and new human capital. It is easy for a leader to manage, but not every manager can lead. Organizations’ investment on the crucial middle layer shall make the transformation effective.
In any organization, the pursuit of excellence (through process improvements, reengineering, and optimization efforts) should be encouraged from the ground level no matter how big or small, cutting across the functions. Quality ideas of automation emanate from these if supported by structured approaches / methodologies (e.g., Lean and Six Sigma) and the pyramid gets built leading to the bright ideas shining on the top. Over and above it, Standardization shall ensure consistency in the transformation pursuit.
Leadership should be responsible to establish a Governance framework so that the pyramid stays in the shape and bubbles with growth generating new automation opportunities and solutions. An important aspect of Governance is not only attaching accountabilities to various entitled teams but also building their capabilities to enrich and nurture them to next levels.
The end-result for all these digital transformation efforts should augur well for the business. If short-term profits are the targeted bottom line, then results would not sustain. Organizations should aim for specific areas for transformations and progressively achieve those goals. Avoid the enterprise-wide carpet-bombing. Thus, strategically aligning their big Y to uniformly and positively impacting all four of the A-I-C-S (associates, investors, customers, and society). As of today, not many organizations can boast of such a roadmap.
In the current market, Service providers will gradually lose the competitive edge if any transformation offering to customers is limited to an application or a tool. Solutions offered should be an encompassing package – the application, the business process consulting, the deployment, the change management, the success criteria, and the big Yield. Similarly, customers looking for seamless transformative benefits should plan for long-term accommodating such solutions and accordingly engage service providers for consistent results.
Putting it succinctly, like other business transformations, the digital transformation journey is an interlacing of technology, people, and processes (the quintessential triangle) with heavy focus on cultural shift and automation at its core. Don’t you agree?