Digital Transformation the Key to Surviving a Digital Native Assault
Digital transformation has become an overused buzzword, much like innovation, because consulting and technology companies see it as an opportunity to create FOMO (fear of missing out) in their clients.
We now live in a digital age, and as a result, the pace of changes in customer expectations is accelerating. Not because technology is new, but because the way we react to technology and interact with it is different.
Our Changing Relationship with Technology
We’ve had technology for a while, but we used it primarily for performing calculations, and then for information storage and retrieval. But now, because the computer has moved from being a machine in a lab programmed with punch cards, to something nearly every one of us carries in our pocket or wears on our wrist, we’re beginning to form relationships with machines and more importantly, to use our machines to form, maintain, and even deepen, our human relationships.
People are more likely to freak out about leaving their mobile phone at home than their wallet. Soon you won’t even need to carry a wallet (unless you want to). Canada stopped making pennies. In Sweden many businesses no longer take cash. Have you tried buying a drink on an airplane lately? (no cash accepted there either)
So what does this mean for you as a business person?
It means that people like me have to drag you kicking and screaming away from the way you’ve always done business, away from the way you’ve always structured your enterprise, away from the ways you’ve facilitated communication among employees and between you and your customers, partners, and suppliers and towards a fundamentally different way of organizing and operating your business.
You must evolve to do business in a digital way for the digital age or you will lose your large and attractive market to me and my digital native friends while you:
- Struggle under the weight of your legacy systems
- Deny that you must change how you think
- Fail to change how you interact with customers
- Skirmish internally about the best way to change how your business works inside
Do all of this too slowly and digital natives will raise venture capital to re-imagine your business and your entire industry from the ground up with a collection of digital strategies that utilize the power of the digital mindset to more efficiently and effectively utilize people, process and technology and put you out of business.
The digital transformation imperative is real, the time is now, and the next move is yours.
Are you willing to go beyond one-off siloed digital initiatives to reimagine your business and execute a true digital transformation?
If not, I hope you’ve got your golden parachute packed and ready to go.
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