Digital and IT organization Transformation

How to make a success of Digital Business Transformation, IT Organization Transformation and Digital Innovation.

Transformation versus Change

In simple words, transformation is about creating a new future and a new way of working (Butterfly) and change is optimizing the current situation (Faster Caterpillar).

Digital Business Transformation

How new IT and technology affect your business and business processes

An increasing number of companies, governments and business models are currently changing as a result of what is called "the digital business transformation. But what is it really? How will it affect you? And should you deal with it?

Digital business transformation has become possible thanks to the availability of new, rapidly evolving IT solutions and technology. Its effects are already quite visible. Society is changing because of it. Consumers are changing because of it. Customers quickly become accustomed to the extra service, better quality, shorter delivery times and faster response times, all of which result from the transformation. Experiences gained by customers translate into ever higher expectations and higher demands on other suppliers. Not only private customers are pushing their boundaries as a result, so are business customers. Suppliers who do not adjust their business model in time to new developments can therefore find themselves in trouble faster than ever.

Digital transformation is about customer expectations and how to continue to meet them. But also about new technology and the choice of new ICT solutions. About the future of your company and your competitive position. Ignoring current developments is not an option. You too must ask yourself what these developments mean for you and your business model and what dangers and opportunities these developments bring. 

 

Optimize first in Digital Business Transformation

Many organizations are engaged in highly innovative IT projects while their digital foundation is still shaky. So start by improving day-to-day digital services. Digital transformation is important. But rushing into ambitious projects so as not to be late later, organizations usually do themselves no favors.

Every self-respecting company seems to be making a digital transition these days. But it is usually not a good plan to immediately start investing in the latest capabilities, for example in the field of artificial intelligence. Rather, first look at what can be improved about the digitization of the current customer process. Always ask yourself what really adds value. Not everything has to be digital. For example, you can save money with a chatbot, but does that outweigh a much poorer customer experience because they no longer have contact with real people?

Also look at how to strengthen digital ties with chain partners and how to better support home workers. In short, start optimizing digitally first and only then innovate.

 

Is Digital Business Transformation necessary?

Digital business transformation does sounds good,  sexy, and that's how you score in the boardroom. It is very tempting, after two years of standing still due to a pandemic, to go all out for digital business transformation. But most is a lot of BS, hypes and Buzz words.

We are working a lot on optimization, but very often people are misled internally by using terminology that does not fit. Digital business transformation is trendy, it looks good in your strategy memorandum and for the supervisory board.
But the reality is often much flatter and simpler. There is also some hot air in that. It's not bad at all to optimize digitally, but call it that.

In short, start optimizing digitally first and only then innovate.

Fix your basis first and optimize  before even thinking about Digital Business Transformation

• Everything and everyone wants blockchain, everyone wants something with artificial intelligence. This is also related to the hypes. But the most successful innovative examples are precisely organizations that manage to find a solution to an existing problem that has been very underexposed. They also use technology that already exists to do so.
• In very many organizations, there are actually gains to be made from optimization. Of course, companies and people find it more interesting to work on new things instead of fixing the backlog. But so many organizations do not even have their digital foundation in order, we have experienced that ourselves as well.
• First, make sure my emails are answered within a day. Make sure I have much better service as a consumer or citizen. That is what we want for organizations first and foremost, that they are focused on how they could do everything they do one step better.
• There are very nice digital tools for that that can help. But often organizations are already three hurdles ahead and working with all kinds of fantastic artificial intelligence (AI) and data applications, while the digital foundation is often still rattling.
• That still surprises us very often. So much money goes into all kinds of innovation projects, while if you look at the daily service you can easily come up with a long list of points that can be improved.

 

Great leadership to  guard against being overly ambitious and the Digital Business Transformation BS

• You have to go back to these questions every time: where does it help our customer? Where does it help our employees? Could you do it another way? You have to ask the why question over and over again.
• There is often the idea that it all has to be digital, but it may well be that the solution lies precisely in personal contact. You can reason that you need a chat robot, but why? Who has had good experiences with them, probably no one.
• Shouldn't you move in the other direction, that people get a real person on the  phone again? Before you know it, your strategy memo says you're switching to chat robots next year. Yes, it may save money, that's one argument, but does that outweigh a bad customer experience?
• Leaders are expected to have a very clear vision and set the course. The paradox is that no one knows what the future will look like. So leaders need to be vulnerable and ask a lot more questions, to colleagues, to consultants.
• Leaders also need to descend much more to the operation, to where it happens. Literally get out of that ivory tower, be coached much more, be surrounded by other insights.
• Every challenge in an organization can somehow be traced back to leadership. That is a very harsh thing to say, but it is true. We very often ask leaders the obvious question of whether they have gone through such a customer process themselves.
• To our horror, the answer is often no. That's what sets outstanding companies apart from the rest, who are focus working to improve every bit of their organization. How they deal with suppliers, how the reception is at the counter, how the handling is of the online sales process.
• That absolutely requires leadership, and that only works if you yourself set a good example, if you constantly insist on it. And that's often not there anyway.

 

Oustanding Companies

• Companies should have clearer what their core quality is. That means looking at your own dominant logic. The story you've been telling yourself and each other for a long time that makes you successful. You should revisit that story.
• You also see this in companies that are successful in their transformation. These are companies that look very closely at: what actually makes us unique and how can we apply that in the digital age?
• For example,  McLaren says, "We are not only a car manufacturer.  We are very good at analyzing data and we are going to apply that capability to new audiences."
  That is very difficult, but organizations need to transcend for a moment what they have been doing for the past few decades and really look at what makes them unique now in this era.

At the same time, companies too often get stuck in analysis. They make it too big a deal. It's pretty easy to test things. You can see pretty quickly whether it works or not anyway. So I would also like to see a little more decisiveness. A little less talk, a little more action.'

IT Organization Transformation

IT Organizations need to partner more effectively with the business, and maximize the value it brings to the enterprise. 

Digital Innovation

Summary