Digital Transformation — Age of perpetual Agility
‘Digital Transformation’ is a cool buzzword and in many cases used as the go to phrase for filling the blanks in varied discussions. However, simply put Digital Transformation are the steps organizations take to be more effective and efficient in delivering superior experiences for its users, customers, stakeholders and employees.
Industrial Revolution 1.0 (1700’s) was driven by the invention of steam power and it was centered around the manufacturing of textiles. While Industrial Revolution 2.0 (1800’s) introduced mass production of steel, railroads, chemicals, petroleum products and electricity. We can say that history of Digital Transformation can be traced back to Industrial Revolution 3.0 (1969) with the introduction of Internet, Computers and Electronics.
The initial phase of Digital Transformation was about transforming analog, physical artifacts or information to a digital form called Digitization. This was followed by Automating and Streamlining the processes with Digitalization and finally came in the age of Digital Transformation where deep structural changes are made at the organization level to re-define the Operating Models and transform the Processes, Operations to bring new value proposition and strategic direction.
Digital Transformation enables organizations to stay relevant and competitive by using modern digital technologies like Internet, e-Commerce, Cloud Platforms, Smartphones, 5G, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Blockchain, Virtual Reality and AI to name a few as part of their day-to-day operations and delivery.
Let’s take an example of an Information-centric organization like an insurance company that has multiple stakeholders like employees, customers, insurance agents and an ecosystem including financial institutions, government and policy makers that impact the working of the company. Now, with customers becoming more demanding and market competitive than ever before, it is important that organizations are able to scale and speed up their response to any change element.
The framework of Digital Transformation includes these elements for speed and scalability:
- Understand Customer Journeys & Organization’s Eco-system: Organizations should be aware of the different channels leveraged by customers and the key elements of the eco-system that has impact and influence on the company’s functions and delivery. It is important to identify and prioritize the ‘Customer Journeys’ that are candidates for Digital Transformation.
- Reimagine and Digitize Business Processes: Organizations should zoom-in on the business process that need to be optimized for efficiency based on the prioritized Customer Journeys. Eliminate redundancy for better output.
- Modular and Reusable Business Services: To be able to incorporate change faster and in an agile way, it is important that we have modular services that can be plugged into different business process. Say we need E-Signature from the user, this service can be integrated with multiple business processes, so when a change or enhancement is needed it is only made at the service layer and not for all the processes. This brings in efficiency and agility.
- Integrated Applications: Organizations should establish the directional Applications integrated with business processes. It’s important to have a light weight eco-system that is not bogged down under the weight of multiple redundant applications.
- Decouple Infrastructure and Technology: With changing technology, its important that Organizations scale and speed up the delivery and so it’s important to have Infrastructure and Technology as a separate layer that can fuel the applications and business processes. Standardization brings effective cost management and promotes efficiency
- Architecture Framework & Overall Governance: It is critical to have an Architectural Oversight for Processes, People and Technology management. The governance promotes management of the critical pillars and feedback.
In addition, Organization striving for Digital Transformation should build robust processes for Change Management and let us not forget that people are an integral part and the key players. It’s critical to bring the right talent and up skill current talent to successfully overcome the challenges introduced with Transformation. The entire process is cyclic and organizations should have updated KPIs and Metrics to assess the effectiveness of the changes and then be able to fine tune the processes further.
As its right fully said, a well-done transformation can turn a caterpillar into butterfly or it will just be a fast-paced caterpillar.
