Digital Transformation: The Ultimate Challenge.

Digital Transformation is by no means a novel idea. Some authors will tell us that it started back in the late 1940’s with the birth of the semiconductor industry or maybe in 1969 with the transmission of the first message sent through ARPANET. In any case, the term itself was coined about the ten years ago under the basic premise of using technology and other related means to increase efficiency (throughput) of an organization by replacing manual (analog) labor with automated (digital) execution.

Fast forward, today we live in a world where thanks to the flourishment of technologies like Cloud Computing, SaaS, IoT and many others it is easier (and more affordable) than ever to embrace Digital Transformation. In a nutshell, Digital Transformation makes perfect sense (at least on paper) and it may be a fairly “easy sell” when presented to executives and decision makers in an organization specially if we consider the challenges and new reality of the post-Pandemic world.

However more often than not, companies underestimate (or do not understand) the psychological and cultural implications of Digital Transformation for their work force. In many cases, companies check off the human element box by admitting that “people have a natural resistance to change” (which is true) and then perform actions related to sensitize their employees around the benefits of the Digital Transformation hoping that people will eventually “get it” and go along with the process.

This approach, even when limited, is better than doing nothing at all and simply impose technology across the organization but the reality is that we need to do much more to achieve meaningful Digital Transformation and it all starts and ends with our people. If our people don’t understand the real why and how behind the Digital Transformation movement it will be very difficult for them to actually embrace it:

• Digital Transformation is not a process or project to go through with start and end dates; it is rather an evolution of the corporate way of life.
• Digital Transformation is all about challenging the status quo of why we do things in a certain way and ask ourselves if there is a better way of running our business. (Spoiler alert: The answer is yes in 99.99% of the cases).
• Digital Transformation implies organizations moving into a “digital thought process” where each individual sees the execution of her/his/their responsibilities and daily activities from a different perspective.
• Digital Transformation implies creating an inventory of all our business processes, so we can analyze them (individually and holistically) and confirm alignment with company’s goals, and their relevance and feasibility within today’s business context.
• Digital Transformation is not about replacing expensive manual labor (specially in today’s job market) and/or business process with “cost effective” technology solutions. (Spoiler alert: TCO of digital solutions vs. manual process may be actually higher if the process is not thoroughly assessed).

In subsequent parts of this article, we will review the five core topics above along with ideas of how an organization can address them and conquer Digital Transformation’s ultimate challenge: Rally the hearts (and minds) of our people behind it and evolve our corporate thought process.

credit: Rodrigo Garcia, MBA