Let’s Go Digital
Once Upon a Paradigm and a Misquote
Many people, myself included, have repeated over the years that all things innovation — wherein arguably lies Digital Transformation — are first and foremost a cultural endeavour.
A decade ago or more, the buzz was all about “a new paradigm”, or “a paradigm shift”; there was a growing urge to question the status quo and existing constraints, to get rid of the orthodox approach and apply new processes and methods, and — perhaps first and foremost — for people and organisations to become ‘comfortable with being uncomfortable’.
The world was undergoing a drastic change and we, the financial industry, needed to keep up. Back in 1994 Bill Gates had already hit a nail in the coffin, declaring that banking was necessary but banks weren’t, a statement that caused a few heartburns, and pushed some people into thinking anew.
By the mid-noughties, although the industry wasn’t yet fully ablaze with innovation, it certainly had several little persistent fires alit here and there. Those of you who were around might still remember the flourishing of powerpoints with the trite quote (wrongly) attributed to Darwin about “the survival of the most adaptive”. Re the misquote, you may read more here.
Not a Rogue Wave
There is a plethora of definitions of Digital Transformation, some of which are very simple, others less so. It could, for example, be described as being the strategic, future-proof and sustainable all-encompassing endeavour an institution or establishment, such as a Company, undergoes in terms of business, organisation, mindset, behaviours, models, workflows, processes, activities, competencies, technologies, so as to optimise its understanding of, and become more efficient in its reaction to, the customer and markets, with the final goal of maximising margins and revenues. Not a short definition, agreed.
Whichever the preferred meaning, Digital Transformation is far from being the rogue wave that washes away the old, and it’s all but frictionless.
It needs to be explained, introduced. It takes place step by step, at times in bursts and halts, and requires an abundance of focus and energy, even for the slightest change to be made. To top it all off, it has to be curated and maintained.
The cheerful, cool, creative phase we enjoy and have fun with is probably the shortest of the entire journey, as most of it consists of lengthy and complex processes. It is a disciplined, choral effort on multiple and simultaneous streams, which need to be skilfully managed and monitored.
Contrary perhaps to what a layperson may suspect, Digital Transformation is not a prerogative of IT: it is quite the contrary pervasive, seeping across all areas of a Company, with the aim of changing how the Corporate thinks about and organises its business and how it delivers value to the end client.
Achieving this entails a huge commitment at all levels of the Corporate, and it needs be cross-functional.
People Make The World Go ‘Round
When I walk into the office nowadays, I sit with a variety of people — UX, UI, devs, biz analysts, etc. This is the team, this is who we are. The Corporate path to this hasn’t necessarily been easy: a decade ago I had the privilege of being part of a handful of people who kicked-off the first Innovation Dept of the Company I work for. We were a very heterogenous group, some of us were (still are) mavericks and corporate rebels to the bone, and those of us who weren’t were nonetheless atypical. If that happened back in the days, it was primarily thanks to the vision of top-tier individuals paired with the enthusiastic coordination and support of HR. This is still true today because, well, ‘people’.

People are not tech, we are not born with switches to be flipped when needed. The creation of a fertile environment in which digital awareness first and, at a later stage, digital culture are built requires a positive and deliberate effort — and this can be achieved through the support and action of an engaged and committed HR.
The people within a Company will need to work with new tools, interfaces, alongside new workflows and tasks; it’s not only the ‘what’ it’s also the ‘how’, which more often that not requires a change in behaviours, approaches and thinking processes as well.
It’s not a flashy and facile stage-statement; it’s actual reality: a 2015 research from MIT Sloan and Deloitte highlighted that Corporates disregarding the culture factor have paved their the way to failure: “What separates digital leaders from the rest is a clear digital strategy combined with a culture and leadership poised to drive the transformation. The history of technological advance in business is littered with examples of companies focusing on technologies without investing in organizational capabilities that ensure their impact”
If tech is what we’d call the building blocks, there must be someone who does the whole ‘building’ bit.
From a Corporate standpoint it’s an exciting and energising, though robust undertaking — more so than if it were solely IT — and all of this commitment requires a strong HR and a respectable level of investment, too.
