Welcome to Digital Chaos !!!
If confusion is the first step to knowledge, I must be a genius. — Larry Leissner
This is the first article of ‘The Road to Digital’ series. In the first article, I have outlined the purpose behind starting this 25 article series.
The latest buzzword in the market is ‘DIGITAL’. The entire industry now days is obsessed with one term — digital. Everyone uses it, in every context.
Every ABC Company is going digital. Every Employee claims s\he is digital Expert (Including me :-), check my LinkedIn Profile). Every platform is digital enabler. We already spending enough on digital marketing. Mentioning ‘Chief Digital Officer’ on your business card is cool. ‘Paytm karo’ is the new slogan for youth using digital wallets. Even India’s prime minister’s most ambitious program is ‘Digital India’.
Are we doing over reach with digital word? Is digital word used so much that its getting diluted? But who cares? Why not use digital for anything and everything? You can take any business word and prefix it with digital — digital business, digital leadership, digital strategy, digital revenue, digital disruptions, digital governance, digital sales, digital marketing, digital product development, digital manufacturing, digital supply chain, digital finance and even digital HR. This word is used so much that sometimes it is overused or misused to the point of becoming meaningless, or even an internal joke.
It all confused me. I started looking for some common definition of digital. I discussed with my colleagues at workplace, read lots of articles\ blogs and watched few webinars\ presentations. More I explored, more confused I got. So what is all this fuss about digital? What is going on here? I am setting myself the task to find out.
There is already so much content on digital that it is very easy to get lost in it. While what we can see with digital is just tip of the iceberg, what lies beneath is much more complex problem to Solve. In order to do it, the first step is truly understanding what digital means?
As a technology enthusiast, I have decided to take a systematic 360 degree look at this seven letter word — DIGITAL. The important purpose here is that we need to understand — if we are defining digital, then it should be something specific, reasonably clear and actionable. It should not be anymore some random buzzword or fashionable label to be used only in executives’ boardroom, leadership forums or sales pitch.
To help make this definition tangible, I’ve broken it down it into many questions:
1. What are the elements of digital?
2. What does digital means in your work/ industry / context?
3. What kind of impact it is having on businesses and customers?
4. What effect it would make on overall sales process\ client engagements?
5. What kind of mindset and culture changes requires for digital transformation?
6. What changes it will make on pricing models\ delivery process?
7. And more importantly, what are the challenges and opportunities it brings to the table?
While answering these questions, I have also taken a look at different trends and technologies, like SMAC, IoT, consumerization of IT, Platform based solutions etc. It might not be directly related to digital, but very much inherent part of digital ecosystem and changing the industry landscape significantly day by day.
Next few months, through series of articles, I will share my thoughts on above questions, though not necessarily in same order. As I dig deeper into it, I will refine my findings on continuous basis. If you would like to contribute to any topic or add new topic, reach out to me. Let’s decode the digital, together.
In true digital spirit, I encourage you to engage and collaborate with me in ‘The Road to Digital’ series. Leave a comment about a topic I’ve addressed. Please share my post via social media and reach out to me at sanchit.korgaonkar@gmail.com for further discussion. I look forward to get your feedback and incorporate it into the series.
About the author: Sanchit is an avid reader, curious observer, critical thinker and passionate individual. He has 7+ years of professional experience working for Cognizant, Amdocs and MAQSoftware and serving multiple industries — IT, telecom, retail, pharma, and education. He loves to work at intersection of technology, business and design and sometimes he writes about it. Please follow his blog for more insights.