Build Digital Bridges, Not Silos
Three transformation learnings from SAP’s Digital Journey
Division of labor has been a fundamental economic principle and driver in the modern economy. The result in larger organizations has been highly specialized, efficient functional departments — and this has worked perfectly fine for the past century.
But many studies show how digital transformation projects need to be cross-functional to succeed. The digital customer experience requires the whole company present itself to the customer as one — in real time. Regardless if this is about bills, product delivery or customer service: Everything has to come together for the customer. This is also why SAP’s move to dissolve the divide between the back office and front office with its new Customer Experience strategy C/4HANA is such a paradigm shift.
Building digital bridges between these corporate silos has become a success factor for any digital transformation project. Here are three key learnings from our own experience at SAP on our path to embracing digital and enhancing customer experience at scale.
- SHIFT THE CULTURE FROM THE TOP DOWN AND BOTTOM UP
A company’s leadership team must come to a unified vision and a core understanding of the long-term goals, key projects, and inter-department goals before passing them down to the rest of their teams. The will of the organization has to be clear and well-expressed. Leaders must tear down silos by addressing the underlying contextual issues that are present at the middle of an organization. A unified management team will encourage leaders to break out of the crippling “that’s not my department” mindset.
But even more critical, every employee must buy into the new culture and be part of it. It can’t just be a hollow, top down leadership edict. The “hearts & minds” must be convinced because this is where actual work and change happens. Every member of a team must take personal responsibility and change the mindset from the bottom up. True cultural change occurs when the entire team buys into a new way of doing things and feels accountable. Leadership can steer the ship, but each employee is responsible for powering the vessel and keeping it afloat.
2. FOSTER AN ENVIRONMENT OF CONTINUOUS LEARNING
Although related to work culture, continuous learning is so important it deserves its own section. Employees are much more likely to reach across divisions and volunteer to help or ask for assistance if they already have a foundation or a general sense or another team’s activities. By continuously adding new skills, workers set themselves up for personal gain and also allow for teams to thrive. It’s important to develop a culture that’s not afraid of failure and is motivated by constant learning to enhance the next iteration of the product, per MIT Sloan Management Review.
Some companies are already starting to recognize the value of continuous learning. High-performing companies are seizing the opportunity to promote a new culture of learning, according to Deloitte. These organizations are fundamentally rethinking what “learning” and “development” mean in the context of their business. They place the employee at the center of a new vision that treats learning as a continuous process, not an episodic event, and as a company-wide responsibility, not one confined to HR.
3. CULTIVATE A CUSTOMER-FIRST MINDSET
But the guiding north star needs to remain putting the customer first. This brings clarity to any possible channel confusion and helps break down internal silos between departments. In the world of customer data, for example, different departments should work together using critical customer information to provide a digital offering that brings everything a customer would want to one central location. More importantly, customers should not have to go looking through myriad websites to find what they want. Everything should connect — based on what you know about each unique customer — to bring the best customer experience possible. At SAP, for example we’ve taken the first important steps to do this with SAP.com.
It’s clear that we’re moving more and more towards digital as the singular channel for managing the entire customer lifecycle, and practices need to be put in place to accommodate this. Customers today are looking for a quick and simple process, but one that is still robust and heavily secured. And they want businesses to get to know them and understand their preferences for future purchases. Overall, it’s a simple equation: Succeed at overcoming channel confusion and you’ll succeed in the move towards building bridges and knocking down company silos.
