7 Guaranteed Ways to Suck at Tech Transformation
Even more than wins and successes, we should pay close to attention to failures.
While the wins feel great and the failures taste bitter, it is the latter group of experiences that insulates us and teaches us valuable lessons that we hold on to when we are working at a larger scale and more is at stake.
As technology in the GCC shifted away from being a mere add-on to a company to help increase its revenues and into a key pillar of any functional enterprise, the gold rush to tech transformation began. LinkedIn began to fill with job openings that had “digital transformation” in them, while the salaries of those who knew what an IP address is started to rise.
The GCC abounds with companies that have missed that trend and instead managed to stay operational with old (if any) software, binders, and hand-written letters. These are the companies that found themselves facing the full weight of Jack Welch’s famous 5 words, now plastered across thousands of stock photo images:
How do you take a company from 1995 and drag it kicking and screaming into 2019? The manual on this is not clear. Professional advice ranges and contradicts itself in the approaches:
- Staff first: Train the people and the leadership will follow!
- Executives first: It must be a top down transformation.
- The Sink Or Swim: Bring in the new tools, and whoever fails to adapt and grow can find a new job in an old company.
The truth is much more elusive. So elusive in fact, that it eludes us to this day.
However, while we still don’t know the perfect foolproof formula to transform a stone-tablet-based company into a digital utopia where AR/VR/AI are more than pirate noises, we do have an idea on how to definitely NOT do it.
Our team members, having worked across 5 countries and 4 industries, had a lot to say on this. That wealth of experience meant a good deal of exposure to companies that tried and failed. We filtered that exposure down to 6 valuable lessons, in the form of failures, on how to perfectly drop the ball when trying to transform a company from a “print-this-and-put-it-in-the-binder analog office” into a tech-empowered office that operates with efficiency and transparency.
Without further ado, 7 key ways to fail:
1- Tech for the sake of Tech
By far the easiest trap to fall into. Often times a manager or a company leader will come across interesting solutions or tools that (s)he would instinctively feel would be perfect for your business. Thus begins a project that starts backwards, with the desire to have something because of a positive impression it made, as opposed to connecting it to a real problem or need in the company.
I saw this firsthand at a company that poured USD ~165,000 into a SharePoint platform that ended up being used as a dysfunctional Dropbox alternative. This was a project that started because the leadership had seen SharePoint being successfully used in another organization and insisted on having it.
2- Dive in without preparing/researching
Pursuant from the first point, an approach of pulling the trigger as soon as possible can be disastrous.
Businesses that dive in without understanding the solution they are bringing are in for heaps of trouble. Businesses that dive in without understanding the problems they have are in for more trouble.
By preparing and researching, I am not even thinking of the complex implementation challenges and future-proofing of technology. I am instead referring to basic checkboxes such as
- Do we actually need this?
- Will this play well with our current process/systems?
- Will the rest of the company be on board?
3- Non Localized international product
Working in the UAE means having to onboard software that was developed elsewhere for another market, then ported so that it can work (or try to) serve its purpose in a different context.
Property Management software serves as a great example here. Real estate regulations can vary wildly from country and country, and even more so from continent to continent. Setting aside basic issues such as currency and date formats, oftentimes you will find out the hard way (as we have) that the software structure, approach to real estate, and even terminology are incompatible with how your company operates.
One thing to keep in mind is that these software providers will never admit to these issues. They will instead promise you full compatibility and localization. Remember, a salesperson’s job is to sell.
4- All the tech, right now
Sometimes you’ll start off on the right foot. Your new accounting software is well-received by the team, it’s playing nicely, and you haven’t run into any of the issues I mentioned above. Amazing!
What do you do? Do you make sure you learn the right lessons of how this went well and use that to plan well for the next transformation milestone? ha.
You get them all. You get a company culture change app like Workwell, you downsize the HR team and get an HR tool, then you move everything to Google Suite overnight and pitch it as a surprise to the company.
5- Skipping over the basics
When I started writing #5, I was amused by the irony of not listing this first. So I’ll keep it here.
Many a dollar has been lost on data analytics initiatives that suffered an early death when decision makers realized that it’s hard to analyze data without good clean data, or data collection & storage practices. This is the equivalent of getting an exhaust pipe for your Ferrari but then forgetting that you’re homeless.
And you don’t have a Ferrari.
6- Planning only for the problems you have, not the ones you will have.
If you are having this problem, you’re arguably much better off than many other companies that skipped any planning whatsoever. Industries are evolving quickly, technology even quicker still.
Digital transformation thinking will require you to do more than identify problems and appropriate solutions via technology. How will your new tools evolve the problem? What new problems will they create? An HR management tool resolved some of our bureaucracies indeed. However, it also undermined the human component of Human Resources.
7- Assuming since it’s technology, it won’t need people.
Speaking of the human component, tech enthusiasts such as myself are prone to make this mistake. This comes from placing too much faith in the technology and forgetting about its end users. The red flags to keep an eye out for are phrases such as:
- “It’s very intuitive”
- “They [employees] will pick it up in no time”
- “We won’t even need to do a training”
…among many others.
Digital transformation is not about paying more bills to SAAS companies, it’s about transforming the company (human and non-human) into one that embraces innovation and technology.
Let me know if there’s anything I missed.
