2020 - Digital Transformation

In 2020, digital transformation efforts will still begin with People.  Consulting focus will increasingly shift over to the workforce's ability to accept and deal with a new version of change management. Traditional OCM training and communications doctrine are being tossed “out the window”. They are often found to be incomplete and inadequate for a digital transformation program. A new emphasis is emerging and it points to how real time data feedback is being received and processed by the company and the individual employees. 

Company call centers, order administration, and operations will likely use more mobile devices. The use of analytics, robotic process automation, dynamic process changes will increase. New and emerging technologies move out of the media and into your everyday life in a big way. AI, BI, Machine Learning, VR, and 5g technologies could be commanding a significant share of your attention.

Also commanding you attention could be marked shifts to the consumer market. Demands and products seem to change much faster when companies are listening. Smart Grid expansion, wind and solar power is starting to fueling a market shift to a Prosumer (Producer & Consumer) utilities model. The Prosumer shift may surge with some help from the government. California is already headed down this path with public funding for renewable energy expansion. Think about the reality of having industrial batteries in your home, at work, in the neighborhoods. . . it is coming.

The banks of lead-acid, NiCad and Lithium batteries are nothing like the batteries that will be needed to provide backup capacity and peak load leveling. The new battery technology will radically change the way we think about back up power for hospitals, security, natural disasters, etc. Resiliency take on a new meaning when home owners have the ability to decrease their demand and choose to live off-grid for days or weeks, if needed.

People could choose to reject projects and process changes that fail to utilize technology the users embrace. Think of smart phones, tablets, VR, AI and drones.  As the next generation of manufacturing, industrial and utility workers go to work, we can expect to see an increased use of VR, AI and drones to eliminate a significant number of physical inspections, and to locate people and things. The utilities, rails, pipelines, and highway departments have what appears to be a perfect opportunity to utilize lower cost options in their maintenance management and inspection programs.

Just when we thought we understood that digital transformation programs were all about People, Process and Technology (in that order), the rules changed. People became an extension of the technology because it influences how we receive and process information. Willingness to accept those new forms of data input is crucial to the concept of change readiness. People have to be ready to accept the change, work through the challenges and use the results to improve the business process for their benefit and the customer too. While technology is still the final component of the digital transformation, it is safe to say the we have to keep technology applications in mind as we define the people component of a digital transformation. It will be equally important that we not let our love of technology turn a digital transformation program into a solution . . . in search of a problem.