Digital Transformation - beware of hype

The digital revolution is changing the way business decisions are made and commerce is transacted; digital is now central, not secondary.

Digital transformation is the profound and accelerating transformation of business activities, processes, competencies and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of digital technologies and their impact across society in a strategic and prioritized way.

By training your staff members in digital strategy & techniques, you will cultivate a competitive edge in the online space. In today's environment, companies must develop a plan for digital maturity that prioritizes the training and skills development of their workforce, and hiring the individuals they need to get the most from their technology.

The development of new competencies revolves around the capacities to be more agile, people-oriented, innovative, connected, aligned and efficient with present and future shifts in mind. Digital transformation is a journey with multiple connected intermediary goals, in the end striving towards continuous optimization across processes, divisions and the business ecosystem of a hyper-connected age where building the right bridges in function of that journey is key to succeed. In this online guide we explore the essence of digital transformation, its evolutions and how it is present across various business processes and industries.

By the End of 2017, Two-Thirds of the CEOs of the G2000 Will Have Digital Transformation at the Center of Their Corporate Strategy

New opportunities and challenges for CEOs

Digitization can extend the reach of organizations, improve management decisions, and speed the development of new products and services. At the same time, the excessively rapid adoption of technologies can disrupt traditional business models. Organizations need to carefully tread the path towards digital transformation with a concrete strategy to harness its strengths and mitigate its challenges.

Although the impact of digitization is not new, the digital economy is entering a new age that presents unprecedented challenges for all CEOs.

Digital tools are invading the business environment, provoking significant changes in the way we work, communicate, and sell. This has given rise to new opportunities and challenges, and has triggered the Digital Transformation of enterprises.

Creating the conditions to be ready for rapid evolutions and ideally pro-dapt and take the lead, changing the status quo, is part of business transformation.

Acceleration of innovation and transformation

While a range of technologies, known as 3rd Platform technologies, have accelerated disruption, business innovation and changes in human behavior, the exponential growth and pace of change is just a fraction of what is yet to come. Although digital transformation is not about digital technologies as such, it is clear that the adoption and opportunities of technologies under the umbrellas of social business, cloud, mobility, Big Data (analytics), cognitive computing and the Internet of Things, to name a few, speed up changes across society.

However, the real acceleration happens when the acceleration of innovation and transformation as such goes exponential. And that is what analysts mean when they talk about the digital transformation economy or DX economy, which is tackled below: not just acceleration of disruption and changes but acceleration of the actual digital transformations and innovations leading organizations will go through, making the gap with laggards even bigger.

Digital transformation and the usual suspects – beware of hype

Digital transformation is not just about technology and certainly not just about companies in technological industries. This is an often made mistake that can be partially explained because such “usual suspects” (Uber is probably the most mentioned – and most controversial – example) indeed are “disruptively” using digital technologies to alter existing models and markets and – at least as important – get a lot of attention.