Is Digital Transformation for Me Now?

Many managers and decision-makers ask this question if not loudly at least behind the closed doors.
Even if they embark in a digital strategy they may think of it as a necessary evil or a new trick to keep up with the competition at most.
They may talk about social networks and content strategy, about big data and market intelligence about internet of things and automation or about blockchain and bitcoins. But most of the time it's to show that they are up to date with technology and future trends.

Meanwhile you have CIOs who are aware of the impacts this transformation may bring to the existing systems and the challenges it may rise. Most importantly, they may see it as a disruption they are not ready for or they prefer not to embark in with all issues with running current systems. They sometimes even look at it as drawing power from them to give it to business entities and especially marketing. For them it is reminiscent of the big turning point from mainframes to web technologies with all the good and bad things it brought.
A lot of people don't look at it as really necessary alas mandatory because they tend to take it from a technological or even a business perspective.

But let's look at ot from the most decisive and fundamental perspective for a company. The customer's perspective.

What many managers may overlook is that the demographics and the natures of their customers are changing in a fast way. They have now many digital natives as their customers and employees. It's particularly true for Telecom Operators and retailers. Next in line are financial institutions (banks and insurances).

This new generation of customers and employees are substantially different from those before.

First it is a zapping generation which means they are not tied to a service provider for life. They grew up with satelite receivers, internet and mobile and are used to change what they don't find suitable. They may change their telecom operators or their bank as they change their socks. Most of the time they already have many providers and are trying lany to choose one which is not definite. Last generations were more faithful because most of the time they didn't have the choice.

Second they are tech-savvy and used to be connected to find every information whenever they need and everywhere. They are called the IKWIWAIWIN (I Know What I Want And I Want It Now) generation.

Third, they are not as patient as earlier generations and want personalized experience and customized service. We have to admit that IT has been cosumerized lately especially with mobile phones and app store so customers may know better than those serving them. Earlier generation were accepting the service as it was delivered because information was not democratized and available to everyone.

Last but not least it's a sharing and collaboration oriented generation. This is an important factor since it's behind what is called now Collaborative Economy or Uberization. People are more inclined to share. Information first, then time, then services and products. They are also inclined to work less but in a collaborative way. This makes classical businesses face another type of competition. Crowd competition. To enter a very tightly controlled market, it's no longer necessary to have a lot of money or a large distribution network but instead a lot of followers and contributors.

This has been clearly demonstrated with Wikipedia completly sweeping out more classical competitors like Encarta with much smaller resources but with a crowd sourcing capability. It's even more true for digital press replacing classical one.
This is also true for Facebook and Whatsapp becoming source of truth for many types of information. And more recently the cases of AirBnB, Uber and Bitcoin are more appealing. It is very interesting to observe how classical sectors like transportation and tourism with big lobbies and unions have been transformed by technology. And the competition came from hardly expected companies.

Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon along with a long list of startups like Tesla, Uber or AirBnB are now serious competitors for Telecom Operators, Financial institutions, payments operators, Car builders, Hotels, tourism and leisure companies. The rules are different and the real cash is information. The real currency is data. The real petrol is knowledge.

You may say it's not for me or it's too early to take the train but you may encounter the same fate as Kodak, Nokia, MySpace or Compaq which didn't take the turn in the right moment and they paid a very high price for it. They paid ultimately their existence for it.

Welcome to the digital age!