The Digital Transformation Paradox
Geoffrey Moore
Author, speaker, advisor, best known for Crossing the Chasm, Zone to Win and The Infinite Staircase. Board Member of nLight, WorkFusion, and Phaidra. Chairman Emeritus Chasm Group & Chasm Institute.
The paradox is simple to state, involving as it does two seemingly contradicting statements:
Everybody gets the first one, but a whole lot of people have missed the second.?Why??Why would we ever think that simply by installing new software our enterprise would be transformed?
The answer is interesting.?For the first two decades of widescale deployment of enterprise software, we did get what appeared to be transformative returns simply by installing new software.?But here’s the thing.?The returns came from automation, not transformation.
That is, if all you are doing is automating an existing process, then software alone can do the trick.?Robotic Process Automation is a good current example.?Buy some UIPath or BluePrism, target some bit of workflow, engage an expert in that process to help out, and zip, bang, boom—the process can run by itself!?Now, if it is a really complicated process, you will need a more robust tool for this, so you should buy some WorkFusion software to take that on (OK, full disclosure—I am on the board of WorkFusion).?The point is, in neither case are you transforming anything.?You are just automating it.
Digital transformation has a much bigger brief.?Because of the new digital economy, because of changing customer expectations, because of aggressive competitors coming at you with advanced technologies in tow, you have seen you are going to adapt, and fast.?Specifically, you have to change the way you operate, decommissioning the old methods in order to implement the new ones.?
To begin that journey, you need to build clear representations of your current state and your desired future state.?Capturing your current state involves an act of description.?Capturing your desired future state requires an act of design.?If you do not have a clear design for your future state, you have no north star by which to navigate your digital transformation, and it cannot possibly succeed.
So, let us assume we have a clear design for our desired future state.?It won’t take you long to realize there is little chance that a single intervention can get you from here to there.?So, the next major deliverable has to be a roadmap organized around a maturity model, or what we like to call, a stairway to heaven .?Each step up the stairway should be designed to deliver value upon completion, thereby allowing the organization to pace its change management, funding things as it goes, building its confidence, and reassuring its various stakeholders.?
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With such a roadmap in place, now you have a current-state/future-state accountability mechanism that can govern each stage of the transformation—the software and systems, the systems integrators, the process owners insider your enterprise, and the people responsible for executing the processes.?As we have noted elsewhere , digital transformation is not a restaurant.?You cannot simply pay for it and have it delivered to your table.?It is a gymnasium.?You still have to pay for it, but to get any value out, you have to actually do the transformational work yourself.?Transformational software, in other words, is like a Peloton—it’s really cool, but only if you engage.
That’s what I think.?What do you think?
ATTENTION READERS.?A fellow blogger, Shane Anastasi, wrote to me concerned that this article, in his view, drew upon content he had published previously, and that it should therefore have cited his blog appropriately.?The titles are indeed similar, and there are parallels in our thinking as well.?As it happened, I did not see his piece and had no knowledge of it when I wrote mine.?Nonetheless, I fully respect his concern to that his work be acknowledged.?The piece in question can be read in full at https://www.psprinciples.com/blog/the-business-transformation-paradox .
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CEO at FFTalos Technologies
2 年To put it simply....a shiny new car might attract attention, may make us feel good; but by itself it does not take us to our destination. Unless one knows where one is headed to and has planned the journey well, one can't arrive. Car, if harnessed well, can make the journey faster or more involved though and may even open up additional possibilities.
Driving next generation training # Pharma <>Digitizing SOP<> Standardizing SOP<> Digital twin <>
2 年This article points out two fundamental things - 1. Just by having the desire for digital transformation is no point, for the transformation add value and align with long term Mission and Vision of the organization, the goal's along with measurable matrices has to be charted from Top-Down, thereby increasing the engagement, involvement and communication with multiple stakeholders at various level's as they are going to be the enablers of this transformation, the software is just a source, not the driver. 2. OCM - Any transformation strategy is going to be less fruitful if the organization, focuses too much on software and not on the " people "
Tech ecosystem building for Governments, Higher Ed, and Corporations. Tech startup/scaleup entrepreneur, NED, investor. Award-winning (WILEY) author.
2 年Geoffrey, you have hit the nail on the head. I think there is only 'business transformation' that contain functional and mostly cross-functional programs delivering to larger organisational goals. I think you may enjoy a new book I have co-authored, Changing the Game: The Playbook for Leading Business Transformation (WILEY). CTGplaybook.com
People-Planet-Profit: We can do it
2 年Short term vs. long term: Installing new software/automation is about quick wins, despite the people/process/tech debt we create on the side. Transformation is hard and takes time.
@Microsoft Global Program Manager - Americas
3 年Thanks for sharing your vision about transformation. I saw so many efforts in some companies trying to do the second one, investing only in tech and not in people skills. The challenge is to embrace change with the early adopters and not the whole company. The roadmap you mentione for example, even with some milestones well design, will fail if you don’t have the right people with the right mindset to achieve it. The rest was just on point. ????