Digital Transformation

#DigitalTransformation or #Digitalization is adopting digital technology to transform services or businesses by replacing non-digital or manual processes with digital processes or replacing older digital technology with newer digital technology.

Digital transformation requires talent. Assembling the right team of people in four domains — technology, data, process people, and organizational change capacity — may be the single most important step that a company contemplating digital transformation can take. Each of these areas requires a certain set of skills.

“Technology is the engine of digital transformation, data is the fuel, the process is the guidance system, and organizational change capability is the landing gear. You need them all, and they must function well together”

Describing these four in Detail

Technology

From the Internet of Things to blockchain, to data lakes, to artificial intelligence, the raw potential of emerging technologies is staggering. And while many of these are becoming easier to use, understanding how any particular technology contributes to transformational opportunity, adapting that technology to the business's specific needs, and integrating it with existing systems is extremely complex. Complicating matters, most companies have enormous technical debt — embedded legacy technologies that are difficult to change. You can only resolve these issues with people who have technical depth and breadth and work hand-in-hand with the business.

Data

The unfortunate reality is that at many?companies today most data is?not up to basic standards , and the rigors of transformation require much better data quality and analytics. Transformation almost certainly involves understanding new types of unstructured data (e.g., a driver-supplied picture of the damage to a car), massive quantities of data external to your company,?leveraging proprietary data , and integrating everything, all while shedding enormous quantities of data that have never been (and never will be) used. Data presents an interesting paradox: Most companies know data is important and they know quality is bad, yet they waste enormous resources by failing to put the proper roles and responsibilities in place. They often blame their IT functions for all these failures.

Process

Transformation requires an end-to-end mindset, a rethinking of ways to meet customer needs, seamless connection of work activities, and the ability to manage across silos going forward. Process orientation is a natural fit for these needs. But many have found process management — horizontally, across silos, and focused on customers — difficult to reconcile with traditional hierarchical thinking. As a result, this powerful concept has languished. Without it, transformation is reduced to a series of incremental improvements — important and helpful, but not truly transformative.

Organizational Change Capability

In this domain, we include leadership, teamwork, courage, emotional intelligence, and other elements of change management. This requires anyone & everyone included as part of digital transformation must be well-versed in the area. While there may not be firm evidence to support this, it seems that those who gravitate toward technology, data, and process are somewhat less likely to embrace the human side of change. Of course, it's recommended that leaders seek those with excellent people skills. If you are unable to find them, a good alternative is to put some?“purple people,” ?those able to work on both sides, on the transformation team.

*Collated from HBR sources by Thomas H. Davenport ?and?Thomas C. Redman and open researches*

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