The Digital World.

Being digital today, is in fact an all consuming experience. It does mean having a mind-set that embraces constant innovation, and more particularly "Flat Decision Making." Here we need to compare flat and tall organograms. An organisation needs to develop a workforce and culture that hone the types of relationships, behaviours, and of course skills that speed innovation and bolster experience, and of course the organisations bottom line.

PwC conducted a Digital IQ (DIQ)survey, that measured the digital acumen of organisations and executives and captured the "state of play" - so to speak. Many respondents reported that their organisations are following modernizers, efficiency seekers, industry explorers, and redefiners. One group wants to modernize on what it already does. Another is squarely focused on increasing speed and efficiency (difficult to articulate both at the same time), and a third is keen to break new ground in its industry. (Perhaps using nondisruptive creation.)

The above is from W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne. Redefiners, are arguably the most ambitious of the groups, and have the most complex aspirations. So we need to weave digital strategy into corporate strategy. Facing disruption head-on. Achieving the change in mind set and behaviour that marks a truly digital organisation. Elevating customer and employee experience to an imperative. They are the most likely of all four groups to embrace the mind set of constant innovation, flat decision making (giving employees a sense of belonging and more buy-in to decisions made), and integration of tech across the business, building a digitally savvy workforce and working synergistically across functions in order to avoid entropy. This affects chain of command, span of management/control, line and staff managers and so on. They recognize that digital transformation requires both technological and cultural change, also embracing change management constructs. Digital transformation is actually about creating an entirely new way for teams to work, for organisations to operate. Top performers are twice as likely to involve the executives in charge of digital transformation in determining high-level strategy. Redefiners are twice as likely as others to use technology to assist them with both speed and to quickly determine when to reduce or end investment in something that is simply not working. So they are, I believe, further along in development of their organisation's skills and adoption of emerging technologies.

Remember that although customers generate revenue, it is employees who drive experience. Never forgot that. And engagement that energizes and enables employee engagement is the key to a successful employee experience. Top performers exemplify many of the reporting structures and ways of working that engage employees fully, allowing them to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively, and help them to innovate around customer needs. So deemphasize job titles, encourage curiosity, and adopt leadership efforts that invite more creative thinking as well as actively addressing skills deficiencies. Those organisations that have made peace with the idea of failure and iteration make working across functions (synergy) the norm. A culture that prizes contributions from all tiers/levels of the organisation (bottoms-up approach) and have fewer bureaucratic layers (flat structure) encourages taking risk with far less fear of failure. So when you really "go for it", the good news is that you have harpooned a whale. And the bad news is, you have harpooned a whale. Precision medicine (individuals) will use computing power to revolutionize healthcare. With classic start-up's, starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down.

However, being resource-efficient lets you "glide" to minimize the rate of descent, giving you the time to learn things about your market, technology, and teamwork before you hit the ground. Remember, what got you here won't get you there. You need to scale up your organisation in terms of the size and scope of your staff, as well as your financial, product, and technology strategy. If your organisation does not grow in lockstep with its revenues and customer base, things can quickly spiral out of control. So get in sync with the fourth industrial revolution. The fourth industrial revolution is the current and developing environment in which disruptive technologies, or nondisruptive technologies, and trends such as the Internet of Things Internet of Things, robotics, virtual reality (VR)  and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing the way we live and work. Get to it.

Prof Rory Dunn.