Disrupt or Bust.

Digital is one of the reasons why over 50% of the fortune 500 companies have disappeared since 2000s. Start-ups are unapologetically pursuing the market share, and gaining a competitive edge over large enterprises. Industry leaders are struggling to fight back, and constantly relying on their strategic innovation arms to empower them. When fed a constant diet of disruption and hype, many leaders are stuck in a disruption paralysis mode, and are unable to identify the best path forward. Either they get stuck driving a digital strategy, or rely on incremental innovation like introducing mobile apps or creating a CDO role. However, driving significant and sustained revenue growth requires much more than doing the same thing differently. 

Organizations have been discussing the topic of Digital Transformation for years now, however 2015 was the year when the topic really went mainstream. In 2016, organizations have delivered some great digital experiences to its customers, and truly led by example. Some of these organizations include: McDonald's, Under Armour and Disney.

Digital Transformation is one of the hottest trends in business today. The topic of digital transformation is discussed regularly on all the social media channels (Google Trends depict the gradual rise). Everyone wants to go digital. However, not everyone understands what it means. For some it's about technology, for some its about people and the culture. And for others it represents a new way of interacting with the customers. None of these definitions are incorrect, but misguided efforts and lack of alignment leads to failures. @krbenedict rightly says in his blog that Digital Transformation is about killing conjecture; it comes with a high price and unknown returns.

But, there are more hurdles to becoming digital - 1. Company Culture 2. Lack of Intel 3. Lack of Collaboration. Culture eats strategy for breakfast, and ever changing company culture would mean lack of a clear strategy, and the lack of digital "craft". Similarly, Data collected through various systems and sources becomes intel, and helps drive the strategy. You cannot deliver customer experiences (CX) without knowing the customer. Most importantly, collaboration is the key to any transformation, and cross-team collaboration is absolutely necessary to develop a cohesive customer journey and deliver a great CX.

A mixture of capabilities are required to transition to a fully digital enterprise. A successful digital transformation will need:

• A new and unfettered way of collecting, prioritizing and executing on the ideas.
• Rapid Execution and Delivery of digital initiatives. Time to market needs to be short, and ability to measure success is key.
• Adoption of an entrepreneurial mindset. Established processes and knowledge workers can stifle innovation and entrepreneurial spirit. 
• Digitization of the entire customer facing process across all channels and across all parts of the enterprise. Integrating with partner companies to provide value-add services will also become important.
• Building a Digital Platform that can integrate into all the legacy services and 3rd party applications supporting customer enablement through any channel or device.

The very idea of a Digital Transformation is overwhelming - especially for those who are yet to start. Often organizations make the mistake of assuming that they must fix everything at the same time. This causes confusion, lack of vision and the size of the project is so overwhelmingly large, that they just put it off. In reality, Digital Transformation isn't a all or none project. The key is to be nimble, agile and ship the product as quickly as possible. Many businesses approach digital transformation projects believing common misconceptions. Some of these false beliefs (depicted below) can do everything from adding delays, to a complete project shutdown.

The Take-Away

Digital Transformation can improve an organization internally just as much as it will externally. In the end it's all about results and the revenue growth. Organizations in all industries and regions are experimenting with — and benefiting from — Digital Disruption. Before beginning your Digital Revolution - ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. With limited time, resources and budget, what should you focus on in 2016?
2. What are the key drivers for a Digital Transformation in your organization?
3. Which areas can be safely ignored?

"There are many ways to reach your destination, only one being the quickest." - @subodhbahl