Do you have all you need for a scalable Digital Transformation?

This is the question enterprise business execs regularly ask themselves.

In this paper I will cover:

• Summarise the driving forces for change
• What the experts say
• Look at what's missing

The driving forces for change

As most enterprise organisations are some way into their digital transformation plans I’ll keep this part relatively brief as I’m sure most exec’s are clear on the major issues.

Enterprise businesses have evolved over decades and run business structures based on departmental silos - perhaps a legacy from the industrial revolution. When you introduce IT into the equation the logical path is to make it fit into the way the business works and have an IT department based on silos too. IT systems are built around this structure and it all works well until you want to make fast changes or adapt to changing market needs, then the rigidity and hierarchical bureaucracy become limiting factors.

So let’s look at what most organisations are striving for in today's modern world and then review what leading experts are telling us what we need for an effective Digital Transformation.

In summary  

Agility: The need for adapting quickly to serve a new impatient consumer with a high expectation for innovative services.

Control: The need to easily gain sight & control across the organisation and be able to make informed decisions about flexing & changing.

Efficiency: The need for operational excellence, breaking down silos and softening organisational rigidity.

What the experts are saying

Agility, Control & Efficiency may be the driving forces but how can a business physically invoke change?

#BaringaPartners talk about Organisational Agility and state that “responsibility for change now sits with everyone in the organisation”. In my mind empowering teams is the number one lever, having a voice and being part of the changes is vital. The people element should also include celebrating success, seeing where their contribution adds value to the overall company success and managing workloads to avoid stress and burnout.

Interestingly #McKinsey take this a step further and talk about the importance of a Purpose-driven organisation and that teams are 2.8 times more likely to stay and 2.3 times more likely to feel engaged in their jobs if they have a purpose. Again alignment with the company outcomes, seeing that their daily actions are really making a difference.

@ClaudiaCrummenerl from #CapgeminiInvent expands on this topic in her video “Why people are crucial in digital transformation”. She rightly talks about the importance of human interaction and the role of people in the emerging business model. The challenge is how to blend automation and people in the right way and at the right time.

On the topic of automation #BostonConsultingGroup talk about balance of people and technology automation in their article on Digitizing Operations and Automating where ‘humans and machines collaborate to design the business, working together to set overall business strategy and to enhance the key individual processes’.

It does make sense to give people the ability to define and automate tasks especially when they are part of the defined business process. Sometimes such actions and triggers are needed to respond to actions without intervention as it can save time and avoid a step being missed or delayed . This could be of particular value for companies that have to show they are aligning with regulations and compliance, or even just business best practices.

#Gartner sums things up well in their article and video on ‘Driving Growth in the face of change’ they say “They build on a foundation of strong cost management, constant innovation, and empowered talent” which helps endorse the model we are working on. Interestingly the webcast talks about leadership approaches and that even in what seems challenging times there are opportunities to grow. I believe that creating a competitive advantage can happen when a business has ALL the components in place to deliver a sustainable transformation.

Getting our teams aligned in this emerging world of technology is critical and @StevePaxman Global lead for #Accenture Digital Workplace business talks about the human interface to digital and the importance of people and technology interaction, especially with the transitional style of work where people move from role to role. This raises the topic of how to most effectively on-board and ramp new team members to reach a point of productivity faster. Steve also mentions that company's IT maturity is too slow to evolve to keep up with the team (people are much more tech savvy and expect their work systems to look and behave like their personal consumer world). Companies are looking at innovational cloud-based work models to help them provide a technology environment that truly allows the teams to leverage their skills.

@JonHarriman from #Capgemini talks about how the Connected Employee Experience is vital, saying that “Great employee experience translates to great business results. It lets employees be more innovative and flexible in how they get their jobs done”. It’s this ability to empower employees and give them ownership of their working world and make it feel like a modern business.

So in summary, we know that it’s a people centric world where teams need to feel empowered, have a purpose, be given the opportunity to automate some of the tasks where appropriate and be free to innovate with new ideas to help drive the business forward. Businesses cannot afford to offer these smart key workers legacy systems that are clunky, siloed and slow as the smartest team members will simply transition to a more forward thinking & modern company.

In light of this….

Is there anything missing?

I say that there is…

The Digital Transformation model is still made up on individual elements. I suggest that there needs to be a place to bring people, processes & technology together. An environment that fits with what the experts are saying and is also no disruptive to the way things work today. Think of it as a Work Operating System. Allow me to explain.

Let’s start with People as that is where everyone is saying is the heart of the business (which is absolutely correct). I strongly believe that DEPARTMENTS are not TEAMS, Teams straddle an organisation and work together to get things done to benefit customers and the business, teams extend way beyond a department and can even reach to external third-parties. If you answer positively to the following look at Work OS;

1. Would it help to have instant clarity on people's time and workload - spotting where some are overloaded or some under-utilised (especially when working from home)?
2. How would your people feel if they were empowered to improve their own way of work through Lo-code/No-code
3. Would you get value from being able to simply set, measure & celebrate performance with your teams and have realtime clarity on how the team is performing?
4. How joined up are your teams? Would cross-team collaboration and controlled sharing help productivity?
5. Is everyone feeling connected to the company success metrics and do individuals know where they are contributing?

Let's now take Processes:

1. Would you like to define, set & deploy business processes as you’d want them to be, rather than be controlled by the process in the existing applications?
2. Would it help to have clarity & control of the processes across your business? Having workflows bridging between departments.
3. How helpful would a change log be to track updates?
4. A recent study showed monday.com automations can save 3 hours/person/week. What could your people do with an extra 3 hours a week?
5. How useful would it be to automatically alert people to key activities when they happen and then serve them up what they need to know?

Finally let’s look at Technology:

1. What would people say if you gave them a consumerised & modern interface to their work environment accessible from any device (with the right security of course)?
2. How helpful would it be to simply connect this new Work Operating System into your existing systems and tools to link all the fractured existing departmental workflows together
3. Would an enterprise real-time dashboard showing the state and health of your business be valuable?
4. What could your teams do if they could simply develop & shape new applications and work templates?

If this all sounds appealing and you'd like to learn more take a look at this 2min video on monday.com and then make contact with us for a chat. We and our skilled partner community would be happy to understand how your business works so we can shape monday.com to fit with your Digital Transformation plans.

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