Future of Digital Transformation
While everyone is educating customers on the digital mandate, we've built a practical framework to make it a reality.
Yesterday I had the privilege of working together with Dr. Malcolm Woodfield, Global Vice President, Higher Education & Research Industry at SAP. Over the course of the day, Malcolm delivered three speeches on (a) global trends in the industry, (b) new enhancements in Student Lifecycle Management solution, and (c) future vision for the industry.
There are some significant insights that I can learn, especially from the session on the future vision. It may be because I'm fascinated already by the sweeping changes triggered by digital transformation. Still, up until yesterday, it's been a bit vague for me to get a grip on what exactly digital transformation is about.
Digital Is Everywhere
Everywhere you look, you'll find that physical things or your behaviors in the real world are being digitized. Meaning: all new interactions and changes in status are recorded, quantified, or measured in a digital format called data. When we get these data at our disposal, we can use them to analyze, simulate, and predict the future.
What you talk about on a social network, for instance, can affect a marketer's decision through something called social sentiment analysis. A marketing professional can now see how people feel about her new product. Natural language processing helps to understand if a tweet is positive, neutral, or negative. The same is true of all other texts or text-based interactions on any social network.
On a personal level, learning how many steps that I take in a day is simple. All I need is an app on my iPhone, like Withings Health Mate, that offers me a real-time insight on my progress. There are many other apps that measure your progress, like how much you've run, walked, you name it.
Today we hear a lot about the Internet of Things (IoT), mostly from technology vendors or telecommunications service providers. But the true value of IoT lies in the fact that things get more valuable when connected to serve a person in the right context at the right location. In other words, the "All-for-One" world gets more plausible when we use IoT technologies in the right way to benefit people, one person at a time.
A Practical Framework for Digital Transformation
So, what do we need to take advantage of the transition into a connected digital world? We need a frame of reference to see where we are, to chart where we want to be next year or in five years' time. A practical framework to make the journey into reality.
This is why Malcolm's speech yesterday on future vision caught my attention. He proposes that you develop a digital strategy across the following five pillars:
- Customer experience across omni-channels
- Digital core business processes powered by real-time insights
- Smarter, more engaged workforce across all employees and contractors
- Supplier collaboration for faster growth and innovation
- Internet of things and big data to drive real-time insights and new business models
Every business needs four key elements to survive and thrive in a connected, digital world: Customers, Workforce, Suppliers, and Things, like products, assets, facilities, fleets of trucks, etc. This is why the new framework can have a significant impact on learning where you are, understanding where you want to go by when, and where to invest in for a quick return, and iterate the process.
Moving into the Digital Future
A word of caution here. It's true that digital transformation is gaining momentum, but each organization is on a different level of maturity. What you need to consider first of all is to understand why you want to go digital.
Yes, why? The answer may be different, but what's at the core of that answer will be the culture of putting people first. People as in customers, workforce, suppliers, etc. Instead of looking at what you can do with all the digital data, think what you can offer these people -- one person at a time -- so they can do a better job, live a better life, and contribute to the well-being of all the members of her extended network or community.
Thank you again for reading it through. If you think this post is helpful in one way or another, please feel free to like it, share it, or develop the idea by adding your comments. Thanks again!
A SALES M A N
9 年This is good
Test manager at Pepsico
9 年Can anyone give a clear definition, what is "digital"? There is no even an article in Wikipedia about it, but there are thousands of "Digital managers".
Management Consultant at PGPIC
9 年It's a nice and heart warming conception of becoming more digital, because your viewpoint is obviously very human-centric and not emphasizing on hyper automation and things like this. I hope it to be the truth but afraid of not being so because of different level of maturities as you stated, and also conflicting viewpoints on the future role of human beings in our global society. The digital divide and other widening inequalities may revitalize a modern version of a frightening social cast system! I hope the new digital transformation does the reverse! Thanks for your thought provoking post Adam.
Marketing Leader | GTM & Market Expansion | Brand Transformation & ABM | Driving Business Growth
9 年Very well articulated, those pillars are the key of any digital strategy. Unfortunately brands today see this in isolation and not overall. May be every department wants to have digital as a charter.
Project Manager | MBA, CRM
9 年Awesome experience. Brough me a thought about how IoT will be in the future. My guess is it will be so accurate that might be able to decide best options for life and business according to these five pillars.. Thank you for sharing!