Pillars to Digital Transformation – Customer Centricity

The ethos of transformation has changed in the last 15 years. While some pillars have evolved, the perspective to transformation has remained the same.

Most organisations view new technology adoption as transformation, or incorrectly associate transformation with technology only. While technology is definitely an enabler for a digital experience, the purpose or modus of transformation cannot be technology driven.

On the contrary the key ethos for a transformation as the word suggests is looking deep within, understanding the flaws and ironing them out. This is definitely at a high-level. However, when you embark on transformation, the most important aspect is the Goal or the Objective of the organisation. Thereafter looking to see how best to achieve the goal in the fastest and smartest way possible whilst being ahead of the competition, and whilst being customer centric.

In my view there are 4 pillars to Digital Transformation. In this post, I will address the first of these 4 and the one I feel is also extremely important. Will follow-up with posts on each pillar subsequently.

Pillar 1: Customer Centricity

To relate one example, in one of my assignments, I was talking to a client who had embarked on a ‘Digital Transformation Journey’. They were talking to us for resources to build a new banking app and for this they had identified one of the leading platforms on the Gartner quadrant. They were following the traditional approach of first identifying a platform and then looking for a partner who could provide services on the platform. When I met their decision makers, the first question I asked them was, ‘Why do you need a mobile app?’.

It turned out their objective was to be a challenger in their market, whilst moving from a few 10s of thousands to over a few 100k clients in the coming 3-4 years. They expected the mobile app to help them win over millennials as clientele and present a new face of the bank. To augment, the client base they had earmarked budgets to open 10x more branches and substantial budgets for marketing and advertising. A smart mobile banking app was just perceived as an enabler.

This scenario is typical of most traditional banks where they perceive transformation in a very piecemeal approach. Real transformation thus rarely happens.

What I want to share is moving from on premise to cloud is not transformation by itself. Going from a Native app to a Hybrid / Low-code based approach is not transformation by itself. These are just means to transformation. Real transformation is where the action meets the objective and technology becomes the enabler in achieving the same.

In the case of this client, some of the important questions for them to ask themselves would have been:

·        How can we make our customers’ life easier?

·        What can we do for them which will make their job easier?

·        What are the current pains they face which impact their daily life?

·        What do they stand to gain from a better banking experience that we can provide?

·        What processes do we have that are complex and time consuming for the customer?

·        What do we have to offer to a customer that is unique from our competition?

These questions give rise to customer centricity in the approach to transformation.