The Road to Digitization Decoded

Chief Digital Officers all around the world are driving their organization towards digitization. In the process, they are also documenting the challenges they face, and they overcome them. We sat down with Douglas Kennedy from Aegon Health and he has some wonderful insights to share. Excerpts from the conversation:

What is the single most important best practice an organisation to achieve successful digital transformation?

In my experience, many organizations rush to implement digital transformation normally by focussing on the customer experience (CX) but fail to understand that true transformation needs to occur through the entire organisation. For this to be truly successful you must have engaged employees(EX). The strategy and how it affects every employee should be openly communicated. Failure to do so will see resistance to change. The impact being not just delayed key deliveries and increased costs, but more worryingly lower morale and productivity and the side effects that this brings.

What is the single biggest challenge in this process?

Any transformation is bound to bring changes and period of transition for the organization and the people at its core. Along with this disruptive change, comes the stress of catching up and learning on the job. The goal of the organization in this phase should be to focus on encouraging employees and can be achieved through 'Recognition', hearing out their challenges and understanding the key needs of the workforce.

Employees who feel appreciated are involved in the growth of the organization and contribute immensely for coming on board changing pattern of working. They are more productive and motivated to continue growing within the organization. This small step of recognizing their efforts and successes makes them feel valued and can have a lasting positive impact on the employee.

What has been the single biggest advantage to your organisation by way of this initiative / process?

The biggest advantage for us at Aegon Life has been Transparency and this has helped us to constantly share the vision of why change is needed. We have also communicated the reasons and the impact that failure to transform will have on the organisation and employees.

We have shown them the journey and what it ultimately means for everyone.

The road towards digital transformation is a business critical one, and we are recognizing the leaders of that change in the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) Summit 2018, an award felicitation that recognizes some of the top Digital transformation leaders in India on September 6, 2018, at Sofitel BKC, Mumbai. To know more, visit the website now. (https://cdosummit.cxotv.news/)