Innovation & Digital Transformation
“Never let a good crisis go to waste.” I don’t know for sure who actual said it first, be it Rahm Emanuel in the USA recession of 2008 or Sir Winston Churchill in the mid-1940s, near the end of World War II, but the statement has been a wake-up call to businesses globally seeking to innovate digitally and transform their operations in order rise above the negative headwinds of this COVID-19 pandemic.
Digital transformation (DT) in any organisation is, surprisingly to many, less about the technology and a lot more about the people and their mindset. Innovation is all about change, Digital transformation is also all about change, and what we as practitioners can all agree on is that everyone supports the need for the change we propose, as long as it has nothing to do with them.
The most senior leadership of any organisation must be fully committed to, and agree on, a ‘digital strategy’ for the business and provide their teams with the resources and support to deliver same.
The leadership must understand that this is not a project for the IT department or any one department in the business.
This digital transformation decision will require major companywide change management practices, because it will be necessary for the culture of the company to shift to embrace, among other things, an ongoing improvement process touching all areas of the business. The major areas that must be top of mind, and a key part of the strategy, must include leveraging digital technology to enhance and improve the customer journey, employee engagement, operations optimisation, and product and service delivery.
Is it for everyone?
In a recent presentation at the PSOJ’s ‘Let’s Go Digital’ conference, I proposed a highly simplified MSME digital transformation roadmap: (1) Realisation, (2) Digitalisation, (3) Transformation. Simply put, step 1, realisation, is that moment when you notice that during lockdowns, only your competitors who are more digitally advanced were still open for business and thriving. In this stage you define your ‘why’, and your strategy. In step 2, digitalisation, this is where you do a deep dive into your business to review what can be digitally transformed. For some, it will mean some changes to the business model for sure; for most, not so much. A basic starting point is to go through the business and identify all the niggling challenges that currently exist and digitise those. For example, how does your staff engage with the HR department? Is that mainly still a manual process, with forms to be filled out? Digitise that. What about the accounts department? Do your internal approval processes still require something to be printed and brought to a manager or two for a signature? Digitise that. Are you still issuing paper invoices? Digitise that.
Step 3, (digital) transformation, is realised when the organisation leverages and successfully maximises the value of this new technology to enhance and improve the customer journey, employee engagement, operations optimisation, and product and service delivery.
Remember, innovation and digital transformation is more of a ‘people thing’ than a ‘technology thing’. Leadership of the business MUST be involved every step of the way.
Christopher Reckord is committee chairman, PSOJ Innovation & Digital Transformation, and CEO of managed IT services provider tTech Limited. He has over 30 years of experience helping organisations of varying sizes procure and implement information technology solutions and transform digitally. Email any questions to chris.reckord@ttech.com.jm.