Digital transformation catalyst IQ announces partnership with Ydigital Asia
Digital transformation consultancy Innovation Quotient (IQ) recently announced its partnership with Ydigital Asia, a collaboration that leverages learnings from the world’s fourth largest consumer market, Indonesia, to augment IQ’S mission to support Sri Lanka through the digital age.
The two companies also announced the launch of ‘Digital Tomorrow’, a Digital Centre of Excellence that will leverage learnings from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia via the body of work carried out by Ydigital in these markets.
IQ has spent the last two years building up to an imminent digital shift and believes Sri Lanka will undergo a rapid digital transformation in 2018/2019. “There’s no point in flipping the digital switch when it’s upon us, you need to prepare for it early on,” is what IQ founder Ahmed Irfan says, adding that “While many tech and innovation companies don’t believe Sri Lanka to be a lucrative market, the potential is mostly hidden and it’s a great test market to implement true digital transformation initiatives, we should not be guilty of not trying.”
Armed with fresh talent and this new partnership IQ and Ydigital aim to bridge the gap between strategy, creativity and technology. They recognize the potency of digital transformation and its inevitability, offering expertise to firms that believe in staying ahead of the curve.
The new collaboration with Ydigital will further enhance IQ’S existing capacity to service complex business needs with creative solutions and futuristic strategy. Ydigital is a hybrid management consulting and digital agency, headquartered in Jakarta with offices in Singapore and Malaysia. “Sri Lanka is on the cusp of a digital transformation that has already begun in our part of the region,” says Ygroup Asia Group CEO Boye Hartmann. “It’s exciting to be positioned at its nerve center with IQ.”
Commenting on the new collaboration IQ’S CEO Irfan Ahmed says, “There’s nothing like picking up tips and strategies from higher up the learning curve. Working with Ydigital will give us access to a myriad of proven case studies and a diverse pool of talent we can use to accelerate digital transformation in Sri Lanka.”
Today IQ services the needs of clients from diverse fields. For example, it worked with Sri Lankan clothing label ‘Reborn’ (now RBN) to completely revamp the company’s business model from yarn to store. IQ also worked with GSMA, the global trade body of mobile network operators that wanted to conduct User Experience (UX) research in Sri Lanka’s agriculture sector. IQ is the only firm in Sri Lanka that possessed the unique capabilities required for this project with strong UX capabilities and a team skilled at combining this with creative human insight. IQ completed this social innovation successfully after visiting over 50 farming communities in three provinces of the country.
The team is currently poised at the beginning of its journey with the ‘Digital Tomorrow’ centre, which will function as a Centre of Excellence for local enterprises. This Iq-ydigital partnership initiative will offer expertise in digital customer journeys, user experience design, value proposition design, performance marketing, analytics, technology strategy and business model design.