CANON’S NEW MANAGING DIRECTOR ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Venkatasubramanian Hariharan, the new Managing Director at Canon Middle East and Turkey, explains why digital transformation is more than just a buzz word and why it is a need of the hour
Areality of doing business in 2021, is the fact that every business is now a digital business. No matter what your business model or sales strategy, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced everyone to go on-line and embrace the new normal and all that comes with it. The new hybrid working environment now necessitates a journey towards digital transformation, that promises better margins, enhanced productivity, streamlined efficiency, better connectivity, as well as a clear competitive advantage. In the last year alone, global searches for digital transformation have risen by 30 percent and this trend is set to continue.
Social distancing, complemented with the phenomena of WFH has led to many changes and chances are that if you don’t develop a digital transformation strategy, your business is not engineered for success. The pandemic has been a true test of our times and it has been companies who have changed the way they do business and adapted remote and digitally forward operations during the pandemic, who have survived and come out stronger on the other side. Survey results indicate that 87 percent of business leaders cite digitization as a company priority, however, with McKinsey saying that 70 percent of all digital transformation initiatives are destinated to fail. Every digital transformation journey needs a clear roadmap if it is to succeed, and here are the top four considerations to get started:
IT IS AN ALWAYS ON PROCESS
As much as digital transformation is about doing things differently, it is also about doing different things and is a constantly always on cycle with no end. It’s a continuous process that adapts to changes in technology, innovation and most importantly, customer behavior. Thus, organizations should adopt a mindset where they are continually evaluating and testing new technologies to see what can add value to both, the company bottom line and the customer journey. This is particularly poignant when we realize that according to McKinsey, 70 percent of all initial digital transformation initiatives will fail, because companies do not accept the need to continually innovate and keep adding different things to the process.
While the digital transformation journey will be different for every business, the one constant is the ongoing evolution towards the integration of more digitized services. For example, this may combine manual printing with automated finance, or electronic mail processing with analogue data capture. Whatever the mix, the need for a hybrid working environment necessitates a journey towards the adoption of digital transformation - with the experience of customers and employees at its center and underscored by an ongoing and continuous cycle of technological improvements and integration.
As businesses continue to navigate an increasingly hybrid environment, that connects digital and manual processes, we at Canon are committed to seamlessly adapting lengthy manual processes into automated processes and supporting clients on their journey to an optimized and productive workforce.
INTEGRATE NEW TECHNOLOGIES – ESPECIALLY CLOUD
Technology is evolving at a tremendous rate and applying a broad brush approach to digital transformation isn’t recommended, instead choosing the right technology is key. A leading technology that is guiding the way by enabling flexibility, agility and connectivity, suitable to a remote and hybrid working environment, is cloud technology. Cloudenabled platforms and technology offer a host of benefits – in fact 80 percent of organizations that have implemented, or are planning to implement a digital transformation strategy, say that cloud is important, while an additional 13 percent say it’s critical to business enterprise in a post- COVID-19 era.
A major benefit of cloud-based technology is the fact that it negates the need for an elaborate physical infrastructure, so that smaller businesses who struggle with the investment required for on-premises implementations, can access new capabilities through clouddelivery models. Additionally, cloud-based platforms enable teams to collaborate effectively in a hybrid or WFH situation, with research showing that online cloud based collaboration tools can improve team efficiency and enable employees to stick to their task for 64 percent longer than those working alone. This way of working is now a need of the hour. By March 2020 alone, Microsoft has already seen a 775 percent increase in demand for its cloud collaboration services in areas where social distancing and lockdown were in effect.
As we emerge into a post-pandemic era, and move away from traditional business models, cloud- enabled technology will remain integral for our future workspaces. At Canon we recognize the importance of flexible ways of working and ensure that we offer cloud- delivered, on-premises and hybrid solutions, designed to support better collaboration by optimizing document management, streamlining business processes and delivering optimized, secure and sustainable print infrastructures.
INCREASED CYBERSECURITY MEASURES
As companies go more digital, cybersecurity has become a critical cornerstone, in fact, according to a survey by CNBC, more than one-third (36 percent) of executives say that cyber threats have increased significantly since the majority of their employees have started WFH. There is a real need for organizations to have robust measures in place to keep their documents and information secure, especially with a distributed and remote workforce. Outside of the official company network, employees are more vulnerable to being targeted by malicious actors.
While cloud collaboration platforms make working together easy, they also create additional security concerns: it may be easier to share fi les, but it comes at the cost of less oversight by IT teams. Moreover, according to industry statistics, it is estimated that a cybersecurity breach takes an average of 280 days to identify and contain – leaving companies vulnerable for extended periods to time. With businesses relying on technology and software to help them provide key services for their customers, keeping information secure must be a top priority.
Undoubtedly, information is an organization’s most important asset, so protecting it is critical and Canon has been recognized by the IDC MarketScape as a leader in worldwide security solutions and services. We are proud to create products and solutions, which are secure by design and able to preserve confidentiality, meet regulatory compliance and maintain business continuity. We have the expertise to provide best in class solutions and help businesses navigate the complexities of a hyper- digitized world.
DEVELOP A CULTURE OF ADAPTABILITY
Technology is changing and companies need to be agile enough to adapt, so it is important to work towards creating an organizational culture that embraces technology and the changes that come with it. Everyone needs to be on board, otherwise, there may be a disconnect between the organizational goals and employee’s willingness to embrace the changes. Buy-in from customers, employees, suppliers, partners and other external stakeholders is of paramount importance to ensure that the digital transformation journey is successful. According to PWC, top digital transformation performers have a better understanding of the human experience that surrounds digital technology (82 percent compared to 69 percent of other companies), and are also more likely to resource digital projects with crossfunctional teams of business, technology, and user experience specialists
(74 percent vs. 65 percent). Thus, illustrating how putting people and the organizational culture at the center of the process, has a huge impact on the ROI.