The board and the CEO should actively drive the digital agenda
Published on : Sunday 20-10-2019
Digitalisation is imperative but enterprises are still struggling with implementation. How can begin the process?
Digital is about ‘Rethinking Operating Models’ and rewiring the organisation. Hence managing change is at the heart of the strategy.
Today, more than 85% of digitalisation projects fail because companies jump into technology too fast. Digital isn’t about technology but about business and change. My 2 cents for the CEOs,
Digital is a board agenda. The board and the CEO should actively drive this agenda for best results. Hiring a CDO alone isn't enough. CDO or a Digital Leader is an anchor but it is the entire management that should drive this agenda even to make the CDO succeed.
I strongly recommend you onboard the right ‘Digital Advisor’ who is experienced, technology neutral and entrepreneurial, to guide you through. You need someone who has gone through this before, to co-create the digital strategy that aligns business goals (growth, efficiency, customer experience or plant safety and security, etc).
Inspire the organisation with a Digital Vision. Go for early wins. Make digital as your startup venture. A lean startup culture with a ‘Fail Fast’ attitude guarantees greater results than traditional project implementation approaches.
Make it collaborative model across the organisation including HQ, Plants, Sales teams and Technology teams. Nominate Digital Champions to empower people to drive digital projects. You need to actively manage change.
See through the usual hype and outsourcing buzz. Avoid making it a technology adoption play! Put the customer at the centre. Define the digital portfolio as value clusters. Focus on this before jumping into ‘Implementations and PoCs’.
For many organisations, the stumbling block is the silos, which ironically, digitalisation seeks to break. Is this a classic chicken and egg story?
Digital is about changing the status quo for the better. You need to take everyone along in this journey. Think of it as a startup venture for the best results. Focus on organisation culture and prepare yourselves for the digital transformation journey.
Is joining one of the digital platforms the only way for an average enterprise?
These are long term strategic choices and often very difficult to reverse once decided. There is no cookie cutter approach to this. Many go with open source technology stack, in some cases a particular digital platform will make sense. I have achieved this through even strategic acquisitions in some industries. This is an important decision for the company.
Often, companies get bogged down in discussing technologies rather than outcomes. How should an effective CTO deal with this?
Put the customer at the centre and define value. Drive digitalisation as a business transformation agenda and make sure that you actively engage from Customers to Board to the Field Engineers and Contract Workforce. You need to go deeper in the organisation to avoid adoption issues after heavy investments into digital initiatives.
Avoid getting pulled into the overwhelming sales from your outsourcing partners. Everyone will claim they can help you but at the end, you are accountable for digitalisation. Never approach it as IT play. Wear the hat of an entrepreneur to bring resilience and succeed in this journey.
Finally, is multiplicity of vendors creating conflict in the process?
I would recommend that the company onboards a right advisor who is ‘experienced, neutral, strategic and entrepreneurial’. Create an ecosystem of ‘capabilities’ comprising of both internal and external talent including startups. Engaging startups is giving good results and I have personally seen it in my career as CDO and Innovation Leader.
Choose the partner who is a specialist and avoid people who claim they can do everything.
A digital business strategist and enterprising leader, Boomi Bala is an exponential thinker, problem-solver and thought leader, who takes companies to the next level by developing as well as executing innovative digital transformation solutions and disruptive business models.
Capitalising on his successful career in multiple industries for over two decades in US, Europe and India, Boomi founded IntersectIQ to simplify digital transformation for its customers and is committed to helping them achieve digital business. Boomi has been helping some of the large companies transform using disruptive forces of AI, Data Science and Industry 4.0 in the O&G, Energy, Steel, Industrial and Transportation (Connected Vehicles and EV) space.