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A Digital Transformation reality check

Its become trendy to speak transformation, and it is getting more and more rampant. It has been so for a while now that we notice everyone prefixing pretty much everything with the term Digital as a mandatory condition. 

So what is this all about anyway?    Is it a band wagon that you must get on without questioning?

With the rapid changes in technology, and greater consumerization of technology, businesses have found themselves being left behind the customers and the digital transformation effort help the organization adapt the latest in technology faster.  The primary reason is to stay innovative, retain customers and serve the business and customer needs with efficiency.  Here is where it gets interesting, if it is treated as an initiative or a project, then it has a beginning and an end.  But fact is, it has to be on going.  Because the moment you stop, the world has moved on again and you are at risk of sliding into legacy.  So, how do you scope what needs to change, select what solutions to adopt and measure the progress and success of the transformation.  This is where people come in, and the smart and business focused ones get results, the rest deservedly get a mixed bag output.

There is another side to this and that’s the impact on people. Why does it make one feel as though what you are doing now is meaningless and non-digital, and that almost carries with it a stigma of sorts.  In some ways what one ‘does’ defines the person, and now the person is less smart, less relevant, less an asset for the future because of the digital conundrum.

Business demands value, yet do not always articulate what that is except for bottom line impact and market growth. CIO demands improvement yet does not take the trouble beyond setting objectives that will be ambiguously measured. Department heads will go about it in several directions, some will cut some fat that they knew was there all along, but the surgery will never be done in the right spirit all the way through. When the culling is happening at the bottom of the ladder, it should ring alarm bells.  And lastly, HR is usually playing along with formalities and not adding value and most times not the right people to make calls on individual’s performance or competency.

There’s also a risk that the ‘digital’ interpretation is kept deliberately obtuse so the champions themselves have built a layer of abstraction to protect themselves.  

One question is where did you start the process, I have come across organization that wants to bring in something new and popular and a successful elsewhere but they did not start at home. Typically, these steps are taken by new managers and short sighted leaders but they make a cardinal mistake in my view, of not ‘taking stock’ properly.  They do not take enough pain to assess the core business and to analyze the inventory, assets and investments.  

The mistakes worsen with leader’s oftentimes new to the organization dictating direction without looking inward at what you are, what you have and what opportunities you may have already invested in which can with some focus bring rewards.


It’s an exciting journey with Automation, AI, Blockchain, HCI and much more, but the transition is all about people, about culture change and inclusion.  This will define the situation as either an amateur balancing himself on a floating log or an alpine skier expertly carving a turn on a giant slalom.

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