"Lots of companies don’t succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future." - Larry Page
What does an organisation need to consider for their digital potential?
Timing: A product or service rather than the whole company should be identified.
Clarity: How will this enhance the customer relationship or enable scale in a digital ecosystem?
Duration: What will be sustainable? (i.e., not a race to the bottom for price, but how can you differentiate digitally?)
A reminder of why digital is important. Organisations that have achieved successful digital business models have outperformed industry average profitability by 25% (MIT study). There is a significant need to identify, establish and sustain differentiation in a dynamic digital landscape. Those avid readers of my weekly blog are aware that transformations generally fail. Industry research indicates this is about 70% of projects while McKinsey cites digital transformations fail at over 80%. Transitions are better, building capability within an organisation and incrementally improving on areas of focus. The areas of focus can be established by considering timing, clarity, and duration (TCD). Warning! Sometimes, the assessment of situations that an individual or an organisation conclude upon is based on perception or lagging indicators, and these can be misleading. There are new digital ecosystems that need to be understood. By the way, not every organisation needs to be the disruptor within their industry, but they must ensure the optimal use of their technology. There are various uses for technology; Customer, Operational and Information circumstances and they need to be managed differently.
Customer technology will have a great focus on the user experience and ease of transacting (important for retail business)
Operational technology value is within throughput, accuracy and automation (essential for those manufacturers)
Information technology enables organisational efficiency of work, decision making and collaboration (key for many businesses in all industries)
Also, avoid playing to your biases. Those managing digital and technology within their organisations may have their preferred area of expertise or might be directed to a focus on a particular technology based on past successes. Avoid the temptation to do more of the same and consider your TCD.
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