Quadra

The challenge. Digital transformation is a journey with many predetermined milestones along the way for organizations to ensure that they stay on the intended path throughout, but the destination is not a well-defined spot. As technology changes are dynamic, unpredictable and quick, so is the digital destination. This might have to be redefined, moved further and prepared for further transformations dictated by newer disruptions that will arrive in future. It is essential that at least the foundational digital skills are laid strong enough for expansion and changes that would be required later in the transformation path.

The approach. Enterprises must orchestrate their skills build-up around this transformation. It is essential that the organization has enough people who grasp the idea, can contribute to the cause voluntarily or otherwise and involve actively in the concentrated efforts towards the desired result. While it is desirable that the existing management and workforce in entirety come on-board, many organizations might not have enough people who would share the same vision and willingly stay on the well-defined transformation path.   In such cases, businesses must look outside for resources that are already skilled in technology and operations that align well with the transformation vision. Hiring might have to start at the top which in turn might help in identifying the right talent in the middle and lower levels. Some innovation might be required in the recruitment strategy and enterprises might have to cast their net wider for rare skills.

Training must be an integral part of the agenda to increase the digital awareness organization-wide. This will result in bringing employees up to speed in specific digital technologies. Organizing employee exchange programs across functions and locations and introducing reverse mentoring initiatives might yield quicker results. Building an enterprise-wide knowledgebase with documents, videos and do it yourself kits for existing employees and new hires would help enterprises simplify the learning path quicken the path for the staff to contribute to the efforts and results. A centralized digital platform that is accessible easily by the employees for any kind of corporate information and a seamless communication system that can bring people and information closer would make a big difference than the traditional approach.

A well-defined reward system must also be in place for sustaining the transformation and the structure might have to extend beyond corporate boundaries. Enterprises must also make sure rewards are more than financial - social recognition and executive-level appreciation might be other alternatives.

Partnering with organizations that might yield a synergic effect to the digital vision is one other option to be seriously considered by organizations that don’t have the required skillsets and resources ready. Acquiring businesses that already have skilled resources that can contribute to the organizational vision is another strategy.

It is also essential to build a close relationship between internal IT and the business so that they work in sync towards the digital goals. Results need to be measured, monitored, reviewed, course-corrected and iterated periodically to retain the pace and steer the efforts in the right direction. IT solutions need to be designed and implemented for such activities. Managing the enterprise strategic score card and driving the initiative-level business case and related KPIs are essential for sustaining the transformation.

The challenge. Motivating the senior management and driving the digital transformation is one thing but mobilizing the whole organization and on-boarding them in the journey is another and the tougher challenge. The enterprise needs to send clear signals and through as many channels as possible. The objective is to motivate the lower level employees to enroll themselves in this endeavor with zero or little force. Redefined policies and modified work practices must be clearly defined and enforced, and participation must be encouraged and rewarded. The goals and results of the transformation need to be transparently defined, and benefits clearly conveyed to the entire organization such that every team and every individual will contribute to the cause. 

The challenge. Enterprises that aspire to transform digitally must have a keen focus on the things that are important, commit real money to fund initiatives and keep moving everything in the same direction. They need a clear vision and an action plan that highlights some of the major landmarks on their digital transformation journey while taking into consideration improved customer experience, increased operational performance and adaptation of the business model as the dominant objectives.

This must also translate into strategic goals that will guide them in building a roadmap of initiatives. These goals should not just be about financials but also in terms of customer experience, operations and building organizational capabilities. A strategic scorecard incorporating all these goals would be the basic template and a point of reference for the entire team. Recognizing the entry point is crucial. Enterprises must engage practitioners and operational specialists early in the design stage to minimize the traditional vision-to-execution gap. Design must focus on business outcomes, not technology. This roadmap can become the canvas of the transformation, but it must make allowance for iterations and course correction as the journey contains many unknowns.

The approach. Gartner recommends enterprises take a dual mode – continuing the traditional on one side while experimenting on the transformational model on the other, however, in small measures; a series of sprints – not launching out into marathons.

Building the right governance model is another area of focus. Appointing a digital transformation owner – a Chief Digital Office - who would steer all the efforts in a common direction amid a broad cross-functional set of stakeholders would make a significant difference.  The CDO can decide on the coordination and sharing of resources, technology platform, talent and data that will be needed among teams involved. The CDO would encourage standardization but also simultaneously encourage innovation. Other governance mechanisms like steering committees, digital champions and shared digital units would also help. Such units centralized with shared infrastructure like unified customer database, enterprise wide platform, advanced analytics teams or innovation labs would drive synergy across the firm.

The risk. More and more hours are spent online by us as there is proliferation of devices, availability of internet connectivity and usage of apps for everything – from official work to personal use, social networking and entertainment. These require a login so that we can have a better experience. The devices and apps require creation of an account most of the time to log in so that we can enjoy a better experience – downloading files, accessing premium features or content or moving to higher levels in a game. We need to be doubly careful with our personal information so that none of it is accessed by the device builders, app developers and hackers.

Here are some tips to keep ourselves safe from risks to our information that lie online.

1. Password. First and the foremost is to have a strong password – a different one for each of our accounts or a single strong password under a single sign-on system that cannot be easily guessed. Avoiding dictionary terms and easily guessable words or a combination of words and figures would be good methods when choosing passwords.
2. Multifactor Authentication. We might have multiple email accounts – one or more official and many personal too. Most email service providers also provide a second authentication mechanism apart from a login name and a password. Making use of this multi-factor authentication feature will require the user to provide an additional authentication factor in the form of an OTP (One Time Password) received in a mobile device or in an alternate email or a phone call. This available in also most of the social networking apps too.
3. Apps. We are enticed by a lot of apps that keep asking for permission to access our content – contacts and personal information in our devices. We must be discerning as to whether we need to allow these apps to access such information unless the situations warrant it. If we had not been paying enough attention here, it is high-time we revisited our apps and removed such privileges to the respective apps.
4. Social Networks. Almost every information we provide when we create our social networking accounts and subsequently post in our name are at risk of being misused by the service providers and sellers interested in pushing their goods and services. Even our likes or comments to others’ posts are at risk of being monitored and accessed for dubious usage like targeted advertisements and offers. There are also recommendations from various sources that we remove our Facebook accounts so that we can protect our privacy. Others would have to go to Ad preferences option in such accounts to minimize risk of being spied by intruders.
5. Personal devices. We must be careful when we allow others to use our devices in which we not only store a lot of our personal information but also login to access our various accounts. It is better to log off and allow them to login with a different profile / account in the same device. This will keep them from away from our information.
6. Browsing history. Our browsing history and stored cookies must be deleted as frequently as possible to keep our personal information private. This will delete our search history, passwords and other vital information we provide in web sites and apps - probably for file downloads or registering for events and webinars. It will also be better to use the in-private browsing option in browsers when we know that we might have to provide personal information or search for confidential information.
7. Temporary files. All files and content of temporary / short term value must be deleted as soon as it loses its relevance so that any private content is inaccessible from these sources. Files of permanent value and longer relevance must be backed up and stored in secondary storage devices or cloud services locked up with strong passwords.
8. Phishing and Ransomware. Anti-phishing tools and software that will guard us from zero-day attacks and ransomware are essential these days to help us remain protected from hackers and attackers who are after not only our information but also information about others stored in our devices like phone numbers and email addresses.
9. Wi-Fi. While connecting to Wi-fi networks, we must be very careful as to who is the Wi-fi provider and whether it is a public network. Public networks that allow you to connect without a password or those that are provided in railway stations and airports are risky connections. They come with an added risk of exposing our content to others connecting to that network. Deny permission to make your device visible to others in the network if you are connecting to unknown networks.

The challenge. Building awareness in the enterprise is the starting point to any digital transformation initiative. Transformation drivers from the top must put digital transformation at the top of the enterprise’s agenda. It is essential that people in the organization understand the scale and pace of the digital impact their industry is undergoing because of the disruptions brought in by the nexus of forces – Social media, mobility, information flow pattern and analytics and the Cloud. The creating awareness drive can gain momentum if this awareness process is made experiential.

The approach. It is essential to build a coalition of believers who can understand the potential impact of digital technologies on the business and the need and the urgency with which this transformation has to be pursued. Align the top team with this temperament will make things easier for the enterprise to drive this sentiment down to the last rung of employees whose participation would hasten the transformation.

Businesses need to identify potential threats and opportunities that they possess as an organization that will either contribute to or hinder the endeavor. Creating a risk profile containing the consequences that the business would have to encounter in the absence or slow pursue of this transformation journey would contribute to the overall support of the executives towards this strategic change in the business model. In most cases the CEO is responsible for roping in the senior leaders into the transformation team.

It is also essential that enterprises know their starting point in the journey. They need to measure how mature their digital competencies are, and which strategic asset will help them to excel amidst the competition.  Assessing the strategic assets of the enterprise and defining those that will be relevant in a digital world and those that won’t – physical assets, competencies, intangible assets and digital assets like data which in most cases would turn out to be a high value currency can set the framework for further acquisition, development or realigning of the resources.