Laying the Foundation for Digital Success: Essential Steps

How does an organization initiate digital transformation

• First step is to identify what is intended to be transformed and why. There needs to be a clear purpose for building that digital capability. This needs to be aligned clearly with the business needs of the organization

• Second, ensure necessary investments - skills, projects, infrastructure, manpower - are being budgeted and allocated for this transformation.

• Finally, organization should make the senior management aware of the transformation idea and purpose. At the same time Industry should be at the place where customers, competitors are positioned in such a manner for digital transformation.

  
  

• Needless to say these decisions need to be data-driven. Customers' perspective becomes need to be taken into consideration.

  
  

• It is advisable to rely on an internal talent and resources to champion of the exercise within the organization compared to a consultant. While bottom-up digital transformation sounds logical, it is essential that the champion is from the leadership and is involved. Talent is more important than Technology in the process, with softer aspects including people need to be considered.

A few choices made by organizations:

1. Merge technology and operations divisions internally - DBS

2. Transform Customer Experience - Amazon, DBS

3. Create enterprise platform to integrate technology throughout the organization - Lego

A model proposed by Prof Setia is The DaWoGoMo Model

Digital Architectures (Da)

Work Transformation (Wo)

Governance Transformation (Go)

Business Model (Mo)

We should also keep in mind some of the primary obstacles that organizations encounter during their Digital Transformation journey. This includes resistance to change, legacy systems and processes, insufficient digital skills and talent, cybersecurity risks, data management challenges, cost considerations, return on investment concerns, as well as a lack of strategic vision within the organization.

PS: This is my notes from the course Advanced Digital Transformation