Digital Business Transformation in a Customer Obsessed World

Digital business transformation is about making fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a shift in environment. The shift has occurred. The shift is becoming a digital business. The approach should be about transformation.
What is happening in many cases is that we are adding racing stripes to a 20 year old Chevy and think we now have a race car. We don’t have a racecar. We still have a 20 year old Chevy that looks fast but isn’t.

The first thing is to recognize is that there is a “burning platform”. This is a decision by the CEO and the C-Suite that the business must be different to survive. Without that fundamental vision at the highest level, complete transformation can’t occur. Incremental gains can be made by others but true transformation has to be owned by the most senior of senior management.

What we need to do is to envision the digital future of your business. Without a compelling vision of where you are going and why it is imperative, you will probably be painting race stripes on a 20 year old Chevy. What assets will be valuable in a digitally-transformed business? How can you transform customer experience? Internal operations? Your business model? How can units work differently – and work together differently – in a more connected way?

Look at the media industry. It has been completely transformed by digital technology. It is now happening, at various speeds, to the rest of our commercial, nonprofit and government world. Everyone is experimenting. Everyone is tinkering. Some are putting their toes in the water. A few have jumped in and find they aren’t drowning. They are reaping huge results.
A central question to answer as a digital executive is "Is my company ready to be disrupted?"

Critical to this question is the premise that you are going to be disrupted fairly radically if you don't get ready. Do you personally believe a "radical change" is happening now? Of course, if you don't believe that, no need to ask the question.

If you do believe it could happen, it is well worth getting away from the office to consider what to do very soon to avert it. Taking the time to have a serious answer might make all the difference in success or failure three years from now.

The next question is this. If you or your company isn't ready, what should you do about it? It is important to think through what you personally should do as opposed to what "the company" should do. You can control your plan. You can only influence the corporate approach.

The answer will set your agenda for the next six months.

Let the transformation begin.