In an ideal world, digital transformation should have the commitment of those on top of their organizations. Many corporate leaders are signing on for the digital journey, as vague and amorphous the terminology around "digital" may be these days. At the same time, it's notable that the digital transformation that has been taking place so far has been occurring more at the grassroots level --employees or managers putting technology in place to boost their areas of the business.
Photo: Joe McKendrick
I just saw a recent survey of 300 companies, published by SoftServe, that says as much. The data shows that digital transformation is widespread with about one-fourth of organizations indicating that they have implemented an all-encompassing "transformative" strategy across their entire business, and close to one-half claiming to have implemented digital transformation across selected parts of the business.
The survey's authors then make an interesting, and highly relevant conclusion. The piecemeal approach that many companies are taking to digital, they conclude, is similar to the bring-your-own-device trend. That is, change is coming from people in the rank and file, and digital implementations are taking place at the project or departmental level. Disruption is taking place at the grassroots level, and percolating upward. As low-level successes are achieved and word spreads across enterprises, adoption will spread as well.
The survey report provides some clues as to what is meant by "digital transformation" in this context, since it is such a vague concept that is ripe for overuse and abuse. When asked about the specific area of digital transformation they are most focused on, customer experience/engagement was cited, along with mobile technologies. There were also initiatives around digital asset management, as well as cloud computing services. Data mining and analytics were also part of these efforts as well.
The risk of a bottom-up approach, of course, is organizational chaos. Innovation itself is a chaotic process, so, in some respects, these forces should be welcome and channeled to productive ends, versus being suppressed. But someone needs to step up and take a leadership role. One thing is clear: business leaders are looking to their technology surrogates for guidance as they embark on this latest journey. More than three-fourths of respondents stating that they would seek advice from internal IT or business experts. Respondents were also split on who should lead digital transformation, with one-fourth naming CIOs are in charge, and a similar number naming CEOs. What this tells us is that IT managers and professionals are seeing their roles shift, from coding and integration work to more consultative and strategic roles to their businesses.
Security is a highly complex area, and it's no surprise that business leaders will defer to their technology departments for advice and guidance in this area. There's also enormous pressure to hold their feet to the fire -- a majority feel that security is the greatest challenge to any digital initiative.
Following security, budgetary constraints were cited as impeding digital transformation initiatives. A lack of strategy across the organization and a lack of required skills were also cited as issues.
The survey report's authors also made some interesting observations about digital approaches by industry verticals. For example, retailers are ahead of the curve, since they tend to have a great deal of engagement head-on with customers. Manufacturers, on the other hand, are more likely to outsource than deal with the intricacies of digital transformation -- industrial companies tend to have huge embedded capital investments, and thus are less agile.
