Investing in digital transformation

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What advice would you offer leaders that are building business cases for digital transformation in organizations unprepared for the investment?

Digital Transformation
Business Case Development
Budgeting
Digital Strategy
David Voelker
67 months ago

6 answers

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David, first off, if the organization is unprepared for the investment in digital (or any other significant change initiative) the digital transformation will either be underfunded and fail, or simply not funded and never start.
The worst of all possible outcomes is agreement to go forward without alignment at the Sr Staff level, which usually results in being underfunded or understaffed, with a management team that isn't supportive and aligned, all of which will result in a transformation effort that will most likely be unsuccessful and a waste of funds.
Before beginning the organization's management must be aligned on the effort, and should have available to them a very conservative ROI with "R" being as specific as possible as well as the "I" of investment/cost/time/priority.
You need to garner a sponsors support, and individually or worst case in very small (1-3) private settings with Sr. Management make your case to all the Sr management team (this level varies across organizations).
The first objective to be met in a transformation journey is begin by gathering and sharing all information (The tech-in layman's terms; the expected costs and benefits; time frame of each phase, and a summary of potential issues that you've provided a straw man response that should surface the expected risks across people, processes, tech, and job roles.
My experience is that failure to do this will result in "death by a thousand cuts" when you try to move ahead and success will be a distant moving target.

Digital transformation involves "change" with a capital C, and NO ONE likes change. So part of your plan you present must focus and incorporate expertise and steps to manage change. Change is risk, and no executive wants to "underwrite" the risk unless the initiative is well planned, and the management team is aligned.

It really isn't a question of funding. Rather it's a question of alignment and understanding and support by management.
Without it, the initiative will be unsuccessful 99 times out of 10!

Always remember, digital transformations are ALWAYS business decisions, not IT or technical ones.
As you're role is the leader of IT, don't put a bullseye on your forehead by getting caught up in "digital" anything. It's not about the "digital"; it's about the ROI that can be achieved FOR the business. New tech comes out all the time, but if it doesn't improve the enterprise (lower cost; increased profit) it's just an "Apple watch." Cute, sexy, but quite a klingly sum to know the time:-)

Marc Salvatini PMP
67 months ago
Well stated! - Michael 67 months ago
I concur, good stuff, Marc. - Howard 66 months ago
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Focus on the two operative words: business + case. Any innovation will be somewhat new to the business; that path is eased if the intended innovation has gained some traction in the general consciousness, and there can't be any business leaders left who are unaware of the important of digital technology. That said, selling "digital Transformation" as an end to itself is a non-starter. What exactly do you mean, and how specifically will it help the business? Are you relieving a known challenge (the best place to start) or at least offering substantial new business opportunities? If not, take a deep breath and start over, rethinking your business case until your proposed initiative does make some business sense.

Douglas M. Brown
67 months ago
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Hi, With omnipresent and inescapable-irreversible digital disruptions in every sphere of life and business, the earlier you get started on understanding & leveraging these disruptions the better it is for leaders and their teams. Additionally, a well planned & expertly executed digital disruptions journey is highly rewarding for everyone, as people rediscover newer talents, collaboration synergies and competencies whose benefits far outweigh costs. Hence its best to flow with digital disruption trends and make best use of emerging implications of their irreversible and inescapable transformations. Ignorance is extremely damaging to work-ROI and reputation as you get ignored by customers, peers and society!

Regards,
Anshumali Saxena
www.anshumalisaxena.wixsite.com/consulting
Digital Disruption strategist-marketer-writer-enabler-innovator-trainer/mentor

Anshumali Saxena
67 months ago
0

Douglas,
Most all Execs and those who want to be one someday:-) are aware of many of the digital technologies. Most have a WOW factor and offer opportunities to change their business model for the better by adapting one or more.
I would offer, like many of us, we're aware of the domain the digital initiatives can affect.
At the end of the day, it's about putting together a cogent plan and approach that level sets the capability of the tech; the cost/benefit and change management challenges; and the plan "outline" to get it done...meaning how long to see expected benefits.
If that results in agreement and support to undertake the initiative then the work begins!!
If there's little support at the exec or decision making/leadership level then do a post mortem on what caused the lack of support- of which there are many reasons.
But, identifying why and changing the strategy of what you're presenting, and embracing a digital initiative that gets support and focus by leaderhip is that required first step.
Without it, "that dog won't hunt."

Marc Salvatini PMP
67 months ago
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There has been some really important thinking presented in this stream already. The most important first step, though, is getting everyone critical to the decision-making process to view it consistently.

The whys and hows of innovation and transformation embody some diverse disciplines and few management actors are expert or even well-versed in all of them or have an understanding of how elements of a strategic or digital transformation interact.  In my experience I have seen a panoply of governance models, many of which were sadly deficient and which produced some profoundly misadvised initiatives.

I think that organizations must evaluate the entire process of ideation, evaluation and execution before undertaking a program intended to transform themselves. This includes strategy definition, enterprise architecture, portfolio management, initiative valuation and risk management, program and project management, organization structure transformation capabilities and much, much more.

A common framework for understanding whether the existing management structure needs to change before transformation should be attempted should be followed by definition of change processes and roles and responsibilities. Too many companies jump on solutions (think blockchain) without adequately matching them to the problems they are intended to address because they think they have to master the latest and greatest technologies in order to remain competitive. When HOW precedes WHAT failure inevitably results.

So, my recommendation is that prior to employing their existing management structures and processes to achieve something they have not previously done successfully, organizations should evaluate whether they need to change themselves in order to maximize their chances of success.

Howard W
66 months ago
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I'll share some experiences from Pakistan.
We're home to some of the most exciting "downstream" digital innovations in the region--especially when it comes to micro-finance and healthcare.

Supporting quite a few of these efforts is the country's largest consumer bank. You find them sponsoring almost every "tech" event in the country. The C-Suite is almost always present in panel discussions on disruption/digital innovation etc.

BUT HERE'S THE CATCH

Their own employees resist any efforts towards technology. Processes are still slow, pen-and-paper driven and meant to irk rather than facilitate the customer. You can't get your bank statement from online branches, not even from the Head Office. For this, you have to enter a written 'pen and paper' request at your own branch.

My point in mentioning this was: Money and marketing won't achieve a digital transformation. Employee buy-in and clarity of direction will.

By contrast, take another bank, which used to be a small B2B concern. But has grown rapidly because of customer responsiveness, and mapping processes to meet market needs and not the other way round.

Nayyara Rahman
66 months ago

Have some input?