It Takes More Than Tech to Gain the Digital Edge

Many companies try to transition to digital, but failure is a key concern area. They jump the fence and try to get all tech smarts on you, but going digital isn’t just about the technology, it’s about a change in culture.

Change takes time and a key initiative from upper management may not transition well when you’re considering digital transformation.

MIT Sloan Management and Deloitte Digital surveyed key global executives to get a better idea about what companies can do to become more digital. Their research area uncovered a lot of insights that can packed into 5 key areas for organizations to take away.

Regardless of your company’s size, you too can transition into digital by going ahead with these key strategies –

#1: Evaluate your business strategy with a digital perspective

Since digital needs to be in the DNA of the business, going towards your business strategy makes sense. Companies that are at the higher end of the maturity scale tend to be 4 times as likely to have a clear digital strategy.

They know what they want out of digital and they have targets to achieve them.

Without an overarching digital transformation strategy, these organizations don’t have a clear vision in place. Smaller companies may be more nimble and lean, but if they can’t respond to changes in digital strategies then they need to become savvier as organizations.

Evaluation of the digital nature of the business is critical as industries change quite often. A key factor that remained a differentiator for many years, can instantly become a cost-centre after industries shift. What remains constant is the bend to go deeper into what’s happening.

Right now – that’s digital. If digital isn’t for you, then you must think about your customers and think about what’s best for them.

#2: Imagine the future. 5… 50… 500 years away

This is a good exercise to conduct when you’re thinking about where you want your future to be. If you’re looking for something that’s near term and immediate, then a good way to think about it is its benefits 5 years from now.

If digital will radically transform your business and industry, then investing in it today would make more sense. Oversight errors occur so often that every industry has a player in the coffin because of digital.

If you want to compete in 2020, then digital is the right step forward.

You want to be able to understand how and why the world is changing and how your company can benefit from it. This comes from the top-down, where the CEOs and management decides what’s best for the long-term health of the company.

It may be temporarily reassuring knowing that you’re ahead of the competition, but if you’re not ready to invest for the future then someone else is. They’re investing to disrupt you out of the industry.

John Hagel, co-chairman of Deloitte's Centre for the Edge wants businesses to focus on a method called zoom-out, zoom-in. With this method they can get a simultaneous look at what works 10 years from now and what technology is implementable 6 months from now.

#3: Incorporate digital into company culture

Digitally enabled companies operate differently. They act younger, are more agile and have a differentiated sense of service and operations. They’re leaner. It’s in their DNA.

Digital needs to become a mindset and not just a “tech-focus point”. For MetLife, that changed when they wanted to have a mindset switch about digital.

Martin Lippert, Executive VP and operations at MetLife, believes in the 4-pillars of digital strategy.

"We want our employees to be executing those four pillars with a digital mindset, to make MetLife as efficient and effective as it can be for our customers. "

He wants to develop the right talent and enable the company to shift the culture from within. Digital can be increasingly effective if implemented on by external stakeholders as well – such as VC, universities, investors and startups.

You need to have a digital bend in your ethos.

#4: Ambitiously scale your successes

Having a strong ambition isn’t a bad thing. It’s what sets apart the most digitally mature organizations from those that are still looking at it as a line item.

A great example of this is the organization Cardinal Health. They regularly make initiatives and reports about what was adopted in terms of digital.

Brent Stutz, CTO of Fuse at Cardinal Health focuses on lean project initiation and quickly measuring failure and success.

"I'm not afraid to create a slide that describes 42 failures and four successes. The sooner we stop working on an idea that isn't panning out, the faster we can move on to the next, better solution."

Most of these digitally maturing organizations are more than twice as likely to conduct these kinds of experiments in digital. Rapid experimentation is the key to initiating enterprise-wide initiatives, as they have been tested and implemented across the company.

#5: Become a magnet for the best talent

Talent is what drives digital forward and the new generation understands digital more than others. Not only from a professional standpoint but a personal one, digital has been at the backbone of younger talent pools.

Companies that have a huge advantage in hiring and retaining the best talent are those that are digitally savvier and have the best in-house capabilities in digital.

A company like Cigna provides formal education initiatives, inside the organization and allows talent pool to venture outwards for education. The company has estimated that this investment has given them a 140% ROI in terms of employee retention and scale.

Small business that don’t have the budgets to sustain large-scale training sessions can still benefit from a supportive learning environment. You have to be bright and earnest about it. Only when the organization’s talent is open to learning about digital, can the organization itself truly focus on a digital future

Conclusion

Digital is a mind shift change that requires investment in time, money and resources. However, it’s not a complete shift until the employees, upper management and external stakeholders truly believe that digital is the way to proceed in the near future.