What digital transformation really changes
Buying software is the easy part. The harder change is in how a firm makes decisions, who it listens to, and what it decides to sell.
"Digital transformation" is one of those phrases that has been used so often it has almost stopped meaning anything. On a slide it can describe a new website, a cloud migration, or a complete rethink of a business. Studying it full-time has made me want to be more precise.
A helpful distinction is often drawn between three levels. Digitisation is turning analogue information into digital form: scanning paper records, for example. Digitalisation is using digital tools to improve existing processes, such as moving orders from email to an online system. Digital transformation is the deeper change, when technology reshapes how a firm creates value, how it is organised and sometimes what business it is in.
Most companies do a lot of the first two and call it the third. That is understandable. Tools are visible and can be bought. The deeper changes are slower and less comfortable.
From my years in marketing and business development, I think the real changes tend to show up in three places.
Decisions. When data is available quickly, the question is whether people actually use it, or whether the meeting still ends with the most senior opinion in the room.
Relationships with customers. Digital channels make it possible to stay in contact after the sale. That raises a new question: what is the firm offering in that ongoing relationship, beyond the product itself?
Skills and roles. New systems change what people do every day. Without training and a clear reason for the change, even good tools end up as expensive spreadsheets.
None of this is new to anyone who has lived through a software rollout. But it reminds me that transformation is less a technology project than an organisational one. The technology is necessary. It is rarely the hard part.
Photos: pnntrn, fishopen770 on Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. These are not my photographs.
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