Title: Culture: The Greatest Barrier to Digital Transformation
1Culture The Greatest Barrier to Digital
Transformation
What if THAT CHANGE youre avoiding is the one
that gives you WINGS Synchronizing with the
Era of Digital Transformation, businesses are
fast embarking on a transformative initiative.
The rise of emergent technologies like machine
learning, AI, chatbots, IoT, big data and the
blockchain technology are fundamentally altering
every facet of corporate and social landscape
transforming the established business practices
and operations. However, on a broader
connotation, it extends much beyond technological
evolution, it encompasses strategy, people, and
business processes. Thus, when Technology is seen
as the tool, WE(Humans) are the
engines. Digital businesses like Netflix, Uber,
Airbnb which didnt even exist until 2008 are now
considered as multibillion dollar businesses
created by digital disruption. Netflix expanded
itself across the globe, in less than a decade -
roughly ten times faster than Disney or
Time-Warner did! Enterprises nailing it arent
the ones waiting to see how trends play out but
the ones who foresee what is coming next and
aggressively taking steps towards it. According
to a research by Capgemini, the greatest
barriers that the enterprises are facing in
accelerating the digital transformation doesnt
revolve around the technology itself, but the
cultural change required to extract value from
it.
2- Do you wish to drive change or be driven by it?
How do you create a culture that serves to
promote the digital transformation? - Collaboration not Competition
- The key is to make the most of the man and
machine collaboration. More importantly, this
can - have positive and tangible impact on
organizations employees- from freeing up their
time for higher value or to increase
productivity by making the work more enjoyable.
Thus, this concept of people and technology
working symbiotically, and not competitively is
at the very heart of digital transformation. - For instance, an elevator giant deployed
Microsofts HoloLens to assist the elevator
engineers/technicians at work. The technicians
can always connect to their experts who can show
them what to do if they are connected via
HoloLens which makes their jobs easier. - Embracing fear in an organization
- Holding on to the notorious L word Legacy is
holding organizations back from flourishing. The - millennials have a very distinct mindset in
comparison to digital latecomers in their
attitude towards respect for hierarchical
organization structures, their comfort with
technologies, attitude towards privacy and
adherence to regulations. Organizations need to
redefine their core people ideologies to live up
to the expectations of the smart phone
generation. The desired employee attributes
today are shifting to innovation, adaptability
and learnability former one being skills,
experience and execution abilities. However, the
greatest barrier to the legacy system is time
and efforts required to make changes in the
long-established companies with several
generations of IT systems with restricted
enterprise-wide integration. - It is very important to shift the ethos to a
shared struggle where mistakes are unavoidable,
and your team mates and organization have your
back. By creating a surrounding where the
employees can freely voice their concerns,
feedbacks and collaborate with technology, we can
likely create a culture where fear is
recognized, sensitively tackled and ultimately
overcome. - Embracing fear promotes open culture,
facilitating employee partnerships and here
technology can be viewed to enhance and advance
human motives. - Demonstrating value of the strategy/ethics/structu
re/ in an organization - Innovation isnt something that is made and
handed over to different people. It is something
that - evolves in a process of discussion and
experimentation. Although, the vision and
strategy may be built-in the board room but
conclusively, it must be driven from ground to
the top for it to
3- succeed for longer term. Precisely, that means
providing employees with required time and
resources to test, develop and report new ways of
working on real scenarios. - Generating a deeper sense of involvement in the
transformation journey amongst the employees is
highly essential to make them feel more involved
and valued in an organization, they are more
likely to adopt the mindset of why wouldnt we?
than why should we? which would push them
confidently to try something new which will in
turn improve their tasks and performance. - Living Agile
- In digital age, agile and adaptive technology
infrastructure and systems are critical enablers.
To invade this digital shift, organizations must
consider swapping the conventional command and
control structures in favor of agile approach
that will distribute decision-making.
Organizations, today, needs to thoroughly
evaluate their portfolio of IT infrastructure and
systems to develop the right architectural
blueprint for a digital enterprise. - Back in 2014, the UK based train operating giant
made cumulative losses of 6 million. By
engaging and communicating better with its
workforce deploying and using tools like
Microsoft Office 365, creating a SharePoint
repository, they have become more agile in their
thinking and have transformed to a thriving
company from being a loss-making one. - Respecting your Ecosystem
- Regardless of the size of the organization, it is
crucial to understand the political, ethical, - regulatory and stakeholder ecosystems in which
new technologies will operate because that will
help us evaluate how and where to implement them.
It is not possible to create an agile digital
culture in silos rather it should be sought
holistically, covering all the components-internal
and external. - Conclusion
- Just as the caterpillar sheds its cocoon to
spring as a butterfly, organizations need to shed
the - burden of the legacy processes, people,
strategies along with the technologies to emerge
as a digital enterprise. The digital
transformation is neither an instant procedure
nor is painless one, but is very crucial for the
long-term sustainability and survival of the
organization. - Allow us to assist you in your digital
transformation journey ahead, get in touch with
us at inquiry_at_cygnetinfotech.com