Fundamentally, a business enterprise would exist as a ‘going concern’ to make profit and maximize shareholder value. Being able to deliver business results consistently becomes the most important goal. There could be a number of strategies, programs, and policies that a company would practice to generate business results. Digital transformation is one of those innovative strategies that a company might try to practice in a structured and time-bound way.
There is an important dimension here that I would like to highlight and, in a nutshell, digital transformation would close the gap that always existed when digital (in business parlance, this would mean information and communication technologies) became a necessity for the efficiency, but it remained a huge cost center and avenue of change momentum for the most part. It is about moving closer to transforming this cost center into a revenue center, by consistently and selectively applying digital to get closer to customers and stakeholders alike to make a difference in the way they live, do business or collaborate.
For global companies, what this means is that when their digital interests are driven by keeping their customers in the spotlight, they can be interpreted as significant advances in their digital transformation strategy. Depending on the stage of technology adoption they are in (first, second or third generation), the intensity of DT will vary. For example, I recently wrote an article on how GRC solutions can drive revenue: GRC becomes part of a broader digital transformation strategy.
Most new age business enterprises would have made substantial investments in implementing most of the core business systems. That’s one of the reasons why we from the ecosystem of technology providers hear about mobile, analytics, social and cloud most of the time when it comes to digital transformation, which is a contemporary articulation. The fact is that it is up to the CIO and other members of the CxO executive team to figure out what would be a good start to their digital transformation program and what its life cycle would look like in their company. In other words, a company could really be digital ready even if it’s not talking about social media, analytics and mobility, similarly even if a relatively new company (like a startup) may still be talking about massive investments in DT even if they do not use large business systems, for example, an ERP. As we said, the key to remember, and therefore to get the most benefits from the incredible digital transformation program, is to know how and if the digital investments made by a company are bringing it closer to a customer to make a difference in the way they live, or do business, or collaborate.
