Introduction

Digital Transformation is a commonly used buzzword that sounds cool

but what exactly does it mean?

I am going to dwell upon that in this article.

My name is P K Saxena.

I am the CTO of Sofcon Systems India Pvt. Ltd.

Sofcon Systems India is an Automation Solution provider company

that helps clients go through their Digital Transformation journeys.

When I first came across the term Digital Transformation few years ago

I did not appreciate the term.

It didn’t make sense to me.

I am an Electrical Engineer and so when I heard the term, 

I always thought it is something to do with Electronics.

But nevertheless Digital Transformation has become a big buzzword.

It is a commonly used term these days.

Quite frankly, it is overused.

So what I want to do is to describe about

what exactly is Digital Transformation

and most importantly what does it mean to you

and to your organization?

Simple definition of Digital Transformation

In its simplest terms, Digital Transformation is the use of any sort of technology

that helps improve your business

and that can be Enterprise Resource Planning software

or ERP systems.

Digital Transformation can be Customer Relationship Management

or CRM software to render help to manage your sales force.

It can be Financial Accounting software.

Moreover it can be Automation Technology for your shop floor

if you are working in a manufacturing organization.

Digital Transformation can be Robotics.

Further it can be The Internet of Things.

Or it can be Blockchain.

Finally Digital Transformation can be Artificial Intelligence.

I know I am throwing bunch of buzzwords

and a bunch of technologies

that you may

or may not understand.

But the key point here is that Digital Transformation is any sort of technology

that enables your business.

As well as it allows you to be more productive, more efficient

and more effective.

History of Digital Transformation

I do not have an exact details of when use of Digital Transformation began in the

Industrial world.

We have seen a very organic evolution of technology

as well as its use in businesses

and organizations.

But really you can trace a lot of this back to the 80s and 90s

when businesses were first starting to use spreadsheets.

And word processors and other types of rudimentary technology

that is very basic today.

However over the years, what ended up happening particularly in the 90s,

there is a big revolution of Enterprise Software

that went beyond spreadsheets and word processing

that allowed companies to track orders

and to track information and financials

as well as to track sales information

and it really evolved into what is now known as ERP.

It started off as Material Resource Planning in many cases for manufacturing

organizations

that were just trying to track their inventory

and their Manufacturing Operations which then evolved into Enterprise Resource

Planning or ERP.

At the same time, a lot of organizations were starting to implement more robust

Accounting and Financial Software

so back in the 80s and 90s is where you can really trace that evolution of Digital

Transformation began.

Digital Technologies

In my opinion, what has happened in the 2010s is that a lot of new technologies

have exploded in the Industrial world.

A lot of technologies, like Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence, Predictive Analytics and Internet of Things –

a lot of things you may have heard of -a lot of things you may not have heard of-

but these are few revolutionary technologies

that allow businesses to operate in a better way and to operate more effectively

so the term Digital Transformation has become sort of buzzword for a lot of

these technologies

and hence it can be said that there is no one definition of what Digital

Transformation means to any given organization.

For some, it could be just implementing an ERP system;

And for others it could be implementing a Financial System;

Also for others it could be implementing Robotics on the shop floor.

Whatever may be the case, it is a matter of defining what Digital Transformation

is to you

but before I do that

it is helpful to look at that history of how Digital Transformation came to be.

Digital Transformation = Business Transformation

Now I am going to reveal a little secret which I learnt from Eric Kimberling, CEO

of Third Stage Consulting Group.

And that is the Digital Transformation really does not have a lot to do with the

Digital part of the term.

But it has a lot more to do with Transformation – the second word in the term.

And even though technology is a driver of some of these Digital Transformations,

it is really at the end of the day more of a Business Transformation that

organizations are trying to accomplish.

Generally, they are trying to improve their efficiency.

They are trying to provide a better customer experience to their customers.

They are trying to be more effective as an organization.

Organizations are trying to make the jobs easier for their employees.

So really it is driven by the business needs and it just so happens

that technology is one way to enable those changes

and so the key word here is transformation

that is the operative word within Digital Transformation

and in fact I would argue that we can just scratch digital altogether

and call it a Business Transformation.

Digital is likely to be a big part of that Business Transformation

but there is a lot more to it than just the technology itself.

There is also the Process improvements, the Process management, the Process

Re-engineering that needs to happen

and there is also the Organizational change

or the People side of the equation that is going to change

so this is the main reason why Business Transformation is probably a more

descriptive term in defining what exactly Digital Transformation is.

It is more of a Business Transformation – to render help improve the business

or the organization that you are working in.

Why Digital Transformation fails?

Despite all the new great technologies out there, a lot of Digital Transformations

fail,

in fact more Digital Transformations fail than succeed

and it is not because the technology is not there.

It is not because the technology cannot do certain things.

It is not that we have not made advancements in technology over the last few

decades but it is because we have not addressed those Business Transformation

side of things.

When we neglect the Business Process and the Organizational

or People side of things,

we are neglecting the entire Digital Transformation and no matter

what great the technology is if we have not addressed people

and processes as well

and in fact if we have not addressed people and processes even better

than we have invested in the technology,

our likelihood of failure is very high so Digital Transformations have a high failure

rate.

These failures are very painful for a lot of organizations

and for those organizations that do not have a lot of experience with it.

It can be overwhelming and they are not always sure what to do,

so it is very important to recognize that Digital Transformations are only going to

succeed when you invest heavily in the people

and process side of things to correspond with the investments in technology.

Key Take Aways

So Digital Transformation is a big buzzword today.

It probably will be for the next few years.

Later on, at some point, it may be replaced by something newer and better

or something that sounds cooler than Digital Transformation

but for the time being the definition of Digital Transformation is as given below.

“Digital Transformation is more of a Business Transformation –in short to render help to improve the business or the organization that you are working in.”

This is the landscape that we are dealing with at present

and I encourage you to learn more about “What Digital Transformation means

and how organizations can best benefit from and some of the risks that they

struggle with”- in my next article.

I hope you found this article useful.

Please provide any comments, if you have.

By Digital Prabhat

                                                                                                     

Resource:

Eric Kimberling-Digital Transformation /

Third Stage Consulting Group

www.thirdstage-consulting.com