Common Misconceptions about Applying Digital Transformation

1. Digital transformation
is radical

● Reality: Digital transformation is using digital tools to better match customer needs

● Digital transformation is not about dramatically alter their company’s value proposition

● The challenge is to find the best way to serve those needs using digital tools to better address their customers’ jobs to be done, they will most likely focus on the technologies that have the greatest effect on their customers or their core capabilities

● Not all transitions will be so dramatic, but in most cases some friction is inevitable

2. Digital transformation will replace physical

● Reality: It’s a “both/and.”

● Digital does enables the elimination of inefficient intermediaries and costly physical infrastructure. But that doesn’t mean the physical goes away entirely.

3. Digital transformation is all about technology

● Reality: It’s about the customer

● technology change is involved—but smart companies realize that transformation is ultimately about better serving customer needs

4. Digital involves buying start-ups

● Reality: It involves protecting start-ups.

● Smart companies find synergies with start-ups but don’t destroy their culture.

5. Digital requires overhauling legacy systems

● The big company can take full advantage of the start-up’s ideas, processes, culture, and technology

● Reality: It’s more often about incremental bridging.

● Trying to replace multiple complex, critical systems all at once invites disaster.

● Digital transformation rather is about both transforming the core using digital tools and discovering and capturing new opportunities enabled by digital.

Final verdict:

● Digital transformation is not all about new initiatives, but rather more about adapting to better suit customer needs and adopting new technologies to gain advantages

● The keys to success have been a focus on customer needs, organizational flexibility, respect for incremental change, and awareness that new skills and technology must be not only acquired but also protected—something the best traditional companies have always been good at.

Source: https://hbr.org/2019/07/digital-doesnt-have-to-be-disruptive

Date : 14/02/2020