Digital Transformation Fiction
Are you analogue now?Over the years digital transformation has become dream for every company. But what it means for you? Over my last 12 years as architect, I had to listen to clients' definition/dream of digital transformation and give my best to meet that.
CASE 1: Municipality
#Context
One of my biggest works more than a decade ago, client wanted to become digitally transformed and example of a smart city by making their services digitally available to its members and citizens. And their digital transformation definition/dream is having a huge intranet and extranet portal with all sorts of possible collaboration tools you can imagine - chat, document share, forum, blog, form submission, members directory, connect, web designer, app builder and so on by which they can address different issues/services.
#Issue
At that time, I saw no issue with this definition, may be you still can not see the issue here. May be you also think, having such connected platform for your city will make you digital! The issue is:
Having a swiss army knife does not make you Macgyver
So I name this crisis - Aladdin Lamp Disorder - in brief I need this tool and that tool will do all the magic.
This disorder of thinking has another variation that is
Depending on not a tool but blindly on a human or a team.
This crisis I named as Savior Disorder - in brief, someone or a team will come and save you and looking for no other solution but that human being/s.
I see this a lot, may be you also notice that. I think I can identify its root from religious practices, in all three Abrahamic religions the story or you can say the prophecy of a end time Savior is must and we grew up with this. And majority of movies and series all problems are solved by the Savior.
So to solve this digital transformation crisis we normally dream a Digital Hero Team.
CASE 2: Worldwide Retailer
#Context
After few years of the first case, the next case came to me was a very giant retailer having distribution over 40+ countries, wants to digitally transform. And their definition of digital transformation is E-commerce and a dynamic web portal that can render contents according to target audience.
#Issue
Excellent idea! I do not see any issue here! do you? But in reality there was issue. Worldwide all the distributors got angry and started feeling insecure and immediately sale fall. I call this issue Show off Disorder.
The wish to use this Digital Transformation news as a PR thing for marketing and branding is the killer.
If you want to shoot multiple birds on a single shot, this may happen maximum time. Knowing the fact there are haters, then be sure you want to transform really or you want to sell it for the stock.
CASE 3: Manufacturing
#Context
Few years after above case, the next significant case came to me was a large manufacturing company with more than dozen factories and 10k+ workers. Their definition of Digital Transformation was ERP. So be it. And they want the ERP to have everything and become paperless with that.
#Issue
Do you see any? ERP for large company like this is must, what issue can be there? Again in reality there was many issues, but major one was internal fight. Yes, anyone with ERP implementation knows this very well. Let me tell you brief about this fight here. I call this not_knowing_what_matters disorder.
The fight was who will be Leader of ERP Implementation, CFO or Head of Sales?
Do you know?
Yes they got puzzled and made the wrong guy the Leader, thinking ERP as the Digital Transformation Platform. And the other guy got pissed of and stopped any collaboration.
Please comment below who you think should be ERP implementation leader from above options?ERP, BSS, OSS, MIS whatever you try to adopt, it will be incomplete without a the financials and again a deal of mass paper work. On support of this statement. Lets see the core of any business, the life cycles of the processes, the way business happens.
- O2C (Order to Cash) - You have a order management that does not deal with invoices and payments, does it make any sense?
- P2C (Procure to Pay) - You have a procurement and sourcing solution but it never deals with invoices and payments, does it make any sense?
- H2R (Hire to Retire) - You have wonderful HR solution but it can not help you in payroll and expenses calculation, is it complete?
- R2R (Record 2 Report) - You have many records but you can not derive a income statement or a balance sheet, does it help?
A support system is a tool that can help you on certain sector which does not make you digitally transformed, if you can not complete the cycle digitally.
End of the day its again papers, manual intervention and loss of transparency.
CASE 4: Service (Medical)
#Context
The next big thing came to me was from Medical industry digital transformation of nation wide consultation facilitation connecting all the doctors, patients, vendors and parties. And their definition of digital transformation all in one digital platform.
#Issue
What an excellent thing in this current era! Do you see any issue? There were issues, and major one was, too many engagements and wishes surrounding one release. Yes the same pattern we found in the case #1. Too many features and experiments and the system becomes too complex to serve any good. I call this scientist disorder.
Solution
I have rarely satisfaction cases, all above solutions are there but I am not sure what values those digital transformation carry. In my satisfaction cases, there are small size organizations where the stakeholders and owner himself worked day and night and transformed what really matters piece by piece. In many cases it was just adopting a practice no tools or software where the owner himself monitored until all employees adopted perfectly. Always the best way is honesty and hard work. Expectation of shortcuts, magic boxes or humans or skipping to know what really matters as it requires time or doing experiments as you love it, so far I understood are poisons.
Any feedback is highly appreciable.
— Mahmud Manna
Disclaimer
The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of any past or present employer of the author.
