5 Steps to Effectively Handle Digital Transformation and Business Disruption: A Framework for Digitalization


Digital transformation continues to change the business world dramatically. This article provides business and IT leaders’ helpful tools to drive and manage transformation effectively.



The What:
You have heard about “digital transformation.” It sounds like a buzzword, the latest confusing techno-talk. But it is not. Let us break it down.

The key word is “transformation.” In fact, digital transformation is one of those once or twice in a century phenomena – along with the invention of the printing press, mass production, electricity, and mobile phones. Yes, it is just that big. Just think of what it has already brought us: the super-computer, the iPhone, the internet, to name only a few.



Think of what industries digital transformation has already transformed: communications, media, manufacturing, healthcare, e-commerce, global finance and etc.

And here is the thing: the digital transformation tidal wave has only just begun. What does it mean for your company, and your industry?

To answer that question, it is essential to think about the below 4 +1 Steps to Effectively Handle Digital Transformation and Business Disruption.

Building on the previous academic research and industry partnership models, reference with Matt, C.; Hess, T.; Benlian, A. (2015), Digital Transformation Strategies; Digital Transformation is a long-term transition which includes a series of technological investments to improve profitability and long-term competitiveness to enable the corporate strategies by involving customers, vendors, employees and realizing the business transformation.

Digital transformation involves re-alignment of the long-term organizational strategy to better meet the increasing technology needs of the clients, employees, and organization. It includes all of the critical operations, such as, Marketing, Sales, Product innovation, Talent Acquisition, ERP, HR, SCM, etc. to maintain the digital edge while streamlining the operations and transform.



The Why:
Companies must be open to radical reinvention to find new, significant, and sustainable sources of revenue[i] – McKinsey, a global management consulting firm.

Digital is the main reason just over half the companies on the Fortune 500 have disappeared since the year 2000[ii] – Pierre Nanterme, Chairman, and CEO of Accenture.



[i] From disrupted to disruptor: Reinventing your business by transforming the core; Peter Dahlström, Liz Ericson, Somesh Khanna, and Jürgen Meffert; February 2017; McKinsey & Company;

[ii] Neville, Laurence. “THE TAKING THE LONG VIEW: Crises Demand Attention, But So Do Long-Term Trends.” Global Finance, vol. 30, no. 4, Global Finance Media Inc., Apr. 2016, p. 8.




The How:
As a strategic part of the everyday business, the role of the IT team is shifting from the “keep the lights on” era to the “use of digital technologies to win” era. The benefits of digital technology are best understood in the context of one’s organization.

Digitalization should not be considered as just another shiny IT project because it impacts the entire enterprise even up and down stream partners. It is a crucial tool enabling growth strategy for most businesses. This document aims to offer a “4+1 digital transformation” approach which brings together thought leaders, execution teams, SME’s, customers, and partners to help collectively outperform the organization’s status quo.

In this paper, we propose a simple, yet effective framework for leaders to conceptualize both the process and possible IT tools within The Medha Framework™, consisting of 4 + 1 steps to digital transformation. This will assist the companies to increase revenue, provide better customer service, create maximum impact, improve speed to market for new products, and boost ROI.

The Medha™ TechVelocityPartner.com’s approach also supports the “+1” step of creating a being agile culture of innovation and communication. Digital transformation should be considered both from the employee and partner facing (inward) and from the customer-facing dimension (outward.)



 Medha Framework ™ Approach to Digital Transformation




Step 1.       Defining the Strategy



The first step in the digital transformation effort is establishing a digital transformation strategy. This should be in sync with the company’s business strategy, as well as, with the 5-year strategic plan. It should identify and focus on short-term and long-term wins that can impact the business positively. This should be looked as an agile version of business planning with various moving parts. The following key objectives for digitalization are typically valid for most organizations.
  • Program enhancement: Establish business programs that have a direct impact on business functioning directly or indirectly. Describe each program or action concerning “desirability,” “feasibility” and “viability.”
  • Financial implications: Obtain a high-level understanding of the cost and investment implications as well as potential return on each program/action.

 To bring structure to the strategy and to achieve the objectives mentioned above, the following guidelines are recommended:


      A.   Form a Digital Transformation Management Commitment Team: Choose executives from various functions with forward-looking mindsets who will become the key decision makers or influencers for the entire program.

      B.   Identify Potential Impact: Help the digital transformation commitment team see the possible effects and returns of digital implementations by investing in conference visits or in-house sessions by experts. It’s essential that the team considers the digital transformation as a game changer and not merely another company initiative to increase revenue. Profitability is ultimately important but focusing on the numbers alone too soon will destroy the creativity of strategic visioning that is key to digital transformation.

      C.   Make Customers, Vendors and Partners’ part of the Transformation Journey: Visit the customers, vendors, and partners to understand what they think of the service and products offered currently. Identify trusted confidants who can give genuine feedback on the plan and as well as with whom the transformation journey can be shared.

      D.   Include Key Players: Identify and include various individuals in the organization who need to play an active role during this journey.

Identify Core Concerns: Identify concerns, problems as well as opportunities across the organization. They become the foundation for transformation.  Here are some issues, customers most frequently-cited:

  •    Provide Omnichannel experiences: Improve customer experience with an eye to improving retention rates and lowering customer turnover by providing consistent omnichannel experiences and seamless transitions by making decisions based on data, context and sharing customer information updates across all the engagement channels.
  •  Increase Brand Loyalty: Provide real-time customer information to the service agents across all channels to avoid asking the same questions. This, in turn, may pave the way for first-time visitors become customers and then deep-rooted loyalty to the brand.
  • Attract Employees and Partners: Attract partners, employees, and suppliers by improving engagement and maintaining consistency across channels.
  • Increase Responsiveness: Provide faster response to customers, partners, and employees.
  • Manage Threats to the Business: Emerging startups with threatening business models. Think about Blockbuster which used to have over 80% of the market share missed seeing the impact of Netflix and digital transformation.
  • Capture Global Opportunities: Expanding to new geographies and vertical markets. Think about Uber expanding to new emerging markets such as India and making huge profits with their existing digital footprint.
  • Exploit New Sales Channel Opportunities: Potential to leverage new business channels or move to new verticals.
  • Increase New Customer Acquisition: The single most significant source of growth. Talking to the customers, partners, employees and creating forums with cross-functional teams, etc. are few ways of increasing new customer acquisition.

 F.         IT Modernization: In most cases, digital transformation is built on top of the existing enterprise IT.  Hence, it is essential to consider IT modernization itself as an activity. To ensure the IT team is empowered enough for the transformation journey analyzing the following eight components is recommended:

·         Customer experience platforms
·         Enterprise integration strategy
·         Data and analytics strategy
·         Infrastructure management and cloud enablement
·         Enterprise security and cybersecurity
·         Release management and implementation program
·         IT response time
·         Enterprise IT architecture

A gap analysis of the above points will help the digital transformation commitment team understand the scope and investments required to support the journey.


G.        Cross-pollination: Include team members from other functions and “outside of the industry” specialists in brainstorming sessions to analyze the “gap analysis” and see how they approached digitalization journey, and the lessons learned. In some cases, real change and maximum benefits from transformation may be achieved by looking and comparing problem and solutions from other industries. Bring in experts who worked in multiple domains and across different sectors. To solve long-standing problems, do not approach the solution just from one’s industry.



Step1 Outcome: To be successful, digital transformation leaders must first understand, communicate and agree with CxO’s on the expected outcomes of the initiatives.  Metrics for business programs and actions must be identified, as well as discussing the risks and probabilities of success for each program and activity.

Project
Increasing responsiveness for suppliers and distributors
Problem / Opportunity Statement
Supply chain management (SCM) process: Entire SCM process requires an exchange of various documents such as PR, PO, Invoices, QC documents, etc. This entire process is manual and slows down the supply and distribution cycles, and plenty of room for human errors when data is entered manually
Desirability
Highly desirable for following reasons:
·                     Opportunity to reduce human errors, which is 12% of the total time
·                     A chance to reduce processing times by 50%
·                     Helps to increase onboarding of suppliers and distributors by 90% monthly can aid to scale the business rapidly
Feasibility
·                     Technology feasibility: Digital process automation solutions and integration technologies are available and mature enough to implement the solution(s)
Viability
·                     Cost viability: There are established tools in the market such as Dell Boomi (iPaas) and OCR technologies (Kofax) which could be tested on a subscription basis (try before you buy.) Amount invested vs. the ROI is around 56 % in two years
·                     Skills viability: Very active system integration partner ecosystem with strong credentials




In addition to the business cases, key professionals who will lead the digital transformation journey, gap analysis for IT modernization, as well as an estimate of investments required, should be identified.



Step 2.       Design and Planning
The “Bimodal IT Approach” by Gartner states, “Providers that fail to co-innovate with their customers will not realize the full potential of digital business.” [i]
To establish programs, design and implementation details are needed. One of the best ways to develop these details is to adopt the following three-stage approach concerning each business case:



3 Technology Service Providers Must Implement a Bimodal Road Map or Risk Being Left Behind;
April 4 2016, Gartner, Inc.

·         Design Thinking Sessions: To arrive at solutions to the identified program.
·         Proof-Of-Value (PoV): To confirm that the identified solution does solve the program’s business issue.
·         Formulating the IT Project plan: Based on the solution identified and learnings from PoV conducted, develop a project plan and get ready for implementation.



Design Thinking Sessions: Use of design thinking workshops, hackathons, and appropriate means the team must generate ideas to address business cases; i.e., create PoV to validate concepts quickly and cost-effectively. Gartner further suggests, “Mode 2 of Nonlinear IT is used where there is a need to be exploratory in the pursuit of new business designs, processes and models, and there is a prioritization of speed over reliability.” [i] This approach reduces risk and increases the chance of ultimate success of projects or initiatives.



4 Technology Service Providers Must Implement a Bimodal Roadmap or Risk Irrelevance and
Decline; Published: 7 December 2015 | Refreshed: 4 April 2017, Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates




To realize better results from “Mode 2”, a review of current literature on the subject combined with the experiences of the author, endorses an approach utilizing agile philosophy to take stock of the gathered insights to create maximum impact, increased speed of implementation and overall enhanced ROI. The winning companies are those that are “being agile” within an agile culture vs. just implementing or “doing agile.”



Sometimes the best ideas/solutions come from employees, because they may understand the problems better. Companies may get the best results when internal experts work in collaboration with external digital transformation experts. Whoever is engaged in design thinking, they should not lose focus on the problems users (customers) are experiencing during the entire journey. Best results of design thinking come when issues can be identified before users notice them and possible solutions are brainstormed during the design thinking process.



Design thinking itself can be broken down into a five-step framework for out of box thinking, utilizing brainstorming, prioritization and thinking without boundaries.



  1. Empathize: To find an appropriate solution, first, one must understand the problem from the user perspective and empathize.
  2. Define: Stephen Covey’s “Begin with the end in mind” philosophy applies literally to design thinking. Start with end-state and work backward. Design the future state of each process without regard to current constraint, e.g., shorten process turnaround time from days to hours. Reflect on the problem and define the problem and a plan.
  3. Ideate: The team imagines innovative solutions. Work with the graphics designer to draw pictures  of the issue, and various solutions discussed in the previous stages and repeat the process. Have the internal experts collaborate with external digital transformation experts who can solve more significant problems with a collaborative mindset. Internal experts know the domain, product, employees, and customers. Provide them with training and tools.  Find passionate, qualified consultants who can teach internal leaders and experts to conduct this work on their own.
  4. Ideate: The team imagines innovative solutions. Work with the graphics designer to draw pictures of the issue, and various solutions discussed in the previous stages and repeat the process. Have the internal experts collaborate with external digital transformation experts who can solve more significant problems with a collaborative mindset. Internal experts know the domain, product, employees, and customers. Provide them with training and tools.  Find passionate, qualified consultants who can teach internal leaders and experts to conduct this work on their own.
  • Slice the prototyping process into smaller portions. Test the service/product with real users for usability/acceptance of the same before investing substantial resources.
  • Use pretotyping techniques, gather feedback early, and process the outcomes scientifically. If it makes sense from the customer point of view, move forward with the idea/product or scrap it and move on to the next.
  • Look into creative ways of pretotyping - incrementally and empirically.

     5. Testing: During this stage repeat the process multiple times to identify weaknesses and                opportunities to improve the process or implementation.


“Design thinking, innovation, and ‘out of the box thinking’ do not come from ‘blinding insights’ or from episodic training programs. They come from a culture of open communication of ideas, and from approaching problems and solutions from different perspectives over time.” [i]




5. Results Oriented Digital Transformation: Overcoming 6 Pitfalls; Bala Guntipalli, Author / Sr. VP-Technology and Operations; November 2016, TechVelocityPartners.com


“Design thinking, innovation, and ‘out of the box thinking’ do not come from ‘blinding insights’ or from episodic training programs. They come from a culture of open communication of ideas, and from approaching problems and solutions from different perspectives over time.” [i]



5. Results Oriented Digital Transformation: Overcoming 6 Pitfalls; Bala Guntipalli, Author / Sr. VP-Technology and Operations; November 2016, TechVelocityPartners.com


Proof-Of-Value (PoV): The business case and the identified solution(s) in the above step must be validated and ascertained by clearly defining the PoV.

Depending on the circumstances more than one can be used. Appropriate approach will depend on the nature of the program and the problem it is solving. Some approaches are highlighted below:

  1. Hackathon: Helps in building prototypes in a short period. A valuable approach when the solution is dependent on cutting-edge technologies, and there are concerns regarding the feasibility of the technology.
  2. Minimum Viable Product (MVP): This might be valuable if the solution or problem being addressed pertains to the customer behavior. Therefore, building an MVP, which can be tested with actual users for accurate feedback, is the best way to validate the solution.
  3. Surveys: A cost-effective approach. This approach gets clear user feedback. It can be a very successful method if the target segment is either internal employees or partners.
       Step 2 Outcome: Based on the PoV and cost–benefit analysis, the digital transformation commitment team is now able to decide whether it’s worth pursuing the project. Hence one should expect some programs are dropped, and others endorsed strongly. 

       Formulating the IT Project plan: By now it should be clear which projects need to be pursued. It is vital that the digital transformation commitment team start planning for its execution, budgeting, and team creation. At this point, a formal project plan should be written and agreed upon by all stakeholders. Apart from the solutions identified through the design thinking sessions, it is recommended that the IT modernization projects also need to be a part of the project plan.

      Step 3.       Implementation
        By now the digital transformation commitment team should have a clear idea of what IT  
        projects / products need to be delivered. Based on inputs from the previous stages, work on specifications and expectations so that the IT team can successfully fulfill the requirements for transformation. The following approach toward each of the identified IT project is recommended.

    A.       A. Establish a Global IT Steering Commitment / Governance team: Establish a Global IT steering commitment/governance team that can prioritize, estimate and approve projects. The commitment team is comprised of an Enterprise architecture team, Functional SME’s and Business stakeholders.

o   Enterprise architecture team: Owns the Enterprise IT architecture, platform adoption and technology direction to all IT projects. Also gives estimates for the projects identified.
o   Functional SME: Owns the definition and direction of the IT project from the business point of view.
o   Business stakeholders: Govern the ROI aspects of each project, hence control the budget and other financial support for the success of IT projects.

A.               B. Establish the Project Specific Governance Model: Four key teams are essential for the success of the entire project portfolio.

o   Architecture team: Owns the project-specific IT architecture. They report to the enterprise architecture Team.
o   Engineering team: Owns the delivery of the IT project. Often headed by a project manager and consists of developers and testers.
o   Product owner: Owns the functional success of the IT project. Often dictates the functional requirements.
o   Sponsor: Owns the budget and overall success of the IT project.


A.             C.  Architectural Considerations: Some aspects of information technology are becoming a commodity with no upfront capital expenditure. Ever-growing social media networks are changing the dynamics between customers and businesses. Hence innovation in the form of digital services has become a necessity. Opportunities for open source technology adoption has lowered the barrier for entry to anyone with a good idea to start experimenting with new products or services. For businesses to stay genuinely competitive, they must embrace software innovation as a differentiator within a culture of organizational agility. 

       The following are five essential guidelines to keep in mind when building solutions and architectures that support the goal of agility.

·         Make the system fault tolerant: Things will fail, so develop applications to be resilient and handle failure, and not just prevent it. Deal with flaws gracefully and do not let the defects propagate to the point of causing a total collapse of the system.
·         Build autonomous systems that reduce dependencies: To be able to move fast and be agile from an organization or systems standpoint, design systems with dependency thinking in mind. Implementing “loose coupling” in teams, technology, architecture, and governance is needed. Autonomous teams and services enable companies to change things quickly as required by the business, without impacting those services around the whole enterprise system at large.
·         Domain-driven design: Often the real complexity in software is not the technology, but rather the ambiguous, circular, contradicting models that SMEs sort out in their heads on the fly. Humans can understand models given some context. These models and the context must be built-into the software to help users to be productive.
·         Consumer contract driven design: The relationship between service providers and service consumers is based upon a contract and there is an agreed-upon exchange that provides value to both. As autonomous services are built, service providers must avoid the mindset to put obligations on other teams and services that are out of their control or ownership. Instead, they should focus on meeting promises with service consumers gracefully and innovatively.
·         Design with the purpose in mind as one size does not fit all: It is essential to understand that distributed architectures (e.g., microservices architecture) that support agility, come with their own drawbacks. These architectures are optimized for problems that require the ability to change quickly. It may become difficult to understand the system holistically and may be substantially harder to debug problems.

       Design with portability in mind so that the applications can simultaneously be hosted internally and public cloud platforms. Designing architecture based on loosely coupled microservices and multiple small APIs for faster integration into different internal or external systems as this is more accessible than dealing with single monolithic API.

A.              D. Cross-functional Team: Below are some of the team members that are utilized across all projects, and often their contributions are undermined.

·         UX/UI team
·         Agile coach/scrum master
·         DevOps teams (some enterprises call them the Release Management Team)
·         Cybersecurity ninja’s


A.              E. Identify the Skill Requirements and Provide Pro-active Training where gaps are found. The following approaches are recommended.


·         Partner with training institutes for crucial technology skills training
·         On-demand online training subscriptions
·         Hackathon culture or in-house coding challenges
·         Budget for technology conference visits with training sessions
·         Partner with the right companies to help with on-demand, pay-per-use, and staff augmentation

A.              F. Agile Scrum or Kanban Methodology for overall execution: Evaluate the right agile methodologies that will work for the IT project.
·         Agile Scrum helps to deliver time-boxed features. This might be useful particularly in projects which are somewhat “from scratch.”
·         Kanban is famous for incremental improvements. If the IT project sounds like a modernization or migration, then Kanban might be a good fit.



A.             G.  Lean Software Approach: This might be useful in building Minimum Marketable Product (MMP). Keep the focus on identifying and developing the “MMP” features and then fine-tune the features (through user feedback) as the development progresses.


        Clear Objectives: Quickly introduce features that matter most to the users and onboard them sooner. Do not stop learning the users’ behavior as requirements keep evolving. Some hints for successful user testing process:
·         Identify those users who are receptive and motivated to provide the feedback.
·         Develop a reward mechanism to motivate the users to provide feedback.
·         If applicable use an A/B Testing paradigm. UX/UI focused projects can greatly benefit with this approach.

       Step 3 Outcome: The focus of this phase is to ship the solution to market as fast as possible to hasten ROI realization. If the desired ROI is not achieved, then probably evaluate if the project can be terminated and move on to the next.   
        
        The infographic below shows the before and after stages of digital transformation related to a Marketing Automation project.
        The client was using generic marketing and promotion campaigns which were not reaching the target audience. Therefore, the client failed to meet their customer’s expectations. By using big data and analytics, we helped the client run campaigns to target a specific audience with specific information.  Numerous studies were conducted using big data and analytics of the campaign efforts proved the effectiveness of up to 350% and generated up to 60% more revenue. 

       The Genesys omnichannel Engagement Center study by Forrester Consulting further proves that omnichannel engagement leads to better customer service, enhanced profitability and increased ROI. Benefits of $37 million over five years versus implementation costs of $14 million, resulting in a net present value (NPV) of over $22.8 million.[i]



6     The Total Economic Impact™ Of The Genesys Omnichannel Engagement Center Solution
A    Multi-Company Cost Savings and Business Value Analysis for Enterprises; Commissioned by Genesys in February 2016, and study conducted by Forrester Research, Inc.

       7 Results Oriented Digital Transformation: Overcoming 6 Pitfalls; Bala Guntipalli, Author / Sr. VP-Technology and Operations; November 2016,  Singular Technology Group LLC,  SingularTG.com

      Step 4.       Optimize & Enhance

        A successful implementation is often attributed to factors such as “high adoption of the product,” or “providing the desired output,” or by measuring “happy customers,” or other similar approaches.

        To achieve these outcomes, the focus should always be time-to-market, constant user feedback, and testing during the development cycles. However, what often gets left out is the opportunity for optimization. Therefore, it’s important to look at various ways of optimizing the project further after the initial delivery. Optimization is often a focus on cost savings (“reducing the financial spend” or “reduce manual workforce”) and to increase overall agility (“Increasing responsiveness”) for the delivered IT project. Technology, process, and culture play a vital role in the optimization and enhancement phase. Below are some ideas to implement these concepts. 

A.           Automation and DevOps:  This area increases cost savings and reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO.) Part of being agile involves building a robust delivery pipeline so IT projects / products can be delivered continuously and reliably.

A.           Cloud Usage Optimization: Most IT projects delivered today are software as a service (SaaS) and leverage public cloud platforms. Initial architecture design favors the design decisions towards easy to use infrastructure services rather than optimized infrastructure usage. There are various strategies such as “containerization” and “auto-scale feature implementation” that will ensure the resources used are minimum and yet enough to handle the current load. This could lead to significant cost savings.

       Test Automation: Post implementation, there is generally a ramp down of the IT project team, and a small group is retained for bug fixes, enhancements, and testing. Test engineers are required to do the regression testing to ensure the quality of the released application. Using test automation strategies and tools, the IT team can be reduced significantly. Establishing test automation takes time, but breakeven could be achieved in a few months rather than over a more extended period, resulting in cost savings. Test automation should not be an afterthought. It should be put in place up front as solutions are built following any methodologies (Agile, DSDM Atern, Waterfall, etc.) during Step 3.

  A.           Kanban Dashboards Ensures Service Level Agreement (SLA) culture: Kanban is a recommended approach for continuous improvement. Having a Kanban Dashboard, the flow of improvement tasks can be tracked and ensured for completion. They help establish and track SLA’s which guarantees the people on various tasks are held accountable.

  A.           Microservices Speed Up the Release of Software: Breaking application into smaller apps which are independent, yet can talk to each other, can make the application maintainable. Small or significant enhancements to applications result impacting the entire application causing more extensive testing or alter release time. By having smaller independent apps, the effect of a change is reduced inevitably, hence faster release of the software.

        Optimization is a phase in which the ROI has started to become visible at the end of the implementation phase, is now examined for additional ways to further increase. CxO’s and shareholders focus on ROI continually.  This needs to be part of every project and implementation.

        Step 4 Outcome: Cost reduction, reduced time-to-market, increased adoption of IT and products by employees, partners, customers, and vendors. Simplification and reduction of steps by streamlining business processes.

       Step 5.       “+ 1” - Consider Communication for Creating Cultural Buy-In

        The right amount of Information should be communicated at the right time, to the right audience. This applies to both employees and partners (internally) and customers and vendors (externally.)

        Culture: How to create and address culture inside each department and team members, so they understand and adapt to the changes faster? It’s vital to decide when to communicate, what to talk and the appropriate audience.  The steps below are a few examples that are proven to be effective:

·         Initial discussions with the core team (digital transformation commitment team)
·         Conversations with the internal digital transformation extended team
·         Interactions with external partners, suppliers, vendors, and customers

        To build confidence, these types of communications are vital. The message must be that “there is a new way of doing things.” This will initially cause confusion or inconvenience.  However, the results will be more user-friendliness and generally an improved working environment. Leadership should communicate that the pain associated with adopting the new culture or changing the way of doing things is temporary.  If the results of transformation are achieved, the future will be more productive for all.

        The best results for experimentation comes with agility. Leadership should communicate that the change in culture is required to achieve digital transformation.  Every employee and department should be aligned with the initiatives and adopt agility and lean mindset.

       “The best results are achieved by being agile - not by just doing agile. Doing agile is implementing cutting-edge Agile tools and practices in theory. Being agile, on the other hand, is about the mindset and culture. Like the difference between giving a man a fish and teaching him to be a fisherman. The longer-term and more reliable results come from a mindset – create being agile culture.[i]





        Step 5. Outcome: The IT staff will start to view themselves as business strategists using pretotyping techniques, agility mindset to build products that achieve profitability for the company and supporting the C suite more closely. Proactive attitude and leadership is visible at levels in Business and IT departments and they will start experimenting and innovating together to accomplish the company’s vision, mission, and goals. The entire company, partners, and vendors will become better oriented towards realizing company goals and better serve the stakeholders they support.

     Conclusion:
        For companies that get the business fundamentals of digital transformation right, they will not only improve their odds of survival, but also excel in driving profitability by penetrating new markets, providing optimized customer service and increasing revenue. Digital transformation is a journey requiring strategy, agility, and perseverance. Outcomes will vary, but through collaboration, communication and employing iterative methodologies contained in the Medha™ framework, leaders can build enterprises using innovation and digital solutions that can take them to the next level of success and profitability. 

        If you have found this article helpful, the tactics listed in the related article titled “Results Oriented Digital Transformation: Overcoming 6 Pitfalls”, initially published in November 2016, may also be helpful additional reading.

       This article was written by Bala Guntipalli, Sr. VP of Technology & Operations at TechVelocityPartners.com, a Global Technology Services Company offering cost-effective, and independent IT consulting services focused on digital transformation and other game-changing strategies. 

      Bala’s expertise and two-plus decades of experience include broad innovation, strategy, project management, product development, cybersecurity, P&L management, business development, and operations.  He creates smarter IT-enabled processes, supports strategic decision making around “partner or build” decisions, enables business strategies and digital transformation.  

      Bala’s expertise and two-plus decades of experience include broad innovation, strategy, project management, product development, cybersecurity, P&L management, business development, and operations.  He creates smarter IT-enabled processes, supports strategic decision making around “partner or build” decisions, enables business strategies and digital transformation.  

        Thank you to Steve K. Snyder, SteveS@TechVelocityPartners.com.com; CEO and founder of Third Meadow LLC, a corporate growth consulting firm, for his contributions to this article.
        If you would like to solve business problems cost-effectively or thinking of transforming your business into an omnichannel digital enterprise for a better long-term marketplace position, please contact me. We would be delighted to partner with you to accelerate your business success.

        Bala Guntipalli
        BalaG@TechVelocityPartners.com; 612 322 2470

     Forrester Consulting, Gartner and McKinsey are registered trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc., Gartner Inc. and Mckinsey & Company respectively.

       1. From disrupted to disruptor: Reinventing your business by transforming the core; Peter Dahlström, Liz Ericson, Somesh Khanna, and Jürgen Meffert; February 2017; McKinsey & Company;

       2. Neville, Laurence. “THE TAKING THE LONG VIEW: Crises Demand Attention, But So Do Long-Term Trends.” Global Finance, vol. 30, no. 4, Global Finance Media Inc., Apr. 2016, p. 8.

       3. Technology Service Providers Must Implement a Bimodal Road Map or Risk Being Left Behind;
       April 4 2016, Gartner, Inc.

       4. Technology Service Providers Must Implement a Bimodal Roadmap or Risk Irrelevance and
       Decline; Published: 7 December 2015 | Refreshed: 4 April 2017, Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates

        5. Results Oriented Digital Transformation: Overcoming 6 Pitfalls; Bala Guntipalli, Author / Sr. VP-Technology and Operations; November 2016, TechVelocityPartners.com

       6. The Total Economic Impact™ Of The Genesys Omnichannel Engagement Center Solution
       A Multi-Company Cost Savings and Business Value Analysis for Enterprises; Commissioned by Genesys in February 2016, and study conducted by Forrester Research, Inc.

       7. Results Oriented Digital Transformation: Overcoming 6 Pitfalls; Bala Guntipalli, Author / Sr. VP-Technology and Operations; November 2016,  Singular Technology Group LLC,  SingularTG.com


















  

























  










No comments:

Post a Comment