Four Essential Strategies for Digital Transformation

Editor's Notes

• #2 Hello and welcome to this session on strategies for digital transformation. My name is Mike and I’m from a company called Bizagi – which I’ll tell you a little about in just a second. First off let me tell you a little about my background – which includes more than 25 years in the IT industry. I’ve held executive positions for companies including: Reynolds & Reynolds Texas Instruments Compuware I’m also a published author and I’ve launched a dozen software products that have become industry standards.
• #3  That’s enough about me, so let me just tell you a little about Bizagi and why we have a credible voice in Digital Transformation. Bizagi is a Digital Business Platform Our software ignites digital transformation by enabling rapid process automation across the enterprise. What does that mean in practice? We help large businesses transform their operations for the digital age. How do we do it? By enabling agility in enterprise architecture, while integrating with legacy systems.
• #4 And these are just some of the organizations that Bizagi works with all around the world. Right now we have over 500+ customers in over 50 countries The experiences of working with these customers has made us both passionate and knowledgeable in the arena of digital transformation
• #5 Right, this is where we start. The mission is clear.
• #11 To get a deep understanding of the global status of digital transformation, we commissioned an executive study of over 1000 large businesses around the world Our aim was to find new insights and strategies for successful transformation, Answering questions like: How are large businesses finding the process of digital change? What are the common drivers of digital transformation? When and where are problems most likely to appear? What Bizagi can do to help solve these transformation challenges? So in the slides that follow, I will guide you through the research findings, highlighting the most important takeaways as we go. The result was a report that we named The Agility Trap, and we have a copy available for you to take away today But What exactly is an “agility trap”? Well, the agility trap is a concept that describes the event where businesses seeking rapid digital transformation run fast and get stuck due to organizational or technological complexity.
• #12 Perhaps one of the most important points about digital transformation in 2016 is the sheer scale of change underway. This is not a theoretical issue about a desired future state. Companies are in the midst of digital transformation and the concerns are real. 84% of organizations are undergoing either high or moderate levels of digital transformation 32% of business describe high levels of live projects in the area of digital transformation. With a further 52% stating that they have started but have moderate levels of projects underway. The key take away however is the amount of project turmoil reported: The research reveals that digital transformation is currently ‘a significant strategic challenge’ for nine in ten businesses (87%)
• #13 So we’ve identified that digital transformation is a big discussion point for businesses everywhere, but why? What is driving it? Why the urgency? Well our research indicated that customer expectation was the most important driver 81% think customer expectation is increasing the pace of change in their industry. That’s why so many are talking about thinking customer first, and being customer led. But this isn’t just the usual platitudes about “being focused on the customer”, this is more than that – today the digital-savvy-consumer is taking organisations on a journey they have very little control over, nor do they know the ultimate destination. It’s a massive shift of power to the customer. And businesses need to ensure they can react. For larger businesses this is much easier said than done, and it really does involve a fundamental shift in the way an organization works. But progress in this area is vital. Our research found that 73% agree that failure to respond quickly to transformation will result in commercial failure.
• #14 We’ve looked at the levels of transformation, and what’s driving the need for these programs. Let’s look at the challenges businesses face as they begin. So what is it that’s holding businesses back? Above all else, it is people, it is the challenge of cultural change 51% believe that their organization is either resistant to, or has mixed views about transformation. This is true even for businesses well on their way to achieving digital transformation (i.e. even on the face of this challenge, some success at doing it) Our survey shows that businesses with high levels of digital transformation are just as likely to be resistant to change as those yet to embark upon meaningful transformation. So this risk needs managing even when good velocity has been reached with transformation, and the risk never goes away. Interestingly, in our survey, the respondents were taken from both IT and customer experience related job roles yet they rarely diverged on the sentiments expressed in the survey. This shows that IT and BUSINESS share common goals, challenges and direction.
• #15 Overall, our research shows that the biggest barrier is complexity. 70% agree that internal complexity gets in the way of transformation. We’ve talked about how cultural complexity prevents progress, now let’s look at IT… - 53% cite the inflexibility of their existing systems as the top barrier - 51% cite time delays as the top barrier, that moving forward simply takes too long What we’re seeing here is a severe limitation that large businesses face when trying to transform A limitation that is not felt by new digital players entering markets and disrupting business models. The reality is that when big businesses try to transform, the results are not always what they need. This is often the result of focusing only on the front end (the presentation layer) of the customer experience, and not on the underlying technologies and processes that determine overall customer experience of your service or product..
• #16 THESE ARE THE FOUR THINGS THAT YOU NEED TO ADDRESS IF YOU ARE GOING TO SUCCEED IN YOUR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION We move now to focus on a set of four transformation factors that encapsulate the challenges business face when looking to transform. What we’ve essentially found is that to be successful, you need to turn a potential agility trap into an ‘ignition switch’ for your transformation strategy .. And that this should be the primary benefit of having tackled the issues described in this research.   We believe that the simple solutions to transformation success should be based on the following principles.  1. By understanding the drivers for change in you business [left box] you create the ignition switch of Strategic Clarity  There is no single driver of digital transformation.  For any large organisation, the rationale for investing in change will be influenced by a number of internal and external issues.   For example: Is it customers, cost-savings or competition driving change?  However, there is a need to clearly define and prioritize the causes for change.   To base something as pervasive as a digital transformation strategy on a general sense of competitive pressure will present obstacles in the implementation of any organisation-wide project.  2. Identifying the risk factors that influence transformation success demands responsive processes in your business There are many risks and complexities identified in the research.  It is impossible to mitigate against all of them.  Therefore, the operational processes supporting transformation need to be responsive to the evolution of the programme itself as it changes shape along the way.   3. Business Alignment Digital transformation brings together the worlds of business and technology in new ways.  Collaboration across traditional organisational ‘silos’ needs to be encouraged from the ideation stage onwards.  The right environment must be created to provide a balance of control and autonomy to knowledge workers and IT leaders in order to affect tangible business change.  Think about this for a second…Do you have an army of ‘can-do’ process pioneers to make change happen?  FINALLY, number 4: the use of ‘Wrapper’ Technologies We believe that digital transformation can only be achieved rapidly with the right technology solutions in place.   We describe our own platform as a ‘wrapper’ for IT infrastructure and transformational needs.  ERP systems are not easily replaced or transformed.  The potential of running a ‘two speed’ IT organisation to ensure time-sensitive transformation can develop in isolation of the slower-paced infrastructure needs can also be problematic for many businesses.   It is essential to think about how much of your transformation strategy, or initiative requires an infrastructure re-think? And what technologies can help you make an immediate start without expensive legacy upgrades or rip & replace.
• #17 So from this research, what should IT leaders take away? What are the most important actions? Well from that last slide let me just pull out here the two most important areas for IT leaders Overcoming cultural resistance to change, by enabling business and IT alignment how? Leverage a platform that helps you collaborate more effectively – move beyond the requirements document, leverage model-driven and agile development 2. Increasing levels of IT agility in existing systems – you cannot replace legacy systems, so instead think about wrapping them with an agile layer that can integrate and glue them together.
• #18 This quick example is from one of our customers - Old Mutual plc Old Mutual is an international investment, savings, insurance, and banking group with more than 16 million customers and over £300 billion assets under management– and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index.  This slide tries to summarise the problem Old Mutual faced.. In that a customer journey, no matter where it started (for example from a browser, or via a call into their call centre) would involve multiple steps, multiple touch points within the enterprise, many of which weren’t even felt or seen by the customer.. But all of which had a role in defining the customer experience. Each system touched when responding to a customer request or enquiry, whether customer-facing or purely inside-the-enterprise, comes with its own needs in terms of the user experience it should offer– some, such as the customer-facing layer, need to be simple, usable, personalised and secure… others, especially those used by employees and knowledge workers to support the customer experience, need to focus on agility, context and usability for the employee..  However, at Old Mutual, all systems, data sources and processes were initially disconnected, isolated and silo’ed. This led to a situation where: Over 10,000 product / business rules applied across 500 products Customer portfolio was fragmented across 11 different systems Over 1,000 process for employees to select from with over 450 service forms Physical docs /wet signatures were needed for 95% of processes  The end result: each customer touchpoint with the business (whether web, call centre or branch visit) was fragmented and highly unsatisfactory, with long queues due to separate experts being required to service or sell each individual financial product.
• #19 Old Mutual deployed Bizagi to quickly wrap-around this existing legacy landscape and provide a super-fast, agile process layer on which business & IT could come together to build process-centric applications focused on providing a single digital platform to shield customers & staff from complexity and deliver a unified customer experience across channels. End customer service experience was distilled into a focus on five, simple core offerings Rules governing core transactions were embedded into system with data driven processes across customer and employee facing systems A consolidated, uniform customer 360 portfolio view was availablefor all customer and employees to view On-line pre-populated forms were rolled out for all high volume processes
• #20 Any questions? (If not appropriate then invite them to come and speak to you after, either now or at the Bizagi stand)