Digital Disruption - As your companies DNA gets strained by the digital march across traditional boundaries

I have been asked to present a short “digital disruptive” talk at our upcoming Enterprise World event.  I thought I would take a moment to share the core aspects of the discussion.   My session is titled Digital Expectations while Working Analogue.

Regardless of industry or type of business, manufacturing, resource, service, or government, none are immune to the persistent march of digital expectations of your customers.  The impacts are significant and some serious disruptive take downs as digital flexes its muscles.  The world is changing at a very rapid pace with impacts that we may not be ready for at the enterprise level.   There seems to be two very distinct waves that are impacting companies.   The first really lives and breathes where the company and customer interact.  The second more subtle and with a bigger impact spreads across the entire enterprise and demands rapid change.   It is to the second point that the comment digital expectations while working analogue applies. 

What do I mean by analogue?     I am deliberately using the term analogue counter pointed with digital to heft the idea that there is a digital demand that can easily shift the very nature of the company away from traditional operational norms.  Specifically, digital expectations by the customer will reach right into the operations or heart of the company expecting the same fantastic experience that is offered as the digital experience.  More on this later, let me describe analogue.  The first example: editing a vinyl Record is to editing Digital Music.  Same song, different technology some may say a richer experience (sound) from the vinyl record.  Arguably, the digital aspects of editing the same song in much simpler than that of the vinyl record.  One you have to go back to the original master and recast the record, while the other ships with many of today’s computers.  If your company based on the vinyl record that is a hard to adapt business processes and is faced with the demanding digitally disruptive unforgiving customer, where do you end up?

What expectations are shifting and are they really shifting?   Looking at various industries there different examples that show the double impact.  Some from the inside of the organization outwards and others from the outside in.  Example, the manufacturing industry has for many years been going through a slow march towards a digital experience from the production floor to the supply chain.  Most of the influence can be placed with the need to cut costs, deal with globalization, and shift to delivery schedules that marry with high efficiency supply chain to the consumer.   Another example, service sector or even government has been pushed by their customers to adapt rapidly from the outside in. 

The digital experience of choice booking an air ticket is slowly catching up to the actual travel experience in terms of interaction and access to information.  Smart city is slowly getting smarter.  Governments are now allowing citizens to use a single point of contact to get birth records or license renewals.  Before that was a multiple form, multiple department adventure. 

Regardless of B2B, B2C, B2G the slow march of digitization is happening.  Some earmarks that your organization is shifting may be, your customer’s experience, the needs to be mobile first, soon followed by self-service, and proactive customer interaction, operations data being supplied to customers, finally smart Ai will soon be your norm.  None of this will happen without realizing that there may be analogue processes that need to be unlocked so that data can be reused, shared, digitized to make the shift.  This is not to say your company does not function well, rather the impact as your companies DNA. 

As your companies DNA gets strained by the digital march across traditional boundaries there are great examples of where other companies have embraced technology to make the jump.  Definitely not an easy shift, something along the lines of changing a wheel while zipping down the highway.  Guaranteed not to be a fun ride.  Deciding if you are up for making the shift, is not really up to you, rather it is up to your customer, the incessant drive to change your companies DNA to be digital. 

What to do, to find out how digital your companies DNA really is, and can you shift to be more digital throughout your company.  We have developed a digital readiness guide to assist in the evaluation.   Use the guide thinking of the operations part of the company and not the already massaged customer centric digital efforts.  You may be surprised as to how far down the digital road you may or may not be.