There is a lot of generic discussion on the internet, and in the market place, about Digital Transformation, Digital Blueprints, Digital Marketing, Industry 4, IoT (Industry of Things), 5G and other related areas. This is all great news, however the applicability and interpretation, depends on each organisation and where it is along its specific journey.
Digital Transformation is a large, high level concept for most people and involves the profound change of a business, its processes, activities and capabilities to benefit from the myriad of digital technologies to lead to a better and more successful future. To achieve this success from the journey requires a Digital Blueprint (a planning tool, document or process) that can guide the various tasks, priorities, people, budgets and projects in an orderly and optimised way.
All this is very good but what does it mean to each organisation and how can they digest it in a manageable way with their existing resources, business activities and focus ?
Well the answer may well be in breaking the apparently huge ‘monster’ down into tangible, meaningful and manageable projects and steps. For example, a business with historic, legacy systems which might be a mixture of old ERP or MRP systems, bespoke databases and spreadsheets, might want to focus on evolving to one common, up-to-date, ERP system with true real-time visibility of what is happening in the businesses; this could be internally server based or cloud (SaaS) based. Another business may have total confusion with their lead pipeline and not knowing what business is coming in and when; here the priority might be to implement a CRM system to get control and management of that pipeline so that the business can grow consistently. Yet another organisation may not be marketing itself as it doesn’t have a clear idea of its market place, customers and no methodology of how to market to them; here the emphasis might be on a clear digital strategy and implementation.
The reality is that most organisations do not tackle ‘the whole elephant’ at the same time, in one go. Rather they break it down into manageable, bite sized chunks, based on priorities and impact on the business.It can be useful to get a consultant or interim director in to help you understand what you need to do and when in terms of digital transformation. This is where I can help with access to a network of proven experts that can be called on to tackle your specific issues at an affordable price compared to the ‘big ticket’ consultancies and agencies.
