Clarify the Myth and Misconceptions for Accelerating Digitalization

Digital transformation is worth its weight because of its high impact on optimizing business performance and driving the business’s long-term prosperity.

Embracing digital is inevitable as that is now part of reality. However, taking a journey of digitalization is a bumpy journey with many ups and downs. It could be misled because of the wrong focus, the wrong assumptions, the wrong ends, and the wrong means. It is important to clarify the myth and misconception in order to lead change and drive digitalization seamlessly.

Digitalization is not equal to digital technology: Digitalization is not just about one-dimensional technology adoption. It has to stretch out in every business dimension with people at the center of its focus and make organizations integrated, energetic, nimble, reliable, flexible, and fast. It requires both digital leaders and professionals to rethink how things are done in the business, and how to improve business performance and speed. The shift to digital cuts across sectors, geographies and leadership roles. It is now spreading rapidly to enable organizations of all shapes and sizes to reinvent themselves via harnessing cross-functional collaboration and fostering innovation. In order to survive and thrive amid rapid changes, companies must reclaim the right balance of standardization and innovation, process and flexibility, stability and change, competition and collaboration, etc. Digitalization represents the next stage of business maturity, which is not only about technical excellence or process efficiency. It’s also about being able to get all the way around the task and rethink the alternative ways to solve today’s complex problems. It is important to harmonize a hyperconnected and interactive digital ecosystem in which the business can grow organically and people can unleash their potential.

Digitalization is not a one-time change initiative: Doing digital is perhaps about playing some digital gadgets or taking a few actions, but being digital is the fundamental shift from the mindsets to behaviors. It is the long-term business transformation and it takes commitment and discipline to stay focused on the real priorities of the business instead of being distracted by what seems to be more urgent on any given day. Digitalization has to expand into every dimension of the organization with a structural approach. Thus, performing an organizational change impact assessment is very important to understand the 'current state' factors in digital transformation. Then, determine what the impact, risks, and challenges of any proposed changes are. The organizational journey is where the juice is in the organization, not just the destination. Those who lack vision are either incentivized incorrectly to focus only on short-term stability or quick win. Leaders must not only have the roadmap but track the journey along the way. Dealing with the challenge of digital transformation requires accelerated digital mindsets, leveraging multidisciplinary knowledge, taking end-to-end responses, and making changes as an ongoing business continuum.

Digitalization is not just about applying some best practices: Principles, processes, practices, performance, potential, etc, are all important perspectives of running a digital business. It is important to leverage a digital framework which provides guidelines, checklist, standards, processes, practices, as well as tools and building blocks to define and develop business competencies in order to manage a holistic digital transformation. Digital exploration is all about planning, designing, developing, operating, consolidating, integrating, securing, modernizing, optimizing, collaborating, innovating, balancing, investing and orchestrating. Before developing digital practices, it’s important to set updated digital rules which are not some out-of-date cliche or rigid processes to stifle innovation. Instead, they are based on the set of digital principles behind the methodologies, and they help to shape the mindsets behind behaviors and actions. By following the digital principles and rules, the business lifecycle could be viewed as resulting in emergent means of reorganizing, refocusing, rebalancing resources, and redirecting people to understand the whole, its components, the specific interaction among them, its interactions with external systems, etc, to ultimately achieve the seamless digital flow and high-level digital maturity.

Digital transformation is worth its weight because of its high impact on optimizing business performance and driving the business’s long-term prosperity. Digital businesses become more dynamic and hyperconnected, clarifying myth and misconceptions for riding those learning and change curves is particularly important for improving business responsiveness, increasing speed and accelerating business maturity.

Posted in: Digital Master,Digital Maturity,Digitalization,Principle/Practice