Why a digital strategy & roadmap?
Digital is the big buzz around and industry applications of IIOT, SMAIC- social mobility, analytics , IOT and cloud , AI- Artificial Intelligence and ML-Machine Learning are evolving. Every industry sector and every job has a real potential of undergoing radical change and disruption in immediate times. Understanding the industry 4.0 context and potential impact of each of the digital capabilities is important before starting on a transformation exercise. Extent of process coverage and innovation focus of digital programs is a strategic organizational decision based on the market forces and risk appetite of the firm
A recent digital new business model program had initial leadership visioning leading to exponential growth aspirations, market force field analysis leading to a new market opportunity identifying unmet needs which can been fulfilled with digital platforms leading to decisions on new line of businesses. Executing this new digital business model required a thorough strategic planning exercise including financial modelling, organization structuring, product portfolio strategy, market sizing, pricing and operating model design, partner ecosystem, technology design and selection, KRA’s and control systems – the full mile of 7S.
Here are a few motivators for every digital journey to begin with a directional strategy and roadmap to begin with.
- Envision “the future of industry with the future of technologies”: Industries are being rapidly disrupted at an unparalleled pace. Software is eating businesses and itself. New players with limited past business history are rapidly changing the horizon. It is important to visualize the changes in industry ahead with the knowledge of these new business models and tech hype trends 4-5 years into the future prepare. This vision will help create direction for the digital investment plan for the next 2-3 years and minimize the risks of oversight
- Align to the organizational vision: Every company is different by their vision, aspirations, products, customer segments, core competencies and differentiators. A solution or idea that works for one will not work for the other. Intermittent assessment of the enterprise vision proposition and growth plans in the new digital capability context and changing landscape can lead to new exponential aspirational vision or a massive transformation purpose to pursue.
- Understand and build on current capabilities: It will be fatal to look at innovating capabilities across the organization value chain without conserving the current strengths. Understanding the current (business + IT) strengths and capability gaps to the customer needs is key to managing stability and operational risk. However current situation also provides a new opportunity for digital aspirants to leapfrog into a future league unconstrained by past practices.
- “Value for customer” and “Value for company” focus: Digital transformations are business programs with target business outcomes. With a focus on topline, this often starts with target of improving the experience for the customer. Organizations map customer journeys to fix gaps and enhance overall experience creatively thus onboard, engage and retain customers better. Digital operations help transform functional capabilities radically to influence revenue and costs. Organizations have limited resources and investment are prioritized in areas which can return the maximum bang for the buck- ROI. As different functional area are often unequally stressed in delivering the organization growth plans upfront stress to value analysis could help organization identify growth bottlenecks ( TOC) and thus stagger their investment plans
- Governance and change management: Digital transformations transcend traditional boundaries and are often cross functional. There could be conflicting KRA’s of each of these functions on a common program which need to be aligned first. Cross functional resource allocation to design thinking ideation is critical. Technology capabilities are delivered often through an ecosystem of partners who have dependencies between them and stages of the initiative. All these call for strong digital program governance in planning, budgeting, resource allocations and controlling. Old ways of business should give way to new practices and stakeholder change management plays a key role.
Organizations have typically 3 layers of technology systems – transactional (Core or ERP), engagement (e.g. the CRM and SRM collaborators) and differentiation systems (SMAIC enabled). Digital plan should include a phased approach with both the RENEW and NEW strategies. Creative solutionising should also look at rejuvenating the core along with digitizing the surround engagement and differentiation systems. Multiple solution options and technology partners are upcoming, here one needs to do a thorough desirability feasibility and viability analysis. New digital solutions selected will have to be designed compatible to the existing enterprise business, functional, information and application architectures.
A Digital strategy & roadmap including a target To-Be architecture and startup engagement plan is a good interim stage gate preparation before moving onto a full-fledged enterprise digital transformation journey.
