Digital Transformation Five Years On
Key Insights
- Digital transformation is a journey, not a project. The journey is already years in progress, and it’s not clear when or where the end lies. Leaders need to build agility, resilience, and endurance into their companies and culture, being careful not to sacrifice resilience at the altar of efficiency.
- Many companies have broken digital transformation into a few key pillars (e.g., revenue generation, customer experience, digital workforce, Industry 4.0). A centralized and standardized IT infrastructure greatly supports achieving success and scale.
- The onset of COVID catalyzed digital transformation, but the ongoing pandemic is causing fatigue that’s hindering progress. Devising an adaptable but effective hybrid workplace will be critical to maintaining culture and attracting and retaining talent.
- Successful digital transformation requires new skill sets, possibly from other industries. Companies need to locate talent for design thinking and business architecture in locales that have been under the radar — and then integrate them into the hybrid workplace.
- IT cannot stand alone: both leadership from the top, and business unit engagement, are critical. IT provides governance, support, and recommendations to enable change, but full digital business model transformation happens only in pursuit of business outcomes, and without persistent and supportive C-Suites and Boards, it will fail.