20 Nisan 2015 7628 0 TRANSFORMATION MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGY Hakan Aksungar
We are hearing this concept regularly.
"We are digitalizing!"
"We are making digital project."
"We have started Transformation"
"We have took a step to be customer oriented."
"We have done this in mobile and realized this! We are like this in social media"
etc.
This so called Digitalization is much of Digitalization actually? In some it it only the name. Digitalization in some are just a start to transformation but have diverted on the way and in some there is even no transformation. In short most of them are not actually transforming. When you listen the experiences and plans who claim that they have done it or planned to it, and take a look at the outputs, there are only few around the world who actually did managed that.
But why?
Companies are entering this business because it is trend or they have to. Some of them build economic models, do cost benefit analysis and maybe make a technology change or development project and call it digital transformation Some of them are trying to do something from what they have heard around since the company is in bad situation but these are not more than a couple of technology change projects. Some of them have to make infrastructure investment, and tries to make everything digital since it is the new trend, some of them do not want to spend money, some of them tries social media like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and than call it transformation of digitalization.
Is it this simple? No it is not. But it is this cheap. It is required to interpret from customer, process, business model and digital competence side. It is required to link with strategic entities. This means investigating how you do business. Maybe for some people who know the job or at least experienced it ones or twice it is easy to do it but since the process includes the employees, they need to believe and chase the objective, it is hard to do it. But it is possible.
How ?
Only by taking into hand the two aspects. Digital and transformation.
Compared to your competitor or increasing demand of customers and employees how much are you developed int digital competence? How much are you investing in mobile, analytic and social media technologies? Are you making technology effective business transformation? How well your IT competence? How are IT and business units? Can you invest in correct projects and skills? When you search answers to such questions some of them can be related with needs and expectations to form a project and call it digital transformation is a wrong ending. Because this is only the digital aspect. Which is the answer for "WHAT" question. The missing question is "HOW" The key of successes is "HOW" and the answer is the size of transformation.
I am asking the questions above to the ones who claim to did digital transformation, who is doing it and who will begin to for it. Can you feel that this process is done by the upper manager of the company or what does the upper manager do in transformation? Does the effective and authorized majority of the management believes that this transformation is needed and done with the feeling of emergency? Can this effective and authorized majority feel a unity? Is there a common vision? Does this vision continuous and covers all the subjects? Before the brains does this vision effects the soul? Is everyone engaged, is the coordination good? Is there necessary touch, editing, change and cleaning in this vision no matter what the obstacle is? Is there short term objectives to keep the motivation and is there fast gains for success? Can the transformation become widespread and engage with culture? As a result of the transformation is there new businesses? I recommend y9ou to honestly think of these questions and than decide. The ones who are not honest and just deceiving themselves will notice that they can obtain results from investments, they are not competitive, they have problems in new investments, the employees are loosing hope and beliefs due to mistakes, credibility problem within and outside the company, there is a psychological issues to continue transformation and they are not a united management. But can they be honest even if they notice it? They will find an excuse to tie things up to market dynamics, economy, regulation or consumer.
It is not an easy topic to be explained in just a few lines. There is a need to go deeper and talk about the big picture, strategic concepts, competence, skills, structure, roles, responsibilities, levels, methodology, techniques, tools, learned lesson, how to approach certain situations. To sum up it is all about how to be successful in Digital Transformation It is hard to achieve these results ont he books with a couple of meetings or consultancy. There are may information, examples consultants without any practical experience on transformation and books, there are answers to every problem but the unnoticed questions are still not answered. The worst side is the owner of the transformation cannot see it. In the real life there are many variables and at this point you will notice the unanswered questions like where did we do wrong or what is missing and the answer is simple. They have not searched for transformation management experience or used it.
I would like to say this last thing. The ones who have not transformed appropriately will fall behind in the competitions. In this period digital transformation is not changing the use of technology, it is changing the way of doing things.
In another words it is not about technology, it is about management and people.
