What is Digital Transformation?

IDC says it’s about becom­ing ‘cus­tomer first’.

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is a cus­tomer-cen­tric busi­ness strat­e­gy (San­dra Ng, Group Vice Pres­i­dent, IDC)

Gart­ner agrees and adds:

Half of the CEOs sur­veyed expect to see sub­stan­tial dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion in their indus­tries, or for their indus­tries to be almost unrec­og­niz­able with­in five years

It appears that the trans­for­ma­tion to cus­tomer-cen­tric­i­ty is going to remake indus­tries. Pow­er­ful stuff.

Transformation is not about new features

A lot of arti­cles about dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion focus on the ‘dig­i­tal’ piece; new tech­nolo­gies (like 3D print­ers or drones) that will enable new capa­bil­i­ties, or dig­i­tiz­ing exist­ing assets so that pre­sum­ably they can be lever­aged more effec­tive­ly.

This is lin­ear think­ing. While new tech­nolo­gies open up excit­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties, it doesn’t help us under­stand why dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion might make indus­tries unrec­og­niz­able with­in five years.

The journey to digital

Com­pa­nies have been ‘dig­i­tal’ for some time already so let’s focus on the word ‘trans­for­ma­tion’…

What has to be trans­formed to become cus­tomer first?

What are we trans­form­ing from? Where are we trans­form­ing to?

When com­pa­nies began their jour­ney to dig­i­tal, it was about access. Make prod­ucts and ser­vices, your process­es, avail­able online.

Access has been achieved. To a large extent, com­pa­nies and their offer­ings are acces­si­ble online. There’s more to do, but that more is about iter­at­ing, not trans­form­ing.

The vec­tor of dig­i­tal com­pe­ti­tion is trans­form­ing from your process to the cus­tomer’s expe­ri­ence. Click To Tweet

The basis of competition is the experience

If com­pa­nies are no longer com­pet­ing based upon ‘access to a process’ (since com­pa­nies are all online), what is the com­pet­i­tive vec­tor of the future?

This is where ‘trans­for­ma­tion’ comes to play.

The vec­tor of dig­i­tal com­pe­ti­tion is trans­form­ing from process to expe­ri­ence. More specif­i­cal­ly, from giv­ing access to your process in con­trast to bundling your process in your cus­tomer’s expe­ri­ence.

Mak­ing things dig­i­tal gets you to a good prod­uct.

To be cus­tomer first, to ‘dig­i­tal­ly trans­form’ your busi­ness, you must deliv­er a good prod­uct bun­dled into a great expe­ri­ence.

To become cus­tomer first you must deliv­er a good prod­uct wrapped in a great expe­ri­ence. Click To Tweet

It’s the abil­i­ty to under­stand and mod­el what it means to cre­ate a great expe­ri­ence that’s going to trans­form your com­pa­ny.