Digital Transformation:
The Reboot
Re-Imagining Business
Using all the levers
Development Bank of Singapore (DBS): Using all the levers of DT to build the “world’s best bank”:
1. Be digital to the core.
2. Embed DBS in the customer journey.
3. Create a 27,000-person start-up.
Source: LEF Research – A Tale of Two Missions: From IT Modernization to Business Transformation, May 2019
The term digital transformation is overused and misused, as evidenced by LEF research. This misrepresentation of organizational change highlights a missed opportunity for organizations. By getting clear on disruption, threats and points of inertia that inhibit change, leaders can pinpoint key areas of focus required to effect true digital transformation.
Successful organizations have a deep understanding of the level of disruption within their industry and apply appropriate plays that drive sustainable transformation. To address this challenge, LEF uses a model of change supplying both short- and long-term missions. Our work focuses on helping business and IT leaders choreograph change based on appreciating how disruption impacts the enterprise across different industries and highlights the importance of a balanced approach to IT modernization to remain competitive.
Making sense of complex change
Understanding each of the three primary spaces is critical, however, the overlaps are equally important.
Key characteristics of this model for change include:
- The force for change comes from disrupting the industry on the right.
- In our work, DT encompasses transforming the enterprise & modernizing the IT foundation.
- All of this is underpinned by people transformation, culture & strategy.
But there’s a danger that these spaces become missions in their own right; going too fast, accruing technical debt or building walls of inertia between teams.
Another common problem is organizations investing a lot of effort in the IT modernization space but not enough in the other two spaces, inviting the danger of being disrupted. To share a common example, tinkering with IT infrastructure is futile for any player in the entertainment industry, which has already been comprehensively disrupted. Similarly, manufacturers that make their existing business data-driven, but fail to see new tech such as drones, car sharing apps and the sharing economy, risk becoming dependent on legacy products.
Transforming in step
Organizations wishing to evolve within their sector must both understand future disruptors and put their IT house in order.
LEF helps you think deeply about your markets, in terms of physical infrastructure and product (‘atoms’) and information and data (‘bits’) to clarify where you’d like to play.
For example, Philips shed its lighting businesses to focus on digital healthcare and gain greater returns.
It’s the sequencing, or choreographing, of activities across the three spaces that presents the greatest challenge; this is where LEF makes a difference.
Workshop agenda
This workshop teases out thinking about future disruption by encouraging delegates to baseline their terminology, understand where they are and their context within an industry (or industries), and ultimately identify the plays to shift their game.
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Workshop session
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Outcome
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Introductions & objectives
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Set expectations
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Set the scene
Reconfirm outcomes desired, understand & align goals
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Level set language & vocabulary; build confidence in approach
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Agitate: digital transformation – situation paralysis
Explore DT & three key types of change; identify disruptors & innovators in your sector
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Situational awareness of where you are at within your industry in terms of disruption
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Activate: identify your barriers to success
Assess where you are, where you need to be & where to focus attention for the next six months
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Review, refine & discuss true present position
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Activate: which way forward?
Explore options, existing commitments & identify likely resistance; confirm which actions will deliver best outcome
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Identify & remove barriers; discuss options to move forward
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Accelerate: accountability & commitment
Evaluate if you have necessary executive buy-in; agree what else is needed
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Debate & agree options; reboot action plan
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Action: confirm what next
Review outcomes, timescales & agree accountabilities to progress journey
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Agreed action plan
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Identify short to medium term challenges & opportunities of digital disruption in your sector
Create a company-wide plan for change
Learn how to choreograph change across
three spaces of disruption
Balance priorities & keep the endgame in sight
