Industrial Automation Magazine India

True digitalisation can be disruptive and involves fundamental changes

Published on : Saturday 26-10-2019

Digitalisation is imperative but enterprises are still struggling with implementation. How can they begin the process?
Enterprise Digitalisation is happening at different speeds and at different levels of maturity and awareness across the organisation. While there is still a gap between ambition and execution the biggest hindrance to a successful implementation remains organisational culture and business acceptability of newer ways of working. Digitalisation is not a silver bullet and like any other business transformation initiative needs agreed outcomes, sponsorship from the top management, a pragmatic mind-set of business users to adopt newer ways of working and most importantly an organisational commitment to unlearn and relearn to embrace digital.

Enterprises often find it easier to implement the technology element of digitalisation while the true success in in embedding digital within the business which remains a challenging task.

True digitalisation can often be disruptive and involves fundamental changes to existing business models, processes and ways of working, the pace of digitalisation thus depends on the maturity of the organisation, some organisations are more agile and aware and hence are better aligned to implementing digital initiatives when compared to other traditional businesses where the rate of change is relatively slower.

The smart way to implement digital is to start small, identify use cases with a tangible business case where business benefits/outcomes can be demonstrated early and quickly without big investments. Use of rapid prototypes and well defined proof of concept initiatives could be useful. Engaging the business early and throughout the process so that impact of digitalisation on current processes is well understood and appreciated. Having sponsorship and buy in from the top management is also a critical success factor. Do not treat Digital as a technology only initiatives; in fact it must be a business imperative and a highly data driven exercise. Identifying clear business outcomes at the start is very important to measure success.

For many organisations, the stumbling block is the silos, which ironically, digitalisation seeks to break. Is this a classic chicken and egg story?
Traditionally organisations have operated in silos and technology implementation was done in silos. The legacy still continues when it comes to implementing digital.

Digitally native organisations whose business models, ways of working have been defined to be managed and operated digitally do not struggle from this stumbling block while other classic businesses whose business models have been operating in silos carry forward the legacy when trying to implement digital. In many ways this is an organisation culture issue and lacks an enterprise wide digital strategy closely aligned to business strategy and sponsored at the CEO or his/her next level.

Successful organisations implement digital top down with ownership with the business while technology playing a critical enabler role.

Is joining one of the digital platforms the only way for an average enterprise?
Joining Digital platform certainly helps in accelerating an organisation’s digital objectives without the need to reinvent the wheel but cannot be taken as the only way to digitalisation. Digitalisation is a wider and complex organisational initiative than adopting digital platforms. While many small and medium enterprises are seeing cost benefits from moving to cloud and subscribing to SaaS models, however the proof of the pudding is in integrating the business processes with the platform, rolling out across the business and ensuring stated business objectives, outcomes are achieved. Platform oriented architectures will continue to grow and we will continue to see wider adoption of digital platforms in different flavours using innovative business and commercial models promising efficiencies and cost benefits to enterprises.

Often, companies get bogged down in discussing technologies rather than outcomes. How should an effective CTO deal with this?
The CTO is an effective bridge between technology and business, meaningfully merging the 'Why' with the 'What' and 'How'. In the digital era, the CTO's role becomes ever more critical in ensuring that technology delivers the agreed business outcomes. In order for this to happen CTO should be an integral part of leadership team with a clear understanding of the organisation's vision and mission and what outcomes are expected out of technology investments. CTO is the single point accountable to drive the technology agenda while fully cognizant of the business agenda and must be adequately empowered by the CEO to make it happen. CTO office must work closely with the business teams to ensure the technical teams understand the wider business objectives and delivers to business delight and acceptance.

Finally, is multiplicity of vendors creating conflict in the process?
Organisations have benefited from vendor multiplicity as it gives choice and brings in a healthy competition. It is important for organisations to be well informed, have a well-defined process to deal with vendors, 360 evaluation criteria in place for selecting the fit for purpose vendor for the business need. As technology becomes more available and affordable there is a risk of losing the right product on the basis of price. Vendor landscapes will continue to influence the digital agenda of an organisation, conflicts arise when technology drives the agenda of digitalisation allowing vendors to dictate the 'What' and the 'How' while the 'Why' remain unclear. Such situation can be avoided by taking a business lead approach and aligning technology with the business outcomes through an effective process and governance.

Srikanth Arya, Group Head of Digital Enterprise, Enzen Group, is experienced business leader focusing on transformative enablement of digital technologies, with a strong domain and technology experience spanning advisory, architecture, systems integration, pre-sales, new business development and execution. Srikanth is specialist in delivering outcome based business solutions designed in direct response to challenges faced by customers now and into the future. Passionate about digital business platforms and their impact on future business models and ways of working. He has a strong track record in generating revenue and managing profitability, currently heading up a multi-million-dollar global business unit with full P&L accountability delivering 100% YoY growth for a niche global energy and water consulting and solutions business.