Reinvention by transforming your business core
PARTNER IN YOUR TRANSFORMATION
To accelerate your digital journey
As an extension of your organization, we combine our comprehensive capabilities, with your expertise and assets, for the entire lifecycle of your transformation, to accelerate your digital journey.
The Accelerated Impact Model℠ (AIM), our enterprise transformation model, focuses on continuous change, optimized operations and tangible results to help you build your future, execute with agility and speed, and operate with quality and efficiency. We support you at every step of your journey.
Industry leaders master six elements of a successful digital transformation - and reap the benefits.
Digital disruptions are hitting most industry sectors head-on, even if the effects are only beginning to manifest for some. Whether it's the rise of online commerce, new disruptive technologies, changes in consumer behavior, or new business models, companies are striving to catch each new wave.
The biggest players in an industry have been working on digital transformations for a long time, but most have only really started to develop new digital products and services and focus on digitizing internal processes in the last few years.
They could benefit from some important lessons learned from the progress made in digital transformation in other sectors. To name just a few of the most important: digital transformations suffer from half-measures; while pilot projects generate excitement, scaling them up to the enterprise level is difficult and often does not yield the expected results; after implementing a number of obvious measures, roadmaps tend to be vague or too narrowly focused, reflecting a lack of commitment; many small digitalization efforts focused on products are underway in a company, but there is no overarching strategy or central coordination and moderation.
Key Elements of Success
Our experience with various industries, such as media, entertainment, retail, and distribution, has taught us that successful digital transformations must be well-designed and solidly executed in six essential areas (see the figure).
To succeed in the transformation, it is necessary to be clear about the impact of each of the six areas on the others and understand the main dependencies between them
1. DIGITAL STRATEGY, TARGET, AND KPIs
Develop a digital strategy that takes into account the myriad of new ways to create value through digital technology.
For a digital strategy to become practical, it must be translated into a clear roadmap, with specific actions that are communicated to key people in the organization, who will execute them. To track progress and maintain speed, leaders must establish quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs). Among these indicators are the absolute number of digital products and services under development or the amount of R&D spending devoted to digital technologies compared to total spending.
In many companies, there is a strong tendency to support safe projects that bring incremental improvements. Focusing on a key performance indicator like digital R&D spending can help the company focus on riskier ideas that also have the potential to bring greater benefit.
Good key performance indicators should also address cultural issues such as employee satisfaction, organizational measures, or capability-related measures, such as the percentage of staff trained in digital or the turnover of digital talent.
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While creating a separate digital unit (A) or integrating digital activity within an existing business unit (B) are valid options, establishing a digital Centre of Excellence (C) is more relevant for most large enterprises, as units are usually large and operate relatively independently.
The Digital Competence and Innovation Center ("Competence Center") is responsible for setting the direction and ensuring that learning is widely shared. In this structure, the competence center has no P&L responsibilities but has its own budget, and each business unit (BU) has its own internal digital initiatives.
The Competence Center assumes three important functions to develop products and services, strengthen skills between BUs, and create external networks.
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Independent digital unit (A)
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Existing business unit (B)
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Digital Centre of Excellence (C)
3. PILOT PROJECTS THAT PROMOTE LEARNING
Digital transformations must have an extended scope and scale, and the on-the-ground action must be synchronized around digital pilot projects.
This occurs when small cross-functional teams create a prototype of something new, such as a new way to connect with customers or a proposed process improvement, test it live to gather feedback, and then iterate based on what is learned.
Most companies have already launched a few digital pilots. However, the mindset of failing fast and moving on, which is at the heart of the "test and learn" approach, has not taken hold at the scale necessary to accelerate transformation.
Undertaking a continuous series of test and learn pilot projects is the starting point of digital transformation. The essential actions for these pilot projects to work are as follows:
Provide initial funding
Allocate funds from the central budget of the Chief Digital Transformation Officer (CDO) to avoid any unnecessary delays in launching the project.
Form effective teams
Initially form teams with internal talent, supplemented by external staff if necessary. It is also helpful to partner with startups, as they can provide capabilities that large companies often struggle to recruit or develop internally.
When internal staff finishes their work in the pilot teams and returns to their previous role, they can become an ambassador for the new way of working and serve as a link to the digital unit.
Follow the "test and learn" method rigorously
Be clear on protocols and responsibilities so that teams understand how to fail
quickly and rethink the idea based on the lessons learned from failure.
Demonstrate success
Encourage the achievement of early results, which can generate excitement throughout the organization.
While the pilot projects are being implemented, the company must also standardize the approach to scaling digital solutions. Standardization can help accelerate projects by reducing confusion and creating common tools that large groups of people can use.
4. TALENT AND CAPABILITIES
To succeed in their digital transformation, companies must attract technical talent, promote proximity to technology hubs, and encourage collaboration between innovation teams and operational units.
5. LEVERAGE THE COMPANY'S ECOSYSTEM
In the digital age, collaboration with competitors and technology startups becomes a must
Given the myriad of disruptions experienced by various industries, success today requires the ability to collaborate in unprecedented ways with former competitors and new digital players, often based in technology hotspots.
Competition will no longer be limited to simply improving the products or services offered; on the contrary, a company's value proposition will increasingly depend on its ability to attract the right partners.
6. PROMOTE A CHANGE IN CULTURE AND MINDSET
To foster digital transformation, companies are launching programs for an agile and digital culture.
2. DEFINE THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
The companies that are most successful in their digital transformation organize themselves around one of the three main organizational archetypes:
Large enterprises are often bastions of conservative and traditional perspectives, so it is essential to foster changes in culture and mindset. Several major players have launched change programs to establish a digital culture and mindset focused on agile working methods across all their divisions and at all levels of the organization.
Three key actions can strengthen an organization's commitment to cultural transformation:
Encouraging Understanding and Conviction
Define what "digital" means for your organization and generate excitement by clarifying new digital opportunities and how they might transform the business and reshape the industry sector. In practice, this means making big bets and allocating real money and resources to support them.
Establishing Reinforcement Mechanisms
Create structures that support innovation and the company's digital goals; focus on memorable digital events to foster a sense of community. Empowering frontline workers is essential - for example, according to our experience, by providing them with data to help them make better decisions when interacting
with customers. The flip side is holding people accountable for their work.
Presenting Digital Role Models
Publicly and frequently reward models within your teams who act innovatively and digitally both at work and in their life outside of work.
Do you want to learn more about the success factors for your digital transformation?
THE ACCELERATED IMPACT MODEL℠
Reinvention comes through a transformation at the heart of the business
Digital transformations often require technical capabilities (such as software development, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence) that traditional organizations lack.
To attract talent, companies must offer attractive working environments and the right incentives. In cutting-edge fields such as machine learning or analytics, establishing offices near technical hubs allows talents to be close to like-minded experts and also helps to better position a company in the digital ecosystem.
It is preferable for ideation and prototyping teams to be physically close to the core business. This facilitates cross-functional communication and helps to spread an agile working method within existing operational units. There may be a lot of knowledge and creativity already present within the existing employee base. Activating this talent is another factor in sustainable digital transformation.