Why Real Digital Transformation Means ‘Juicing The Orange’
Blog: Bizagi Blog
You don’t need me to tell you that a healthy business today is one that’s successful in digital transformation. We know that there are many organizations that have seen their business models turned upside down by disruptors, and when it comes to defending themselves against this threat, we know that most businesses are still trying to figure out how to do it.
When we talk about digital transformation what we mean is finding a way for the business to be more digitally efficient, and digitally engaging for its customers. Only then can you compete in the digital age.
For many that has led to a blank sheet of paper when it comes to a clear strategy of what to do next, but as businesses have started to find that kind of clarity we commonly see an even bigger problem, which is a real difficulty in delivering the change that’s required.
There are two main challenges; legacy technology and legacy culture.
Legacy technologies include all kinds of powerful but monolithic tools that are not very open to change. Think ERPs, ECMs and CRMs. For most this has already led to big bills and sleepless nights trying to transform the business around such systems. Changes and customization often dictate both big budgets and long timelines. The culture issue is similar in that the carefully perfected methodologies of delivering solutions and the very structure of management in organizations are inhibiting innovation.
This brings me to ‘Juicing the Orange’, which is a concept coined by Fred Senn & Pat Fallon in their book talking about how creativity can help organizations to gain maximum benefit from their advertising spend. But I think the analogy applies even better to the challenge of digital transformation because most large companies have these two things in common:
- Expensive, rigid IT infrastructure and a wealth of data, but little insight
- A workforce of IT and business users with knowledge of how the business work today, but little ability to change it.
If you can identify with these two things then the good news is that the answers are already in your business. The goodness is already in there somewhere and all you need to do is extract it.
In fact, ‘Juicing The Orange’ is the only way you’re going to succeed in digital transformation because there are certain things that can only be done from your own systems and with your own people.
OK. Sounds Great. But How?
Well I’m not sure that your technology or people will respond well to being crushed in the way that you would an orange…it might not bring the results you are looking for.
But wrapping something around your technology is a good place to start – something that will help your people to get the goodness (the insights) out of the disparate systems you already have.
Let me illustrate what I mean by that. To get the most out of what you’ve got you need to surround it, contain it and connect it using the power of process to connect your people, devices and information.
When it comes to your people, juicing the orange means giving each of them the power to do more, and that means empowering them to deliver change. We hear all the time about situations where IT and business teams struggle to deliver solutions fast enough, despite their best efforts. Although we’re well beyond the days when it was ‘IT vs the business’, we still hear that it still doesn’t feel like we’ve reached ‘IT & the business vs The World’. Organizations need to make a leap forward when it comes to collaboration.
Empowering individuals, whether they are IT or business users to collaboratively deliver digital solutions fast is the key – and it’s more achievable than you might think when you frame every operation or experience as a process, or a set of processes.
If you want a practical strategy for delivering some change yourself, then think of what you want to improve as a process, then digitize, optimize and automate that process. All you need is the right platform to do it.
Download your complimentary copy of ‘What is a Digital Business Platform?’ for more information on these intuitive but powerful technologies.
The post Why Real Digital Transformation Means ‘Juicing The Orange’ appeared first on Bizagi Blog – Ideas for Delivering Digital Transformation.
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