Digital Transformation for Dummies

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Digital transformation is a mighty big word (even though it's two words).

For large organizations, transformation approaches tend to be well defined, centrally driven, funded and highly coordinated activities that have top-down support, at least within a division. Approaches vary greatly, but in general they write their own book and skip the dummies version. In contrast, very small organizations tend not to use that phrase and instead may merely seek to merely use whatever bits and pieces of technology and cloud they think can help them with immediate tasks.

Fertile but rocky ground is located within small to medium sized organizations. They know that digital transformation is a good thing, add it to the year's strategy and goals, hire cloud-savvy resources and watch the transformation occur... at least that's the intention. But, lacking a full understanding of the "why", efforts may flounder and produce mixed results heavy with failure and increased costs. Execution may get stalled within organizational silos and traditional patterns of doing business.

So, what is the right way of thinking about it and why transform at all?

It all starts with the supposition that most companies today are I.T. companies at heart, meaning that I.T. is either critically necessary for production and delivery, or that the products and services themselves are I.T.-based at their core. Positioning the company for success means doing things that give the company a competitive advantage in the marketplace and- technology is often the key enabler in reacting to threads and opportunities quickly. With I.T. serving as the key enabler, investment should result in measurable outcomes on the business side.

Unfocused investment merely produces results that fall way short of what you would connect with "transformation". More likely is small, if any measurable increase in the timeliness, quality and quantity of products and services, increase in market share, or whatever the particular industry cares about.

Transformation also needs to occur within the organization. Traditional silos and boundaries between components within an organization need to be re-examined and modified. In particular, the Successful investment is tied to outcomes and these may also require some degree of alteration to roles and