Digital Transformation As A Realization

 

Digital Transformation As A Realization

 

In reflection, we have been going through digital transformation since the 19th century and we have reached a point now where technology and technology tools have reached a point where we can begin to realize our dreams.  Science fiction writers have been discussing digital transformation forever and, in fact, we are now entering another significant time of digital realization because the technology has reached a point where the dreams of transformation can be realized.  These capabilities are now creating the next significant disruption that is driving new realization along with new waves of disruptions.  These new waves of disruption are being driven in large part by the dramatic increase in consumer acceptance, and embrace, of digital capabilities that has been driven by the necessary responses to the pandemic.

To paraphrase Arthur C. Clark - technology capabilities look very much like magic when initially introduced.  Consumers have embraced and are now weaving the technology ‘magic’ into their daily lives in ways and capabilities they would only have dreamed even 5 years ago!  These tools and capabilities are bringing new waves of disruption to the market as consumers and companies both experiment.  The greatest factor and force driving disruption now is not really the technology, it's the way that consumers use the technology combined with an impatience that will not wait for the market to catch up.  This is where the winners in the market will shine with a strategy of resilience and flexibility to allow them to sense and respond quickly to the continuing waves of disruption.

I see a key tool and capability that will allow companies to respond to the disruption is the tools and framework of process automation that will allow these companies to put together new processes across legacy applications to test the response.  This provides a significant value to these companies, the ability to ‘try before you buy’ the functionality in a pilot mode.  This strategy allows the company to iteratively develop and validate the process and functionality quickly without wholesale disruption in the legacy business applications.  The process automation concept, and especially the ability to automate across legacy applications, has been around for years. Now the tools and capabilities to meet the rapidly changing demands are coming together through a number of new and more robust RPA tool sets that allow organizations to react to the waves of disruption.

I would argue that legacy ERP applications do not require wholesale replacement and that the new crop of RPA tools can be utilized to modernize the legacy ERP through efficient integration with new tools. The enterprise financial requirements remain through the waves of disruptions and the legacy ERP implemented has been proven to support the financial business so this allows the enterprise to focus on response to the disruption rather than the herculean effort to replace the ERP.  These times of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) require tools that support the necessary flexibility and resilience to react effectively to the disruption and RPA tools provide the flexibility necessary to  

respond efficiently to the disruption.

Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners

Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition,  Here at my blog I regularly write about management and -technology trends.  To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'

Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Digital Transformation Starts With You and I

 

Digital transformation starts with your own personal commitment to digitize your personal and professional data to eliminate paper. This is important first to show your commitment to ‘walk-the-walk’ and second to help you to experience both the benefits and challenges from the digital transformation. I have personally committed to digital transformation for all of the reasons expressed for your business and market transformation, however the key reason for me is the ease of maintaining my personal records.  The first time that you quickly find an electronic receipt or a reference to a business question that was discussed in a meeting a month ago will turn you into a convert! 

Look at one example; the My Lowes customer account.  This is not a typical rewards card, or account,  because you do not receive discounts or accumulate points for rewards.  What it does provide though is a digital record of all your purchases and most importantly purchase details for future ease of reference.  A couple of examples of the benefits I've realized are elimination for a need to maintain receipts for returns and ability to purchase the same paint tint for a repair after I've disposed of any physical record and the most valuable example for me is the ability to return products without receipt.  Don’t get me wrong, rewards are an important feature of store loyalty programs, I think that these features provided by the Lowe’s program provide a pretty compelling encouragement to join.

A major challenge to any digital transformation initiative is the start-up effort to build out the framework and foundation of infrastructure to support the transformation.  Any transformation is difficult and the initial start-up must provide a reason and incentive to commit to starting the journey.  Digital transformation, whether personal or professional, is no different and requires the commitment to work through the initial challenges in order to benefit from the improved capabilities.  A personal commitment to digital transformation provides the basis and background for you to evangelize a professional business transformation.   

Fortunately for this movement, the tools currently available, along with the personal experience and acceptance of the digital age delivered by personal computing tools make the commitment a little more palatable.  This is a good thing for business digital transformation because it encourages people to question ‘why not’ and push for business digital transformation.  Every major successful transformation in my memory was driven in large part by the consumer interest and pushing business to change.  It really comes down to expanding and providing the average consumer the encouragement and incentive to embrace the change, once this initial hurdle is overcome the next step is business transformation.

We are at a crossroad now in the digital transformation journey.  Consumers are now embracing the tools and technology provided for personal use and opportunity.  I know that my own personal use of these new tools has dramatically increased as new capabilities have increased to the point where I too am pushing to extend transformation in my business activities.  The pandemic lock-down has also added to my push as I increased digital and video interactions in my work. 

The decision and action points are all converging into an increasing wave of disruption in the market.  The opportunity now is for us in business to embrace and encourage the embrace of these capabilities.  It is important now to review and revise your business strategy to support and implement a resilient and flexible framework that can respond quickly to the changes.  Do not make the mistake in thinking that you have time to respond to these changes!

Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners

Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition,  Here at my blog I regularly write about management and -technology trends.  To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'

Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

RPA As Transitional Bridge To Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is a wide ranging and disruptive strategy that realistically will take years. This strategy will also define the framework that will regularly and continuously replace technology tools based on the changing demands and continuous waves of disruption in the market. You must accept and support this concept in order to be successful in developing a resilient supply chain that is capable of suppurting these transformation efforts. You must accept that there will always be strategic digital transformation initiatives that will focus on areas of greatest return in value. Maybe most importantly, this does not mean that you can afford to only focus on a small number of areas because you will be left behind in the dust of market disruptions.


This means that you must develop a method that will allow you to ‘bridge’ the gap between your current legacy technologies and new technologies that result from market and consumer disruption. One very robust method to bridge the gap is RPA because RPA technologies will allow you to automate processes through the use of technology tools that ‘bolt on’ integration and work flow management capabilities to legacy technologies. There are many examples of these capabilities that bring great value very quickly to your business that will allow you to focus on other strategic initiatives.


I think of RPA as a key tool in your continuous improvement process that will allow you to quickly and efficiently prove out your automation initiatives and strategy. We can no longer afford large initiatives of wholesale change and hope they meet the initiative objectives. We must have a way to prove out the process quickly and RPA provides the tool to support a more resilient and flexible supply chain.


I hear many people stating that RPA is ‘just’ a new and updated method of the old screen-scraper technology from the 90’s in an effort to detract from the technology and encourage the focus on what they feel a better long term capabilities. I am afraid that this focus on the ‘perfect’ will delay the ‘good’ of value delivered quickly through RPA. This strategy is a recipe for failure in these times of continuously changing demands and waves of market disruption. The best course is a focus on resilience and flexibility to sense and respond quickly to the disruption.


My feeling regarding this view is that we do not have time to only focus on the perfect because, quite frankly, perfection will never be achieved. There will always be the new market or customer demand, the new technology, the new application, the new business process that will require inclusion in your strategy and your operation. The focus on perfection will lead to a business failure to meet the demands of your customer and this failure will cause you to lose customers.


Instead, focus on speed of delivery using bridge technology that will allow you to prove the concept prior to a large investment. This is the space where RPA will shine and you can move your business forward while implementing a more long term solution. The first step then is to define your resilience strategy that identifies your weakness in resilience and then use this information to select and utilize a robust RPA tool.


Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners


Thank you for reading my post on Linkedin in addition, Here at my blog I regularly write about management and technology trends. To read my future posts on LinkedIn click 'Follow'


Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.