A few weeks ago, we launched the Transforma Insights User Group, a new member community for technology adopters who are responsible for their company’s digital transformation.
The main driver behind establishing the User Group is to create a community of executives (which includes Chief Digital Officers, those working in Innovation Business Units, and similar) to share their experiences and best practice in deploying technologies such as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain. That sharing between the members will also, of course, be complimented by the Transforma Insights analysts providing our perspectives on all the latest key technology trends.
While the discussions of the technologies themselves will be important, we actually expect those discussions to be eclipsed by a more important set of conversations: what do enterprises need to do to adapt their company to best take advantage of the technologies. In a blog post a few months ago I shared some perspectives on the process, business model, finance, people, partnership, systems and culture change that is likely to be necessary, not to mention the change management that is implicit.
It’s also worth noting that in the Transforma Insights webinar back in July entitled '7 ways to harness AI, IoT and other disruptive technologies for competitive advantage’ (which is also available on replay to User Group members) we focused not on the technologies that you need to use, but on the commercial and operational strategies you need to make sure that you are best able to harness (or avoid) disruption when it comes. So, the focus is on horizon scanning, project prioritisation, project team organisation, organisational flexibility, and (the aforementioned) change management, amongst other things. Getting Digital Transformation right is 90% about putting in place the business building blocks and only 10% about the technology.
Interestingly enough, as similar major theme emerges from Jim’s recent report which was written exclusively for the User Group ‘2020 Review of Top Digital Transformation Use Cases and Technologies’ which walked through all the impact of Covid on how organisations might be thinking about Digital Transformation. The most important impact wasn’t directly due to the emergence of new technologies, but due to the changing working patterns that have been enabled or encouraged. Remote working and increased globalisation is one key theme. Jobs are increasingly footloose. I chaired a session at the Digital Week Southeast Asia event this week on the changing digital skills requirements in Thailand, and one of the interesting potential opportunities for that country was for footloose employees to relocate; maybe rather than WFH, in future many of us will WFT (work from Thailand). Or, maybe it’s just the jobs that will move, not the people. Another major theme was the requirement for supply chain diversity and resilience, plus the strong potential for greater on-shoring of manufacturing. The technology capabilities that enable these changes are certainly not the complex part of the equation, it’s the operational changes that need to be made.
This idea of focusing on the business outcome rather than the technology permeates what we do in the User Group. Every quarter our focus switches to a new business theme. For 2021 these include the demands of a post-Covid world and how technology is being used by businesses to adapt, how to scale and build resiliency at different stages of digital implementation, using data to drive competitive advantage, and how best to meet your ESG goals. The quarterly schedule includes podcasts, on-demand, and live case studies, exclusive reports, webinars, deep-dive interviews, interactive panel discussions, and exclusive roundtable workshops.
You can learn more about the User Group here, where you find more information, request a call from our team, or sign up (for free until the end of March).
