Today, I would like to talk about various positive effects that an organization could expect after replacing document-based processes with others based on data resulting from applying formal architecture practices and using industry standards.
Let us start by mentioning a wave of digital transformations that spans over every corner of the globe. The companies interpret the term ‘digital transformation’ as a combination of ‘cloud migration’ and ‘user experience upgrade’. They expect to reduce the total cost of ownership of their systems, improve the company’s security and sustainability postures as well as improve user experience. Even though the intentions are great, that is not necessarily what digital transformation could be. Digital transformation is a comprehensive process of leveraging digital technologies to fundamentally change how businesses operate and deliver value to their customers. Keeping this in mind, please consider a couple of points:
A) Are you sure that removing any paper forms, using mobile technology and including social media into the picture gives you any competitive advantage? Does it? It is just a new norm, most of it has been known and used for years, and maybe your organization is just trying to catch up and stay in line.
B) Will simple lift and shift of your systems to a cloud immediately provide cost saving or performance improvements? Probably not. More likely, you need to rationalize the portfolio and rewrite and re-integrate many of the systems, which is not a just a cloud migration but sometimes a massive re-do, and the value largely depends on how you do it.
So, what is fundamentally changing for a business when they are doing this transformation?
I want to put this into some perspective. Transition from Road Atlas books to GPS devices completely changed the way we think about road trips. We got access to real-time navigation, dynamic route adjustments, turn-by-turn directions, accuracy, precise location, arrival time, speed information, points of interest, and much more. The opportunities are endless now because business has completely changed. It transitioned from pictures to data and now that data can be used for everything data is good for. And this is my point: companies are moving in the same direction and reshaping their IT. However, not too many companies use this opportunity to reshape their Business.
Take that GPS example. What could a company do to achieve a similar effect? Well, let us look at business strategy lifecycle which is that engine that drives the entire company forward. It includes a few steps from strategic planning to strategy formulation to strategy execution and following ROI realization monitoring. In most companies this process is document centric. An electronic document is still a document; therefore, a process that relies on documents is inherently inefficient, which is causing information starvation, decision latency and higher costs. As those documents often need to be interpreted, the process also involves Subject Matter Experts or SME complemented with their subjective judgement and human errors.
The situation can be improved, and we are not talking about saving pennies here and there. Your company might free up millions of dollars and have the order of magnitude performance improvements resulted from one critical change: replacing documents and subject matter experts, who complement those documents, with data being available on demand. This change will cause an explosive effect, very much like a transition from a road atlas to GPS. It will empower your business with new capabilities allowing innovation and experimentation, real-time navigation, dynamic route adjustments, turn-by-turn directions, decision accuracy and more. It short, it will bring the company to the competitive edge, and that is the essence of digital transformation.
The following picture shows you a trajectory that an organization should take to digitize their core processes:
With a time-boxed effort, without sacrificing anything and without massive investment, your company can get the benefits of improved decision making, reduced risks, and lower costs. It can be done quickly, while only a small fraction of the saved funds would be needed to cover the initial cost of this transformation.
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