How to Make Digital Transformation People-Focused

Thoughtful Software Podcast

In this episode, Andrew and Fahad examine digital transformation with a focus on people and strong leadership, how digital transformation should be established at the executive level, ways to keep up with competitors, and how an organization can begin transforming in a way that is healthy for the business and employees.
Show Notes

• Over the next several years 6 trillion dollars will be spent on digital transformation and yet 70% of these initiatives will fail, those that succeed will only see 15 to 25% improvement.
• Start by transforming the part of the business that needs the most transformation.
• How is it possible to prevent the digital transformation from being spread out across a business but keep it contained? Parallelism - that which is computationally true tend to also be organizationally true.
• The more sharing between processes the less likely they are to be parallel.
• To prevent split-brain and stop parallelization, creating company-wide ownership is extremely effective because moving together makes a company tend to further.
• How to catch up with competitors? Worry about achieving outcomes as a company, and differentiate from the competition with digital strategies. Do not try to end up like competitors because they will beat you with experience, and they know how to be themselves better than you do.
• Understand what you want to be and the outcomes that will get you there.
• How strong does leadership have to guide a company through digital transformation? Strong leaders understand that culture is the only differentiator companies have, and the future is in that strong leadership where people trust that leaders will do right by them. Building a culture of mutual trust takes time and empathy. When customers and employees feel like they matter they will stay with your brand.
• Where to start /What Strategies to use? Think like a startup, don't try to be everything to everyone. Instead, be the best in a particular area for a certain type of product and then expand. Decide where the one place is that will have the largest impact on the business. Pull the data together and start there.
• Answer the important questions, get the data you need, and do it over time and you'll find that you'll fail a lot less often.

Resources Mentioned:

• Apple
• Google
• Microsoft
• Procter and Gamble
• Salesforce
• Ford
• General Electric
• Activision-Blizzard
• Amazon
• Walmart
• Uber
• Lyft
• Chewy

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