This organisation is a stock-market quoted firm owned by shareholders rather than being a family-owned business. The dilemma faced by the C-Suite was whether decisions should be made to benefit themselves, benefit the shareholders or benefit the long-term sustainability of the enterprise, which would have positively affected a much wider range of stakeholders.
My esteemed colleague Adrian Reed put a fascinating post on his blog this week regarding thinking beyond customer journey maps which was a great read for two reasons; first, it was a good provocation for anyone doing journey mapping (I particularly liked the concept of ‘service’ journeys and secondly because I was running a mentoring group that very afternoon and had not got anything to hand. Once I’d read Adrian’s article I knew I had a topic!
Strategy creates competitive advantage,
People and a culture of innovation sustains it and
Technology and communications are the means by which it is delivered.
Digital transformation may sound easy, but it’s not. Especially when, there are so many different understandings of this buzzword around the world.
Of course, it’s a journey which will change with the technologies you adopt and bring into the people, processes, and culture associated with your company. Before understanding this buzzword, it is important to know what a Digital Transformation is not.
Many organisations misunderstand digital transformation.
Digital evolution is an ongoing journey for every business.
Gone are the days of saying that you have ‘done’ digital after a major technology overhaul. Instead, it is an evolution to transition and optimise your business continually. Even digitally native companies know that they have to innovate and stay ahead of the game because of growing disruption and rapid technological change.
Michael Porter, the famous Harvard Strategy Professor said “If we’re satisfied with vague strengths and weakness lists, we’re not thinking very clearly about strategy”. “There’s a distinction between operational effectiveness and strategic positioning”.
“Should we be on the cloud or have our own servers? That’s an operational effectiveness question. What we understand is that operational effectiveness is not strategy”.
I have had a few requests from people asking to contribute to this blog. This is the first time that I have accepted though. I think JB (who wishes to remain anonymous) has a strong understanding of what is required to be a great leader and I am happy to have her contribute. Enjoy.
We never cease to be amazed by how many mid-large organisations we engage with that do not have effective tools and processes in place to forecast, plan, measure and report work. Yet these same companies expect their managers to drive improvements, to continue increasing revenue and profitability.
Every leader has a strategy. They might not call it a strategy; it might not be clearly articulated and thought through; it might even be a bad strategy. But somewhere they have in mind what they want to achieve, why they want to achieve it, and how they hope to achieve it.