Creating a Digital Ready Organisation
by Sandeep Nahata
There’s no denying that technology is completely reshaping our world both at home and at work.
Ready or not, technological innovations are constantly changing the way we do things.
This is usually in the name of making life easier, quicker and generally more efficient or more productive. Even if you don’t see the benefits of taking on this new technological world, we can no longer afford to ignore the changes. If you don’t adapt, someone else certainly will.
Why get digital ready?
With technology now available for everything from analysis and insights to mundane admin, digitalisation is more than just adopting a few automated processes. Today, digitalisation means integrating technology into almost every aspect of life and work.
While it’s nice to make life easier and be more efficient at home, the importance of efficiency of productivity is far greater in the workplace. Doing something quicker at home means more time to relax, doing something quicker at work could mean saving significant costs.
Innovations like cloud platforms, machine learning, mobile solutions and the Internet of Things (IoT) are improving everything from the breadth and speed of communication to the quality of data and insights at our disposal. Businesses are increasingly using these technologies to making better decisions, improve productivity and increase efficiency. This translates many being able to cut wasted costs, capitalise on profitable opportunities and streamline processes for a better working environment for all.
Of course, the biggest benefit of digitalisation today is simply remaining in the game. Whether you see the benefits of digitalisation to your business or not, no organisation today can afford to put it off any longer. More and more are taking on technology in the workplace with increasing success. Any business that ignores digitalisation is at risk of being left behind completely.
Taking on digitalisation: A digital ready workforce
You can digitalise every aspect of every business function, but to encourage a truly digital first work environment you need to create a digital ready workforce. People are not only the backbone and driving force of every business process, but they’re also the only way to ensure that a digital mindset is integrated fully into the business culture for lasting success.
Whatever the company is doing now, it is the wrong thing to be doing two years from now.
Success depends on people doing things in the future that are different to what they did in the past.
Any business process designed more than three years ago is out of date.
The fundamentals of digitalisation
The foundation of any digital ready business is an understanding of the fundamental truths of digitalisation. Without an understanding of why and how to change, people will struggle to do so. While it is true that change can be seen as risky and something to avoid, people are usually happy to do so once they realise why it is essential. There are three main truths of digitalisation that everyone should be aware in order to take on the change.
The characteristics of a digital ready business
Once everyone understands that regular and rapid digital change is essential to the progress and success of the business, you can begin to look at cultivating the characteristics of a digital ready organisation. The concept of an “organisation” itself is people forming relationships to working together with shared resources to accomplish common goals in their roles. Using technology to strengthen and enhance relationships, resources and roles is key to creating the characteristics of a digital ready culture.
Breaking down the walls of geography and hierarchy
The best digital organisations are the ones that use technology to break out of their silos. Where as previously businesses struggled against the inefficiencies involved with having one person at the top controlling resources while others had to report up and make requests, technology is now breaking down these barriers. Similarly, companies are no longer siloed in regional areas or even countries.
Today, digital ready organisations can see people reporting to a manager to a different city to the one they work in work with people and access resources across the world to achieve common business goals.
Helping employees design and evolve their own job roles
In a similar way to the ‘open-plan’ approach to geography and hierarchy, technology is also enabling employees to have more freedom and choice over how, when and where they work as well as who they work with. Digitalisation has enabled companies and employees to work together to redefine the job roles that are needed and how they work best so they are always evolving to better meet business goals.
Instead of being restricted to a single job title, employees can branch out and shift their focus to other projects and activities that meet the current requirements of the business. They can also more easily and quickly collaborate with each other to share ideas and skills, while accessing more resources than ever before thanks to innovations like cloud platforms.
Ensuring functions work as equals
While companies evolve eventually to have separate functions and roles to manage aspects of the business, every business actually just starts with people. Starting out with little to no resources and having made no profit yet, it’s people coming together to come up with ideas and strategies based on a shared vision that drives the initial success of the company. A digital ready company is one that uses technology to get back to this more agile state while retaining the important functions that now help manage the much larger organisation.
The CEO, CFO, CHRO and CIO and they respective functions should all be able to work together to achieve their singular vision while simultaneously utilisation technology to improve the operation of each individual function. Instead of the CEO and CFO having more importance over the other functions with their management of finances and focus on profit, digitalisation is allowing all of them to work as equals.
Thriving on change
The key to being digital ready is simply thriving on the change that digitalisation demands. Understanding, accepting and driving change helps businesses stay agile and adapt to the ever-changing technological world. This essential to keeping a competitive edge and staying successful. By capitalising on change instead of resisting it, companies will adapt to more productive and efficient processes much quicker than their competitors.
While digitalisation may sound like a dream, it’s not all roses and sunshine all the time. The fact is becoming digital ready takes dedication and hard work, and it’s not without its challenges along the way.
The final step to becoming digital ready is identifying these challenges and revisiting them so that solutions can be found and implemented. There are 6 main challenges that companies should be aware of. The important thing to remember about these challenges is that they are ‘perennial’ and never fully solved, hence the need to continuously revisit them. The right organisation structure, for example, will undoubtedly change as the industry or the business grows and changes.
- Building the right organisational structure - are the current job roles, departments and functions still working for the needs and size of the business?
- Creating a productive work experience - do employees have access to the resources, tools, knowledge and technology they need to do their jobs productively? Are there are new technologies that could improve the current set-up?
- Engaging employees around the company purpose - does the business have a good picture of each employee to track their commitment and motivation? Are there other ways the company could be communicating their values, vision and culture?
- Making good talent management decisions - what do the key metrics on staff turnover and success rate say about the success of the hiring process?
- Creating a supportive culture - are employees being supported through each stage of their relationship with the business? Does the business even have a good view of each employee?
- Minimising human capital management risks - what are the new risks related to data security, legal compliance and operation efficiency? Is the business doing anything to manage them?