Guide
In recent years, the wave of "digital transformation" has penetrated into every corner of social life and has been elevated to a considerable height. However, according to the report, the success rate of enterprise digital transformation is only 20%. Even digitally savvy industries, such as high-tech, media, and telecommunications, have a digital transformation success rate of no more than 26 percent, while in more traditional industries such as oil, gas, automotive, infrastructure, and pharmaceuticals, digital transformation is more challenging, with a success rate of only between 4 and 11 percent.
Now 5G, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things are prevalent, but why is it difficult for enterprises to succeed in digital transformation?
Difficulty one
Strategy is lacking, and transformation lacks direction
China's economy has entered a period of recovery to revitalization, and enterprises have accelerated the adjustment of their own businesses in the new scenario, but in the face of a complex and changeable market environment, some companies have not yet found the focus and business model of future competition. The essence of digital transformation lies in "transformation", the future vision is unclear, the strategic planning is not clear, the direction of "transformation" is unknown, and the digital direction of enterprises is difficult to clarify. In this case, enterprises often deploy digitalization in silos, and it is difficult to see value from digital investment.
The lack of strategy is not only reflected in the lack of business direction, but also in the lack of business "grip". In the strategic planning of some enterprises, digital strategy and business development are "two lines, two layers of skin", the guidance of enterprise development strategy to the direction of digital deployment is poor, and the focus of digital deployment and business development are weakly related. Lacking a strong correlation with the business, this kind of "piecemeal" digital construction is often difficult to touch the transformation core of the enterprise and it is difficult to play an enabling role in the business.
In addition, digital transformation strategies are often "distorted" or "cut off" in top-down transmission. Digital transformation is a first-hand project, but today, the creation and implementation of the first-hand project still has a long way to go. Although the "number one" of the enterprise supports the digital transformation of the enterprise, the first-in-command support of some enterprises only stays in the senior management, which is difficult to flow across the enterprise level and expand across business fields, and the recognition level and digital cognitive ability of the business leaders for the transformation are often uneven, and it is difficult to gather business synergy to implement it together in the whole group.
Difficulty two
It is difficult to build capabilities and difficult to deepen transformation
The second major difficulty in digital transformation is the construction of digital capabilities. Different from informatization, digital capabilities have higher requirements and must be able to support agile response, efficient operation and continuous innovation. However, the original system of the enterprise is old, the management system is traditional, the process is complex, the digital transformation base is not solid; repairing on the original basis often has incompatible problems, and it is easy to cause painful losses to the operation of the enterprise, and the enterprise is caught in a dilemma, and it is difficult to establish a structure that can solidly support the transformation in the short term.
In addition to the reshaping of systems and processes, companies lack the key element of building digital capabilities - a new generation of talents. Digital transformation requires "all-rounder" support, a combination of business capabilities, a holistic view of digital concepts and skills. Such talents are extremely scarce, the training cycle and difficulty are very large, and external recruitment is difficult to accurately define; in the absence of such talent support, it is difficult for enterprises to fully release the value of digital technology.
In addition, most of the digital deployment of enterprises stays in the pilot stage and can only be applied to a certain function or even a certain type of work content of the enterprise. Due to the poor data circulation of the digital foundation and the difficulty of entering the business scenarios such as the difficulty of system compatibility, the digital transformation pilot projects and experiences of enterprises are difficult to quickly copy and promote, and the digital scale effect of the whole enterprise and the whole scenario cannot be formed.
Difficulty three
Value is hard to come by, and investment is unsustainable
The third major obstacle to digital transformation is the release and measurement of transformational value. Digital transformation is not a simple information or IT transformation, but a systematic reform project involving the whole business and cross-functional functions of the enterprise. In the short term, tinkering, small fights and small troubles can not touch the core of enterprise operations, and it is difficult to help enterprises enhance competitiveness. Enterprises must fully deploy the system and be deep enough to maximize the unlocking and unlocking of digital value.
On the other hand, because of the systematic nature of digital transformation, digital investment has a slow and long cycle, and enterprises are often eager to see results, using traditional performance indicators to measure the transformation effect, and there is no targeted evaluation system that supports the actual situation of the enterprise and the deployment plan, and it is difficult to achieve a phased and gradual evaluation of the digital transformation process and value. In this case, in the short term, enterprises will feel that digital deployment "fails", digital value is often questioned by management, and digital investment is weakly sustained, forming a vicious circle.
Strategy formulation, capacity building, and value definition are the three keys in the digital transformation process of Chinese enterprises, no matter which link there are shortcomings or omissions, which will form a series of chain reactions, not only affecting the digital deployment of enterprises, but also affecting the sustainable operation and growth of enterprises.
Five tips for businesses to start digital transformation
Recommendation 1: Insist that digital transformation is a leading project
The process of "digital transformation" often involves impact on people and even conflicts with existing vested interest teams in the enterprise. Coupled with the high input cost, long cycle and wide range of projects, once the internal relations of the enterprise cannot be coordinated, it is very easy to die. It is recommended that before starting the "digital transformation" project, enterprises must form a consensus within the senior management of the enterprise, and form a project management team headed by the "number one" to coordinate and solve problems in the process of the project.
Suggestion 2: Borrow from the outside and make good use of consultants
"Digital transformation" is different from the daily production and operation of enterprises, and it is an unfamiliar job for enterprise personnel. Therefore, enterprises that want to undergo "digital transformation" need to bring in people with experience and professional capabilities from the outside to help enterprises complete transformation projects. When introducing external resources, there are often some misunderstandings:
Myth 1: It is better to hire consultants than to recruit relevant talents directly
For the top management of the enterprise, the general feeling is that the consultant is a "mercenary", not as good as "their own people". Therefore, companies often want to introduce talents through recruitment, and they are more resistant to introducing talents by hiring consultants. This creates three problems:
- Directly recruited talents are prone to "localism" after they are placed in the enterprise, that is, in the process of thinking and working, they will pay attention to the impact of the future on themselves, thus forming a deformation of decision-making and action;
- It is easy to lose credibility in the process of internal personnel promotion, which in turn causes resistance from internal teams;
- The personnel recruited for the transformation project need to have corresponding jobs after the end of the project, which is easy to produce the problem of personnel redundancy.
It is suggested that the enterprise can recruit some key personnel into the enterprise as the backbone of the project, and the rest of the required resources are introduced in the form of consultants. In the later stage of the project, depending on the consulting ability and the needs of the enterprise, the orderly introduction can not only ensure the neutrality in the project process, but also not miss the excellent talents.
Myth 2: Worship "empiricism" to give up leadership in transformation projects
Since the external consultants introduced are often more experienced in "digital transformation", it is easy to form their own inherent rhythm and play style. But each enterprise has its own special organization, market and environment, and it is impossible to rely on a set of methods to fight the world. Therefore, no matter how "big name" and how experienced the external consultant is, enterprises need to adhere to the process of "borrowing- thinking-demonstrating-iteration-landing", in which:
- "Borrowing" means to be open-minded, humbly listen to the experience and suggestions of external consultants, and avoid having resistance or directly accepting them in its entirety;
- "Thinking" is based on the experience and suggestions of consultants combined with the actual situation of the enterprise to think, forming their own self-thinking about the transformation project;
- "Argumentation" is based on the results and logic of one's own thinking and discussion with external consultants, listening to the opinions of external consultants, especially the logic behind different opinions;
- "Iteration" is to repeat the above three steps to supplement the perspective of project thinking and form a comprehensive understanding;
- "Landing" is firmly implemented based on the results of full discussion.
Myth 3: Too much reliance on external consultants, insufficient participation of people in the enterprise
Due to the long duration of the transformation project and the organizational adjustment within the enterprise, it is easy for the senior management of the enterprise to rely too much on external consultants, resulting in insufficient participation of internal personnel. In fact, the final landing of the "data transformation" project still requires internal personnel to be located at key nodes of the organization. At the beginning of the project, the backbone of the enterprise should be selected to join the project team, so that these backbone personnel understand and recognize the goal of "digital transformation" in the process of participating in the project, so as to ensure the smooth operation of the enterprise after the completion of the project.
Recommendation three: pay close attention to the recruitment and training of technical personnel, and realize the autonomy and controllability of the core system
After the completion of the "digital transformation", the overall operational decision-making of the enterprise relies on a large amount of production data, and the intelligent decision-making also needs to be implemented through intelligent equipment, and the production system has become the core and key of the enterprise. In the current environment, many enterprise information systems rely on outsourcing or procurement of cloud services to achieve, after the completion of the "digital transformation", this model is equivalent to the core lifeblood of the enterprise in the hands of other companies, which is not advisable.
In the era of intelligence, an independent company must ensure that the core system is autonomous and controllable. For traditional enterprises, the recruitment and attraction of technical talents are often lagging behind, which requires enterprises to adjust from the aspects of organizational structure, corporate culture, talent training, and employee treatment to increase their attractiveness to technical talents.
Recommendation 4: Pay attention to the "digital transformation" training for existing personnel in enterprises
"Digital transformation" is a project that reshapes the enterprise, and naturally puts higher demands on the employees of the enterprise. Therefore, the training of digital transformation of enterprise employees needs to be initiated synchronously as the project progresses, so that employees can better work together based on data. Due to the different work content of employees at different levels in enterprises, the training is generally divided into three categories: "basic staff training", "middle manager training" and "executive training". Among them, "executive training" focuses on opening up the bottlenecks of vision, strategy and long-term planning, and is often packaged together with strategic consulting, and "basic staff training" and "middle management training" are suitable for separate training.
"Basic Staff Training" is mainly for front-line employees and grass-roots managers, focusing on training employees to master the work skills they need in the future, so that front-line employees can quickly get started after the project is landed. Due to the large number of front-line employees, it is recommended to select some excellent employees as "seeds" for centralized training, and then dispatch them to various teams for diffusion.
"Middle-level management training" is mainly for the middle-level managers of enterprises, they are the key links connecting the senior management and front-line employees of enterprises, which determines the quality of enterprise decision-making. After data transformation, a qualified mid-level enterprise needs to be familiar with common business data analysis models, apply and understand the thinking logic behind these models in their own work, and also have data-based business analysis skills to be able to guide the team they manage.
All in all, since the early stage of "digital transformation" requires people and data to work closely together, enterprises need to train employees and managers in advance in order to better implement "digital transformation" in the enterprise.
Recommendation 5: Create a "digital" corporate culture to help enterprises "digitally transform"
Corporate culture is the core value of an organization, embodied in all aspects of the daily operation of the enterprise, and is the gene of an enterprise. Unlike traditional companies that believe in "leadership experience", a digital enterprise uses "data" as the only criterion for measuring decisions and results. In order for enterprises to successfully complete the "digital transformation", it is necessary to create such a culture within the enterprise, which can play a multiplier effect with half the effort.
Establishing a "digital" corporate culture is the basic requirement of an "intelligent" organization and a strong support for the "digital transformation" of enterprises, but to build a corporate culture, we must also pay attention to priorities, and should combine the actual situation of the enterprise with the progress of the "digital transformation" project to flexibly control the rhythm.