Teacher Yan Bian, Senior Expert of Huawei Enterprise Solution Planning Department
Digital transformation is a hot topic recently, as a consultant who has provided digital consulting to clients many times, I know that digitalization is an area where everyone can talk to you about digital transformation, but few people can say clearly what is real digital transformation.
In line with the principle of "thinking big, starting small", today we will not talk about technology, only an interesting scenario, let you see what is the essential difference between having experienced digital transformation and not experiencing, when solving problems.
Why are "workstations" and "squatting" always so tense?
Recently, several colleagues have traveled to Beijing on business, and what they feel most during their time in Beijing is that the workstations and squatting positions in the Beijing office are too tense.
Every morning, when you have experienced the multiple tests of the subway and shared bicycles, you arrive at the company early, but you carry your school bag around the office a few times, but you can't find an empty workstation to use; and you encounter three emergencies, fly into the bathroom, but find that there are several people who are as embarrassed as you are waiting for vacant seats.
Such a situation for colleagues in Beijing may have been commonplace, in fact, Beijing's workstation tension is a long-term problem, the solution was to expand, but no matter how many new workstations are added, it will be filled in a very short period of time, the company provides a large number of mobile workstations, including: drinking room, window, walkway, etc., everywhere is a mobile workstation, the management principle is early to get early, daily Nissin.
However, the actual management is also quite evacuated, and it is soon turned into a "fixed workstation" by various heroes and heroes, forming a realistic version of the "tragedy of the commons".
Workstation tension may still be a small thing, "squatting" tension, that is called embarrassment, a large flat floor, hundreds of people at the same time, a floor only 3-5 squatting positions, as the saying goes: people have three emergencies, but no matter how anxious you are, you also have to dance in the bathroom for a while "awkward dance" to relax in place.
Bloggers often travel at various representative offices in The country, these phenomena also appear frequently in other offices, although the things mentioned above are small, but it is really not easy to solve, otherwise with our execution, if we find a solution, the others are not problems, this problem is actually a problem with limited resources, matching the company's development strategy.
In reality, no matter how rich the company is, it will also face the problem of insufficient resources, in the face of rapid expansion of manpower, you cannot expand the office without restrictions, which reminds me of the story of "7 cylinders and 4 lids" that Ma Yun often told to employees, which discussed this problem:
"What are you going to do when you have seven tanks but only four covers?"
Any organization is to adjust, when the strategy changes, the organization must be adjusted, and then think clearly about what to want, what not to do, what is the priority, all of our companies will encounter this problem, want to do too many things, not enough talent, the organization is often the key point to make up for the lack of talent.
There are not enough talents, the organization is not enough, the organization is not enough, the talents are supplemented, and the two are mutually supplementary. But to make up, they are all going to be injured, and it is best to cooperate perfectly with talents and organizations.
When you have seven cylinders and only four covers, what are you going to do, go back and forth? wrong. Smash two cylinders, some business is too late, you are not enough, excellent people can not hold back, you have seven cylinders, four covers, all messed up, simply knock off two cylinders, shut down and turn away, it becomes a cylinder without a cover, you can only do it.
Teacher Ma's story about "4 lids and 7 cylinders" is about the problem of limited human resources to match the company's strategic development, but the workstation and squat position are also resources, and also face a limited resource matching strategy development problem, this kind of problem usually has 3 solutions, or buy more lids (increase resources), or smash a few cylinders according to Mr. Ma's proposal (focus on core business), or optimize the way to use lids (optimize resources).
So when it comes to the problem of workstations and squatting, which one do we use? Buying more lids and smashing off a few cylinders may not be suitable, and can only be solved by optimizing resources, which is one of the main demands of customers in digital transformation, using digital means to solve the cost and efficiency problems in the company's development? So how to solve the problem of this workstation and squat position?
Solve problems through the technology path of digital transformation
In Matthew 15, Jesus said, "Thus Caesar's things are to Caesar, and God's things are to God." Teacher Wu Jun has quoted this sentence many times in the letter from Silicon Valley, that is, to warn everyone that different problems have different solutions and paths, commercial problems are solved in a commercial way, and technical problems are solved in a technical way.
So how to solve the problem of "workstation and squat" in a technical way?
In the path of digital transformation, customers may be most familiar with the path of "online, digital and intelligent", the initial solution of the problem of workstation and squatting is the first stage of the traditional non-native digital enterprise facing digital transformation, that is, the first to achieve the online of all resources.
Simply put, in the first stage, all the workstations and squatting status are all online, and then a two-dimensional code is pasted on each workstation and squat position, which the user uses by scanning the code;
The second stage is the billing and charging of the workstation, and the use of the squat position through the timing method;
The third stage is to release real-time information through Kanban, give trend predictions, and guide people to use workstations and squatting positions rationally.
The above is the typical technical path of digital transformation: online, data-based and intelligent.
Of course, to complete the above steps, data and intelligence can only be said to be in a very preliminary stage, so the question comes, after the above operation, can the problem of tight workstation and squatting really be solved?
Ask what to do if the user scans the code after a long period of occupation, the use of resources for scanning the code, the use of an equality principle, does not consider the business attributes of each department, as well as the importance of business, so the priority of the use of workstations is not determined.
In addition, the billing and charging of resources also require a lot of data analysis and effect evaluation to close the loop, without the support of data, these are castles in the air and cannot fall to the ground.
Therefore, the solution of the workstation and squat problem cannot be achieved through the technical path in digital transformation, and more business analysis is needed.
How business paths in digital transformation solve problems
As consulting practitioners, bloggers prefer to look at the problem in terms of the company's overall development strategy in the practice of digital transformation, rather than the matter-of-fact way of seeing only trees and forests.
Workstation and squat as an office resource, must be related to the development of multiple dimensions of the company, this is a typical business problem, workstation and squat problem is small, but in fact is how to use limited office resources, support the company's overall development strategy of the problem, through digital transformation to solve the core of the problem, lies in the company's office resource management department to enhance the ability to use digitalization, which is the biggest problem faced by each company in digital transformation.
Hearing here some students can't listen to it, think we are fooling around again, in fact, digital transformation to solve the problem regardless of size, whether you can solve this problem, depends on your digital thinking and ability to use data, we first give you a demonstration, as a team of consultants, we usually use the following steps to solve this problem:
1. First of all, the current situation of the existing resources of the office is evaluated, including: how many users, how many workstations and squatting positions, how many people configure a workstation and squat position is more reasonable, how big the Gap is at present, what are the main problems in use, is it unreasonable to occupy, or insufficient resource supply, how the user's experience is, and where the main dissatisfaction is reflected.
2. Profile the characteristics of existing users, including: which organizations do these users come from, how many people, who need fixed workstations, who can use mobile workstations, the time users go to and from work, the frequency of travel, what is the law of the surge in demand caused by project support personnel traveling to the front line, and are there any potential users working in other places that are not counted?
3. Forecast the company's business development trend in the next three years, including: business growth, how many people match the business growth, which departments are mainly from, what are the characteristics of new users, how many workstations can be added to the office in the future, whether the company's future operation form will change, if the operation form changes, what is the impact on the workstation and squatting position.
4. What are the operating costs of each existing workstation, how the costs are apportioned, whether the future cost trend is rising or falling, whether there are cheaper alternatives, and how the billing and charging process is designed.
5. In addition, it is necessary to conduct relevant industry insights, mainly to see the use and management of office resources in the same industry, what are the characteristics of successful models, the reasons for the failure of unsuccessful cases, and whether the way of shared office can be introduced.
The above series of processes, only at the beginning of the project, completed the assessment of the current situation and the prediction of future trends, which uses a lot of business thinking and the ability to use data, the role of data in it, is to make the problem get closed loop, which is a huge progress in digital transformation.
For example, specifically in this case, after the above analysis, we will start to design and implement the operational plan, including:
1. All existing workstation resources are online, and the real-time status is displayed through Kanban and App;
2. According to the commercial characteristics of each department and the size of the business and the size of the team, draw a part of the fixed workstation area for each department, and the use mode is also shared and reused, while for all other workstations, all open, shared, billing use methods, according to the principle of early arrival, who uses who pays, the daily implementation of the Nissin system;
3. At the same time, on this basis, we will make a part of the reserved space within the company to cope with the sudden needs of project support.
Whether the above scheme is effective, it is necessary to play the role of data closed loop, we can first carry out a small range of trial runs, at this time the generated operational data, can be used as the basis for optimization measures, and then a large range of pilots, and then begin to be fully used, at this time a large number of operational data will be generated every day, which gives us the opportunity to insight into the behavior and habit characteristics of real users.
We have to continue to optimize and even reconstruct the program according to the characteristics of user behavior and the actual operation effect, until we find the best operation plan, before the digital transformation, we lack the ability to use data as a whole, so more is the suggestion of the strategy, completed the digital transformation, we can use the data closed loop every problem, and really achieve the landing of the program.
The hallmark of digital transformation success is that the entire organization is digitally capable
At this time, through the above practical process of solving the problem, you can find that the whole process requires very professional digital capabilities and strong data support.
So the question is, does the existing office resource management department have such a capability? Based on our experience with many digital transformation projects, there is bound to be a big gap.
On the other hand, the gap is the ability to use data, this scenario requires a lot of data analysis and forecasting, and common sense tells us that the data we need must now be scattered in personnel, market, finance, administration, procurement and other departments, it is not easy to collect these data completely, and the quality of data is also difficult to guarantee, so to solve such problems, companies must first carry out digital transformation, build data capabilities and digital thinking.
Back to the title, what are the hallmarks of digital transformation success?
First of all, each business department has the ability to use digitalization to solve problems; secondly, the ability to use data is built, which includes the integrity, accuracy, openness and availability of data, data middle office is one of the paths, data middle office is the strategic fulcrum of digital transformation, providing data capabilities, algorithm capabilities and computing power; and the ultimate goal of digital transformation is to turn the entire company into an organization with digital capabilities, and the core engine of the drive changes from "process" to "data".
It can be a long process, so the tension between workstations and squatting may continue, and all you can do is come earlier while keeping your body clock rhythm in control. As for how students care about digital thinking and digital ability, you can find the answer from the consultant's office!