Digital Transformation Reality Check

When last week the CEO of the world largest software company is said “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months”, it had me wondering about digital transformation (DT) and my understanding of this wonderful term. As a student of technology based transformations and a practitioner of IT led business success, my reading of DT was fairly simple and shared by a large number of CIOs, CDOs, and CXOs across companies and industries. While many vendors and partners pitched their wares as the means to get to the ultimate nirvana state of digitally enabling the business, they were largely a cog in the wheel and not the whole wheel or a major part of it.

Many would have seen an image that in jest points to the cause of forced digital transformation not being the CIO, CDO, CTO, CEO, or for that matter any person, but a virus; the same virus that has changed the way of working for the entire world bringing business’ down, forcing everyone to stay at home to stay unaffected and alive. Almost everywhere work from home became the only way to continue basic operations and run whatever remained of their business. In a struggle for survival, the need for connectivity and basic tools exploded. The inertia for the adoption of collaboration tools was replaced by enthusiasm and across corporate layers people started embracing these.

Many small and large technology providers took advantage of the situation to proclaim their role in digitally enabling their customers. Their offerings ranged from cloud based software solutions, mobile enabled applications, applications for managing appointments, note taking, digital publishing and not to forget the collaboration tools for voice, video, chat, conferencing, editing and sharing documents, workflows, the list is endless ! Almost every enterprise that had some ongoing operations and dialogues probably had most of these deployed; the scale at which it was now required needed additional subscriptions and deployments.

So I went back to my library to refresh my memory and found 2 definitions that resonated with the majority and the foundation of my discussions with people and companies in the past. They are:

1.      Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to customers. It’s also a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment, and get comfortable with failure.

                                                            And

2.      Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create new — or modify existing — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements. This reimagining of business in the digital age is digital transformation.

The lockdown over the last 2 months and more brought about the New Abnormal. Companies attempted to enable as many people as feasible with tools to continue working. Sales calls continued on video/voice calls, meetings conducted on collaboration platforms, data moved to the cloud for access by the teams that needed it, and access to core applications controlled to the WFH enabled. All of this did fundamentally create a change in existing business process, culture, customer experience and probably a long lasting one. It is unlikely that the situation will revert to normal any time soon. So if you take the literal meaning of the definitions above, the answer would be yes there was digital transformation.

But, isn’t digital transformation planned with a step by step review of process, people, technology and consideration over impact – to customers and internal stakeholders – and change that needs to be managed. Does it not require endless meetings and buy-in from teams to the new way of working and automation that improves outcomes? Should not legacy and status quo be challenged to discover the optimal digital footprint for the enterprise? What about the investment and budgets and ROI, impact on operating expenses? Who will drive the change and create a sustainable model? Is this digital transformation or a digital reaction to the new abnormal necessary for survival and a semblance of continuity?

I believe that the new abnormal has triggered a wave that does away with the conventional decision making cycle and metrics for technology tools and solutions that enabled the enterprise to function even if with reduced operation and manpower. The elephant in the room that needs confrontation is the continuity of the current once business starts moving again and the normal as everyone knew and understood makes a comeback. Will the additional investments, ad-hoc changes and approvals for access, implications on licensing and more, the mountain to climb would be the shift back or keep the new way of working as the new normal. There is no one way to go, it would be dependent on the company, industry, geography and the amount of cash in the bank.

The seeds of digital transformation have been sowed – grudgingly or forcibly imposed with no choice; it is up to the enterprise to build on top of this after strengthening the potentially shaky foundation. And the answer is yes, what would have taken 2 years has taken 2 months, though it may not be sustainable as it is and will require a lot of rework.

That’s another story !

Negotiations during lockdown

From my earlier post “The new abnormal”, one of the points that connected with the majority of IT leaders was “If not already initiated, renegotiate – licenses, maintenance contracts, and third party and outsourced manpower requirements”. Individually almost none could get the attention of their partners who were always there to discuss more licenses, services, or audits for difficult customers. Dropping all their inhibitions, personal rivalries, and competitive distancing, the CIOs organized themselves into a collective group to take on the big and small software and service providers. The mission of these groups, which represented a reasonable spend for the industry, to seek the true spirit of partnership in difficult times.

In the good old days the engagement with the IT fraternity was all about being partners in success, starting from engagements to identify use cases, define financial models for calculating returns, scale up and scale out, digitalization and digital transformation, month and quarter end license deals. When the going got tough for some of the software providers, they decided to scan through lists comprising existing customers who were growing, old customers who did not buy anything after the initial set of licenses, and those who were suspected of using unlicensed versions of COTS (Commercial-Off-The-Shelf) solutions. Not very amiable discussions these, some of them did hit pay dirt for the partners.

For everyone business has come to a grinding halt, the WFH addresses administrative tasks and virtual meetings; it does little for the broken supply chain or halted production. While a few online players continue to reap some benefit, their overall business activity is down to less than half (there are always a handful who can be called out as exceptions). With no revenue, the crying need is to find ways to manage the costs associated with IT. The CIO collective decided to partition themselves by vendor (not a partner anymore), to bring some weight behind their quest for relief. The ask was not unreasonable by any stretch:

1. Surrender unused or excess licenses that were taken for planned growth
2. Deferment of annual renewals of SaaS licenses and AMC due at the beginning of the financial year (April to March in India)
3. Reduction in service fees with reduced scope of work, or reduced load factor for IaaS, or network fees
4. Extension of timelines for pending payments and payment in instalments
5. Furlough contracted workforce until the situation starts coming back to normal

Thus started the long arduous journey; the group tweeted their angst tagging the vendors local and global leadership teams, sent emails which hundreds of CIOs forwarded for effect; reminders and follow up with reversed rigor – typically seen from vendor sales teams and management to close signing a deal. There was some hope among the group that they would be able to create some impact that everyone could benefit from. The list was quite impressive representing marquee names and many aspirants. Reversed reality if there was one, the turned tables evinced only couple of acknowledgements as if the rest went down a black hole.

So what transpired? Among the dozen odd vendors to whom the communication was sent, barely a couple decided to respond to the flood created by the CIOs. The rest had probably a dam large enough to prevent the water from carrying through to the management teams; don’t worry, we will take care of this – so I heard from a couple of account managers talking to their CEOs. It is also likely that they did receive the mails but ignored the content or intent behind the chain mails. The situation will not last forever and given enough time, the noise will die, only to be forgotten in the activity that would follow the return to the new abnormal. As for the respondents who respected the community of customers, there were the following threads which did not necessarily please the protagonist CIOs.

The first one acknowledged the communication by the group and reiterated the difficult times that have befallen everyone. Difficult times when new business has died away and existing receivables are tending towards bad debt with significant rise in days of outstanding. Difficult times that have necessitated the creation of additional investments in infrastructure or services for their customers to support WFH and related issues. Difficult times with the teams working longer hours to ensure that quality of service is not compromised. And in such difficult times the question of any reduction in prices or renegotiations does not arise whatsoever. With piling inventory and ceased production, we are equally concerned about the financial viability of our services.

Interestingly the second admonished the group for creating a rift in the relationships that have been built with so much effort, give and take, and nurtured with ample doses of support. Ups and downs should not be construed as an opportunity to question the foundations on which the partnership has been laid. There cannot be an overarching policy or decision that would apply to all relationships with a reduction or deferment of payables; it decapitates our business and our ability to provide continued support. We too have fixed costs which we need to service; renegotiations are a no-no, you already have the best of prices for what you buy and consume. Please talk to your respective relationship managers to review what we can do for you.

We are equally hit versus divide and break, both strategies fail to address the problem at hand for CIOs thus creating a permanent crack as everyone fights for survival. What will be the final outcome, we wait and watch.

Latest! A very large global IT vendor refused the premature surrender of partial licenses from a marquee customer stating that the licensing terms have no provision for early termination.

The New Abnormal

Varying stages of lockdown – voluntary and forced – created stress for CIOs and tech teams globally; Work-From-Home (WFH) became another 3-letter acronym that everyone embraced willingly and only a rare organization had capacity that could scale up and cater to the large swaths of workers who suddenly fell in love with their laptops. Those who shunned webinars, web conferences, and electronic tools of collaboration were all now talking about scheduling online meetings with all and sundry. IT organizations flooded with calls on VPN connectivity challenges, access to applications, and capacity of collaboration tools, managed to scrape through by the skin of their collective teeth.

As weeks turned double digit and the tunnel appeared to be endless with no visible light, speculation started on, what CIOs need to focus on and what the future foretells for the tech industry as a whole, whenever the end comes. Webinars aplenty with CIOs, academicians, vendors, consultants and self-proclaimed experts, who discussed and debated actions that IT organizations will need to take. Strategies and plans were bandied around for the hapless and the informed, confusing more than bringing clarity. It was reminiscent of what happened during the financial meltdown a decade or so back and probably Y2K and dotcom bust, the events that remain firmly imprinted on the industry. The joke going around is that the current abnormal accelerated digital transformation faster than what the collective might could achieve in the past.

Everyone now acknowledges that the new abnormal will continue and what we all knew as normal would be the good old days of nostalgia. Social distancing brought virtual closeness and it has already become the norm for meetings, events and getting together with digital engagement a preferred option; it is evident that human behaviour will not be the same in the foreseeable future. After grudgingly accepting the new abnormal, leadership teams have now started (thinking of in some cases) planning for the resumption of life; everyone accepts that it would be slow progress and life may never come back to the good old days. As workers go back to manufacturing facilities and services start operating again, the reopening will require enormous effort. So what is the real impact for technology teams?

The discussions and debates between the folks above provided for aspirations that largely assumed that they can set aside the elapsed time and go back to life as usual. Some talked about bringing back paused projects, restart of digital transformation and automation, aggressive deployment of mobility, and focus on cloud with variable models. It took a couple of the weather-beaten members to bring them back to reality; revenue and cash flow, review of office spaces with everyone not required to work from a central location anymore, or a push for automation to reduce costs, and finally positions that need to be extinguished with a smaller business. So the 10 recommendations were:

1.      Address the ad-hoc that was created to manage the extraordinary demand for WFH; whether it is connectivity solutions, exceptions to policies around access to applications and other products used for collaboration and conferencing.

2.      Manage licenses required going forward for solutions that some functions or individuals may have procured or downloaded free versions of.

3.      Ascertain the impact these may have created on the cybersecurity or compliance requirements and remediate.

4.      If not already initiated, renegotiate – licenses, maintenance contracts, and third party and outsourced manpower requirements.

5.      Relook at the roles and staffing within your function; roles that can be let go with the resultant impact being managed. Hiring freeze, exception only if critical resources exit.

6.      Wear a business hat and challenge other functions assumptions on solutions and costs; shave 20% or more costs across the board. Automate, automate and automate.

7.      Consumer behaviour has changed permanently; enable seamless customer engagement across channels – applies equally to both B2B and B2C.

8.      Create information visibility across layers for effective decision making without significant additional investment in tools and technologies.

9.      Defer payments to manage cash flows and match incoming revenue; critically review suspended projects and ones that were waiting to take off. The lens for evaluation is no longer the usual strategic intent and ROI (Return on Investment), it is about what is necessary for survival. The building of new capabilities and applications can wait for another time when there is money in the bank.

10.   Watch industry trends and benchmark efforts to ensure that we don’t lose relevance with the market or to our customers.

Oh I am sure that given some more time and deliberation, a distinct list of another 10 can be created and that would be equally relevant. The abnormal reality is that there is no normal now for which we can prepare and sustain; depending on the industry, the actions will be different and all actions will not work for everyone. The playbook will have to be rewritten by every company and it will remain a living document even in the short-term. Tech will be in the forefront of every decision; after all tech is what allowed some semblance of normalcy and continuity of operations.

It would be foolish to relegate tech at this time; having said that some organizations will and some tech leaders will fail to rise to the opportunity. After all, everyone does not like history !

Business is running faster than the rest of the enterprise in the Digitalization journey

We like what we have seen so far and the initial proof of concept reinforces that this solution will work well for us. The use cases are quite clear and we can work on prioritizing the four models that we have discussed and finalized. The pipeline of additional opportunities and use cases can be confirmed in the coming days; the teams should work to define these in the near term. You can work with IT and Procurement to complete the infrastructure requirements and the terms of reference. How quickly can it be deployed ?

The vendor loved the diktat like a dream come true; they had invested significant time and effort on their first big potential customer, the scale up opportunity validated their product vision. Business team pushing the deployment added to the excitement with the senior team members throwing their weight behind closure on both sides. The solution provided a significant boost to the digital thrust that the enterprise had embarked upon based on the vision of the Board; it also challenged existing legacy and conventional solutions.

Off went the mini delegation to the IT team designated by the CIO for the prestigious project; they completed their planning for the infrastructure, data integration, impact to other processes and systems, deployment and scale up. Dependence on other groups and vendors were acknowledged and their timelines incorporated into the project plan. The extended timeline did not please any of the stakeholders but was accepted as the most realistic plan which could be executed without any further delay or disruption.

Sequentially the process moved to Procurement, the last stage gate before the project starts rolling. True to reputation and their KPIs, they started with the contract, inclusions and exclusions, licensing models, and outcomes that the solution would deliver. Each tenet was discussed, debated, demands going from unreasonable to giving up some ground, as time rolled by, much to the chagrin of business who wanted the new technology to leapfrog competition with a differentiated offering that would take time to catch up.

The final step to get off the ground – financial negotiation – introduced a new element into the mix, the Finance team because the values were quite large and the vendor as yet small unknown entity. They started from the beginning to discuss what, why, when, who and asked for alternatives against which the solution was benchmarked. Other software that the company had bought were not as expensive, so why is this one ? How much is the discount over list price ? Are we really the first customer in this segment ?

It took some effort to get them moving towards closure; the business head and the CIO, both pushed hard to retain the early adopter advantage in their industry; there were others who were talking and that is where they risked leadership position. With the criticality that time represented, the Board nudged the team to expedite the decision; chastised suitably, the teams closed the deal grudgingly at a value that they believed was higher than what they would have agreed to if they had the time at their disposal to negotiate.

With time lost in the process, suddenly everyone wanted the solution implemented yesterday; the CIO hustled the team to take up the work on priority, the vendor allotted their best resources to the project, and business provided program management and domain expertise. Ancillary vendors were pressurized to deliver in unreasonable time, most obliged so as to not attract the ire of one of their premier customers; the solution was ready and began to churn out changed business outcomes that pushed competition to the edge.

Support from the Board and leadership team ensured that the rigor to monitor did not falter and the promise of deliverables was kept. The Board acknowledged the initiative and associated results, the support provided by the IT team as well as the leadership demonstrated by the Business Head. It was a case of good governance winning with results that mattered. Doubters if any did not raise their concerns or pollute the environment that was committed to putting their best effort to succeed, truly a team effort.

Today, business has taken over the reins of technology led transformation not wanting to leave their future in the hands of technologists. They are taking control and shaping their destiny in the ever changing and disruptive world of digital innovation. Every new technology threatens to challenge conventional business models and legacy systems which constrain agile movement to counter new startups who have nothing to lose. Acquisitions make up for the lost opportunities at a significantly higher cost.

Stay hungry !

Technology changes the game, customers change the rules !

In the early 90s, the initial days of email it was fashionable to have a personal tag line at the end of the message over and above the signature; it used to be a famous quote or a witty one liner that represented the persona. Unaware of the profoundness of the statement as a youngster I had the following going for almost 5 years: “My interest is in the future, because I am going to spend the rest of my life there”. I don’t know the source from where I picked it up as it was before the advent of the browser, contemplating it now feels awkward !

The future is here and how ! We aren’t done with technology evolution, we keep anticipating new disruptions and welcome them. Technology disruption over the last century or more started with electricity and then continued with transportation and electric appliances which change the way we live and travel today. Today when we think of technology and its power of disruption we think about the last two decades and the impact they have had on us and business with disintermediation and customer engagement.

A famous venture capitalist and Angel investor once wrote about “Why software is eating the world” which outlines the technology led disruption to almost every industry. Old and even new economy companies have been threatened by software evolution and software led disruptions. The concept of software is applied in a broad sense with computers and related technologies being clubbed. That does not in any way reduce the impact technology has created across industries as captured by the author.

Mobile phones have been around for a while now and so have smartphones; but the newer devices are stretching the limits of compute in our hands thus providing enterprises new ways of engaging their customers. Be it services or products, every company wants to use the primary consumer device to push all kinds of notifications, track locations, access contacts, store cookies, at times to the extent of becoming a pain; today almost every service is available via an app and so is every fathomable product.

Multitude of channels bombard the customer from physical to digital to mobile assaulting the senses through the day and night. Every visit to a website, an app opened, store visited, mobile wallet used, credit card swiped, destination searched on maps, every action leaves indelible bread crumbs which are picked up. For the customer fatigue starts setting in when gamification offers freebies in return for action once again creating a short lived surge of activity while everyone catches up to the game with me too offerings.

Every person has a trigger point, some short where consumers don’t tolerate anything that is not aligned to their interests; they research options to shield themselves from the barrage and shut off all possible triggers they can and broadcast these to their circle to follow suit; activist behavior marks this segment of consumers who love to be served at their terms and are cautious of their privacy. They are opinion leaders and shapers who people listen to and take action because it feels right and good.

However, the majority tend to maintain status quo while being subjected to all kinds of incitement, and at times irrelevant messages; the effort to change appears high and thus inertia keeps them going until an incident – direct or hearsay – provokes them to take action. This segment is tolerant to being hounded ignoring small indiscretions thereby once again landing in the same state from where they started. They play the game with their brands of choice until they become tormentors and fall off grace only to be replaced by others.

A minor and growing segment plays the game becoming the protagonist to beat business at their own game. They know how to exploit the system, get best of deals, hack into models to find value and distribute to whosoever may be interested. Predominantly millennials who love the technology connect and take disruptions in their stride. At times they are the source of ideas that send shivers down established conventional business entities. They are inventors wanting to change the world and thus lead change in the rules of engagement !

It is unimportant to enumerate the list of disruptors and the disrupted across industries, the most talked about being the hospitality, transportation, photography, music and music distribution, gaming, media and advertisement, logistics, education, healthcare, the list goes on. Every new idea gets copied to death threatening the original and at times succeeding in uprooting the innovator. Customer expectations continue to change as they love the adulation of the wooers who compete for the same segment.

Keep innovating, stay hungry, stay connected !

Data, data everywhere but what do we do with it ?

“Can we do something with Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, to be better than our competitors or disrupt the market ? We are growing faster than the average, but I constantly fear where the disruption will come from to our industry”. Thus spoke a technophile CEO of a mid-sized multinational company. They had grown inorganically acquiring brands, products, and small companies in growth markets to grow and increase their product portfolio to stay relevant to their customers.

It is an exciting time to be in the technology world with technology at the center of almost every disruptive thought and asset light digital business model. It is an exciting time to be a consumer with everyone bending over backwards wanting to provide offers and promotions on anything and everything. It is indeed an exciting time to be an entrepreneur with unimaginable ideas beginning to take root and come into the realm of possibilities with fast evolving technology allowing for rapid prototyping and success.

It is a mobile first world where everyone wants their App on your phone, send you notifications, read your address book, track your location, and gather petabytes of data to analyze to eternity. Data is everywhere, it always was, though not in a form that could be capture effectively, assimilated and explored. Technology has evolved allowing semblance of sense out of stray wisps of information in the large volume of data to form pictures and scenarios; newer insights, action items progressively improving outcomes.

Big data is getting bigger, analytical tools are evolving rapidly, compute is getting faster, storage and retrieval quicker, and business hungrier for data driven insights. Democratization of technology and availability of tools creates a perception of easy pickings which continues to add to shelf ware for the IT organization. CIOs are being pushed to create new centers of excellence or hire skills that will help make the business grow faster and more profitable; consultants are filling in the gaps across the value chain with limited value delivered.

Internal innovation and new ideas are nurtured in few enterprises, this was not one of those; the company had always rewarded subservient behavior with stray incidents of brightness escaping attention. With a cautious approach to every spend in the past, managers were unable to rise to the occasion fearing being snubbed. The technology organization had decent set of tools, they were well aligned to operational IT requirements, but limited expertise and ability to shift gears into a new level of thinking and execution.

The CEO threw the challenge to the management team to come up with a plan on how the company can break away from the normal. Two quarters later there had not made any significant progress or breakthroughs. The CEO thus hired a global top consulting company to help create the roadmap for digital disruption. After three months of Workshops, brainstorming sessions, offsite and many weeks spent in conference rooms, the exercise was declared complete and the management team invited to unveiling of the new strategy.

Sounds familiar ? This is the story of almost every enterprise where information is consumed in reports from traditional ERP systems or data dumps massaged in spreadsheets. Scores of reports with columns represented in different places or one additional data element make up the repository of analysis. Smattering of dashboards at Board Meetings, Investor Conferences, and external presentations represents the visual data creation and consumption. People love their prints but also want tablet computers !

A big hole in the pocket, they had a document with multiple streams and action items; teams were created and tasked to generate new customers, markets, and disrupt competition. The consultants stayed on to oversee execution and find faults; they churned dashboards, progress reports, control towers, to keep telling the management why they had still not achieved the desired results. A year later and a bigger hole in the dwindling treasury, breakthrough success continued to elude them as competition grew fiercer.

A new age company CEO reaffirmed the hypothesis that data is the future lode mine proclaiming they generated and consumed a petabyte of information daily. His business added new revenue streams every quarter, evolving with consumer demand while shaping the market. His company had redefined the industry becoming the benchmark, taking calculated risks and staying close to the ground through the journey. He did not scoff at the old, he just decided to create a new path giving his team freedom to explore.

Can old age companies emulate such examples ? There are a few examples, but still a few; survival is not threatened for most, relevance probably is !

The world of technology led disruptions beyond SMACS

It was an interesting conversation with a veteran technology industry observer who had spent more than a decade with technology vendors and users alike, narrating their stories to the world. His insights were always incisive and valued by the industry as key markers towards adoption and success. We ruminated about the past and the fast pace of change that had everyone scampering for a Digital strategy; but even that is now in the past. Execution challenges and failures make better reading than laggards who are yet to decide.

Unicorns aside, disintermediation and asset lite new business models were key digital drivers for startups threatening to disrupt existing business models, only to realize that survival rate for paper tigers has been extremely low after success of first few in an industry segment. Consolidation and shift from broad to narrow and broad again, hyperlocal to nationwide and back again to niche had everyone struggling to find a profitable equilibrium; churning trends also left many on the wayside never to rise again.

Few years back for conventional enterprises enamored by SMACS (Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud and Security), the first mover or competitive advantage frittered away with the rest catching up. Digital engagement, delivery, customer service, and experience are beginning to level off, the aura of the brand coupled with carpet bombing advertisements across channels has waning interest in products and services. Customers are expecting more for the same investment, the quality bar is raised in a buyers’ market.

CIOs and CDOs are being challenged to explore new opportunities using old and the as yet untested new, which can offer solutions to the unmet needs or a better value proposition to existing ones. Design thinking and deep learning are no longer buzzwords, they are being applied to invigorate organizations and solve real life problems. Discussions are no longer about incremental innovation, focus is shifting to create exponentially better products and services; and technology is expected to play a role in making it happen.

Watches and wearables – new miniature screens pose new challenges and opportunities with almost complete association with the wearer. Body vitals, moods, behaviors, eating habits, alerts, nudges, tracking almost everything that matters and some that don’t, the wearable is like the IoT device streaming data imploring to be analyzed. Location tracking, your address book, browser history, nothing is private anymore. Fitness is the current killer use, critical care and health monitoring additional benefits to the provider and consumer.

Virtual Reality could not live up to the promise with refinements taking time and the cost of devices; Augmented Reality now creates new paradigms. The future may blur the lines between the real and augmented interchangeably making it difficult to differentiate thus passing control of individual and collective experiences in the hands of ethical providers and willful manipulators. Mind and thereby actions influenced by governments or lawbreakers bring back scary images from the literary world of George Orwell four decades later than his predictions.

Workplaces monitoring of activity and outcomes which otherwise appear unsupervised would create a hyper-efficient work culture with high levels of automation and efficiency. Segmenting performers aided by data shall eliminate the unfit and inefficient; productivity norms would render meaningless the need to publish reports and dashboards, everything tending to Six Sigma. Bordering on utopian ? This scenario can be easily created with culmination of existing technology solutions with some innovative analytical models.

The outliers would be the Digital hermits who have been able to recuse themselves by virtue of their power, wealth, or fugitive status. Digital vacations much sought after to experience real life, real people and the real world devoid of augmented embellishments; the real look, touch and feel, to be cherished and imprinted into real memory. Self-learning computers are already making advancements where they optimize their own learning algorithms to create better neural networks conceptualized by Arthur C Clarke; the tipping point is not far.

Science fiction of the past is no longer unreachable; if you can imagine it, you will find someone already attempting it. Be the dreamer, not the subject of subjugation by others; it does not matter if it is an individual, corporate, government or a nefarious mind wanting to control. It is not about the control, it is a display of power over others destiny. It is not about technology, it is about changing the world because you can. It is a world where the human race is a slave to technology which is a slave of humans.

Sounds far fetched ? Are you really reading this or …

Give up inertia and take the first step !

A long time back I wanted to write a book on Organizational Inertia; it was to be an expression of angst from stories captured from many IT teams on theirs and my experiences in large enterprises. The funny thing is that large enterprises have a peculiar life of their own which makes interesting case studies. They rarely surface and get buried in the stifled cries and whimpers of the frustrated who try to find solace in greener pastures. When I wrote No decision, the biggest enemy to progress, it appeared to have stories of many encapsulated into the anecdotes.

Organizational inertia manifests itself in many ways; pushback to innovation, new ideas and change, is the norm with justification that is final in its utterance. If that does not work, Committees are setup to review feasibility, or research commissioned to validate the assumptions, or a Consultant hired to benchmark and recommend best practice, or just keep asking for more data; anything to maintain status quo almost as if life depended on it. Let me give you a few examples of how they manifest themselves, I am sure you can add to the list:

1.    That’s the way it is done here

2.    Current process was written/endorsed by the Chairman/Founder/CEO, how can we change it ?

3.    It was tried earlier and it did not work

4.    There is no budget allotted

5.    How can you even think about … you don’t understand this company !

6.    This requires approvals from global headquarters … and you know how it works …

7.    It is not relevant to our industry/company …

Almost two decades back as I remember some bright consultants created a practice around “Change Management” to address these issues which plagued the industry. How to manage change, how to get people to embrace new ideas, and how to institutionalize change. Every large enterprise went through some kind of workshops, management consultants adding value, and attempting to coerce people to look at things differently. The inherent pushback from the change averse (that’s what they were called) was WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) ?

Fair amount of the change was created by automation and force fitment of processes into technology solutions that integrated processes and functions (ERP). The next layer of function specific solutions like CRM or SCM and then broad based solutions like BPM added to the change which started accelerating. Post the initial chaos emerged clarity on the benefits and the ease of use with early adopters enjoying market leadership or an agile advantage. Things were beginning to settle down and enterprises were at peace with themselves.

Change being the only constant, the next level of disruption was thrust upon enterprises from outside with the changing dynamics of employees, contractors and customers embracing technology in their personal lives. The now ubiquitous smartphone in the hands of the masses catalysed by exploding plethora of applications forced enterprises to accept this force multiplier. CIOs and others were challenged to accept the new wave which required not just adaptation to the technology but also a change in process.

From the internet led disruption to mobility to Clouds to now the Digital hype, IoT, and wearables to name a few, enterprises and CIOs have never had a dull moment. Doomsday did happen for some though not because they did not embrace the hype, but because they did not change when they should have or when they could have. Stories of such companies shall remain case studies in organizational inertia. In the new world of digitally defined success measured by valuations among other things, everyone wants a share of the pie.

This is an opportunity for every company and leader to introspect and take some uncomfortable decisions to give up the good old ways of working and explore how the hype can be tamed and applied within. The CIO more than other CXOs is well placed to take steps towards creating a dialogue that puts the elephant in the room and test hypotheses on impact to customer, employees, partners and stakeholders. In the new age some of the fundamentals cannot be forgotten; finally for every company it is about creating value for the ecosystem.

"A year from now, you may wish you had started today." - Karen Lamb

Knowing buzzwords does not make you a Chief Digital Officer !

We are going digital and we will change the way the industry leverages digital ! You know these 20 year old bright B-school interns ? I am sure these kids who were born with technology know a lot about how their generation uses the Internet and devices and Internet of Things and wearables... They will help us take our company into the digital world. I am commissioning a research study on the industry and what is happening globally and how our customers are likely to behave. Everyone sighed and nodded their heads to the ravings of a man possessed.

This CXO had taken on the mantle of leading the digital transformation of the enterprise; no one had asked him nor did anyone suggest that going digital was a priority for the enterprise. He was good at spewing buzzwords and had a basic though carbon dated understanding of IT. His own function and team tolerated him for his loudmouth tactics that appeared to be getting him attention of those who mattered. One fine day he pronounced that he was going to be the Chief Digital Officer and drive the digital journey for the company.

The CMO who was well grounded and grown in the industry over two decades, heard about it from his team mate who was sitting in on his behalf that day. He felt amused that a rank outsider who had barely spent a year in the industry was willing to make tall promises and claims on how the business shall stand transformed with help of a few college kids ! He asked his team to provide full support to the CXO and keep him informed of progress. He had a business to run and numbers to deliver, the company can learn from someone else’s mistakes.

The industry was known to be conservative in adopting technology with no real pressures on growth or profitability especially in growing economies. The company had always attempted to stay in front of the game though not always able to push through the competitive advantage. Globally some early pilots on digital had early success and some of the larger multi-national companies had started investing for mature markets. It was too early to predict how digital will finally shape outcomes for the industry, companies and the consumer.

The CXO flew people around the world, organized videoconferences, and finally selected a bunch of students from a mid-tier global B-school. The selected team comprised 5 nationalities was seen as a good mix of perspectives and cultures. They were excited as the young can be, and looked up to the CXO to set the agenda for the project. Many meetings later there appeared to be a structure to what was required and the process to get it; a protégé of the CXO was entrusted the task of chaperoning the team around their field visits.

The CMO working with the CIO had many projects underway which were significant components towards the digitalization of the enterprise and connect with the ecosystem. These were kept as low key affairs to keep news from spreading and gaining a competitive advantage. The business knew these would help them get a big boost in the market and supported the CMO/CIO partnership. The CXO made multiple attempts to get a handle on these unsuccessfully and moved on to his globally envisioned digital strategy that will transform the industry.

Months passed away with the teams working across borders, engaging with customers, stakeholders, end consumers, influencers, and everyone who mattered. The collated volumes of quantitative and qualitative data which was put into the churner. The CXO took excerpts and published them as brilliance from the students while crooking a finger at the CMO and how the new strategy will … Everyone listened and nodded again allowing the CXO to present the findings in the upcoming meeting. The CMO and CIO remained unfazed and continued to toil.

D-day arrived and everyone was anxious to hear the new vision. Everyone listened attentively to the young lady who presented the groups findings based on data and inferences based on interviews globally. The picture that emerged was not too different from the direction chosen by the CMO and the CIO. The company was on the right track, they just needed to get some acceleration into the projects. A sense of relief settled around the room; the CXO changed colors through the presentation, ran out of the room with phone attached to his ear which no one remembered ringing !

The new generation will behave differently to stimulus, who better to validate with ?

Corporate ADHD and Time Management

Once upon a time there was a disruptive technology that took the corporate world by storm. Every executive aspired to own it and badgered their respective managers and IT to provide it across the ranks. The investment was quite high and thus it was rationed off down the hierarchy incrementally. The haves strutted it proudly and for the wannabes it was a classic case of owners envy, neighbors pride. It took a while to become a commodity and then the paradigm changed again. I am referring to mail on the mobile that every executive wanted.

It was fashionable to have a message footer which indicated which device you used to send a message especially if it was not a PC or laptop. Notifications and alerts from these devices ensured that you knew 24X7 whenever a message arrived. Initially due to enthusiasm and then by habit replies were almost instant. Whether in meeting, at a social event, getting the nightly beauty sleep, or traveling including driving; there was an intrinsic urge to respond. The resultant impact to mind and body created rifts in relations, disease forms and cures.

Multitude of newer devices and smartphones eliminated the divide between the privileged and the bourgeois. Consumerization of IT created newer possibilities which the CIOs struggled with; added to this social media addiction completed the digitization of the populace. Armed with multiple devices to separate personal from corporate, the demands on the individual from peers, friends, acquaintances, and the illuminati made everyone a slave in the connected world with pings and vibrations of all kinds vying for attention.

We want to achieve more in lesser time and thus multi-task in a hope that within the same time more will get done. Thus people flit from moment to moment with their attention darting from one thought to another; the flurry of activity divided between competing tasks and priorities. Interruptions now enter less in physical form and more on multiple connected devices attached or surrounding us. The result is that everything ends up taking longer and little gets done which pushes us to do more of the same entrenching us deeper into the quicksand of inefficiency.

Empirical data from numerous studies has proven that attention span stands reduced by 3X over the last few decades and continues its downward spiral. We don’t have time is the pet peeve of busy corporate executives buried under the mountain of unfulfilled tasks and missed deadlines. Numerous apps, email alerts, and push notifications keep us bound to the devices and habitually pressurizes us to take notice and demands action. Unable to comprehend the nemesis they struggle to stay afloat with no evident way out.

Everyone is working harder in their quest to get much done; longer hours has become the norm. Work life balance anyone ? Shun the thought and take some work home; get it done while you travel and the rest when you get there. There are no options for the individual; enterprises now have choices from the downsized, unwanted and freelancers; there is always someone who will do it cheaper, faster, probably in the neighborhood or oceans apart. Technology also makes it possible to automate many processes and eliminate the inefficient.

Effectiveness of meetings dwindle and urgency overrides the important with perceived time value of information becoming a key measure even when it influences no change in outcomes. Time is getting filled with activity leaving no discretionary activity possible. People attending “Time Management” seminars find that it sets them back with the time spent. The urgent has overtaken our lives and the important is neglected.

A generation of digital slaves emerges from the shadows; they walk with bowed heads with their hands at diaphragm level holding their (master) devices, attentive eyes glued to glowing screens beckoning them to the inane and unimportant. Some devices strapped to different body parts communicate with other things which in turn influences the slave’s behavior. The promise of a better future keeps the addicts hopeful and asking for more. It is scary that we are beginning to forget what life used to be and what it can be.

Big Brother is watching you !

“We are sorry Sir, we are unable to accept your order; thank you for calling your favorite dining place”. I am sure you have also received or read some of the messages floating around on social media where the protagonist is unable to order his favorite pizza or pasta or whatever dish you may want to imagine. He is repeatedly denied his request to quench his craving with inferences about his cholesterol or past illness or health insurance coverage; you can imagine the rest as it would probably pan out for the majority of us.

The situation is not too far in the future ! In an interconnected world, combination of personal, medical, social, financial and professional data creates new possibilities of analytical correlations that can be used or misused depending on how you look at the situation. Connected netizens fill in void hours in their lives on multiple devices through the day with status updates, browsing for information or clarifications on something that they are unable to comprehend. They leave behind a trail that can be picked up.

We already see this happening with targeted advertisements across various sites depending on our browsing behavior. Would you turn off cookies or stop accessing popular search engines from your mobile ? What about all the apps on the smartphone ? Some nifty utilities that make life so much easier; finding great restaurants, booking tables, looking up flight schedule or delay. Can these apps pry at other data on your smartphones or the remnants of bread crumbs and widgets start snooping around your laptop or tablet ?

I get this weird feeling when advertisements remind me of my visits to some websites like someone has been looking over my shoulder spying on me all along in my public and private moments. So I decided to confuse the intruders by randomly checking for exotic locations which I would never visit or check out merchandise that most sane people would shudder to buy. The trail it created led the crawlies on a red herring trail. I felt elated as if I had won a major war by thwarting the evil shenanigans in their quest to hound me.

Our dependence on technology is slowly and steadily shifting our thought patterns and the way we think. Intuitively we reach out to query a term or gather additional information adding to the vast amount of data we assimilate. We also seek help for simple and complex problems or situations rarely exerting our thinking prowess. I am not sure if this is good or bad, healthy or not, this has become a way of life. The extreme dependence of the newer generation also known as Digital Natives on technology is exciting and scary.

CIOs have struggled with BYOD getting entrenched across their enterprises and made half-hearted attempts to rope in the rogues with Mobile Device Management and other tools. But that is only part of the story; our incessant need to be online across all our devices adds to the trail we leave behind. Most of the providers have become our shadow with embedded trackers hiding their intent in fine print over 30 pages of agreements which no one reads and clicks “I Agree”. And guess what ? In most cases we don’t really care.

Every day we are flooded with huge amounts of quotes, stories, posts, pictures, videos sent to us by people we know. No one knows the origin or validity of the content we receive. Are we at the cusp of incremental revolution nudged by technology that is controlled by few who are playing with our decisions ? Are our cognitive behaviors are being shaped by some manipulative story teller who is pulling at our heartstrings in ways unknown to us ? Are we really in control of our actions and destiny anymore ?

The digitization of the world is an eventuality that cannot be wished away. It is gaining momentum every day and encompassing every aspect of our lives slowly and steadily. We are given choices on how we would like to engage with technology but peer pressure breaks down resistance quickly. I wonder if I have a mind of my own as I keep going back to technology to assist me with every step I take. As a kid I read the Orwellian tale about Big Brother watching me; I think the future has arrived stealthily without telling us !

The Digirati are coming

With the advent of the Internet two decades back euphoria around internet based business models exploded upon all of us. Predictions like “if you are not on the web, you will be dead or if you don’t have an internet strategy, you don’t have a business strategy” shook up everyone and pushed them towards limits of paranoia. Untenable valuations on shaky business models led to the dot bust that wiped out millions from budgets and zillions in market capitalization. Now digital is rivaling the din of the past and it has everyone scrambling again.

Some CIOs saw it coming earlier than others; creating awareness within their enterprises, they attempted to raise the bar. Initial reactions of cynicism and indifference led many CIOs to return to their comfort zones while the world around them flirted with the digital wave. As success stories started trickling in, it gave jitters to the disbelievers and created a flurry of disconnected activity. Every CXO wanted a digital project; everyone added the word “digital” in the headline; many ignored the CIO to avoid embarrassing discussions.

SMAC came the response from consultants, vendors and the IT folks alike; to get started on your digital journey, you need the skills, talent and a link back to the physical world that IT provides. Many CIOs reveled in the limelight of having been ahead of the game while the rest joined the confused ranks adding to the chaos with technology play. As individual pieces of Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud made way into various initiatives, the picture started to become clear that digital is not an option anymore; it is going to be a way of life.

Board room and management discussions on digital attempted to create correlations with revenue growth, customer service, enablement of suppliers and business partners, automation for improved process efficiency. Now the connections to enterprise goals are shifting the discussion from the likes of Big Data Analytics or Mobility to creating new business models or tapping new profit pools and outpacing competition. Everyone wants to be anointed with title of the CDO to be hailed as the hero when success arrives.

Competition from new age companies in some sectors like hospitality, retail, virtual collaboration, and travel and entertainment has disrupted conventional age old business models leading to a scramble to catch up. Industrial giants slowed by corporate inertia are waking up to new threat and opportunities. Willing to use their scale, muscle power and enormous resources, they potentially have the ability to devour the small fish while they establish new business models and reinvent their business, systems and leverage the digital wave.

Silos of digital initiatives will at best test a hypothesis, for enterprise wide impact, cohesive and integrated approach with CEO alignment is essential. Reality is, IT and business strategies are no longer separate, and they have become inseparable. With everything going online and “Internet of Things” creating an avalanche of hitherto unexplored data, enterprises are pushing the boundaries of analytical possibilities. Corporate and information boundaries are disappearing demanding democratization of analytics and decision making.

The oft repeated question to CIOs raises its head again on their position in this evolutionary revolution ? IT teams need to focus on not just scale but also the new application ecosystem that requires IT teams to discard legacy and pursuit of monolithic systems and shift focus on agile built for purpose apps. This paradigm shift requires preparation for non-stop business in the interconnected world. Customers are challenging the business of incremental innovation and forcing companies to listen and co-create new products and services.

Digital is here and how ! For most CIOs BYOD/T was a beginning, BYOW (Wearable) will stretch the already delicate ecosystem. Finicky customers expecting instant gratification threaten fragile brand reputations with 140 characters and less. Consumption patterns are shifting thereby forcing CIOs to rework corporate peer relationships. I believe that CIOs can reclaim lost ground by challenging existing digital alignments and build the foundation that will help the enterprise win in raging battle for revenue, profitability and the customer.

Your enterprise digital stance may be a challenge at the moment; culturally maybe the company does not enable open ideas or visible risk; it is up to you to decide whether you want to be a bystander while the world moves ahead or you want your destiny to be linked to the new world of digital enablement ? Are you ready ?