Today I’m sharing a two-part article on The Long Journey of Changing Habits in a Digital Transformation Organization. This is part 2 of Digital Transformation Strategy: The Essential Guide to Enterprise Success.
Be sure to check out our previous post, The Long Journey of Changing Habits in a Digital Transformation Organization (Part 1 of 2).
Contents
COVID-19 and DX: The New Business Landscape
COVID-19 has changed not only our daily lives, but also the business environment of companies. DX, which was only a question mark, has suddenly become an authority and taken over everything. With the outbreak of COVID-19, companies suddenly faced shutdowns, and telecommuting was implemented without proper preparation.
In addition, the performance of brick-and-mortar companies, which had been leading the market, crashed, and IT companies, which had been represented by contactless, began to lead the market. Digital has entered every aspect of our lives and companies, with contactless environments becoming commonplace and video conferencing becoming the norm. In response, Satya N. Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said that DX, a two-year project, was completed in just two months during the COVID-19 crisis.
The DX Imperative: Responding to a Rapidly Changing Industry
As a result, companies in traditional industries, as well as IT companies, are becoming more comfortable with the semi-forced acceptance of working from home. They are also realizing that not having to meet face-to-face doesn’t make a huge difference to corporate productivity. The internal culture of companies is also changing to the point where it’s no longer awkward to conduct video conferences face-to-face.
Collaboration in the cloud is also becoming increasingly important to support remote work. As a result, even companies that have been reluctant to invest in IT have begun to embrace digital tools. (In its earnings call, Microsoft Teams Solutions, a cloud-based collaboration tool, announced that it surpassed 100 million daily active users in October 2020, a 53% increase from April.)
Obstacles to DX: Changing internal systems and culture
Of course, there were problems. From small issues such as what to do if you forget the password to your company-issued laptop to how to resolve various system access errors in the company, various issues began to emerge that would not have come up without the changed environment. However, the fact that many companies, regardless of industry, have been actively responding to the COVID-19 situation by using IT technology is enough to say that DX has successfully broken ground.
From unilaterally creating a program and urging employees to use it, companies are now starting to reorganize their internal IT systems to improve the user experience for employees’ convenience. This means that we are starting to look at DX as an investment in people, not just an investment in technology. It also meant that DX wasn’t seen as something big and far away, but rather as improving the digital experience of our people, whether that meant working remotely or having video conferencing.
DX’s Ultimate Goal: Toward Sustainable Growth
What do companies really want from DX? A common expectation for many companies is “sustained growth”. But the word “sustainable” can mean many things. In a world where even the fastest-growing companies have a hard time looking 10 years ahead, sustained growth means a fundamental shift. In particular, companies in traditional industries that are far from digital (B2B companies, brick-and-mortar companies, and one-person businesses where digital is a secondary means of doing business) are being asked to change more than companies that were born in IT.
Up until now, these companies have simply adopted IT tools and, in some cases, increased their IT investments. But now they need to digitally transform their entire workforce and organizational culture. So, from transforming business models to digitizing existing products and transforming operational efficiency, it all falls under the concept and scope of DX. That’s why DX should be thought of as a “long journey” to support “sustainable growth,” rather than a one-time endeavor. Therefore, rather than thinking of DX as a project with a clear beginning and end, it is better to recognize it as an attitude or habit that should be done all the time.
DX: Changing organizational culture and attitudes beyond technology
When it comes to DX, technology has been at the center of the discussion, but once again, it’s not about technology, it’s about people and process. It’s all about attitude and sequencing. In short, DX is a long journey to change the way people work, which in turn changes the processes, which in turn changes the business.