By: Carlos Sutton
The race is on, the COVID-19 scenario removed the question, do we a need Digital Transformation?. The question now is: How is it done quickly?
Thankfully, current technologies are providing answers to allow this transformation and one of them is Platforms.
Platforms are enablers to speed up Business Transformation providing greater flexibility, simplifying the access to new technologies such as artificial intelligence or IOT and paving the way to integrate into business EcoSystems.
Business agility demands fast reactions to quickly reconfigure investments and funds responding to market changes. Information technology can no longer be an anchor slowing down these changes. The use of approaches such as Adapting Planning and Digital Operating Models enable agility.
Why is an operating model based on a digital platform? This is because it is required for visibility and transparency, to facilitate decisions based on data, to enable autonomous but coordinate work at a cell level and to minimize silos through integrated value chain workflows.
This “Platform of Platforms” enables:
- The use of data from different Systems of Record through a flexible integration engine.
- The provision of a common attractive user interface that generates a great customer experience available through multiple channels (Mobile, Web, Tablets, etc.).
- The integration of workflows across the organisation.
Organisations around the world are expected to accelerate the rate of adoption of digital enterprise platforms, as well as all the possibilities they enable, according to a survey of 600 CEOs, CIOs and CHRO executives by ESI ThoughtLab and ServiceNow.
Almost 30% of business leaders surveyed have said they have largely implemented a digital enterprise platform, but 64% expect to be at that advanced stage within the next three years.
The survey results separated “leaders” from “followers” in adoption of digital enterprise platforms. Platform adoption correlated with a higher revenue size. Leaders accounted for the greatest proportion (47%) of companies with revenue greater than USD5 billion. More leaders also reported various benefits from their platforms when compared with other organisations: improved customer satisfaction (55% versus 37% of followers), greater market share (54% versus 38%) and improved decision-making (53% versus 39%).
The integration of workflows, apps, and data through a single digital platform, significantly reduces the amount of electronic e-mails and spreadsheets that currently are used to interchange information among different functions, improves the quality of information, reduces the number of errors, facilitates the automation of tasks and enhances collaboration between teams.
So, the technology is there, but the other key and probably the most important element to enable the Business Transformation Acceleration is people, meaning cultural change and adoption. The pandemic situation is teaching us about this, but this is a subject of another article that will be released soon.
