MOST Analysis

Mission Statement

IT transformation of an organization is not a one-man show. It requires the combined effort of different people from different functional areas of the organization. People with unique skill sets have to come together for the transformation to be effective and sustainable. Although digital transformation is about the deployment of new technology or migrating the existing system to a new platform, it requires more than just technical knowledge. Since digital transformation has an impact on different areas of the business, it also requires people from the business side to work on the implementation. That is why building a cross-functional team is essential for the IT transformation program. The digital transformation team often has to include people from both within and outside the organization. The internal resources of the team include the right mix of people from within the organization. This will be the core team working on the transformation and should consist of people from the technical side, finance side, and the business side as well. Quite often the teams are heavier on the technical side with little to no inputs from the business sector. There may also be disagreements or friction between the members from different departments working in the same team. These issues may slow down the transformation process and must be addressed by the leadership. Apart from the internal members, the transformation should also work with the partner resources. These include technology partners who will help with the deployment of technology. System integrators are an important part of the digital transformation team and they are the bridge between the technology solutions adopted and their successful implementation. Critical members who will be especially helpful to the program should be chosen based on the skills and experience.

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Objectives

01. Digital Product Managers: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
02. Security & Risk Advisors: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
03. Internal Communications: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
04. System Integrators: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
05. Chief Experience Officers: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
06. Compliance Specialists Including Digital Ethics: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
07. Project Managers: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. 1 Month
08. Cloud Specialists: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
09. Organizational Development (HR): departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
10. Vendor Managers: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
11. Data Analysts: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month
12. Solutions Architects: departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development. Time Allocated: 1 Month

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Strategies

01. Digital Product Managers: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
02. Security & Risk Advisors: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
03. Internal Communications: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
04. System Integrators: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
05. Chief Experience Officers: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
06. Compliance Specialists Including Digital Ethics: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
07. Project Managers: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
08. Cloud Specialists: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
09. Organizational Development (HR): Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
10. Vendor Managers: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
11. Data Analysts: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.
12. Solutions Architects: Each individual department head to undertake departmental SWOT analysis; strategy research & development.

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Tasks

01. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Digital Product Managers.
02. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Security & Risk Advisors.
03. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Internal Communications.
04. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze System Integrators.
05. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Chief Experience Officers.
06. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Compliance Specialists Including Digital Ethics.
07. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Project Managers.
08. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Cloud Specialists.
09. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Organizational Development (HR).
10. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Vendor Managers.
11. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Data Analysts.
12. Create a task on your calendar, to be completed within the next month, to analyze Solutions Architects.

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Introduction

Building the Right Team for Your Digital Transformation Initiatives

Collaboration between People, Process, and Technology is required for IT Transformation initiatives. ‘People,’ according to many studies and research, are the most important factor in driving and succeeding in the Digital Transformation initiative.

There are a few things to keep in mind while forming teams for the DT Initiative before detailing the designations, competencies, and skills required for a successful digitalization team.

• People Track – Appoint a digital visionary leader to steer the strategy. To fulfil the objective, cross-functionality and collaboration must be enabled.

• Process Track – Determine the most important procedures and make improvements to improve the company’s “hard wiring.” More efficient processes should be the end result.

• Technology Track – To make business more agile, scalable, and efficient, aging technology is being replaced with new technology.

• Information Track – Streamlining the data gathered and turning it into information; and regulating the information that is sent out in order to better service existing customers and attract new consumers more quickly.

People

Having the right team to champion the idea from top to bottom and across the business is an important part of any successful transformation.

Why?

People form teams, which in turn create culture, generate the correct vision, and hold the necessary future skills to move the Digital Agenda forward.

51% of the highest performing enterprises see their cultures as holding them back in the digital transformation journey. Laggards, on the other hand, are missing the warning signs – only 36% of the lowest performing enterprises identify culture as a problem to progress. – HfS Research

Organizations that focused on culture were 5x more likely to achieve breakthrough performance than companies that ignored culture, according to a BCG study of 40 digital transformations.

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Digital Transformation Team – What does it look like?

1. Executive Leadership – Management must fully support digital transformation initiatives. To make the transformation successful, executives must have a broad view of the business and industry. There are numerous alternatives for the chief of DT efforts, including Chief Digital Transformation Officer, Chief Digital Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, and so on. While the Chief of Digital Transformation is responsible for operational efforts, business transformation is a strategic initiative that requires full C-suite participation. Otherwise, the strategy would result in surface adjustments that will be difficult to percolate deep into the firm and bring about the necessary cultural change. Organizations should choose someone from the current C-suite to lead this shift since they know the business better than anyone else. If it isn’t possible, I advocate employing someone with experience driving business change at a higher level from a similar industry.

Skills required – The head of the Digital Transformation team should have a strong grasp of the company’s operations and customers. The entire DT concept revolves around customers. Understanding new-age technology such as Cloud, AI, ML, and Data Science, as well as how to utilize the necessary talent to construct a modern and futuristic business model, is the second crucial skill. People management is the third and most crucial talent, as it is required to persuade board members, manage people and cultural change, and bring the entire organization’s Digital Transformation ideas into alignment.

2. Core Digital Transformation Team – Hands-on practitioners of many technologies and business verticals make up the core digital experience team. Product Managers, Program Managers, Solution Architects, and Senior Managers of Business and Technical Teams are some of the positions that fall within the core digitization team. Organizations must hire and re-skill existing staff in order to build a core Digital Experience Team.

Organizations must educate employees about new initiatives and provide opportunities for individuals who want to change careers. This will necessitate comprehensive training programs and sessions depending on the new skills that the organization requires.

Skills required – These skills will differ depending on the tools and technologies used to facilitate company transformation. For example, a corporation moving to the cloud needs cloud professionals who are familiar with new technologies like Microservices, Containers, and Serverless architecture. Cloud architects, Cloud Engineers, Data Center Operations, Analysts, Administrators, and Help Desk will all be part of the team. Another example is forming an AI team comprised of Machine-Learning engineers, Data Scientists, Applied Scientists, Data Engineers, and other professionals. People who are strong at adjusting to change, team players, agile practitioners, management, and excellent communication skills are needed in these professions.

3. Extended Digital Transformation Team – Developers, designers, visualizers, junior data scientists, AI and ML engineers, business analysts, and other members of the extended digital team may be included.

Skills Required – To give finesses in the Digital Transformation program, the expanded digital transformation team requires specialist talents in development, design, data science, coding, and infrastructure. The extended digitalization team might be quite substantial, depending on the size of the firm. This necessitates further hiring and reskilling of existing employees in many tools and technologies.

Digital Transformation-It’s a Team Game

The success of Digital Transformation is primarily dependent on culture, and your Digital Transformation team is vital in implementing this culture management program. It is recommended that you create a long-term digital team capable of bringing and maintaining Digital Transformation initiatives. A high-performing Digital Transformation team will include a combination of experienced team members that know your business inside and out, as well as new team members who can bring a fresh perspective to the table as you look for the best technologies.

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What staff and skills do you need to enable Leading IT Transformation?

You simply cannot ignore the current agenda: 55% of businesses without a digital transformation believe they have less than a year before losing market share. Now is the time to take action.

Companies can no longer afford to sit back and wait due to the rapid rate of change, new markets, competitive conditions, and customer demands. They must respond swiftly and show their adaptability.

Many businesses automatically turn to their IT departments to help them modernize for the current day. According to data from Gartner, 62 percent of digital transformation programs are managed by the IT department.

Digital technologies, on the other hand, only deliver ‘potential’ increases in efficiency, production, and experience. Organizations must consider them alongside their people and processes in order to achieve a successful transformation. That is why, in truth, digital transformation is about the entire business, not just technology.

A laser-focused leadership team is required for successful digital transformation

According to McKinsey, your digital transformation project is 1.8 times more likely to succeed if you have the proper people in critical roles to ensure communication between business functions. Nearly 70% of organisations report changing their top team during the transformation process.

Getting the ‘right people’ in place may necessitate re-structuring or adjusting the management layer prior to implementing the necessary changes and getting them accepted into business as usual.

It may appear frightening, especially since job security concerns are common during times of transition, but it is actually a wonderful thing. Redefining roles and responsibilities to fit with your digital transformation goals clarifies what talents your company requires to succeed in the modern day. For your employees, this could mean taking on more/less/new duties, as well as additional training and development possibilities.

But who are the ‘right people’?

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Leading the digital transformation agenda

Around 40% of businesses have established specialized digital transformation teams. It’s maybe unexpected that 84 percent of CEOs are also involved in and committed to transformative change as the person in charge of managing the organization.

Furthermore, the CISO is significantly involved in defining the digital transformation plan. When it comes to acquiring and integrating new technologies into the existing IT infrastructure, it’s critical to maintain the status quo during a period of change to avoid exposing the company.

The new roles that the digital transformation agenda has generated

New strategic roles, such as Head of Digital Transformation, Head of Technology Transformation, and Head of Innovation, are being formed at the middle management level. These people are now in charge of assisting specific aspects of the transformation agenda.

However, digital transformation has resulted in the creation of key new senior positions in the C-suite, such as the Chief Digital Officer (CDO). The CDO, a transformation advocate with boundless energy, might potentially take over the role of CEO during the process, allowing the CEO to focus on overseeing the entire organization. According to McKinsey research, organizations employing a CDO have a 1.6x higher likelihood of success.

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The digital transformation agenda has changed various roles

While certain roles have experienced small changes, such as the CSO’s training now incorporates new skills for interacting with the rest of the company, the CIO’s function has altered the most.

Over the previous three years, 83 percent of CIOs say their role has become more strategic. Because technology has always been relegated to the sphere of the IT department, the function has traditionally focused on concerns such as infrastructure maintenance and compliance. However, we now live and work in the digital era, when technology has become an integral part of our lives.

The job of the CIO has changed to become increasingly connected with business challenges, with 25% of CIOs exerting greater responsibility over digital transformation initiatives.

The CIO is now expected to bridge the gap between IT and the rest of the business, rather than focusing just on technology. Their duty, similar to that of a marriage counselor, is to listen to the wants and requirements of both sides of the business and assist them communicate in a common language and work toward a common goal.

Three things must change for the CIO:

• Modernize IT: Investing in deeper industry domain knowledge and contacts.

• The IT organization’s mindset: offering a seamless operational environment by hastening the company’s transition to automation and the cloud.

• The organizational structure: enhancing the organization’s agility and speed in order to seize new opportunities.

It’s achieved through:

Process of questioning

Because the CIO is typically not in charge of the company’s profit and loss, they might be seen as neutral in many ways because they have no financial agenda. This means they can pose potentially painful and tough questions that challenge the current quo and force the senior leadership team to think about the organization’s long-term future.

Researching technology

The CIO must be on the cutting edge of new technology, aware of every new invention and innovation, assessing whether or not it will benefit the company and being able to describe the value it will provide. They must be aware of the alternatives, overlaps, and prospective alliances that could help the company’s digital transformation efforts.

Managing people

The CIO must be able to listen to the objections, worries, and suggestions of both IT and business stakeholders, empathize with their predicament, and clearly convey the path forward. This may need them to negotiate to reach an amicable agreement, or it may force them to make a “executive decision.”

The Overlooked Areas

The entire change management side of things is an area that is sometimes disregarded. In general, if you’re going to make a change, you’ll need a change leader. You might even have change management resources to assist that change management lead. The change team here will be in charge of ensuring that not only people are trained and that we’re leveraging the technical expertise, but that the training is also tailored to your specific business processes and technology.

Prior to training, it’s critical to remember that change management is accountable for ensuring that the organization is designed correctly.

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Digital transformation is more about people than technology

Never forget that people are key to your digital transformation project.

According to a McKinsey Global Survey of executives published in 2020, the ongoing Covid-19 problem has driven businesses around the world to hasten the adoption of digital technology by three to four years. The improvements have primarily occurred in three areas: consumer interactions, supply chain, and internal operations. The share of offerings that are digital in nature has increased the most – by seven years – across business areas.

However, previous research has indicated that digital transformations have a low success rate. Only 16 percent of respondents to a 2018 survey claimed that digital transformations at their companies had enhanced performance and equipped them to endure changes over time. A further 7% claimed their performance had improved, but that it had not been sustained.

The causes for digital transformation failure are numerous, and they have been extensively discussed elsewhere. However, many of these factors may be reduced to a single factor: people. Most firms forget that these key endeavors – from defining a vision and crafting a strategy to communicating it to the rest of the organization and executing it – are facilitated first and foremost by people.

In this workshop, we will discuss the two categories of people – leaders and employees – who are important to every organization’s digital transformation success.

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Leaders

“If you think about digital transformation as two words, we pay too much attention to the digital and not enough to transformation. It’s not a technology challenge, it’s a leadership one.”

– Dr George Westerman, senior lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management

Digital transformation is more than just adopting new technologies. It’s about transforming business processes, models, and organizational culture using technology. It’s about imagining new business models, marketplaces, and more efficient ways of attracting, engaging, and providing value to customers using the data provided by technology. This is why companies that start their digital transformation efforts by employing bright people in critical roles are more likely to succeed.

Good leaders will have a clear vision of the digital path that the company must pursue and will be able to motivate staff to strive toward it. When obstacles arise, they can quickly modify and pivot their strategy while keeping the overall picture in mind. Good leaders will also put money into employees who can use technology to help the company achieve its objectives. They keep companies from slipping into the costly trap of innovation theater, when resources are invested to promote innovation but few concrete outcomes are visible.

Synchronized transformation

Because of the nature of the beast, it’s not uncommon to have multiple departments working on their own digital transformations ad hoc, often before the C-suite has even drafted a comprehensive plan for the entire company. This can be evident in function heads’ attempts to automate specific operations or mine data with digital tools to assist their business decisions. However, allowing each department to go its own way in terms of digitization can lead to inefficiencies later on when the entire organization decides to become digital and business systems are unable to connect with one another due to differing technologies.

Worse, the digital technologies in use by specific departments can sometimes influence the organization’s entire digital strategy. This is a costly blunder. Your organization’s digital technology acquisition and use should be determined by your future vision and strategy, not the other way around.

Your vision and strategy for the future should determine what digital technology your organisation acquires and uses, not the other way around.

This will be ensured by good leaders. To use an analogy, they’re like orchestra conductors who make sure that separate functions aren’t playing their own digital tunes in their own silos, but instead are working together to create a single organizational melody that is in sync with the overall goal.

Too many cooks?

However, simply bringing in new leaders with fancy digital titles will not suffice, as having too many digital leaders in an organization can lead to confusion, a lack of responsibility, frustration, and inefficiencies, jeopardizing your entire transformation initiative.

According to a poll of 700 executives, organizations have close to two CxO-level digital leaders on average, with some having six or more. A third of respondents were unsure who in their organization was in charge of the majority of digital/technology functions. The fact that many functional leaders in today’s businesses also have digital duties adds to the uncertainty.

As a result, it’s critical for businesses to explicitly define each digital leader’s roles and responsibilities. Everyone in the company should know who is in charge of the digital transformation initiative.

Here’s something to consider in a similar vein: According to a 2017 McKinsey poll, organizations with digital executives reporting directly to the CEO were seen to be more productive than those without.

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Employees

Our natural reaction to new ideas or efforts is to resist them; it’s in our DNA. This is why, whether the transformation is digital or not, employee buy-in is crucial to its success. Employees in all roles are more involved in effective digital changes, according to research.

When organizations fail to engage employees in suggested transformations, “innovation antibodies” are activated. Similarly to how our bodies use antibodies to combat foreign cells, an organization’s innovation antibodies are activated when employees see a threat to the status quo posed by the disruptive demands of the proposed change and resist it either consciously or unconsciously.

Staff help you shape the right strategy

Employee buy-in is important for a variety of reasons, including project success. Early employee involvement aids leadership in gaining ground-level insights, allowing them to build a really helpful digital transformation strategy with a high possibility of success. Employees, after all, have firsthand experience of what works and what doesn’t, and can advise the company on process changes. A top-down strategy, on the other hand, may not be able to match the needs of the organization and may fail.

While working on your strategy, ask your employees the following questions to gather their feedback: Are there any routine jobs that could be automated? Do they have any workplace issues that could be resolved with better processes or technology? Is there any data that can assist them in doing their tasks more effectively?

Another benefit of involving employees early in the project is that they will be more invested. It gives employees a sense of ownership, which is exactly what you need for employee buy-in.

Communication is key

All of this necessitates effective internal communication. Similarly, after the strategy has been finalized, it is critical to communicate its aims and benefits to all personnel. It also helps comfort employees who are concerned that the proposed changes will make their jobs obsolete. To overcome aversion to change, experts recommend focusing on three things. They’re as follows:

• Discontent with the status quo – Discuss how the existing method of working can be frustrating and contribute to poor business performance, which has a direct impact on employees.

• The future vision – Explain how the suggested changes will improve things, allowing staff to accomplish their tasks more effectively and possibly opening up new career prospects.

• Specific steps to achieve that goal – the current strategy and each employee’s responsibility.

Additionally, find transformation advocates among employees to gather support. These are individuals who believe in your vision and are willing to act as early adopters and evangelists. Some of them could be integrators – employees who are experts in their field and can seamlessly merge the new digital method of working with the old.

Skills development

After you’ve dealt with the mindset, it’s time to concentrate on your skills.

According to a 2018 Gartner poll, 70% of respondents don’t have the skills they need for their jobs today, and up to 80% say they lack the abilities they need for both their current function and their future career.

Training all employees to use all of the new digital technologies is critical since your project will only succeed and give a good return on investment if all employees use all of the new systems and tools to their full potential.

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Executive Summary

Chapter 1: Digital Product Managers

What Does It Mean to Be a Digital Product Manager?

A product manager is in charge of driving product development to market success. This is the responsibility of a digital product manager for digital products. Software tools, apps, and any other electronic product fall under this category.

What Are the Skills of a Digital Product Manager?

A successful digital product manager possesses several of the same key competencies as any other product manager. Digital products are fundamentally different from physical products. As a result, they will have various more abilities necessary to be a successful digital product manager. Here are some instances of both skill sets.

All product managers (including digital product managers) have certain abilities.

1. Strategy planning

The ability to see the larger picture is required of all product managers. Then, using that knowledge, develop strategies and objectives for their cross-functional team.

2. Prioritization

Even the most well-funded organizations have limited resources for product managers. They also only have a limited amount of time to devote to any given assignment. That is why they require the capacity to select and prioritize the most important activities to include in their product roadmap.

3. Analysis and research

Successful product managers require exceptional research skills, whether they are in charge of physical or digital products. They must locate relevant data and convert it into information that will aid in the improvement of their products.

For monitoring digital products, digital product managers must also develop a new set of abilities. For instance:

4. Iterative development and deployment

Today’s digital product managers have no choice but to follow agile concepts. These principles support regular delivery of working items to users. This means that digital products must learn to rate minor changes. Because the ability to rank is critical for pushing updates to clients on shorter timescales.

5. Design thinking

A dig