...................................................................................................................................................................................... TRAVELSPORTGAMES
AT NORTH HIGHLAND WE DEFINE DIGITAL CAPABILITY ACROSS THE FOLLOWING FIVE AREAS :
1 . Digital Products – Using software to solve problems and meet user needs . Software is eating the physical world because Digital products are easier to improve . Look at Tesla – the proportion of their car that is software is ever increasing , and as that can be upgraded without going to a garage it ’ s a huge differentiator .
2 . Digital Efficiency – Automation on an enterprise scale makes new things possible . Automating workflow and business processes , removing wait states and hand-offs drives huge improvements in quality , scalability and efficiency . It also gives the customer immediate fulfilment . If 24x7 digital services leave a queue of work for people in the morning – that just doesn ’ t scale . Combining this with a lean and systems thinking approach has a huge impact .
3 . Digital Relationships – New channels , new touch points and new ways of interacting with users . Whether it ’ s B2B or B2C or B2E – digital scales , without scaling the cost , and provides more choice and efficiency for the customer , so digital organisations are driving all relationships to this channel .
4 . Digital Disruption – Introducing disruptive changes in existing markets , or creating new ones . For example look at Uber , technology innovation allows them to disrupt their markets and even create brand new ones . The capability here is to use digital technology to aid innovation .
5 . Digital Change – The process , technology , governance and culture that underpins an organisations ’ ability to change services and implement new ones . This capability underpins the other 4 . It is the ability to deliver technology enabled change at a pace that is orders of magnitude higher than non-digital organisations .
For non-digital organisations , the challenge in each of these areas is significant . In each area , IT faces its own challenge . So , if a non-digital organisation wants to compete in these areas , what are the challenges for the existing IT function ? They are as follows :
Digital Products and Digital Disruption – We need to stay relevant and inform design . IT leaders need to get invited to the table so you can add value to scope and design before you are asked to integrate or industrialise support a product that wasn ’ t built with experience of doing that .
Digital Efficiency – We need to get support to change business processes . IT is expected to automate but the simplification required is often resisted by the business .
Digital Relationships – There is a challenge for ownership . The customer is often owned outside IT as it is seen fast moving enough with the IT that drives revenue / market share . However the result is multiple systems holding customer data that doesn ’ t join up , which will be seen as IT ’ s problem .
Digital Change – IT functions need to develop technical agility and improve their responsiveness . They need to professionalise their change in order to stay relevant . Their ability to rapidly respond to business demand underpins the other 4 areas . This is a big cultural shift for the IT function .
In my experience I often hear from IT “ We don ’ t have the time or money to keep up with business demand ” and from the business “ IT is already too expensive for us to be competitive ”. So , let ’ s take a look at the IT effort :
Keeping the lights on
Change to keep the lights on
Change to keep pace with the basics
Change to meet the business need
20 % 30 % 30 % 20 %
IT Effort
As you can see from the diagram above around IT effort , genuinely keeping the lights on only consumes about 20 % of IT effort . There is 30 % of time used on ‘ change to keep the lights on ’ – or the business will complain about a deterioration of service . Also a further 30 % on ‘ change to keep up with the basic expectations of IT Services ’ – or business feels IT is falling behind
Perception of change
Business
So the business often feel IT is doing very little change in response to their requirements , and often think they are getting more from shadow IT . However I have seen in digital organisations , that middle 60 % seems to take much less time , so what are they doing differently ?
80 %
20 %
IT
CIO Magazine Spring 2015 Issue
11