properly communicated to all your colleagues,
from the CEO down to each employee.
Every employee should also have a clear
view of what their role in the digital
transformation journey is.
At Safaricom, some of the key motives
that we have in our vision include what
cost efficiencies are to be achieved, how
automation will bring operational efficiency,
what new revenue streams stand to be
unlocked, how we will improve our customer
experience, and, most importantly how
digital transformation feeds into our purpose
of transforming lives.
We achieve cost efficiency by reducing
demand to the call centre by migrating
customer interactions to self-service and
soon, chat bots. Similarly, automation
of our business process has resulted in
increased operational efficiency, while
resultant new digital solutions such as an
Internet of Things platform, an Application
Programming Interface (API) and
e-Commerce platform are unlocking new
revenue streams.
“
EVERY EMPLOYEE
SHOULD ALSO
HAVE A CLEAR
VIEW OF WHAT
THEIR ROLE IN
THE DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
JOURNEY IS.
When it comes to the vision, the trick is to
have an overarching theme driving your
digitisation process, with your other sub
themes feeding into the main theme. Lack
of clarity here will likely result in a huge
investment and a lengthy project, but with
little to show for.
On the customer experience bit, we have
added more capabilities to our self-help
services while also increasing their ease of
use. We are also making more of our services
available through mobile applications. To keep track of your vision, it is advisable
to have up to three key performance
indicators (KPIs) to measure your progress
and to establish how far you are from
achieving success.
To meet our purpose of transforming lives,
we are providing new digital solutions that
help our customers unlock more value
in their day-to-day lives across different
industries, from agriculture to trade. For instance, to track a vision of improving
customer experience, indicators can track
churn reduction, increase in average revenue
per user and increased engagement with
company products.
Choosing the right team
A clearly defined vision should then be
supported by having the right team in place.
For starters, it should be clear both to existing
employees and prospective employees
where your digital transformation journey is
headed and what it plans to achieve.
This signals to prospective employees the kind
of talent you are looking for and that they
will be a perfect fit within your firm. In turn,
this means you are hiring people who are
passionate about their jobs and who bring in
the latest set of technology and skills.
Employee awareness and recruitment should
be supported by an incentive for teams to
adopt the new technologies and new ways
of working. This can be achieved by changing
employee KPIs to reward innovation and also
to encourage ‘failing fast’ in line with agile
and lean methodologies.
It is also important to make your colleagues
feel valuable and important in this journey
by insourcing for key roles within your digital
transformation process, rather than only
considering external hires. This sees people
transition into roles such as user experience
designers, data scientists, digital product
managers, passionate software developers
and DevOps engineers.
Setting the culture
“
THE SHIFT TO DATA-
LED INSIGHT NOT ONLY REQUIRES
ORGANISATIONS TO DEPLOY
MACHINE LEARNING AND DEEP
LEARNING, BUT TO ALSO SHIFT TO A
CULTURE WHERE THEY CAN TRUST
INSIGHTS DERIVED FROM DATA JUST
AS WE TRUST OUR INSTINCTS.
www.intelligentcio.com
The third consideration in digital
transformation is how to ensure your
processes are supporting your staff and
vision. Bureaucratic processes, lengthy
project deliverables and lack of clear
milestones will easily prove to be no match
to even the best talent.
You should thus demonstrate your
confidence in your team by providing them
with an environment that encourages
freedom, innovation, acceptance and
rewarding of failure, high engagement and
decision making. Even minor things such
as work facilities, branding and seating
significantly impact the work environment.
The most effective way to encourage
innovation is to shift from hierarchy-based
structures to one where product owners are
empowered to make their own decisions,
without lengthy approvals.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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