1

Digital transformation for teams that are not digital-first, yet

RAHUL AVASTHY

Digital transformation helps you think value, not profit. Yes, it’s important to focus on creating a new digital business that increases customer willingness to pay more for a product or a service, because if you can find a way to improve a product or service, you can increase willingness to pay. This is where you start thinking of new business models, and hence there is a lot of attention toward the commercial and revenue-generating teams; however, it’s imperative to understand that support teams provide valuable “moments that matter” in the critical journey of the digital transformation of an enterprise.

The need for support teams to plan, understand consumer behaviors that they value, and employ creative innovation is more critical now than ever. Many support teams deliver service in a spectrum, and this spectrum ranges from full service to self-service. In between, there are varying degrees of collaborative service, where the organization and users share the responsibilities of the service. Seeing service with this perspective will allow you to think of digital as something that helps organizations share accountability along the spectrum.

A significant change is already in motion, driven by the acceleration of digitization; various functions like operations, HR, administration, accounting, credit control, legal, communication, finance, and other support functions within an enterprise, face the risk of being diminished to an efficiency-first support role. Digital transformation for support functions, if implemented without the right strategy, may (wait, may? let me not be polite — will) magnify the revenue-generating organization’s flaw within an enterprise.

The increase in volatility and complexity, accompanied by uncertainty and ambiguity, also known as VUCA, makes the decision-making process complex. Simultaneously, noncommercial/support functions must give guidance to the business based on transparent and mutually agreed criteria with clear accountability. Many support functions that may not get digital-first priority as commercial/revenue-generating organizations within an enterprise have complex processes, unearthed deep data stories and may make their outcomes slower as dependencies grow further.

So, what to do?

For support teams looking at digital transformation, having a defined vision, clarity of value contribution, and reimagined self-perception, numerous support functions can help reimagine the opportunities digitalization offers to develop into a digital enabler that shapes the entire organization’s digital ecosystem. Eventually they have to enable revenue generation or increase willingness to pay for the customers.

Leverage automation: Among other tactics, these teams should consider being partially automated, leading to more efficient processes and ultimately leaner, outcome-focused organizations within an enterprise. Digital transformation needs a range of skills, meaning there is a place for everyone involved. Generalists will be valued contributors to simplify the processes, while specialists are required to implement the new techniques. It’s a misconception that digital reduces the job roles within an industry. Look at Google translate as a service; ever since machines have started leading translations, jobs for translators as a category have increased year over year.

Invest in DDDN — data-driven decision networks: For example, HR, legal or finance functions may combine operational and financial data (big data if matured or advanced analytics, to begin with) and utilize AA (advanced analytics) and ML (machine learning) to enhance business agility while acting as a collaborative service provider to an enterprise organization within an enterprise. This will lead to more engagement and a new perception of adviser and partner to business units, and not just a controller or touchpoint enabler while guiding them in their decision-making process.

It’s critical as traditional role models face a trade-off between efficiency and value proposition to the business, as increases in output are linked directly to the rise in input (resources). Digitalization can help resolve the target conflict between pure and cost-efficient versus comprehensive and value-contributing at high costs. How do you do that? Cost-efficiency can be triggered by automation, which helps to redesign and streamline processes with RPA/ robotic process automation technologies, especially for transactional processes.

Relevance to the business can be described as data-driven insights. Today’s restriction may be neither the availability of data nor the integrated technology infrastructure to handle large data volumes. The critical requirement and challenge is to evaluate those data in a structured, efficient, and targeted method. This is where the data analytics and advanced analytics role come into action.

Summing up:

1: Scale-up planning

• Set target
• Formulate hypothesis
• Align strategic initiatives and what not to do
• Strategy — look forward and reason back: use data
• Allocate resources, rethink funding model as more agile
• Establish milestones

2: Translate vision

• Clarify vision
• Gain consensus

3: Communicate

• Goals and progress
• Change management
• New value proposition
• KPI measures
• Best practices / next practices

4: Cyclic iteration

• Onboarding
• Agile delivery
• Evidence-led decisions
• Outcome vs. output
• Measure and controls.

If you are in the driving seat, think about how you can empower and enable support functions that don’t get digital-first priority as commercial/revenue-generating organizations within an enterprise to tackle the real business problems. As teams become comfortable with failing fast, learning along the way is expected and should not deter further progress.

Perspectives can change a lot; reimagine an organization’s view as a connected collection of collaborative service providers to internal or external clients. The first step to build such a modular organization is to chart out the critical path, simplify processes and move out steps off the critical path. Know what not to do. Look forward and reason back.

Believe and you can fly.

About the author

Rahul Avasthy is based in Chicago and leads digital transformation and experience at Abbott Laboratories.