Mastering Digital Transformation for Competitive Edge at SKILup Days 2024

Welcome everyone. Thank you for joining in today's session. I'm Sagar Zape and I'm excited to explore the key insights into how the digital transformation is reshaping industries globally.

Today. Uh, we'll be discussing about mastering the digital transformation at the competitive edge, and we'll discuss how you can leverage transformation strategies, avoid common pitfalls and drive sustainable growth for your organization. So let's deep dive in what we have for you today.

We are gonna have a quick 30 minute session, which will cover the topic introduction and an overview with digital transformation, why it's needed for the R and strategic roadmap for the digital transformation, followed by overcoming the common challenges and leveraging emerging technologies, followed by some question and answers that you may put in a chat. Okay, so ready for the session. Ready for the exciting topic.

So in today's fast paced tech driven world, most of the organizations, institutions, they face relentless pressure, a need to innovate and improve the customer experience, improve the operations delivery, improve the technological adaptations, but what happens if they fail to transform? There are some facts around the transformation and the failure relates to transformation and minded. It's related to fortune, fine grid till the startup companies.

So there's an interesting survey by McKenzie and it stated a fact. Companies those lag in digital transformation, the risk losing 30% of the revenue and we are talking about a marginal timeline of 2025. Transformation is not just about adopting new technologies, it's not about fundamentally reshaping the entire business model, but it's also to meet the new customer expectations, adapt to the marketing shifts and scale efficiently.

If we talk about this report in detail of what it said was even the giants, even the fortune, find even the top notch leaders who were very experienced out of them, only 16% of the companies have successfully implemented the digital transformation. Now, why this number is so low? Because transformation requires more than technology.

It requires strategy, it requires people, it requires process, and all of them align with each other. While we talk about this challenges, while we talk about what it brings to the table, let's also try to deep dive into what were the measures which various companies have taken. Mostly the top 16% who were successful.

The first statement that we learned from this companies was, digital transformations are more challenging, more challenging when we compare them with the traditional change efforts that we put in. But the most successful companies, the most successful teams having able to achieve the success, mostly because of the five factors. The primary factor is digital transformation that will aim to digitize and organization's operating model.

68% of the goals of the company are to be prioritized by transformations is an average data. Few companies are able to focus on launching new products or making digital partnerships. Now this transformation often encompasses multiple functions, multiple functions or different um, entire enterprise.

The successful initiatives typically leverage a broad array of technologies, especially all the giants who have adopted amongst the top 16% who were successful. They have adopted minimum five technologies together and they have created a huge of technologies which was deployed. And we are talking like ai, we are talking about iot, we are talking about machine learning, we are talking about large data models, and especially when we think of such technological advancement, we should be always ready to onboard the new, uh, disrupted innovations.

While we would have lot of complexities, while we would have lot of challenges adapting to this new technologies, this broader technology adoption is most crucial. It's important for driving the meaningful change. We have to adapt with the market, we have to adapt with the customers, we have to meet the changing requirements.

We have to be on top of the delivery list of the customers. Now, successful transformations, I are guided by 21 best practices, and I see this best practices are grouped in into five categories. One, the leadership.

Second, the capability building. Third, empowering employees and team members. Fourth, upgrading the tools and fifth communication.

Now there are insights which reveal when organizations have focused their efforts on enhancing the likelihood of achieving digital success via change and leveraging we as teams, letting them innovate, letting them fail fast, and also learning the lessons which was not learned in the market. That's the key success parameters for most of the organization. How do we achieve it?

How do we build it? So let's talk about strategy. When we think of digital transformation adopting new technologies, we always talk about successful digital transformation.

Now, what does successful digital transformation begins with the successful digital transformation begins with a clear roadmap and it's important to have a structured approach. In the same study which was related to successful adoption of digital transformation, it was learned that the best goals around transformation, which were driving change, have been witnessing to be successful in the market. And it's important for each organization to have a structured approach that will align your organization's goal, your long-term vision, and you should have the customer value built around it.

Now the question is how do we build this roadmap? So let's make it easy. No matter what is the size of your organization, no matter what is the size of the change that you're trying to transform, you can follow this five step method or I'll say five step strategy.

The first and foremost is defining your vision. Where do you want your business to go? What are your key goals and achievement?

What are you wanting to achieve? What is the role of technology in the future? Customer prospect, what is the role of technology in your business prospect?

You should have a detailed think through of this vision. Second, we should assess capabilities. We should have identified the tools which are best in the latest technological advancement.

We should have current digital maturity. When we talk about current digital maturity, it's not just hiding the best candidates, but also understanding that what is the flux of the market? How is industry shaping?

What are the impact of industrial revolutions, digital revolutions, and what are the customer persona basis? The surveys basis, the studies. It would be easy for us to understand which direction an organization should think through and assess their current capabilities.

What are the feedbacks? What are the NPS datas talking about that should shape what tools, what skills and which processes are in place and which one have the gaps in between them, the processes, the feeds, the tools, the challenges that you're learning from the market, from the customers, from internal teams, from external teams, from vendors, from suppliers should be listed out. And that is your key prospect.

That is the gap that we are trying to solve or bridge for. How do we take this data ahead? Once we understand that, what are the gaps that we are gonna uh, fix?

What are the defects that we are gonna fix from our current processes? What are the processes we are gonna re-engineer when we have the list of things, these are the building block to develop our transformation plan. A successful leader should map out the technology that we need, rightly create the team structures and get the operational changes which are required to drive the successful change.

And the most important thing, empower your teams. Let them fail fast. Let them learn fast and deploy the methodology.

Have a budget that is not just the change budget, not just a risk budget, but and learning budget, an upskilling budget. And this budget will help you to drive greater transformations. I'm not saying to get it rolled out organization-wide.

Absolutely not. That's where the pilot program comes into play. Start small, think the lowest priority.

Think of the lowest complexities. Think of the lowest risk pilots. When we think of map of such processes, such accounts, such clients, such products, we are able to test our digital initiatives much faster, quicker, at a smaller pace with less or no impact, but the wins that we can achieve are greater.

We should be able to transform our learning journeys into meaningful data. A small scale deployment can yield to a huge learnings and adaptations. The challenges that we as an organization or a region within an organization may face.

And what are the answers to come up with such challenges? Once we have this prototype, once we have the testing, we are able to maturely manage the change along with a disruptive technology, if it may be, or a productive technology. That's where we put a step ahead into scaling and integrating.

Once we have the proven methodology, once we have the proven technology, once we know that how we gonna use multiple technological aspects, we can roll out the transformation across organization in into a planned aspect, then there will be various methodologies. Uh, it may be prince to, it may be prince to a child. It may be different various project methodologies that you can adopt to who have the capabilities to onboard the complex processes, structures, spikes and experimentations into your processes.

Remember, a strong strategy align IT capabilities and with this IT capabilities, which are aligned with strong strategy with business goals will ensure that every technology investment will move the needle around the customer and business growth. More efficiency towards the business processes. Whether you are focusing on customer experience, whether you are focusing on operational excellence, whether you are working on or focusing on operational efficiencies or you want to innovate or digitally transform, having a roadmap will always help you keep the transformation process on track and ahead of your competitors.

Now, if we think of deploying, let's be very honest, digital transformations are hard. It's not that easy. Most of the organizations struggle with the change management, the siloed data, uh, unstructured data, lack of talent, and lack of confidence in the leadership as well.

There are three common pitfalls that we should really focus upon from heap of the challenges that we foresee. And if we avoid this three pitfalls, I think that we are much, much closer to success basis the data that we have learned from the top 16% of successfully digital transformed companies. And we are gonna also take an example and come a few slides.

But before that, let's talk about the common pitfalls. So the first one is the cultural resistance. The cultural resistance is driven by the people when they're not sure of what change are we trying to drive.

It may be a job loss, it can be a transformation. It may be the lack of skill sets that, uh, the team members may fear about. Now there are many teams who fear the change.

How do we overcome this fear? A strong leadership, a clear communication. What are we changing?

Why are we changing and why do we need a change? And rather than silos being created, a leadership should always include the team members along with them in driving any change involving the team during this change journey and celebrating the quick points will overcome the cultural resistance, will overcome the change resistance that you may have in the organization from the supplier, external or internal side of your product projects and business processes. Then if we talk about the data, we have seen that leaders executors have underestimated the importance of data.

Mostly we always think that data is at the tip of fingers on the system. We can crunch it and make it easier available. But when it comes to technological advancements, digital transformations, most of the businesses, they don't realize how crucial this data integration is.

A siloed data can destroy even the most promising initiatives. That's the reason the data should be structured. It should be reviewed, it should be reconciled, it should be integrated and make, um, a pool of data that makes sense.

And we should invest in the robust data management and analytical tools, which will make sense of the available data. It should be able to call out what are the silo data, where do we need to bridge the caps? And remember, this all comes from the data, which is the all behind the digital change transformations and also industrial revolution.

Once we have the data, once we have the team, and once we have a clear objective and goal, yes, we have to achieve it and what we have to achieve, that's where we will over rely on the technology. We can shape up the technology. Remember, digital transformation is not just a technological problem, it's a business transformation problem.

Make sure that you're addressing both the people and the process improvement and not just incorporating the new tools because new tools may get in more accessibility, may bring in more capability, but what if you don't have a right resource, a right resource who is well aware of what the goal and vision is? Again, we will have the same silo created from the technological standpoint. While we can over rely on the technology, but not solely reliable on the technology alone, we need the people, we need the data.

We need a synced pool around it. And that's when we can catalyze the technology. And remember, in current age, it's not just one or two technologies.

We are talking about the tools that we are talking about. It's a hybrid mix and fusion that we are talking about. I've seen multiple products.

I've seen multiple fusions. Those have been used, um, for multiple joints. May be the uk, may be the US geography, may be Australian, uh, joints that they have been fusion.

The datas the technologies and focusing the teams, not just internal external, but supplies and vendors, everyone coming together and striving for the common goal. Do you know that 70% of digital transformation initiatives fail? They never reach their goals.

It is often because of the internal resistance or where the data integration is lacking. There is no integration of technology and strategy or there are no integration between the strategy and execution. We as a leader and an organization are responsible to identify this challenges in early stages.

This challenges, if not identified a successful transformation plan even may not work well. This is absolutely critical to your success that we understand what are the resistances, how to overcome them, how to communicate, um, with the stakeholders and get them along with this change. Deploy the change positively and use the technologically sorry or use the technology effectively and use the data where it's needed.

Integrate the data that's most important where you lack the expertise. Get the consultants to help you on get the new resources, get new talent. And when you're onboarding, try to remember that you have to work on the lowest complexity, lowest priorities, so that even if you risk the business prototype, it's not impacting your business at an extent level.

Now how do we come up with the best way which technologies can work well for us? Now, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data analytics, this other engine driving digital transformation. Now let's look at the three technologies which are shaping the future of the business.

If we talk about the most important technology, it's AI and machine learning. AI is transforming everything from customer service to supply chain management. The AI driven predictive analytical models can help you understand what trends in industry, customer behavior, market, employee behavior, team announcements, even before we are trying to drive a change.

Learning the change, forecasting the change which are driving the market. Customer behavior, the purchase persona will allow a company, a team to be more smarter, take the decisions which are well-informed and you should be proactive in problem solving basis. This AI understandable data and the trends talking about cloud computing.

Cloud computing enables every single company to be digitally advanced, will also enable companies to scale rapidly. And we won't be needing those great investments, hefty requirements. The migrations are now at the tip of finger cloud computing will provide more flexibility not just to an organization, but to a client, to the customers, and also it'll provide flexibility to the team members and customer direct and indirect personas.

Sonos, great number of processes can be re-engineered, shifted, transformed, fused, and amended accordingly. Thinking about the compliances, thinking about the risk, thinking about the data, uh, uh, protection acts, cloud computing have been well known and established with accommodating all the changes throughout a decade or so. According to Gartner, by 2026, cloud spending will exceed more than 45% of all enterprise IT spendings.

And this is really happening. It's happening the time. The second, the moment we are talking, if we talk about data analytics, data is the new oil that we have always heard about, but only if we know how to extract the value from the data.

Advanced analytics will help business identify the patterns. It can be industry patterns, customer patterns, or team patterns. Once we understand this patterns, we are able to optimize the operations.

We are able to predict the customer behavior, which can shape our marketing strategies, sales strategies, operations improvement, operations excellence, even, which will lead to a better outcome, faster decision making processes and efficient teams. I would like to call out an example while we are talking about the strategies look out, uh, for Netflix. Netflix have used AI and data analytics to provide personalized recommendations and that have created a revolution into AI space.

The way providers have been thinking through Netflix have been a dominant player in entertainment industry because of the data analytics power that they're using. Along with ai, the personalization into results, uh, of customer behavior. What are the wants, needs of the customer are being delivered.

And this have yielded Netflix into higher customer engagement, higher customer retentions. That's the most red success story, witness success story I should say, who have leveraged the, uh, AI and uh, big data together. If we talk about, uh, one more example, I would like to call out for Capital One.

Now, how Capital One have successfully transformed their operations. Let's talk about it now. The problem statement, the problem that Capital One was facing was, um, the need to enhance their efficiency.

Their customer service. Capital One turned their advanced solution into digitally hyper capable understanding the market trend. The customer trained the change in industry behavior, which was advanced with the technology.

Now, capital One adopted AWS cloud infra and they implemented AI driven chat bots. They wanted to streamline their processes, they wanted to automate the processes and a fix an image with the customer. That we are digital driven company.

We are digital advanced company. And when they were able to achieve this, they tried to pick up, uh, uh, a low priority process, which was a prototype. It was tested successfully.

The complexities within the organization was understood. The plan was shaped further where an organizational digital transformation was planned carefully because the data was available, it was integrated, the team was taken along. The changes were thought very nicely.

Objectives were driven, which were leading towards digital transformation and not just the lays. Within just two years, capital One had achieved 25% increase in their operational efficiencies and 16% boost in their customer satisfaction. They reduced the customer support response by 35% and they were able to automate 45% of the inquiries.

The AI chat bots were curated by each and every feedback after iterations of usage. Where are the improvements? What are the challenges?

How better and efficiently this changes can be driven? And can we have a robust change mechanism at please? Now this changes allow the human agents to focus on more complex issues and tasks instead of wasting the time on the simple rator tasks.

What was the key to their success of Capital One? A well-structured digital transformation roadmap. A strategic investment in cloud and AI technologies that was well educated with the team who was driving this change.

The team who was riding this change and team who was part of this change directly and directly. Now, this case study highlights that how a targeted technological adoption can drive significant improvement in both efficiency and customer experience. And that's what we should replicate in our digital processes.

Now let's talk about what are the key takeaways. So before we wrap up, I want to leave you with three takeaways from today's session. One, we should have a well-defined roadmap, which is aligned with business goals.

It is essential for successful digital transformation. Second, avoid pitfalls. Prepare for challenges by addressing your cultural resistances.

Face the people, explain them, take them together. Data management is important, ensuring that your transformation is business driven. You have to have your people, the team, the integrated data and a meaningful insights from this data even before you start.

And lastly, but most important, leverage the technology harness, the emerging technology, uh, like AI cloud, uh, cloud computing, data analytics where we can drive the innovation and growth together. Okay, with that, thank you for your attention today. I hope that you have found this session insightful.

I know that, uh, uh, I'd like to open the floor for any questions. You can put your questions in the chat and if you have, uh, any doubts about digital transformation strategies or challenges you or your organization is facing, then we may, uh, connect it. Uh, we, uh, chats or questions and I would give you last thought.

A real world industry insights are more important. Learn the competitors who have made successful digital transformation. Throughout the session, we have been talking about the industrial reforms, few of the changes that we have, uh, taken, uh, references of McKinsey, Netflix, like of world leaders.

When you plan for such changes, remember, study, learn the data, make the meaningful insights and get your team along and then shape a successful strategy. Okay? With this, I will leave you with successful three pointers measure.

Again, this was saga pay and it was wonderful connecting. Thank you everyone. Have wonderful day.