Most Enterprises believe that they are digitizing their setup by moving to the cloud or by enabling automation. Digital transformation technology is only one piece of the puzzle and an enabler behind the scenes. Enterprises needs to look at a more holistic approach beyond technology to reap the true benefits of Digital.
Most Enterprises look towards Technology innovation as the only piece of puzzle when it comes to Digital Transformation. We believe this might be a myopic approach. There are other dimensions that should also be seen as key imperatives in the digital journey for any organization. We explore the delivery model, business model and UX and analysis the reasons why each of them a reevaluation in the current context.
Enterprises built the current delivery model in a pre-digital age for managing people-centric delivery at scale. Relied on process-driven models with overheads to manage operations. Here are the reasons why the Delivery model needs to significantly shift:
1. The premise of SLA is to ensure predictability but the reality is that users have to wait. In Digital world your users want everything ‘here and now’ and businesses want speed. We are in an instant delivery world. The concept of SLA is fast losing its relevance.
2. The current processes are built around a ticket-centric and intermediated world. Each layer adds more delays and failure points. For example, the actual effort to deliver a service might be no more than 10–15 minutes, but it takes several hours and follow-ups in reality because the engineer is held up on priority issues. In lot of cases these issues are handed down from one person or team to another, further impacting the user experience and resolution times.
3. Most metrics in Enterprises are reactive in nature. While they provide insights into quality of delivery and service performance, they are all measured and analysed after the fact. In Digital world, you need to move from customer satisfaction (csat) to customer experience.
Enterprises need to relook at their delivery model and shift to a newer approach to stay relevant in the Digital Age.
The current business model and operating model in enterprises are dated and inefficient. They don’t enable the speed, agility, and flexibility needed in the digital age. Here are some of the reasons why the business model has to evolve:
1. Enterprises are predominantly stuck in a traditional buy-build-operate model, where they procure best-of-breed products in the market, customize them to their needs, implement and manage them on an ongoing basis. This is very effort and time intensive. Also, because of customization it is more expensive and complex to maintain. It significantly impacts their agility, speed and cost. In digital world, your business needs everything ‘here and now’. You should be able to get services at the click of a button by moving to a subscription economy.
2. The current sourcing process for IT services is legacy and inefficient. It takes a lot of time and effort for both the buyer and seller. It is not uncommon for the sales cycle to go anywhere from a few months to a few quarters, based on the complexity and scope of work. As services are automated, cloud enabled and digitized, they become amenable to be transacted over an exchange or a marketplace.
The way enterprises procure services will go through a significant shift in the coming decade akin to what consumer world went through in the last two decades. The day is not far when you will be able to get services-at-a-click from cloud, very similar to how enterprises consume infrastructure from AWS or Azure.
3. Most Enterprises are stuck in a fixed cost model. The cost does not typically move in line with your business cycles. In times such as these, IT teams are squeezed between budget cuts on one-side and fixed-costs with vendors on the other side. With the pace of change in technology and business, the concept of multi-year contracts with lock-ins, fixed cost structure etc., are fast losing relevance.
Fixed cost contracts and lock-ins work in a static world. Digital world is highly dynamic and shifting by the day. Enterprises need the flexibility to procure services on the go and pay for what they use, and have the ability to tune-up and tune-down the spend in line with their business cycles.
1. In current day Enterprise delivery models, the concept of UX is an afterthought or absent in most cases. There is a huge gap in user experience between consumer world and an enterprise, leading to the famous ‘sunday night’ and ‘monday morning’ comparisons. Digital is all about experience. Enterprises need a fundamental shift in their approach towards delivering this experience. To truly digitize, Enterprises need to have a UX strategy and a dedicated UX function complementing their service delivery.
2. In consumer world, in the last decade, almost 80% of our service consumption has shifted from web to mobile. In the long run web as a UI will shrink in significance. Voice, chat, gestures,AR/VR etc ., will augment mobile as UI of choice in the digital age. Furthermore, enterprises need to start planning for an omnichannel strategy where their users can access any service through any channel and have a seamless experience.
3. In digital age, services are shifting from inside an enterprise to outside. Significant proportion of enterprise services have already moved outside and delivered through multiple Iaas, PaaS, SaaS, and BPaaS models (ex: Sales Force, Workday, AWS etc.,). Your users need to go to multiple systems, platforms and providers to consume services. Each service offers different UI and experience, leading to usability challenges. Enterprises need to start thinking about a unified UX strategy across any service, platform or provider. They need to simplify the way services are offered to consumers and enable consumer grade experience.
While technology is key to Digital, in most cases, it is under the hood. Additionally, technology by itself, cannot deliver the holistic transformation Enterprises are looking for. To digitize their business and the way they deliver services to their users, Enterprises will need to go through these four major paradigm shifts.
We will discuss each of the paradigm shifts in detail in our subsequent blogs.
Are there other dimensions that Enterprises should be looking at as part of their digital strategy? Please chime in with your views.
