The Impact of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is a revenue growth engine according to fifty futurists we surveyed.  Many companies are already experiencing significant benefits and gaining competitive advantages. The futurists predicted the top five impacts of digital transformation on businesses by the year 2020 will be:
  1. Speed to market
  2. Competitive positioning
  3. Revenue growth
  4. Productivity
  5. New distribution channels 
Given the importance of these top-five on revenue growth and the future success of a business, who would not want to digitally transform their enterprise?  Non-believers that's who.  Non-believers, aka laggards, in our study of 2,000 executives don't believe in significant digital transformation now, or in the future.  They don't demonstrate a sense of urgency or a recognition of the massive changes happening around them today.  They seem blind to the fact companies are witnessing an increase in revenue already from their digital transformation investments.
Digital transformation-believers aka digital leaders, however, are investing significantly more now, and receiving positive ROIs on their investments already.  As a result, they plan to invest greater amounts in the future, and predict higher ROIs in the future relative to non-believers.
Based on our survey data, believers and non-believers are seeing alternative realities.  Non-believers, if they don't quickly become converts, are going to face increasing challenges staying competitive and relevant against digitally transformed competitors.
When we asked mid-level managers to list the top 10 mistakes companies are making regarding digital transformation today, they listed the following in order of rank:
  1. Moving too slowly
  2. Lack of clear digital strategy
  3. Company has the wrong leadership for digital transformation
  4. Investing too little in new technology
  5. Not focusing enough on cyber-security
  6. Culture that discourages innovation
  7. Lack organizational structures to drive digital transformation
  8. Ignoring fresh thinking from external sources
  9. Not educating the entire organization on digital transformation
  10. Neglecting to hire the right digital talent
This list describes the actions or non-actions we are seeing from non-believing companies.
Let's pull all our findings together and review once again:
  • Futurists see digital transformation as a revenue growth engine
  • Believers are already reporting positive ROIs, and as a result, plan even higher levels of investment and revenues in the future.
  • Non-believers are investing little today, seeing little ROI, and are planning relatively little investment in digital transformation in the future.
  • Mid-level managers report the biggest challenges are moving too slowly, a lack of a clear strategy, wrong leadership and too little investment in new technologies.
  • The revenue gap between what believers and non-believers predict in the future as a result of digital transformation is significant across all industries.  Survey participants believe the bulk of the revenue gains will be achieved by the year 2020, with incremental gains continuing thereafter.  That is only 3.5 years from now. Yikes! That reflects a view that more revenue is available now for fast movers.  It also suggests a realization that a lot of work needs done quickly.  Non-believers, because of inaction and/or a lack of investment, seem likely to miss out on these early revenue gains and will suffer competitively.
Businesses must invest the time and effort now to understand the impact of digital transformation on their industry, market and company.  Once there is situational awareness achieved and a clear vision articulated, a digital transformation doctrine needs to be developed and socialized so strategies can be developed to achieve the vision set forth in the doctrine.  What technologies should believers invest in over the next 3.5 years to achieve digital transformation?  In the opinions of over 2,000 survey participants the largest business impacts will come from the following technologies:
  1. Big data/business analytics
  2. Cyber-security
  3. Cloud
  4. Collaboration technologies
  5. Mobile technologies
  6. IoT/sensors
  7. Artificial intelligence
  8. Digital currency
  9. Sharing economy
  10. Social Media 
When asked for year 2025 predictions, survey participates anticipate a similar list, but with even higher business impacts from each.
It is interesting that core systems like ERPs, CRMs, HCMs and SCMs were not identified as driving high business impact.  I am wondering if companies still view digital transformation as "add-on" technology?  In my view, a business' ability to convert from "human-time" to "digital-time" and operate at a real-time operational tempo requires digital transformation across the entire ILS (information logistics system).  The ILS is the master or umbrella system that manages and processes data across the entire organization to optimize business performance and customer interactions.  This ILS system includes all the core systems that today, often involve legacy systems incapable of supporting the new world of digital-time.  It is my analysis that many companies will ultimately be required to replace legacy core systems in order to accomplish true digital transformation.
If you find yourself sitting in IT and business meetings every week listening to how existing legacy IT systems will not permit new business processes, new business services, new business models and new innovations required to compete and win, then you should recognize those are red flags and things can get ugly, quickly.
When the New Year's ball drops at midnight and year 2020 comes around, will you be found among the believers?  Stay tuned for my new report on digital transformation technologies and strategies.
Read more on digital transformation strategies here:
  1. Forces Driving the Digital Transformation Era
  2. Digital Transformation Requires Agility and Energy Measurement
  3. A Doctrine for Digital Transformation is Required
  4. The Advantages of Advantage in Digital Transformation
  5. Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
  6. Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
  7. Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
  8. Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
  9. Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing
  10. Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time

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Kevin Benedict
Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Forces Driving the Digital Transformation Era

  1. Hardware
  2. Software
  3. Networks (cables, wireless and human)
  4. Societal and industry comprehension
  5. Democratization of technology at scale (low costs & mass adoption)
  6. Moving beyond human time to digital time 
  1. Computers & Moore’s Law
  2. Memory and data storage
  3. Mass adoption of PCs and laptops
  4. Local Networks
  5. ERPs
  6. The internet
  7. Mobile networks and mobile phones
  8. GPS
  9. Mass global adoption of wireless devices (laptops, mobile phones, tablets, smartphones, wearables, sensors)
  10. Proliferation of websites and online activity
  11. Rapid adoption and expansion of online and mobile databases and search
  12. Rapid adoption and expansion of online marketplaces and reviews
  13. Rapid adoption of online and now mobile payments
  14. The transformation from physical to digital (think retail stores to e-commerce, and now m-commerce)
  15. Move from paper documents to digits
  16. Rapid expansion of embedded computers
  17. Rapid adoption and proliferation of mobile apps and the mobile web
  18. Online gaming
  19. Rapid transformation from traditional marketing to digital and mobile marketing
  20. Rapid addition of smartphone enabled sensors
  21. Rapid evolution and adoption of online social networks, social media sites and content sharing
  22. Online classified sites (e.g. Craig’s List)
  23. Rapid emergence of the sharing economy (e.g. Airbnb, Uber, etc.)
  24. Rapid adoption of online education services
  25. Rapid adoption and expansion of online entertainment movies, TV programs and streaming music
  26. Wearables
  27. Cloud computing
  28. Rapid emergence of cloud based platforms for everything
  29. Internet of Things
  30. Industrial Internet (telematics, smart grids)
  31. Proliferation of analytics and reporting
  32. Mobile wallets
  33. Development of advanced algorithms
  34. Artificial intelligence and machine learning
  35. Augmented reality
  36. Robotic process automation
  1. Digital Transformation Requires Agility and Energy Measurement
  2. A Doctrine for Digital Transformation is Required
  3. The Advantages of Advantage in Digital Transformation
  4. Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
  5. Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
  6. Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
  7. Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
  8. Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing
  9. Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time
 [1] Not a definitive list
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Kevin Benedict
Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

A Digital Transformation Doctrine is Required

  1. Who am I?
  2. What are my objectives or missions?
  3. What are my strengths and weaknesses?
  4. What is the nature of my competition?
  5. How do I prepare to compete?
  6. What methods do I employ to compete and win?
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
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Kevin Benedict
Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Mobility and Analytics

Fog of War
Sensors allow us to digitally monitor our physical world, and take real-time action on the data from afar.  Plant managers, in fact, can manage multiple manufacturing locations around the world in real-time via sensors and Internet connectivity.  Drone pilots in the Nevada desert; project military force by flying combat missions around the world via sensors and remote control.  Trucking companies can track and manage, via telematics, thousands of trucks, trailers and their cargo all across the country in real-time.  As automation increases due to advances in sensors, bandwidth, artificial intelligence, algorithms and machine learning - precision becomes not only possible, but also all-important.

The “fog of war” describes a chaotic and competitive environment filled with unknowns, uncertainty and imprecise data.  In a not so distant past, military leaders suffering in the "fog of war," desperately sought answers to four key questions:

  1. Where are my enemies?
  2. Where are my friends?
  3. Where are my forces?
  4. What are their strengths?

These unknowns and uncertainties impacted the strategies and tactics military leaders employed. Their focus, and many of their resources, were dedicated to defending against the unknown.  Today mobile apps, sensors and analytics are reducing the “fog of war” in many industries and markets by making more of it “known.”  How then is the revolution in precision transforming businesses and strategies today?

Many companies have not evolved from antiquated business models based on the “unknown and imprecise”, and continue to throw good money after bad by following "estimate-based" models. Sears’ reported this quarter that their sales decreased, and on-hand inventories increased.  These numbers seem to reflect an estimate-based model lacking precise market knowledge.

Many companies continue to follow old school estimate-based models and business case studies that don’t incorporate the availability of massive quantities of real-time data available today.  They have yet to change their strategies and tactics to support the new precision models.

The retailer Macy’s, is also facing a challenging quarter. In response they announced a new business strategy focusing on individual customers and personalizing their experiences (read more on personalization in Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me).  In the past Macy’s focused on selecting inventory and marketing to “regions,” not “individuals." Macy’s regional approach highlights the challenge many companies face exploiting precision data. Edward Deming, the father of quality improvement, once said, “The big problems are where people don't realize they have one in the first place.”  But in this case it seems Macy’s recognized the problem.

Mass marketing to regions is the antithesis of precision.  It is an “estimate-based” strategy formulated in a time when there was inprecise data.  It is not a strategy for today.

Ignoring today’s “revolution in precision” is like a manufacturer ignoring the “continuous quality improvement” (CQI) movement over the past 60 years. CQI is the process-based, data-driven approach to improving the quality of a product or service. It operates under the premise there is always room for improving operations, processes, and activities to increase quality. CQI teaches the importance of measuring everything and working with precise data to document reality and to recognize progress. The American automobile industry tried ignoring CQI for many years and suffered the consequences, while the Japanese auto industry excelled at quality. In another classic quote from Edward Deming, he said, “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” Taking advantage of precision is a must if surviving is in your plan.

The revolution in precision we are experiencing today is the result of our ability to precisely measure, in real-time, all kinds of new things that impact our business as a result of the Internet, mobile devices and connected sensors. These developments make precise data available from all corners of the globe in real-time. Precise data today makes traditional estimate-based business models, strategies and tactics obsolete.

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Watch my latest video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi1GJC_1Ddk&feature=youtu.be
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Kevin Benedict
Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility

The C suite must understand the battle they are fighting before they can develop and implement a winning digital transformation strategy.  The commercial battlefield is data, and the effectiveness and speed of competitors’ information logistics systems will make all the difference.  The C suite’s overall doctrine must be achieving information dominance in their target markets.  
  1. Collecting data
  2. Transmitting data
  3. Securing data
  4. Normalizing data
  5. Storing data
  6. Analyzing and reporting on the data
  7. Understanding the meaning and impact of the data
  8. Driving decisions based on the meaning of the data
  9. Acting on the data (manual or automated) to achieve competitive advantages
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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing

Economies are changing.  Industries are changing. Markets are changing. Consumers are changing and shopping differently. As competitive advantages evolve into market standards, areas of competition move. Today we see fields of competition move to data utilization and digital transformation initiatives. When considering how your company needs to digitally transform, there are three very important questions to ask:

  • How am I defining digital transformation?
  • What is motivating me to digitally transform?
  • Why should I digitally transform now?

As a definition for digital transformation I use - rethinking, redesigning and restructuring technology and business models to more quickly and effectively respond to and engage employees, partners and customers in digital environments.

To answer the questions about motivation, I propose there are eight key forces at work today that are motivating digital transformation:

  1. Real-time mobile apps and data
  2. Real-time sensor data (IoT)
  3. Real-time analytics
  4. Real-time situational awareness
  5. Real-time business operational tempos
  6. Real-time intelligent process automation  
  7. Real-time contextual understanding
  8. Real-time personalization of user experiences

There is an obvious theme here, “real-time.”  Real-time, as a mainstream requirement, first gained importance with the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, and then exponentially increased in importance when mobile devices connected to the Internet.  Today mobile commerce represents 34% of the global e-commerce market, but by 2018 it is expected to represent 47% and these consumers are impatient.  These consumers are mobile, and the context of their mobile searches and app usage changes second by second as they move throughout their day.  Real-time context is key to a successful user experience in this environment, and businesses with consumer facing mobile apps need to be moving toward real-time now.  That is not easy.

As competition increases and the sophistication of mobile apps grow, so also does consumer expectations.  Today mobile apps needed to be personalized in real-time, contextually relevant, and mobile payments and wallets supported.  These requirements break IT. Traditional IT environments are not meant for such speeds.  Business processes are not designed for real-time operational tempos.  Humans are not capable of scaling up to process, analyze and understand millions of data transactions daily.

As businesses recognize “real-time” requirements are not going away, and that “real-time” is mandatory to compete, they must take inventory of their existing IT environments and take the necessary steps to digitally transform.

Today’s competition takes place around data and speed.  The winners of a digital tomorrow will invest in five key areas:

  1. becoming a data-driven business
  2. improving the quality and speed of their information logistics systems
  3. achieving real-time operational tempos
  4. redesigning and rearchitecting for business agility
  5. utilizing real-time contextually relevant data to personalize digital user experiences

Businesses must recognize the demand for real-time operational tempos is only going to increase and this requires strategy, action and a budget.

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Fast Tempos and Digital Transformation

What matters most is the tempo of change.” ~ John Boyd

Few businesses would argue that data collection and analytics are not important to their current and future success.  Data can provide situational awareness, enhanced customer service and more personalized experiences.  It also supports vigilance and the ability to recognize both problems and opportunities early.  The problem, however, is not many enterprises can act on the data fast enough to matter.

In most companies, organizational structures, decision-making processes, business models and business cultures aren’t nimble enough to change at a tempo fast enough to capture competitive opportunities and respond to challenges.  In today’s world of digital transformation and fast changing mobile and online consumer behaviors (see Cutting Through Chaos in the Age of Mobile Me), businesses must be as nimble as their customers, or they risk losing market share to a nimbler competitor.

The First Law of Thermodynamics states, "energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed.”  In a business context that means if energy is being used to resist change, then it is not available for making change.  Change is difficult.  The default mode for most organizations and people is to resist change.  In order to overcome this resistance, a new reality must be created.

Companies need to transform in order to minimize resistance and reward behaviors and environments that support a fast tempo of change.  Companies that can support a fast tempo of change have a big competitive advantage, while those that can’t risk obsolescence.

The military strategist John Boyd found some fighter planes with poorer performance numbers on paper were actually better in competition because they could transition at a faster tempo.  The ability to change directions quickly trumped speed and performance.  There are lessons there for businesses.

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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Role of Sensors, Real-Time BI, Big Data and Personalization in Mobile Commerce: The Report and the Video

I just completed a video that accompanies my latest research on mobile consumer behaviors, and the strategies retailers must implement.  If you design, develop or deploy customer facing apps, this content is relevant and important.


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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Human Thinking vs Technology - Digital Intrusions

In a world filled with millions of instances of hyper-stimulating digital content - thinking, learning and the development of intellectual assets suffer.  In a recent article I authored titled, It’sTime to Make Technology Disappear, I shared that technology has increasingly become a hindrance to my thinking, a distraction to thoughtful, productive work. I love technology, but it has reached the point where it has overwhelmed my senses, and I doubt I am the only one.

Thoughtful thinking, and by that I mean thinking that utilizes analysis, comparisons, judgment, creativity, planning, forecasting and imagining requires dedicated time to ponder, formulate and connect ideas and thoughts.  These activities require a mental focus void of interruptions.

I had the opportunity to manage teams of programmers for many years.  You quickly learn that quality programming requires dedicated time absent from distraction.  I read once that programmers, if interrupted, take 20 minutes to fully return to the level of mental concentration they had before interruption.  This is one of many reasons I turn off nearly all sound and visual alerts on my laptop and mobile devices.  It is hard enough focusing my own brain for long periods of time, let alone being bombarded by digital distractions. 

In our personal multi-screen lives filled with alerts, notifications, reminders, news flashes, advertisements and 24x7 communications via smartphones and social media, it is easy to lose the storyline we each want for our own lives.  Our personal storyline is our past, present and future.  It is the story we want our lives to tell.  Recognizing our past storyline, determining how we want to change, and then ensuring we are taking the necessary steps to live it, takes focused thinking and time – all things we quickly lose under the onslaught of digital glimpses and instances.

In our professional lives we often have specific and routine deliverables, plus the increasing request to help our employers innovate, create, invent and digitally transform.  Our routine deliverables and tasks often benefit greatly from technology that improves productivity (and by the way can often be done by robots), but unless we can “make technology disappear” into the background, it inhibits our human ability to think thoughtfully about important future business and digital transformation issues.  If we are to claim and protect our humanity amongst all of the digital distractions, we are going to need to figure out a way to control both our technologies and ourselves.
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Kevin Benedict
Writer, Speaker, Analyst and World Traveler
View my profile on LinkedIn
Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict
Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel
Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility
Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Interviews with Kevin Benedict