Solaiman Alam, Chief Digital and Strategy Officer, Grameenphone Ltd. 

Digital transformation is not an extraordinary concept or a high-tech, ultra-modern idea. Rather, it is simply another phase of business and a new way of working that employees can easily adopt and implement in their daily operations. This is exactly what your organisation and all your employees need to believe if you want to make Digital Transformation a success. 

I will walk you through demystifying digital transformation by breaking it down into three questions, with three points in each. You may wonder why it is the chosen number. I once heard from a very respected business leader that it is the magic number that the human brain can optimally comprehend information in groups. So, let’s begin. 

Why? This is the question you should ask first. It will save you a lot of effort, time and money if you can honestly ask yourself this question and know the actual answer. You see, digital transformation is no longer an option or choice. Rather, it is just the next natural evolution of your business. You have to transform, but you must still ask yourself the “why” because the reason to transform is different for markets, industry vehicles, and companies with diverse cultures and objectives.  

According to my experience so far, there are three broad reasons why companies worldwide are going through this transformation. 

1. Customer needs have changed, or the market has changed because of new technologies. This is usually the primary reason. It essentially means that customers’ preferences have changed because of the digitisation happening at the customer end. They are exposed to global trends and expect much more from local and global businesses. They want it all, and they want it now. It sounds dramatic, but a clear trend is taking hold. This gives you a clear choice – transform or leave this business. There are countless examples around the world, and it is crazy to think you would not be affected. For the industry that I work in, the transformation has been from Voice to Internet, which has heralded all the Digital Transformation happening in the world.  We see the edge that one has, as the best voice service provider can easily be challenged when it comes to the internet. There are thousands of competitors, players, and stakeholders in this business who did not operate in the Voice business at all. The Digital transformation that we had to go through and are still going through was not a choice but a necessity, and it will probably be the same for you. The key is to predict changes and be ready to ride the wave of change rather than trying to catch up after it has passed. How do you do that, you say? Read up, look for internet trends, follow similar industries and verticals, join a few international conferences to broaden your horizon, look at different market research, and task this to your research or strategy department if they are a strong unit in the organisation.  
2. Often, the customer wants the same product or service you offer, but maybe in a different channel or way. In a market where the products and services are more or less similar (the product/service advantage is not a gulf of difference), you will lose your relevance, and they will gradually replace you. This is usually the most prevalent in FMCG, Food, and Household goods. Customers’ preferences change as they make purchasing and buying decisions. To adapt to changing customers, you must evolve, be available, and be relevant; stay ahead of customers’ demands. This means being available and relevant through various channels such as online, search engines, social media, e-commerce, third-party and digital channels, product placements and social image management. Achieving this will probably transform the overall production, distribution, marketing, and financial processes.  
3. Efficiency gain. One of the favourite reasons for many executives and owners to embark on digital transformation is the efficiency gain it brings. The use of technology usually brings with it automation, speed, and transparency. This leads to cost efficiency, efficient processes, quicker time to market, reduced errors, and decreased human dependency. An interesting point is that digital transformation will sometimes, as a by-product, give you a lot of efficiency, even if the main reason for implementing it was something else. Without these efficiency gains, you will not get the full impact of the transformation in the company’s financials. The synergy is that digital transformation usually comes with mid to significant investment in technology and people. For example, in my experience, I have seen great companies delivering better financial results while having transformed to half the employee base. I have seen sales transformed towards more efficient and effective digital channels that are more than 50% cheaper than traditional channels. There is a juxtaposition here: for digital transformation to occur, this type of organisation optimisation and sales channel modernisation needs to happen. At the same time, the company will attain a huge efficiency benefit in the bottom line and growth in the top line. 

What? Once you’ve figured out the answer to the why, the immediate (sometimes simultaneous) question is, what. What do you want to transform? Which part of the business do you want to transform? I will spend less time here and only share three perspectives. 

▪ Setting priorities is important because you will most likely need to transform the whole business. So, the better question is not what, but rather, what first? 

▪ It is unlikely that you will have the end picture clear in your head when you begin the transformation journey. But that’s okay. It is not expected that it will be. What is important is to know the direction and stick to it. 

▪ It is best to start by transforming your support functions, whichever they are. 

How? Now comes the difficult part because the devil is in the details. Even if you have figured out why digital transformation is required and what you want to achieve out of it loosely, you still need to figure out how you will do it. This is important because you need to know how you will fail to achieve the desired outcome; you might spend a lot of money for little or undesired impact or take too long and be out of the game. The most critical things to understand are:  

▪ Transformation begins from the top and must be anchored at the top.  

▪ You will need experts who know about this. The classic mistake many reputable companies make is believing they know better and have the best resources. They know the existing game (probably better than most), but the digital game and transformation are different. Another classic pitfall is bringing a couple of the best industry experts on board and putting them under a traditional leader who dictates and calls the shots.  Without empowerment, the experts will not be able to do their thing. You cannot expect Messi to play and win in cricket, and you cannot expect Messi to win a football match if you put him as the goalkeeper! You need to have the right assessment of your current status, vis a vis what you want to achieve, find out the skill or expertise gap, and then go for the big guns. If you get the big guns (by that, I mean a few changemakers who know this transformation well), give them the proper ammunition and the right perch to fire (in other words, the proper empowerment) to get a real impact. At the same time, you must invest to upgrade your current workforce and your tools and systems. 

Ultimately, people are at the heart of the transformation, not technology. If your people reject transformation (or the need for transformation), you cannot make it happen by force. I have seen slogans and placards against some transformation and modernisation initiatives. I have seen regular, hard-working employees doing “sit-ins” to resist transformation. Similarly, I have seen many of the same employees leading speeches about the need for transformation when they believed in the story and when the intention and direction were made clear to them. Unfortunately, not everyone can be part of the journey, and you need to leave a few people along the way and swap a few, too. But with the right intention, transparency, and buy-in, it is possible to make it happen.  

The first step is to make data visible in the organisation. The first steps are full transparency, full visibility, and the ability to interpret and apply what the data tells. This will require some digital tool implementation, automation, removal of manual processes to capture everything, training the employee base, and reallocating or optimising Human Resources. This should be a small test of navigating the bigger transformation (when required) going forward. So, start small, learn, and apply the learning to your next moves. The most important thing here is that you must demystify the digital transformation to most of your employees and give them confidence that everyone can do it. It is nothing extraordinary and a simple tool; anyone can learn and adapt it to day-to-day work. This will build up positive momentum for digital transformation and propel it towards success. 

In summary, I want to highlight three lessons I have learned over the few years of experiencing the digital transformation 

▪ Lesson 1: Figure out why and what you want to achieve from the transformation before investing in anything. 

▪ Lesson 2: The top dog has to own and sponsor the agenda. 

▪ Lesson 3: Start small, like digitising data with tools, and get employees in the habit of doing it.