Digital Transformation: Jingle or Jungle?

“Digitalization”, “Digital Transformation”, and “digitizing” are words and concepts that echo through the workplace like a jingle – a repetitive, increasingly common refrain.
In fact, digital transformation today is an imperative for all companies, without exception. It is no longer a matter of turnover or headcount, nor is it a solution reserved for specific industries. Every organization must build new capabilities to harness the potential of emerging technologies, learning to integrate them into their processes, organizational models, and daily operations.
The pandemic has undoubtedly acted as an accelerator, pushing this need forward at high speed. For SMEs, digitalization is now a mandatory step. They cannot afford to miss this opportunity, even if their resources are more limited than those of global corporations. Precisely for this reason, it is essential to manage capital and digitalization processes with extreme care and strategic awareness.

While technology undoubtedly plays a key role in digitalization projects, it must never be the primary driver. The human dimension (encompassing organization, operating models, processes, and culture) is a decisive factor that cannot, and must not, be overlooked.
If these core principles are ignored when leading a project, digitalization initiatives risk turning into true nightmares, becoming as difficult to escape as a dense and tangled jungle.

A typical case of digitalization, to use a simple example, is the purchase of software to digitalize a company’s commercial processes. Even looking at just this “slice” of the business world, the infographic shown here highlights more than 20 different processes (and sub-processes), each represented and driven by specific technologies and logic.

Technology is omnipresent and permeates every aspect of our lives, creating an excessive complexity that we are clearly struggling to manage. Consequently, all too often, we make choices without a clear understanding of the problems we are trying to solve through a specific technology. Alternatively, we may be driven by ideas or impulses that are not strictly aligned with the corporate strategy and mission but are rather a response to the need for quick, short-term fixes.

This is precisely what happens when we decide to purchase software (sometimes involving significant financial investments, perhaps totaling several hundred thousand euros) without being certain that it will solve the company’s current problems. This occurs because, at the outset, no contextual analysis was carried out, nor was there any mapping of the issues intended to be addressed and resolved.
Returning to the metaphor of the dense and tangled jungle that the digitalization journey can become, it is like trying to build a shelter to live in the wild without even having clearly identified the goal. Are you planning to stay in the jungle, or are you searching for a way out?

A vast and diverse array of options, limited knowledge of the available solutions (including the strengths and constraints inherent in every choice), and all too often, a lack of clarity regarding both the objectives to be achieved and the problems to be solved: this is the typical context in which digitalization projects are launched. Usually, while the variables and conditions may vary in complexity, these challenges remain constant, regardless of the size or scale of the organization.

All too often, decisions (whether operational, tactical, or strategic) are made without being goal oriented. Instead, the focus shifts toward the immediate resolution of a problem, frequently without even identifying its true root cause.
The following is a list of typical problems and errors that occur in scenarios where a comprehensive mapping has not been established prior to the digitalization process:

• Technology-driven choices guided by technical aspects rather than actual processes or the pursuit of customer value;
• Lack of stakeholder involvement, leading to a disconnect between the goals of digitalization and the change process that people must face and overcome;
• Choosing a technology partner or vendor that is disproportionate to the actual needs, perhaps driven solely by the urge to find a partner quickly to get the project started;
• Creation of disparate digitalization projects that proceed in parallel but independently from one another, without establishing the necessary fluidity and data continuity between different departments;
• Costs and inefficiencies created by non-value-added activities required to update and integrate systems that were not conceived or designed as natively integrated and collaborative.

While it is true that digitalization projects often suffer from runaway costs and timelines, this most frequently happens when there is no comprehensive, integrated guidance to oversee the entire transformation, a process that must evolve simultaneously across Processes – Organization, and Technology.

A widespread and shared Lean Digital Mindset across all business areas, one that maintains a relentless focus on maximizing customer value throughout the project’s development, is an indispensable asset for success. It is therefore fundamental to establish a Lean Digital Mindset that defines a broader strategic framework. This framework must accommodate the opportunities and demands of multi-year goals, enabling and facilitating the achievement of specific corporate strategic objectives by clarifying the interconnections between technological levers and business impacts.

Customer centricity, the development of a Lean Digital Mindset, the application of an Agile TOM, and Lean Change Management constitute the pillars that guarantee:

• alignment with corporate strategic aspects and long-term planning
• adherence to the defined digitalization roadmap, preventing “workarounds” aimed at restoring the status quo
• cohesion between different working groups striving toward the same overall objective, to the full advantage of end-customer value
• company-wide engagement, ensuring that everyone feels part of the change and is personally committed to the process.