Surviving the Digital Storm: From Big Dreams to Tactical Triumphs
In today's digital landscape, technology for business success is an integral component of corporate strategies.
Exponential technologies offer both opportunities and challenges.
A balanced approach, termed "Tactical Evolution," integrates long-term vision with tactical technology deployment.
Tactical Evolution focuses on optimising workflows, leveraging existing data, and empowering the workforce.
By embracing Tactical Evolution, organisations can navigate digital turbulence, driving efficiency and fostering innovation for sustained success.
In today's rapidly evolving landscape, digital strategies are not merely an add-on; they form the nucleus of most organisations' overarching strategies. Emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Process Transformation, Automation, Cloud computing, 5G, and the Internet of Things (IoT) have thrust us into an era of dizzying change. As these technologies advance at unprecedented rates, they present both opportunities and challenges for businesses worldwide.
The whirlwind of AI hype and the shift from rule-based systems to enigmatic AI and data “black boxes" have left business and tech leaders scratching their heads. Exponential advancements in the information availability, storage, communication and processability; in the development of intelligent, robotic and remote-controlled systems are disrupting the business world and introducing uncertainty and unpredictability. In fact, according to the recently published Alix Partners’ Disruption Index 2024, 50% of a sample of business leaders report their businesses being highly disrupted, with 63%, almost two-thirds, saying their company cannot keep up with the rate of technological change, and 58% feeling they are personally falling behind their own knowledge and skills curve1 This technological turbulence has companies deciphering implications for operating models, tech architecture, talent, and customer relations. The same Alix Partner report cited earlier shows that 37% of participating CEOs expect their business models to change significantly in the next 12 months. And, a recent McKinsey study shows the average lifespan of S&P 500 companies has significantly shortened, signalling the need for adaptation2.
Amidst all this turbulence, businesses small and large face the challenge of balancing immediate needs with sustained resilience, all while navigating this complex and fast-evolving technological landscape. They need to reconsider their business and operating models, adapt their value chains, product portfolios and customer channels, and revisit their talent pools. They face competing demands for attention, funding and resources, but those companies that continuously and pro-actively address and adapt to these challenges will emerge as winners.
Emerging technologies like AI and automation offer opportunities but also challenges, demanding constant adaptation for sustained success.
So, how can you a business leader navigate this digital turbulence and leverage it to your business advantage?
Embrace Technology Driven Change: The Imperative of Innovation
One pragmatic approach is to distinguish between enterprise-wide transformation and the tactical application of technology. While distinct, these two categories are equally crucial and offer independent benefits.
Enterprise Revolution: Enterprise-wide transformation involves strategically developing and deploying capabilities and infrastructure to alter an organisation's business and operating models. These programmes, typically three to five years long, are complex, require extensive planning, capex allocation and are varying degrees of success. They demand significant shifts in ways of working, skills, capabilities, and mindsets. They impose substantial demand on business and technology functions, necessitating extensive workforce retraining and robust change management support.
Tactical Evolution: On the other hand, concerns itself with the focused & tactical deployment of tools and techniques drawn from modern technologies to enhance efficiency, data, workflows, and customer and employee experiences. This approach entails exploring ways to incorporate emerging technologies into specific aspects of a company’s activities to achieve immediate and tangible results.
Unlike “Enterprise Revolution”, “Tactical Evolution” does not mean fundamentally redefining a firm’s competitive advantage but rather focuses on addressing pain points or known opportunities obstructing mission-critical objectives, strengthening the firm’s ability to achieve these sustainably.
This approach fosters agility, building business responsiveness and changeability, allowing businesses to rapidly adapt to new forces and opportunities and react to changes in the market, regulatory environment, and technology landscape. It also enables effective management of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): by achieving ROI on a case-by-case basis, businesses can be selective and informed about the changes they implement, ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently and effectively across the organisation.
“Enterprise Revolution” and “Tactical Evolution” complement one another, but require distinct conversations in the boardroom
It is not a choice between one or the other. “Enterprise Revolution” is crucial for long-term sustainability. However, we encourage business leaders to initiate discussions on “Tactical Evolution” through exponential technology in the present, accelerating their learning curve, gaining insights into tech and its deployment readiness, engaging their people in a safe way on the change journey, and verifying value creation and realisation.
In our experience, firms that successfully adopt this approach get the following right:
They deploy technology to take control of their workflows and processes: They start small, they paint a rich picture of their operating landscape, one “process at a time.” Using tools such as Business Process Mapping, they seek to understand how “the work works” in their business. They mine this information to gather and qualify insights on traditional optimisation, automation, and AI opportunities. They model potential future workflows, examining how these get them closer to their strategic goals. They build a central repository of workflow information, providing a single source of the truth, allowing easy access and consumption of up-to-date process information, simplifying life for employees. They track adherence and compliance to agreed standards, seeking to understand the root causes of departures and weave those into optimised workflows. They define targets and KPIs based on an understanding of how the business operates, creating an operational vision and blueprint for the organisation.
Technology is a means to an end
In fact, using technology becomes a means to an end, namely, to remove points of pain and make achieving goals and targets easier. By focusing on small scale exploration, use of the technology becomes democratised, reducing the fear of change and the sense of “not invented here.” This is not top-down technology transformation; it is people-led, technology-enabled evolution.
For example, in a large supply chain process, one business moved tactically to validate a Proof of Value to tackle safety breaches from unapproved engine parts, developing a targeted solution combining AI, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and Automation to swiftly verify part compliance. By autonomously extracting data from certificates and cross-referencing with industry standards, it ensures only approved components enter stores. This tactical approach enhanced safety, minimised errors, increased productivity, and optimised efficiency across engineering stores.
Leverage Available data.
Data is the fuel of many of these modern exponential technologies. Most businesses struggle with understanding and managing their master and transaction data. While developing data strategies can be a complex, time and cost intensive exercise, tactical improvement in data accuracy, availability, and security of key data assets can deliver quick wins. “Tactical Evolution” allows you to leverage and document the most critical data sources, uses, and flows to increase visibility and control “one value-critical process at a time”. Adopters of “Tactical Evolution” will work to facilitate access and consistency by automating manual processes such as compilation and reporting, again making life simpler for colleagues, driving engagement and adoption. We have seen various use cases of focused Automation revolutionising Revenue to Record, Procure to Pay, Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable in finance and supply chain processes to increase accuracy of data and enhance productivity. These capabilities are applicable across functions and business lines and spreading fast.
Leverage from your existing master and transaction data "one process at a time"
One use case that stands distinct, is in the textile industry, where managing Traceability and Sustainability Certificates is crucial. Intelligent Automation optimises this process by orchestrating seamless data flows, accurately recording compliance certificates in centralised systems, and enabling real-time monitoring and visualisation of supply chain activities. This data-driven approach enhances transparency, enables initiative-taking risk management, and facilitates informed decision-making for sustainable business practices.
Steer from the centre.
If the exploration of exponential technologies is to happen at the grassroots level, it needs to be nurtured and guided into an overall coherent whole. A centralised governance function will help orchestrate and facilitate local initiatives, providing guidance, expertise, and tools to help overcome day-to-day execution barriers. It will shape standards and facilitate the development and deployment of common tools around the technologies. As the organisation matures in its knowledge and experience of the technology and in its mastery of change management, it may then become appropriate to devolve certain aspects of the governance, enabling autonomy and agility. But for many non-digital native organisations, we are not yet there!
In one use case we saw a Motor Retailer strategically fuse corporate strategy with digital innovation, creating a Central Transformation office to drive tactical change across processes. This approach seamlessly integrated Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) principles with innovative technologies, fostering a culture of innovation, continuous improvement, and adaptability.
Create a culture of collaboration.
Thriving businesses actively support tactical initiatives and work to cultivate a collaborative and innovative culture. They establish Centres of Excellence backed by "Business Technology Officers" who can translate business objectives into digital strategies. These individuals possess a ROI and benefits driven focus on key technologies and the capability to integrate them seamlessly with existing processes. By providing readily accessible expertise, knowledge, and training resources, these centres enable tactical initiatives to navigate obstacles effectively. Resulting in a common digital toolkit, shared language and common practices and empowers seamless collaboration. Focused skills-building programmes, workshops, and networking forums boost digital literacy across the business.
Beyond technical skills, these companies also actively foster a collaborative spirit. By setting clear and transparent objectives for tactical initiatives, they ensure team alignment. Mutually agreed expectations, for instance agreeing working times or sharing preferred communication styles, help build connections, trust, and commitment. Celebrating the diversity of the organisation, enabling the coming together of temporary multi-functional teams to rapidly resolve problems in the way of progress, help drive innovation and collaboration further; simple and transparent internal innovation processes, e.g. through internal competitions or a fair “funnel” process help spark creativity and problem-solving across the organisation.
Embracing both strategic and tactical mindset is crucial for thriving amidst digital turbulence
Organisations that have better understanding of their workflows, of how the “work works” are able to ensure compliance and conformance. Armed with this robust “building block”, and with the enablers of curiosity and collaboration emerging throughout the organisational culture, they are free to focus on innovation in the process, improving experiences for employees and customers.
Conclusion
As digital strategy becomes integral to corporate strategy, executives face the daunting task of navigating rapid technological evolution and hype. Distinguishing between Enterprise Revolution and “Tactical Evolution” offers a pragmatic approach, focusing on bottom-up technology introduction to address mission-critical pain points while engaging the business. Successful companies that follow this approach take control of workflows, centralise governance, and empower their workforce. Embracing both strategic and tactical mindset is crucial for thriving amidst digital turbulence.
Authors:
Laurent Elfassy, Director | Strategy and Transformation – Visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurentelfassy/
Muhammad Ali, Director | Innovation and Digital Solutions – Visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/ecealim/
