Digital Transformation Event 17/10/19

On Thursday, I am looking forwards to be part of an excellent panel for George O’Connor’s standing-room only event with esteemed leaders, Sir Martin Sorrell, Hellen Bowey, Brendan Mooney, Neal Gandhi and chaired by Gervais Williams. We are discussing Digital transformation. The topic is billed as a “profound restructuring of business, organizational models, processes, services and competencies”   Wow – we could cover a massive and complex set of issues, experiences and practical solutions. Generally, I love to create simplicity from complexity so I will outline some simple reflections below. I am conscious that I do not do justice to the topic as reflected in the many books written on the topic but in my whistle-stop tour of the opportunities, successes and bear-traps, I hope to provoke the discussion.

I am fortunate to have the perspective of ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’ – I was lucky to be at the ‘ringside seat of history’ during the Coalition Government when UK Government went from the ‘dark ages’ to the UK being ranked in 2016 by the UN as No 1 for digital government. David Cameron is quoted as “The Government Digital Services was one of the great unsung triumphs of the last parliament”. Cumulatively, the Efficiency program led brilliantly by Minister Francis Maude saved over £50 billion in five years (equivalent to 6 million primary school places and 1.5m junior nurses salary for a year so it mattered to support our brilliant public services!), mostly from the running costs of Government, delighting tens of millions of the citizen users of GOV.UK and restoring capability and pride in the Civil Service as well as winning multiple innovation and design awards. The vision developed by Martha Lane Fox and delivered by an amazing team led by Mike Bracken sought to turn the world on its head to take the first steps for users (citizens) to control of their relationship from the palm of their hands with a fragmented & disjointed Government.

Up to this point since the Second World War, the political rhetoric and believed wisdom was that “more public money always meant better public services”. GOV.UK proved the opposite and achieved what was previously considered by many senior leaders and politicians as impossible – GOV.UK delivered better services at a fraction of the previous cost and all delivered by brilliant civil servants with no big consultancies or System Integrators in sight. And the icing on the cake was the jobs created for the network of innovative boutique expert companies like Kainos. During this period, the analysis of the partners working with the Government Digital movement was 90% of the SME companies were based in the UK, paid UK taxes, and created UK jobs across the regions.

Previously, during my tenure as CEO at USA and UK companies, we led digital innovation for the biggest Financial Services companies with Chordiant as well as leading Sage in the transformation of businesses from ‘start-up’ through to large businesses to the cloud powered by embryonic data science/AI. Experience gained at the leading edge of innovation, I made mistakes and gained scars of my back. Business transformation is hard work. Government transformation in a 200+ year old institution is even harder. However, it was invaluable experience to gain deep insights to bring legacy institutions roaring into the 21st century and putting customers truly at the heart of their businesses. I saw first-hand how digital transformation is a catalyst and enabler of a profound re-imaging of the business.

People mean many different things by Digital Transformation and unless you have done it, I am not sure how you know – it’s a sea of ‘red herrings’. In fact, as an Exec, you risk become seduced by some of the big management consultancies who jump on digital bandwagons. According to Forbes, 70% of corporations’ transformation efforts fail. Failure then creates a ‘fear of failure’, stagnation, and dulls any appetite for innovation. What ‘success’ looks like is when the customer, citizen or simply put, the ‘user need’ becomes ‘epicenter’ so customer obsession is embedded deeply from beginning to end – use cases, process, culture and people. You can build platforms, component parts that get user over and again across your entire business and awesome, yet simple user experience. The transformation allows CEOs to create a compelling vision of how the business can change the world for the improvement of customers. 

During my Government times, I enjoyed working with the ‘caped crusader’ Mike Bracken who used to say with humility “The strategy is Delivery”. And the strategy of the company should NEVER be outsourced. So, if design and technology are part of the delivery process and you fully outsource them – you are in fact, outsourcing your strategy. A recipe for disaster and march towards the dinosaurs. The cultural change involved is like ‘night and day’ – strategy does become delivery. Multi-disciplined teams are empowered, starting with the needs of users with clear ownership and open collaboration. Transparency is key, publishing, iterating and improving, testing with real people, using simple language that users understand, showing prototypes and working code to replace long papers and dull meetings. The result is a bond of deep trust – people who work in your organization and the users of the services. Doing a lot of hard work to make things so simple. Success demands uncompromising leadership that paints a clear compelling vision; a ‘Jedi Master’ team fanatical about users and delivery; changing the incentives that shape behaviors; the gaming of organizations; innovation at the heart of the company and not an ‘add-on’; new processes and so on. It’s always a bonus if you have a burning platform or crisis to catalyze the mandate as was the case in 2010 emerging from the financial crash. Francis Maude should be commended for outstanding political leadership that resulted in one of the most successful Government transformation programs ever.

So, my experience of 30+ years leading and supporting major transformations in Financial Services, Micro Focus, UK Government, Sage, allowed me to lead organisations where ‘Strategy is Delivery’ starting with ‘Digital by Default’ and ‘Customer Obsession as the DNA’. For the companies I served, this allowed us to totally redefine your compelling vision through to execution - creating awesome user experience underpinned by a relationship of trust with the consumers of services/products as well as colleagues and other stakeholders. Generally, I would advise you to ‘Be bold’. Create the future for your customers.

So, what can go wrong? There is so much. This is messy and hard. Hence the need to clarity of vision throughout the journey. Good news is that there is more talent and experience today than before BUT, ‘in the street of the blind, the one-eyed man is king’ so beware of so called ‘experts’ especially if they have no scars. Many of the so-called leaders have little experience in the digital trenches. You can't read books and theory alone - you need to learn through delivery too. Many leaders seek to protect the status quo created in the past and will engage in subtle sabotage. Some leaders will see a radical user-driven digital agenda as risky – I would argue the status-quo is untenable as your company will die slowly. I also see a real risk of big consultancies hijacking the ‘Digitization’ movement and repeating the failures of the past of big IT and billions of wasted dollars as they are inherently conflicted to sell more ‘bodies’. We need to learn from the horror stories of projects like NHS ‘Connecting for Health’ and be uncompromising for the Digital blueprint where strategy is delivery. As I have said before, if Digital/Tech was a regulator industry, many of the operators would have their licenses withdrawn. So, beware of eloquent prophets of wisdom rather than the practitioners who will build your multi-disciplinary teams – these are streetfighters and have been in the digital trenches and found the sunlight.

On the upside, the opportunity is huge. Many of our business and public services are dogged by manual processes, disparate data, proprietary systems and legacy IT. There are massive opportunities for businesses to totally re-imagine their role and relationship with their customers. There is also a new generation of Digital Leaders who will be running major consumer companies within a decade as CEOs supported by diverse Boards that really ‘gets’ digital as well as the market, customer and domain experience. Examples like Tim Steiner of Ocado will become mainstream. The old world of City Grandees on Boards in Direct2Consumer industries like Financial Services, Utilities, Telecoms, Travel and Retail will become extinct. Customer-obsessed Digital Natives will be running companies that shape the future.

Digital and other elements of the 4th industrial revolution (AI, big data science, cloud etc) will lead profound change in how companies form deep and trusted relationships with their customers. Convergence of these technologies will become mainstream where there is a strong use case. These technologies like AI and big data will collide to solve use cases in radically better ways. There will be a merging of B2C and B2B disciplines and techniques to spawn new D2C innovation. Exciting times ahead.

There is also so much to be optimistic for and opportunities for greater prosperity and digital inclusion. With Britain low in the productivity tables and behind France and Germany, as highlighted through the excellent thought leadership led by Charlie Mayfield - ‘Be the Business: Business leadership for a better decade’ - digital transformation represents a massive productivity opportunity for UK plc improving the prosperity of all.

Looking forward to a lively discussion with George O’Connor’s excellent panel and growing the movement of disruptors who deliver the future. Carpe Diem.