Digital Trends short note - An Update

It’s been a while since I made a post talking about my life with digital, as well as a few articles on digital strategy for enterprises; I think it is time for a bit of an update.

This will be a short note on a few key trends that I believe are significant w.r.t. how the industry is evolving. Of course, by no means this is a comprehensive list –These are of course personal views  and  I’ve had the opportunity to share and discuss these with various colleagues and contacts in the industry

The below is a form of distilled set of notes on overarching undercurrents in digital.I will be going in some detail on some of these trends in upcoming blog posts

What makes a digital Company – The evolving role of the CDO

A few years ago, the role of the Chief Digital Officer rose to prominence.

The “forces of digital” e.g. mobile, cloud, big data, social and automation were having an increasingly greater impact on the success of solutions and the longevity of enterprises that built them. No single CXO role, e.g. CMO, CIO, CTO, CFO, could effectively address them holistically at this point in the cycle.

The role of the CDO, was borne out of that necessity, i.e. to help enterprises adapt to the wave, to articulate a vision and a roadmap that wouldn’t just merely ‘accommodate’ these forces but would help the enterprise establish them as a new normal.

Over time, the wave has just gotten stronger and stronger. ‘Digital’ has permeated into every aspect of an organisation, every department, every project, and every product & services offered to the market. 

In this context, the role of a dedicated CDO stands to become diluted and lose efficacy for companies that truly seek to truly embrace digital.

Just as, you can’t claim to have an innovation culture if you only allow for innovation in dedicated teams and labs, in the same way, you will always be limited as a digital company if you believe it to be the responsibility of a dedicated function.

To truly succeed in today’s era, digital must become a foundation mindset across all divisions, teams & roles. Each CXO role must adopt digital as way of life, make it a second nature and understand how each of their functions fit seamlessly together, regardless of boundaries drawn by org charts.

Commoditisation of Data

Data is becoming more and more commoditised. The view that only a select few from a specialised division are capable & authorised to collect, manage, analyse and execute on insights from that data is fast deteriorating losing relevance. 

From consumers quickly catching on to their sovereignty on their own data, to front line staff demanding better access to real time customer interactions including side by side comparison with historical behavioural trends , organisations  are facing a significant change in how they operate.

Traditional roles of IT, Business, Analytics and Marketing are being dismantled. The enterprise must adopt to a brave new world if they are to continue to add value to themselves and to their customers. After all, data doesn’t respect the various boundaries of an organisation – why should solutions and services built on it be limited by those boundaries.

I discuss this in some greater detail in a future post.

Business vs Technology ( but not really )

Putting it simply, the traditional view of business and technology as beings from two different planets, scarcely being able to understand each other , let alone grasp their motivations and drivers is defunct and serves no purpose, especially now.

We’ve already seen the erosion of that barrier with the rise of DevOps and Agile based development. With the convergence of digital across all manner of solutions, that barrier is dissolving even more.

Business product owners, no longer simply need to know their customers, products and services, but need to serve as custodian of their digital product roadmap. For this they need to innately understand the forces shaping our solutions today, expectations from our customers, potential and limitations of new tech and be right there in the thick of things, charting the course to new horizons.

Technology, similarly, can no longer be limited to being super specialists in a few core areas. A broader range of skill set is demanded, along with a finger on the pulse of new disrupting trends , ready to pivot into the next POC . They must appreciate the impact of their services and skills on the final user experience and capability offered by the product as well as how it stands in the market. Understanding how businesses, goods and services are being impacted by revolutions in the tech space is key.

At the end of the day, it is all about developing a more holistic understanding of the ecosystems and a greater level of empathy , on both sides , to be able to be able to tap into new synergies of today

David vs Goliath ( Startups vs / & Large Enterprises )

The last few years have seen a radical decrease in the barrier to entry for start-ups . The reduction in capital expenditure ( facilitated through services such as AWS and Azure ) as well as lack of legacy baggage , has allowed new businesses to focus on adding value to the customer through directed and focused innovation on very specific parts of the value chain.

Some of these, though humble in their origin offer far more value than comparable services from large, more well established organisations.

With legislation (controversial or otherwise) on the way to mandate more seamless sharing of data across organisations ( e.g. Open Banking , Health Record data etc ) – the barrier to entry and ultimately to delivering value to end consumers will be further reduced.

In this scenario, big organisations have a choice to make. They either compete head on, by trying to keep up on core offerings and experiences to match that of the startups OR they adopt a platform approach providing the capability to startups and smaller organisations to offer goods and services as a white label.

Each options has its pros and cons.

The first will ensure that the large enterprises still own the end user experience – they will continue to have direct relationships with the customer. It will however also be challenging to keep up to the pace of delivering value to end consumers as fast as the start-ups – the general belief going that large enterprises have more to lose and thus have a comparatively more onerous processes for risk management and release to market. These frameworks are there for a reason and should not be subverted. Furthermore, large organisations tend to have a lot more red tape than necessary, slowing everything down. This can be hard (though not impossible) to overcome.

The second is more aligned with the ecosystem is shaping up. This will have enterprises “play ball” , and will allow them to partner with instead of compete against various players in the market. While it would ultimately help to retain and even expand their market share, they will stand to erode their brand presence in the market and relinquish control on the ownership of the customer relationship. Such a move will also impact on margins and overall profitability.

Those were a few of the key trends I thought would be interesting to discuss. Do you see anything critical missed ? What has been your experience in this area ? Would love to hear some of your stories!!

In my next blog , I delve into more details of the nuances and dynamics around modern data solutions for enterprises, where some of these trends can be seen front and center.