Digital Transformation: A Butterfly Story

Digital Transformation is a hot topic as it requires a holistic effort for the entire organization including the senior leadership. Many articles have been published in press and internet however there are still missing pieces for some people to understand what actually it is. Recently I had a discussion with a customer and he requested to simplify it more. Below is an explanation upon his request; 

For analyzing this in further it came into my mind a very nice article I have red recently which is actually describing the digital transformation journey as the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. (Reference Link provided at the end of this document)

There is a phrase used by George Westerman (MIT Researcher) about Digital Transformation -  "it's like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly," but when done wrong, "all you have is a really fast caterpillar."

Now let’s see how we can reach the Butterfly state;

People, skills, and processes need to be assessed by experts to identify the gaps and take corrective actions wherever needed with no delays, alternatively, there is a high risk of exposure which might lead to a failure.

 The next question I received was how the business would benefit from such a kind of journey. Below is my response;

1. Employees Upskill; People will not be consumed by doing routine activities such as Administration and routine operations activities e.g. data entry. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are here to help us by passing these kinds of tasks to Machines. Instead, people can now be focused on more business-oriented roles which can make them more valuable in their organization.
2. Time Efficiency;  With the aid of technology and with the support of refined processes we can eliminate the barrier of slowdown bottlenecks and instead we can create automated workflows. This way can dramatically increase the time efficiency of business services.
3. Take the right Decision; We have a massive number of data to analyze -more than ever- and in the future, they will be even more. Human capabilities cannot read and translate these data properly. However, people can help machines to read these data and by using the outcome they can gain valid insights immediately leading to more accurate predictions.
4. Business available easy and from everywhere: We are living in a very demanding epoch. Hence business services should be easily accessible from everyone and at any time . Enterprises adopting this faster, will be the leaders in the market.
5. Business Automation: The main element of Digital Transformation is automation and orchestration. Services will run fast and get easily deployed whenever demanded by customers. Customer satisfaction will be the outcome of this.
6. High Growth: All the above mentioned will orchestrate harmonically and will increase the profitability of the Enterprise.

Digital transformation is a magical journey and if you want to join, then you need to make sure you are joining a ship led by the best captain with the right crew to support him.

Dimitri Skoukas

HPE