Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation = Leadership+Culture+ Agenda+Skills+Data Rahul Neel Mani

A few weeks ago, in my last blog "Mission Digital India: An Achievable Target by 2019", I explained how difficult it is for us to realize the dream of Digital India in the wake of the facts that our network readiness and skills shortage are some of the glaring impediments among others.

However, I also said that the task may be difficult but some of the initial steps taken by the government are praiseworthy and can catapult the situation.

This blog is solely inspired by a News that was published on July 2 in The Australian. The Federal Government of Australia appointed UK Digital Specialist Paul Shelter as the CEO of the Digital Transformation Office.

Paul is joining the Australian DTO directly from the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS). The DTO's agenda is to transform the way public services are designed and delivered, making them "digital by default."

The DTO was launched this July and will exist as an 'executive agency' within the Department of Communications. A full redesign of www.australia.gov.au is one of its first projects. The 2015-16 budget included $95.4 million to establish the DTO as part of a $254.7 million 'Digital Transformation Agenda'.

This news got me further intrigued. If Australia is planning a dedicated CEO for Digital Transformation, there might be other countries too thinking on the same lines! Yes! My guess was right. I found a few more. Its okay to assume that there will be many others beyond what I found but it was fascinating to read what these few Digital Transformation Offices are doing or going to do.

Here's a glimpse:

The agenda of Australia’s Digital Transformation Office is to transform the way public services are designed and delivered, making them "digital by default."

Agency for Digitization, Denmark The Agency for Digitisation of Denmark works under the Ministry of Finance and was established in 2011 with an aim to speed up the digitisation processes required to modernise the Danish welfare society. Under this ambitious and continuous program the Agency is out to ensure that the central government, the municipalities and the regions have set the bar high and work for transforming the public sector in a way that ensures public service delivery becomes more digital in the future. There was a proposal for an eGovernment Strategy in order to accelerate the adoption of digital solutions in the public sector.

The strategy is divided into three main tracks. Each track covers various areas and targets different groups. 

No more printed forms or letters



New digital welfare



Digital solutions for closer collaboration

The public authorities in Denmark are mandated to use all relevant public sector solutions, to avoid developing parallel systems and to promote reuse of pertinent data.

This aims at ensuring that citizens experience a collaborative public sector. This is perhaps the earliest effort on a Digital Government.

A very unique feature of this initiative is the Danish 'Open Data Innovation Strategy' - an initiative creating easier and more uniform access to public data

as raw material for the private sector in the development of innovative digital products and services, useful analyses, data visualisations and data journalism.

Government Digital Service (GDS) UK GDS is where Paul Shelter was poached. It is aimed at government making digital services and information simpler, clearer and faster. The service aims at putting users' needs before the needs of government. This is a very comprehensive effort from the UK government. This agency works as part of the Cabinet Office and the Efficiency Reforms Group of the UK.

From 2014 to 2015, the key priorities of GDS are: 



Transforming 25 of the main



Publishing clear data on how many

government services by March 2015.

people are using digital services and

Moving 75% of agency and arm's

how they're performing including

length body websites to GOV.UK by

dashboards for all major government

July 2014, and all of them by

departments

December 2014







Creating a new, simple, secure way



Working with public, private and

for people to sign in to digital services

voluntary sectors to help people go

Helping departments leave

online, so that by April 2016, the

unsuitable IT contracts, spend less

number of people lacking basic

and get better value for money

digital capability is reduced by 25%

Building a new Digital Marketplace for the public sector to buy digital products and services

The GDS employs a total of 500 employees all over the country. It publishes its quarterly progress reports. You can see all the reports and progress.

Digital Transformation Office, Australia The Digital Transformation Office (DTO) is established to drive delivery of government services digitally from start to finish, making them easier to find and use.

The DTO is to: 





Provide leadership on whole-of-

of whole-of-government service

government service delivery.

delivery platforms;

Develop and implement user-centred



Co-ordinate the funding of whole-of-

whole-of-government service delivery

government service delivery

policies and standards;

platforms; and

Design and govern the implementation and enhancement



Provide advice to the Minister on implementing new government service delivery proposals.

The DTO works under the Ministry of Communications Australia but has an independent CEO who has a huge team of researchers, designers, and content specialists at his disposal. It aims at working like a start up and will focus on end user needs. This year's Budget for the DTO provides $254.7m over four years from 2015-16 to support the initial implementation of the agenda. This includes $95.4m to fund the operation of the Digital Transformation Office as well as funding for the implementation of the projects that form stage one of the agenda.

The unique aspect of the Office of DTO is Digital Service Standard establishing the criteria that Australian Government digital services must meet to ensure our services are simpler, faster and easier to use. It will also include an advance UI and UX too. By the way, this standard has been adopted from the UK Government's Digital by Default Service Standard under the Open Government Licence v2.0.

Digital Transformation of Government Services, New Zealand By 2017 New Zealand government's Digital Transformation program aims that all new transactional services will be established following a 'digital by default' approach, reflecting the changing expectations of individual and business customers.

There will be unified online transaction hubs for citizens and businesses. While support will continue for customers who choose to use other channels, savings will be realised through rationalising non-digital service delivery channels. Intermediaries will be delivering an increasingly rich range of (often aggregated) services on behalf of government.

By 2017: 

The cost and the need for direct interaction between customers and government agencies will have been reduced;



Security and privacy by design will be the norm;



It will be easier for customers to find and access services; and



Services will be accessible to partners and intermediaries in machine-readable form so that services can be better integrated and new value can be added.

This program is being run under the GCIO - Government Chief Information Officer. The GCIO is supported by a team of people across the Department of Internal Affairs.

Agencies across government also contribute to, and in some cases lead, development of the work programme.

Digital India, Government of India If you carefully read the portals of the above mentioned programs from the UK, Australia, Denmark and New Zealand, you will realise, it is apolitical and talks about easing the citizen services, creating accessibility for Public Sector and create a "Digital

by Default" strategy.

The opening paragraph of Digital India portal reads: The journey of e-Governance initiatives in India took a broader dimension in mid 90s for wider sectoral applications with emphasis on citizen-centric services. Later on, many States/UTs started various e-Governance projects. Though these e-Governance projects were citizen-centric, they could make lesser than the desired impact. Government of India launched National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) in 2006. 31 Mission Mode Projects covering various domains were initiated. Despite the successful implementation of many eGovernance projects across the country, e-Governance as a whole has not been able to make the desired impact and fulfil all its objectives.

While the PMO and Ministry of IT are the nodal agencies for monitoring the program management office of the Digital India, the program has been placed under the Secretary of Department of Electronics and IT, Government of India. In a way, its no different than the older structure. NeGP was also a program aimed at creating a digital footprint for the government and managed by the DeIT. The program talks about the broad structure and methodology and seeks clearance to create positions of Chief Information Officers (CIO) in at least 10 key Ministries so that various e-Governance projects could be designed, developed and implemented faster.

CIO positions will be at Additional Secretary/Joint Secretary level with over-riding powers on IT in the respective Ministry.

The Digital India program, like that of UK and Australia need an extreme push. It needs a CDO or a CEO for the program and that should not be a bureaucrat.

Where Digital India Needs to Focus According to Massimiliano Claps, research director, Adelaide O'Brien, research director, and Gerald Wang, research manager, IDC Government Insights, "Governments that want to realize the benefits of digital transformation should treat data as a strategic asset to understand how digital transformation is affecting information management from five points of view: the strategic intent, processes and governance, people competencies and culture, data architecture, and technology infrastructure."

While leadership is an important driver for making Digital a reality, limited effectiveness of coordination mechanisms can also cripple the initiative. To sustain the mammoth task, there is a need for reviewing the coordination mandates both at national and local levels. The Indian government, like those of European and Australian cases, have to establish a system of incentives. We have to look at strengthen executive powers to resolve deadlocks and that needs to be beyond the purview of our archaic Parliamentary Committees. TO make "Digital India" even half successful of what is envisioned, India has to look at adopting user-driven and evidence-based digital

transformation. Without having interoperability of government information systems, there is no use for introducing such an expensive and time consuming initiative.

Miguel Carrasco, Partner & MD of Boston Consulting Group in Australia has recently written a very comprehensive commentary "Accelerating the Digital Transformation of Government."

Miguel writes and I quote: "When we look at what is happening around the world, we can see clearly that governments need to consider five building blocks to create the right conditions for a successful "digital office."

These five building blocks are: 1. Leadership: The champion must come from the most senior levels of government and have digital as one of his or her top three priorities. In this case India should get10/10 as the PM and his Office is directly leading the Digital India project.

2. Location: The best place for the office is wherever the strongest political champion happens to be. Here again, India scores 10/10 as the initiative is driven straight from PM's office.

3. Talent: It needs high-performing team that can attract talented people who are otherwise unlikely to join the public sector. Most governments which are running strong Digital Transformation programs have brought in entrepreneurial leaders from outside. And these appointments have to be more than just symbolic. Here I would give India a poor 4/10. Still, the political interference and nexus between politics and bureaucracy is in the driver's seat.

4. Culture: There is a need for doing intense research to gather massive data on customer needs before embarking on programs. We needed to start with the user need in the centre and should have built a team around it.

Miguel writes that the GDS of UK publicly tracks its progress against targets and publishes the source code on GitHub for other governments to use. This kind of openness, transparency, and sharing is unusual in government and utterly refreshing. Here's where India lacks again and deserves a low of 4/10score.

5. Agenda: Governments have to set highly ambitious targets and also need to be strategic in their focus to chase those targets. "The digital office cannot be a panacea for all the ills of government IT or an opportunistic dumping ground for stalled whole-of-government initiatives from the 'too hard basket'. A common starting point is to improve access to government information," states Miguel. Here's where India is just starting. I would place my bets evenly on India by giving it 5/10.

Apart from the PMO's direct intervention what India, like Australia, the UK and Denmark, needs to urgently look at is establishing a Digital Transformation Office, independent of the legislature yet accountable. That only can help us reimagine the NeGP, which this government seems to have discarded as a failure. That only can insure India's network readiness to unlock its potential and compete at a global scale.

Rahul Neel Mani is the Co-founder and Editor of Grey Head Media.

How Digital is Shifting Leadership Gloria Lombardi

Lee Bryant (Pic above) founded PostShift in 2013 with the mission to help enterprises evolve their structure, technology, culture and practice to become more competitive and agile in the 21st Century.

He has been exploring the field of digital transformation for a much longer time though; prior to launching PostShift he was the Director of HeadShift, a boutique consultancy focusing on the practical use of social technology for achieving organisational change.

"I had a great time for about ten years doing that. There was the need of a mindset shift in how companies were run. We thought that social technology was the way to achieve that. Then, we realised that it wasn't really just about the technology. First and foremost it was about the culture of the organisation."

That is how the name PostShift came about. "It was no longer a debate that social technology was one of the most interesting ways to connect people inside the enterprise. We succeeded in making that mainstream. Now, it was the time to move to the next part

of our mission by helping companies to look at their structure."

Three levels of activities For Bryant, digital transformation is built upon three levels of activities: "how you change the way you engage with markets and customers; how you change your internal operations; and how you innovate around business models (new products, new services, new partnerships and so on...)."

What he saw with the rise of social media was an initial focus on just external engagement. However, that seems to have changed: "What is interesting now is the recognition that to do all these exciting new things externally, we need to look inside.

We need to look at the DNA of the company."

Today, part of the business challenge is management, part is leadership and part is technology. "It is largely about realising that the way we run our businesses is out to date. It is based on old assumptions and constraints of the 20th Century. There is no more reason to use that template."

He believes that there are many new ideas - from networked organisations, to nonhierarchical or self-managed systems - that sit at the heart of more agile businesses.

"These are more responsive to change and able to deliver the promise of social engagement and digital transformation."

The capability gap For Bryant, the way to start is by trying to understand the capability gap that the business needs to fill in to be successful. "Look at how to create those capabilities through better structures, a more collaborative culture and new practices, by making the most of communications and engagement technology."

"Often, programs are big, top-down and done with such a great intensity that they do not lead to a sustainable change."

But, there is a problem to face: "Often, programs are big, top-down and done with such a great intensity that they do not lead to a sustainable change." Change should not happen once per year, but "every week through a little bit of iterations and tweaking."

"You need a real-time picture of the organisational health. It is a picture of the evolution of the company as opposed to a revolution. You need to set some measures that reflect what and where you want to be. Then, keep making small changes that that will help you move toward that picture."

Bryant likes to use the metaphor of personal health. "For years people had used a crash diet, losing weight for a few weeks and then gaining it back."

Now instead, there is the idea of the quantified self. "We have started to track our health through connected devices and gradually we try to become fitter. It is an evolutionary progress based on real-time feedback rather than one-off big change. The same sort of change needs to happen for enterprises."

Leading evolutionary change The companies that are successfully embracing this transformation "have in common a visionary leader who has created a state in which the organisation can pursue alternative ways of working. Often they operate without micro-managing from above."

He cites the holacracy methodology, popular among innovative, customer-centric companies like Zappos and Medium. "They use self-management ideas to involve their people through individual accountability and responsibility. We do not know if this is going to be the answer. But it is certainly an example of the effort to update old management styles."

The challenge for managers is to take these new radical approaches and simplify them for their own organisation. "It is not about adopting one single template but finding your own structure that matches your culture and the behaviors of your staff.

Ultimately, it is about mixing and matching different methodologies that best suit the company.

Internal communicators - blockers or supporters?

"In some cases, internal communicators can be the blockers. If they come from the old school of controlled messages, they may want to hold on to that position, and not really to adapt."

Yet, there are three key populations inside a company that can be useful in driving digital transformation: "One is the Community Managers who spread the culture of collaboration and sharing. Another is the people who work with knowledge. And the third is Internal Communications."

The latter applies when internal communicators act as networkers. "Instead of taking the message from the boss and getting it across to everybody, they maintain the fabric of collaboration and sharing. They tend to be more aware of new tools and techniques that help to build engagement in the digital world."

Also, they can help to create confidence around collaboration. "A lot of what is going wrong inside companies is a confidence issue - people are afraid to say the wrong things. Not communicating and not sharing what people need to know to get work done is a big issue. Internal communications can play an important role here."

The future "We tend to underestimate the time it takes for technologies to become mainstream."

However, Bryant is sure that in 2015 digital transformation will be recognised as something that cannot be owned by marketers alone. "Marketers play a huge role. But, we will see a coming together of internal and external initiatives as well as wider processes of change."

In terms of technology, things will continue to move to the cloud. And,experiences - not features - will be key. "Companies will start to have the confidence that they can use simple point solutions like Slack or HipChat above monolithic platforms like SharePoint."

The leaders of tomorrow There is a range of characteristics that make a networked-centred leader succeed in 21st Century. Bryant believes these three to be fundamental: First is the ability to communicate by sharing stories that excite people.

The second is about influence. "With social networks, a good and strong leader can have a presence that is much wider than the one they achieve physically. The ability to influence virtually has become a vital leadership quality."

The third is having the right knowledge of how things get done in complex systems.

"You cannot manage complex networks directly in the same way you manage hierarchies. You need an understanding of how you can affect change when outputs are not under your direct control."

Bryant believes that the biggest change is letting go of the old hierarchies:

"Leadership is now distributed - it is not confined to job titles and it is not a property of management. These leaders have the big belief that they can make great things and have the ability to create the desire for change.

"Managers are the product of a structure. Whereas with leaders, you can take away the whole system and they will still be leaders."

Gloria is the Editor, Reporter and Community Manager of the on-line publisher simply-communicate. She is also Co-Chair of SMiLE London conference on Social Media inside Large Enterprises.

Follow Gloria at @LOMBARDI_GLORIA

Culture and Digital: The Under-explored and Unexplored Aspects (part-1) Kapil Dev Singh

Almost any discussion on digital (or IT) is incomplete without some reference to culture. Culture has often been seen as an impediment or a roadblock, which organizations need to deal with while implementing digital projects. I see two basic problems with this treatment of the concept of culture.

One, the phenomenon has not been understood holistically and two, the impact of digital on culture has not been explored and discussed.

Culture can even present opportunities to be leveraged and digital can have an equally strong impact on culture; it can help a very different culture to evolve out of digital usage over time. I would like to address these under-explored and unexplored aspects of the relationship between culture and digital.

First let me define the construct of culture. Culture of an organization (or for that matter a country or a society) is the common and shared script which governs the functioning of the collective. It has an informal side,

which manifests itself in the day to day practice. It also has a formal side represented by the written rules and institutionalized structures on the ground, e.g. the organization structure is a manifestation of the deeper culture of an organization, similarly the formal business policies are a reflection of the deeper informal aspects.

There are four dimensions, representing both informal and formal sides, which I would like to highlight here- norms, power, symbols and practice.

1. Culture as the deeper norms, values and beliefs This reflects the core beliefs of the organizational members regarding customers, competition or internal relations. These get institutionalized as unwritten norms to be followed for gaining membership into the organization. It defines what is right and what is wrong in an organization. It is very organization or society specific. E.g. the number 13 is considered as very lucky in the Chinese culture where it is not so in the Indian culture. Calling someone by his first name is a done thing in an American corporation where not so in a Japanese organization. There are many such examples which can be cited regarding the dress codes, punctuality, greetings etc.

I call it the Normative View of Culture.

2. Culture as the way decisions are made This reflects how decisions are made here. It includes aspects such as who can decide, whether the decision making powers are centralized or distributed, whether the decisions are based on hunch and past experience or is there a place for facts? The underlying phenomenon is that of power, granted by the virtue of location in the hierarchy or allegiance to those in power.

I call it the Power View of Culture.

3. Culture as the shared folklores, symbols and Culture is essentially a rituals shared phenomenon.

Culture is essentially a shared phenomenon.

Organizational members emotionally relate with and Organizational members share common folklores, symbols and rituals. These emotionally relate with are the manifested aspects of a culture built to and share common sustain the other three views of culture. I remember folklores, symbols and an organization, in which the CEOs car is parked rituals alone and all other cars parked in a separate area.

Only the employee of the month would get the opportunity to park her car besides the CEOs car, a symbol of reward so visible to everyone. Similarly every organization (and society) has shared folklores and rituals.

I call it the Symbol View of Culture.

4. Culture as the way things are done It includes the range of know how and processes in practice, e.g. the way we treat an angry customer, the way we treat an employee on his first day, the way we carry out our reviews etc. These processes are carried out due to sheer habit and the symbols, rituals and folklores are the THINGS around which they evolve. For example in an organization I found that everyone refers to a 'salary grid' for hiring employees, something which was built by the CEO many years back. The HR process or practice of hiring evolved and revolved around the symbol of salary grid. The symbols and practices are tightly interwoven and knitted together.

I call it the Practice View of Culture.

I have discussed the relationship between digital and the four views of culture presented here in the part 2 of this article.

Kapil Dev Singh is a Strategic Organization Development Consultant, Executive Coach and Research Scholar. He was formerly the India country manager of IDC.

Culture and Digital: The Under-explored & Unexplored Aspects (Part-2) Kapil Dev Singh

In my previous blog yesterday, I discussed the four views of culturethe Normative, Power, symbol and Practice (read Culture and Digitalpart 1).

Once we have defined culture as these four views, the task of understanding it from digital (or IT) perspective will not only be easier but also become specific and meaningful. Each of these four views presents a unique challenge and a unique opportunity for digital.

Culture's impact on digital and digital's impact on culture needs elaboration with respect to these four views.

Normative View of Culture and Digital The normative view of a culture often poses challenge for digital, primarily because digital impacts the visible aspects of practices, power and symbols. The deeper norms, values and beliefs need to be appreciated and taken care of while rolling out digital initiatives. It takes time for

digital to create its impact on the normative view of culture and it does so through the other three views. The way digital can impact the deeper aspects of norms, values and beliefs is discussed under each of the three other views of culture.

Power View of Culture and Digital If the normative view of culture is a challenge and it takes time to be impacted by digital, that's primarily due to the power view of culture. Individuals need and crave for power. They create power for themselves by using different power bases like authority to make key decision making, control over organizational resources, knowledge, proximity, access to information etc. Digital tends to make things transparent, needs new knowledge to participate and challenges the existing scheme of things. With the logic of decision making embedded digitally in the automated processes, decentralization of power becomes possible. It may unnerve some, especially those who have been enjoying the power without digitization.

How does one deal with it? There are two broad ways one can do that. One is to rally the higher power of the CEO or other CXOs around the initiative to deal with any resistance due to power shift. Two is to create conversations with those likely to be affected, understand their concern and help them deal with their concerns. It may involve taking smaller steps like starting with more willing participants, who are more positive; using some early adopters as spokespersons or make others feel they are in control of the change.

These micro strategies may take time and the change may evolve slowly, but they can be very effective in a participative change. For example earlier if the CEO himself decided on important aspects of financial control or internal aspects like appraisals, with digitization better tools shall be available to the operational teams (discussed next). The CEO may still control help of dashboards and embedding the control logic in the automated process with the necessary checks and balances. But the day to day decision making powers may shift to the larger organization.

As the users become comfortable with the new ways, new paradigm of decision making shall evolve and the normative aspects shall also shift.

Symbol View of Culture and Digital Symbols are built, rituals are followed and Symbols are built, rituals folklores are created to reinforce and sustain the are followed and normative and the power view of the culture. folklores are created to Whose values and beliefs should be built and put reinforce and sustain the into practice is determined by the relative power normative and the power of the members. We see this in larger societies view of the culture. (who propagate certain views of history, promote certain institutions as compared to others) and also in organizations. The symbols, rituals and folklores are also the THINGS around which practices and processes emerge and evolve.

Digital can influence the symbol view of culture in two ways. One it can help reinforce and propagate the existing symbols, rituals and folklores, e.g. internal social platform to enhance sharing among the employees or performance appraisals with the same look and feel as the physical ones. Two it can create new symbols, rituals and folklores. So, a new browser based HR platform for the employees may be a new symbol or the CEO interacting with the employees using webcast can be new rituals or a completely new sharing of the best practices may create new folklores (which earlier were not getting a formal platform). Hence, digital has an opportunity vis-a-vis the symbols, rituals and folklores for both supporting and creating new ones.

Practice View of Culture and Digital The existing ways of doing things poses resistance for digital is only a partial view. The inertia of habit is surely a source of resistance, but how digital can help the users in their work is also a source of opportunity. It also needs to be acknowledged and addressed seriously. Digital can create new ways of doing things, it can pave path for new (and may be better) practices to emerge and it can design new tools and methods to do work. I remember a media company in which digital designed new tools for the editors to manage the editorial process and enhanced the ease with which the journalists can create and transmit stories. This opened a lot of ways in which the journalists can create better stories; the editors can manage the process for fewer errors and faster transmission to the subscribers. The editorial practice was eased and deeply impacted by the digital.

Similarly in many distribution-centered organizations, how digital can help the front line sales people to do their work better with the help of a mobility application or how distributors can manage their work better must be brought to fore. I know a manufacturing company where the enterprise application has been extended to the distributors to manage their work better, resulting into low inventory and faster payments. With a simple application on their tablets, the distributors are in control of their complex business.

Let me also bring in the element of normative dimension of culture. Organization culture is not a consistent phenomenon, it is subject to the way individual departments, functions, SBUs and locations behave and give importance to the core normative aspects. You may find in your organization that there is a variance in the culture in different groups determined by the local aspects of immediate societal reality, the group composition (north versus south India) and the local leaders' values. This leads to inconsistency in the other three views of culture across groups and many a time these inconsistencies may create trouble. Digital can help bring consistency in the way the norms, values and beliefs are given importance and followed. One of the routes to bring this consistency is by designing 'standard' processes and practices through digitization. Hence, booking a customer is similar in terms of process, look, feel and methods across the world if it is digitized. The ability to bring in normative consistency through standard practices c an be a big outcome of digital.

This blog on the relation between culture and digital may help the CEOs and other CXOs to understand and deal with the challenges and leverage the opportunities. They should not see it just through the partial aspects of resistance and one sided impact.

Kapil Dev Singh is a Strategic Organization Development Consultant, Executive Coach and Research Scholar. He was formerly the India country manager of IDC.

Can CIO Think Digital Outside of IT? Rahul Neel Mani

While the clout of CIOs has considerably grown in the corporate war room, and the reach has widened to the length and breadth of business, there is still a huge gap between the business expectations and the IT's delivery for which CIO is solely responsible.

Why? Because, no language has yet evolved that can help remove barriers prevailing between the IT and business. And the responsibility of the lack of the same unfortunately lies with the CIO or the IT leadership.

In this age when businesses are being driven mostly on the premises of 'more value to customers', 'less time to market', 'creating distinction in service quality', and 'delivering delight ++', there seems to be an agreement on the fact that Digital channels, Digital infrastructure and Digital leadership will be the only sources that have the capability to innovate and create a customercentric company.

This brings me to the big question: Do CIOs really know [or at least want to know] how to separate Digital from IT? Or is the approach of IT leadership so myopic that the entire Digital momentum gets engulfed by the large,

omnipresent, monolithic IT and its nuances.

Interestingly, the days are gone when the technology jargons were the best safeguards for the CIOs their IT departments to thwart the danger of being questioned. The socalled complex web of IT was beyond the comprehension of most business leaders and therefore they weren't too keen to know what it is beyond a point. But those days are over. Today, when the whole world is moving towards the 'outcome-oriented technology' and service-oriented IT, the CEO is questioning the veracity of IT in terms of the business outcomes, there is no path left for the CIO and the IT organizations but to differentiate traditional IT from Digital. Today the business owners, top management and even the boards are talking how to engage with the Cloud, Social, Mobile, and Internet-enabled customers and respond to their needs. The forward-looking business leaders are asking their CIOs and IT departments to propel the business with the required digital engines.

Here's where I feel most CIOs are (or will be) getting The forward-looking severe jolts. Yes, they may be, in silos, doing some business leaders are cosmetic jobs to create a 'Digital Posture' for their asking their CIOs and IT organization (under duress) but largely clueless on departments to propel strategizing for a 'Digital Business'. The reasons the business with the could be any or many such as: (a) Lack of a clear required digital engines. understanding to build a strategy (b) Overwhelming dependence on legacy, old infra to change (c) Lack of willingness (d) Lack or leadership or (e) lack of capabilities like skills and technology...but the crux of this discussion here is whether the CIO is still talking the language of IT or is willing to look beyond and speak the language of Digital. It's not easy. Given the fact that most CIOs come from a non-business background, it is even more difficult for them to detach from the old school of thought. What could be the possible fall outs if this continues?

A) The Digital leaders and champions may become more powerful and will be heard by the CEO B) Supported by the technologists or the technology-consultants, the people who champion digital may become the so-called Chief Digital Officer, making the CIO redundant

If we look at the Digital Transformation and Maturity in Indian organizations, there is a mere 3% who can claim to be "Digitally Matured" (based on Core Quadrant 2015 Survey). Part of this low percentage of Digital Maturity also lies with the CIO and the IT leadership indicating towards a big possibility that not many of them would be having the necessary vision, skills and "understanding" of Digital. But are you even not willing to pick up those traits?

During my conversations with Business CIOs (from the 3% lot), I always get to hear stories on big Digital push and a strong momentum towards fully digitized business.

The examples of Tata Motors, Hero Moto Corp. Maruti, Asian Paints, ITC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and many others are enviable cases to follow if one wants to create a strategy on digital. A top automotive company CIO told me that they are now readying to launch their first "Digital Showroom." Smart CIOs of large manufacturing companies are experimenting with 'Internet of Things' and M2M communications to make an impact. During a recent Panel Discussion at CIO Productivity Conclave moderated by me, Rajesh Uppal, the Executive Officer of Maruti Suzuki told that his company is making excellent use of Big Data analytics to reduce the percentage of "rejection" of vehicles.

These are CIOs who have learned the art of separating IT from Digital. They have come to terms with the fact that the language of business and the language of Digital is the universal language.

But for the majority of CIOs and IT leaders who are unwilling to accept this fact, and are okay not to acquire skills necessary to create a Digital business and to communicate with business in the language of Digital (completely detached from IT), there is a big hazard waiting to strike.

Would you not want to evolve?

Rahul Neel Mani is the Co-founder and Editor of Grey Head Media.

10 Key Digital Trends to Watch For: Core Quadrant Research Rahul Neel Mani

In a scenario where, by the year 2020, over 100 billion devices will be connected to the web and businesses will have to manage 50 times the data they are managing at present, Digital Technologies, (Social, Mobile, Analytics & Cloud) will have a multiplying impact on businesses and increase productivity across the organization.

With that backdrop, Core Quadrant undertook a massive research during March-May 2015 time frame to ascertain the importance and vitality of Digital Technology for enterprise users and technology producers.

1. 40% of the Indian CIOs see digital as a priority in 2015, up from 19% in 2014 2. 83% of Indian enterprises however are in the initial stages of flirting with digital at the periphery or building individual SMAC pillars. They are expected to move towards converging the SMAC pillars together or the SMAC pillars with the underlying IT platform over the next 3 years 3. Digital technology spend by the Indian enterprises and government shall touch US$10 billion by 2020, it means a

cumulative spend of US$37 billion between 2015 and 2020 4. 50% of IT growth in 2020 shall be contributed by digital, up from 34% in 2015 Only 1 out of 9 5. 1 out of 4 dollars IT spend shall be on digital enterprises' IT platform technologies in 2020 in the enterprise plus is adequately prepared government sectors (up from 1 out of 7 in 2015) for driving big digital 6. Mobility rules among the SMAC pillars with 65% initiatives. of the enterprises undertaking it as an initiative in the last 2 years (2013-2015) 7. Mobility across manufacturing, services and retail & others; cloud across services and retail & others; and analytics across services is adopted or planned or both by 80% + of the enterprises in 2015 8. Only 1 out of 9 enterprises' IT platform is adequately prepared for driving big digital initiatives. 60% of enterprises have overhauled their IT infrastructure and core applications (each) in the last 2 years (2013-2015) to make them more adequately prepared for the digital initiatives.

9. 16% of the Indian enterprises have adopted and another 28% are planning to adopt converged IT infrastructure platforms 10. 53% of the Indian enterprises prefer to work with multiple vendors whereas 47% prefer to work with one main vendor and few niche vendors. Larger vendors will need to build the value proposition for their converged infrastructure, development and applications platforms in general and the superiority of their platforms in particular Note: Manufacturing: Auto, Auto Components, Manufacturing-Discrete, ManufacturingProcess, Pharma Services: Banking, Insurance, Financial Services, Media and Entertainment, IT/ ITeS, Telecom Retail & Others: Logistics/ Supply Chain, Energy and Utility, FMCG (distribution focused), Engineering, Projects, Construction (EPC)

Rahul Neel Mani is the Co-founder and Editor of Grey Head Media.

7 Structuring Aspects and Impact of Digital Kapil Dev Singh

Digital can have multifaceted impact on an organization. In the white paperDigital as a Growth Engine (and More), I have discussed the four business aspects of digital- as a growth engine, management dashboard, structuring agent and wheels on ground.

Here, I would like to discuss the structuring dimension in detail.

Structuring refers to how is the work defined, how is it done, how is it distributed, how is it measured and how is it managed? They essentially are the aspects of operating environment, task definition, role definition & task allocation, performance metrics and supervision respectively. Two new dimensions have been added in the realm of knowledge workers, where is it done and when is it done? They represent the aspects of physical location and the time of work done.

Collectively, there are 7 dimensions and they make up the operating model of an organization.

Operating environment is the ecosystem for producing a product or delivering a service. E.g. operating environment for manufacturing a car will involve a blue print or a design, component details, bills of materials,

procurement policy, material inspection policy, inventory policy, production plan, production technology assembling plan, quality control and dispatch policy. A similar operating environment may exist for software development or for providing hotel services. It is largely formal, policy driven and holistic.

Operating procedures and task definition is a drilled down version of the operating environment. If the later is a ecosystem or a formal system, the former is a breakdown into specific tasks and how exactly are they to be carried out. E.g. how is the inspection done, what is to be done with pre-booked customers in a hotel, how to underwrite an insurance policy etc. It's also formal, but most of it becomes informal as one does it over time and it become habitual.

Role definition and task allocation involves the complimentary aspects of defining various roles for carrying out the operating procedures or the tasks and allocation of specific task to specific person based upon domain specialization, skills and availability. E.g. who will carry out quality inspection or who will handle incoming hotel customers and what are the various activities they are supposed to carry out.

Supervision is task monitoring and reviewing of the performance by individuals as per their role definition, the task definition and the set metrics. It also involves the appropriate interventions undertaken in case of deviation from what was planned.

IT has also made two additional dimensions more relevant and explicit. These were earlier treated as rather fixed and rigid- physical location and temporal reality.

Physical location has traditionally been fixed as a cabin, machine or work station.

But in the realm of knowledge workers, the concept of anywhere working has gained pace. Now an analyst or a developer or a consultant can work from home, office or the airport.

Temporal reality has undergone massive shift. What was considered as a time bound work in a defined physical space can be done anytime. Hence, an analyst or a developer or a consultant can not only work from anywhere but also can work any time.

Traditionally, the structuring aspects were handled with written down procedures, task and role definition and manual supervision and metrics measurement, the place and time were fixed and defined. It was cumbersome, tiring, difficult to change, person driven and contained vast scope for errors. The advent of information technology with its power to automate many of these physical and manual tasks helped metric measurement and supervision.

But these still existed a gap as the physical operations and enterprise IT remained detached and the data was still entered manually into the system. The situation improved a bit with the advent of data capturing technologies like bar coding, RFID,

digital counters, CCTV etc. and advances in digital operating technology. But most of metrics measurement and supervisory tasks are still post hoc.

So how does digital help? The advent of social, mobility, analytics, cloud, IoT, next gen networking technology and security solutions has provided a solution to the problem of detachment of physical operations and enterprise IT. They can make the communication between people, processes, data and machines possible and provide added functionalities.

Through the integration of unified communications solutions like video conferencing with the core management processes, real time communication and collaboration is possible.

The link between physical operations and enterprise IT is now possible real time. The system can tell the operator real time in case there is an error (many a time even before the occurrence), metrics are available real time for more effective supervision, task allocation by role and people can be automated in lines with the operating procedure, mass customization is possible, many tasks are possible anytime and anywhere and the entire aspect of task management can be automated and supervised real time, possibly from anywhere.

In short there are five ways in which the digital can bridge the gap between physical operations and enterprise IT and impact the structuring aspect of an organizationAutomated rendering of policies, plans and definitions. They can now be embedded in day to day organizational functioning. It is not required to remember them or retrieve them from the archives whenever required. They are always in action and available tacitly. Any change in them does not require a big change effort as they can be effectively managed centrally.

Better communication and collaboration between people, groups and departments. Through the integration of unified communications solutions like video conferencing with the core management processes, real time communication and collaboration is possible. Specific needs of a guest in a hotel can now be captured and made available real time to multiple workers on their tabs or smart phone. Such functionalities can spur innovation by creating appropriate structures to take ideas from lab to land.

People independence and systems driven work implying that anyone, anywhere and anytime can do the task. The history of the task and the past actions are available at the click of a button. If particular guest relations staff is on leave, another staff can pick up the threads. If a particular machine operator or group is already loaded, the work can automatically be shifted to another operator or group, a huge part of software development operations are being automated now thus reducing human intervention.

Creation of time bound structures of implementation of key policy and business decisions. For example special purpose committees or empowered groups can be created for carrying out specific tasks. Project management teams can be created by identifying the right skills and its availability in an otherwise geographically dispersed organization. Not only are these structures created but they can be managed and measured real time on their effectiveness. The other four aspects of automated rendering, collaboration, analytics and systems drive all synch together to provide the fifth and an important impact of digital.

Hence, IT helped automate many of the mundane tasks but digital can help make them smarter by creating better management, insights, control and hence more efficiency and effectiveness.

In short, digital can really reduce the possible gaps between policy, operations and control.

Kapil Dev Singh is a Strategic Organization Development Consultant, Executive Coach and Research Scholar. He was formerly the India country manager of IDC.

Are Business Leaders Ready For The Digital Future?

Kapil Dev Singh

They say they are not!

At least the study conducted a week ago by the Institute for the Future andVanson Bourne on behalf of EMC suggests it. Based on a survey conducted this year with 3,600 business leaders across 18 countries from mid-size to large enterprises (in nine industries) to determine top business imperatives required for success today and over the next decade, the study concludes that very few businesses have embodied the attributes of a digital business in their fullness.

The Study titled: "The Information Generation: Transforming the Future, Today" didn't surprise when nearly every (96%) business leader surveyed voted thumbs up for the new technologies saying they have forever changed the rules of business.

In addition, the study indicates that nearly 93% feel that recent technology advancements are resetting customer expectations, and this will only accelerate over the next one decade.

In the study, the top reported customer expectations are: a. b. c. d.

Faster access to services 24/7 and "everywhere" access and connectivity Access on more devices Unique personalised experience

Due to the transformed information generation-driven demands, businesses agree that transformation is critical. To be a disruptor - and not disrupted - business leaders have identified five "make-or-break" business attributes, all of which have information at their core: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Predictively spot new opportunities in markets Demonstrate transparency and trust Innovate in agile ways Deliver unique and personalised experiences Operate in real time

While business leaders agree these attributes are high priority, they admitted that very few have thoroughly embodied them. Specifically, when asked whether they address these attributes both very well and company-wide, only 12% said they can predictively spot new opportunities, 9% innovate in agile ways, 14% demonstrate transparency and trust, 11% deliver personalised experience, and 12% operate in real-time.

While businesses know they can get value from the business data they are generating, 49% admit to not knowing how to turn all of their data into actionable information.

This includes: 1. Even though 70% say they can gain insights from data, only 30% are always on and able to act upon their information in real time, and are unable to achieve this very well and company-wide 2. 52% admit they do not use their data effectively or are drowning in information overload 3. Only 24% consider themselves "very good" at turning data into useful insights and information Institute For The Future has forecasted major macro shifts in how technology will continue transforming the world by 2024. There are strong signals of a move toward a world in which nearly every element of life will be data-driven. Individuals and corporations will sell, donate and trade information on open exchanges. Inanimate

objects will spring to life all around us, becoming more aware, responsive and connected. Decision-making will be enhanced by artificial intelligence in ways never seen before. Information will be communicated and absorbed through multiple human senses.

This is no different than the scenario in India where we see the same type of trends existing.

Last year when DynamicCIO.com conducted a study among CIOs and senior C-level executives from mid-t0-large enterprises, the results were not very different. Most of them were found flirting with the digital technology. In the Research titled: "Competing on Capabilities: Building a Digital Enterprise" just about 30% organisations were found with high digital score. While everyone agreed that they have to invest in these disruptive technologies to support the business growth, only about 3% said they have experimented, deployed and are finding these technologies performing in their respective organisations.

Does it suggest that we are far away from the reality? Or it conveys that the time for the Digital has come, and the companies shall start moving from the stage of experimentation and deploy these technologies for business benefits?

Kapil Dev Singh is a Strategic Organization Development Consultant, Executive Coach and Research Scholar. He was formerly the India country manager of IDC.

Digital Darwinism: Will You Survive the Fury?

Rahul Neel Mani

Brian Solis is a guru in disruptive technologies. He is perhaps one of the most recognised global speaker on new technology and digital anthropology. Brian uses an interesting term "Digital Darwinism" in the context of today's extremely volatile business conditions and the question on their survival unless they transform. Brian, (or any other visionary would) suggests that companies need to compete for relevance to survive the Digital Darwinism.

Brian Solis puts it aptly: "Everybody is talking about digital transformation these days; what exactly is digital transformation? Digital transformation, as I define it, is the evolution (or revolution) of business philosophy, processes, models and systems to compete in a digital economy. Technology is and isn't the answer to change. Some of (many) are merely investing in all of the new technologies without understanding the culture and the nuances and the relationship that the user has within those communities or how they use those devices. These companies do not necessarily think about changing their work ecosystem to adapt to new technologies by instead try to include new technologies within the existing framework."

You can watch the entire video conversation with Brian Solis Here.

In a Study done by Constellation Research last year, it was underlined that 52% of Fortune 500 firms have either gone bankrupt, been acquired or ceased to exist. "The pace of change has increased, competition has intensified and business models have been disrupted. The only certainty is that change will accelerate," says the study cautioning that if the companies have to survive, they have to shift their focus from selling products and services to promising outcomes and experiences.

Jerome Buvat, Global Head of Digital Research, Cap Gemini, agrees that corporate mortality rate has gone up in recent times. "Smart, technology-driven startups are playing a big part in this development. But traditional incumbents are struggling to respond with agility to these increasing levels of digital innovation," write Buvat in his recent Blog. While you can go on reading his Blog for the suggestions he has made on how to survive this wrath, the key point here is that the Digital fury needs to be tackled.

If you want to stay ahead of the market as the leader, you would want to know what trends will affect customer demand. How will these trends affect hiring decisions? Are these new technologies (classified as digital) really equipped to power disruptive business models? What are those key factors that will help organizations survive digital disruption? Will it be just technology or it also requires "Change Management" and "Culture" as Brian describes above? These are some of the questions that might be criss-crossing your minds if you are a responsible and futuristic CIO. To you, what matters the most is to focus on who are your competitors, collaborators and co-innovators. You have to really start making sense anything and everything being said about the Digital universe today. If you don't make sense and blindly keep chasing just the technologies, probably you are on a path of self destruction.

Don't forget you are dealing with millennials both as your customers (majority) and your internal stakeholders. If they demand degital, you have no choice. Otherwise, be an Ostrich and stick your head into the sand whereas the smarter folks take the lead and make you history. Remember, what Darwinism is: "Its not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Rahul Neel Mani is the Co-founder and Editor of Grey Head Media.

Business 2 Employee Digital Services Nagaraj G N

Interesting Saturday early morning bike ride with COOs and Strategy heads of five budding organisations. They are on the verge of breaking into the big league fighting competition that they chose to avoid so far. Having spent nearly a decade to grow from a startup / revival of an age old defunct organisation - to mid market size - to now, having to confront the big boys, as their size and customer segment now, no longer allows them the luxury of separating themselves as either new kids on the block or as niche players.

The moment, the gorgeous valley at the edge of the cliff, in the early morning light at Khandala stopped being a distraction, the discussions hovered around the issues that have been giving these 5 guys sleepless nights. The intent to chart a new path in this digital age, one that is different from their competition. The desire not to compete with the usual big guys on their terms or home turf but rather traverse a different path ahead, a path which none has conceptualised or had taken before.

This set me thinking. For an enterprise to create the unconceptualised, to chart the uncharted what does it take w.r.t skills, culture and management practises. My view is

an organisation that takes business to employee service delivery seriously are the organisations that are best placed to brace the challenges and meet them at a level that is beyond the ordinary. I believe starting at home, is the best model for an organisation to go digital... provide digital business to employee services. Only one of my four friends saw merit in this line of thought. The reason being, the other four started viewing B2E digital services more in terms of capital expenditure towards ipads and iphones and the associated eco-system to sustain it effectively within the enterprise network. Automating payroll MIS and HR services for presence on smartphones! The discussion went in the predictable direction, with Microsoft Surface and wearable computing devices that are now part of healthcare accessory market getting added to the list! This is a very narrow view of B2E digital services.

An effective digital enterprise, in my view, is an enterprise that delivers digital experiences as a part of Business2Employee services. Only when employees experience life at work, where the eco-system and workplace experiences get digital, only then they would be able to conceptualise new age digital services for their customers. Some level of experiential learning and a digital experience workplace eco-system, will set the tuning of the thought process at a very different frequency. Employees, during non work hours, weekends and holidays ; as regular consumers undergo some very sophisticated digital experiences just by carrying cell phones and tablets along with them. Location based services predominantly dominate this space. However, location is just one attribute. Digital experience tend to add a significant amount of nuisance value to one's life when they become irrelevant to the task at hand or the time of the day or the event one is experiencing does not resonate with experience being delivered. Context and experience need to be in perfect synch for meaningful digital experience manifestation to add value to one's life. This too, once achieved soon tends to assume a nuisance / irrelevant factor when not laced with personalisation of digital experiences powered by learnings from behaviour analytics of users. To achieve this enterprises need to start stepping into the realm of internet of things, making IoT part of corporate IT & digital strategy.

A full profound and effective digital enterprise strategy for business to employee services, should actually not involve capital expenditure on gadgets, gizmos and wearable devices, but rather focus on creating an eco-system that at a very basic level, entertains BYOT not with an view to restrict, but rather fully leverage without impacting either enterprise security or freedom to personal digital lifestyles on personal gadgets. Once this is achieved, a digital enterprise should start delivering context aware services that goes beyond the singular attribute of location.

Creating an eco-system that delivers business to employee digital services is a very significant and defining aspect that forms the foundation of a digital enterprise. To envision, conceptualise and architect these services as context aware, event driven and event triggered digital experiences; will not just dramatically improve productivity, cut costs over and above the existing automation layers, but also pushes the employees to think around similar context aware digital experiences for their customers. Without this layer being built, the entire management push towards being a digital enterprise might just end up being a hollow affair.

Nagaraj G N is the former Group CIO at Interglobe Enterprises.

Customer Insights Paradox of the Digital Enterprise Nagaraj G N

Enterprise India is going through the most exciting and disruptive phase it has ever seen so far. Having said that, I concede having such strong similar sentiments in the year 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010 and in 2012! I get excited when a radical new piece of technology erupts on the scene, and then get disappointed when adoption takes its own sweet time, and then get all excited and crazy when adoption accelerates to life changing gear!

Walking down the memory lane, digitization meant conversion of physical records to electronic data format and automation of workflows that were simple rule based tasks.

That is what we did as CIOs and IT Heads between 1990 -2002. While most of IT India was making money on Y2K projects and dollar arbitrage (which it still does - dollar arbitrage) , a few corporates in India were discovering the excitement of going online with customer service and sales. One of the banks I worked for back in year 2000, my Chairman insisted in withdrawing money for the ATM and seeing that transaction the very next moment on his internet banking transaction query screen, and on pull based sms mobile banking transaction screen. We took 8 days to make it happen for credit cards, and I was told by my boss then,

that my employment with the bank now feels justified!

Compare that with about 6 years ago, when you started getting real time alerts, OTP on your smartphone and about 16 months ago that mobile banking apps have been made available with bill payments and internet shopping facilitated with instant merchant payments. Digitisation in the yester years was all about driving efficiency through automated workflows, and in the process enterprises ended up being sole suppliers of technology to customers. Consumerization of IT has put technology directly in the hands of the customers as a lifestyle element, by start-up companies and device manufacturers; with enterprises now playing a catch-up game.

Before enterprises could figure out how to participate meaningfully ( some still are) on social networking platforms and in the mobile paradigm, consumer technology has leapfrogged into connected world of internet of things converging rich data and context; leaving behind amazing hidden insights to be discovered through the various digital footprints left by an average consumer, on the grid. Big Data and unearthing hidden intelligent insights has now assumed significant importance for a digital enterprise.

Digital world today consists of  User's digital footprints across  connected devices  social networking and general digital utility platforms that users use either directly or indirectly  Technologies that enable one to decipher these footprints for insights  Enterprise IT plumbing that integrates into this world to loop back the learning's and data into their mainstream customer facing technology  And a whole host of independent apps that serve the customers better than enterprise IT solutions.

When I look at digitisation projects with a few enterprises today, mostly financial services world, these are mostly around facilitating easy payments through mobile wallets and mobile devices to leverage the e-commerce boom that is on the surge.

Having said that, some of the conversations that I heard during the 1999-2003 era seem to repeat these days - the ones that express anguish about digital space having created a divide between the enterprise and the customer. During the brick and mortar business era, customer relations and hence customer understanding vested with relationship managers, branch tellers, shopping mall attendants and branch managers.

Technology was seen as an enabler that would turn this perceived personal asset of front line staff into an enterprise asset. All the CRM systems and online apps have failed

to capture this intelligence due to the form filling approach that crept in as a part of this endeavour. Customers were happy to talk about stuff rather than tick check boxes.

With consumerisation of IT, customers seem less inclined to talk about stuff too. The gap between customer and the enterprise further increases with privacy concerns and the associated laws, as enterprises decide to decipher digital footprints for these insights. In hindsight, the customer touch that existed during brick and mortar era, has now completely vanished and enterprises today seem more far removed from customer insights than before.

Nagaraj G N is the former Group CIO at Interglobe Enterprises.

Digital Push: Communities Creating Jewels of Digital Rahul Neel Mani

The following few statements are fascinating and very encouraging: Uber - The largest cab operator in the world doesn't own a single cab and is valued at $US 40 billion.

Facebook - The largest media company in the world literally doesn't own any content and is valued at US$ 200 billion.

Alibaba - the Chinese online retailer is also the most valuable retailer in the world but doesn't own any inventory. It is valued at approximately US$170 billion.

Airbnb - the world's largest provider of accommodations to travellers doesn't own any real estate but is still valued at US$15 billion.

Can you guess what's common in these four companies apart from being more profitable, fastest growing and having high returns on assets than their traditional counterparts?

What else?

HBR, in one of its features in Nov 2014 classified these companies as "Network Orchestrators" - companies that create a network of peers in which the participants interact and share in the value creation. They may sell products or services, build relationships, share advice, give reviews, collaborate, co-create and more.

Now consume some more heavyweight statements: 路

FaceBook beats the largest of the large media companies hands down when it comes to the variety of contents - news, photos, videos - content that is unique and crowd-sourced through its over billion users.

路

Majority of Uber's drivers work from only from one to 15 hours a week and still earn better and the company stands miles ahead of its traditional rivals today.

路

Through its multi-sided business model and a unique inventory platform Airbnb serves two types of customers - the personal & business travellers and the hosts who own the assets (rooms) and gives absolute run for their money to the business, boutique and luxury hotels.

路

Alibaba? What's it? Many of us never heard of it till about a couple of years ago. I can guarantee, many don't know it even today. Alibaba.com came into being in 1999. Today, it helps connect exporters in China (and other countries) with companies in over 190 countries around the world. It also owns Taobao.com, China's largest C2C auction site and Alipay.com China's largest online payment gateway. It is the lifeline of a millions of SMEs.

-

What drives these networks?

How does FB, Uber, Alibaba, and Airbnb create more wealth than their traditional counterparts by orchestrating these networks?

How you got an answer, which is so simple?

All these companies have a very robust and futuristic technology infrastructure which is "Digital-centric." Their networks, irrespective of the businesses they are into (all four companies are in different businesses) showcase a common trait: they're focused on the customers. You take any example.

At Alibaba, the SMEs that use its platform to retail, are talking, communicating, being searched, referred, and transacted in real-time. The amount of automation and the lightening speed of responsiveness built into their technology architecture points

towards the answer. Their success is very digital dependent and digital driven, which Alibaba orchestrates beautifully. Therefore, no inventory and still the best, mostadmired eCommerce company in the world. Alibaba boasts of a SOA (service-oriented architecture) model wherein from remote communication to collecting and consolidating customer feedback - everything seems to be fully automated and realtime.

With over 1,000,000 listings in 34,000 cities of 190 countries Airbnb is hosted mostly on the cloud. It dynamically provisions its infra and doesn't let the customers down often. The fundaments are simple yet fascinating: Airbnb has created a very userfriendly interface that allows the hosts to post their properties with ease and the renters to browse through them and book them through the Internet. All that goes behind it is seamless, digital and dynamic. The technology also brought trust overtime and now the customers are very confident. What's in it? Nothing but a set of users and suppliers and a robust digital platform in between.

Uber is present in over 270 cities globally. It predominantly uses mobile as the tool to do business. The 4G enabled Uber phones help drivers with extra functionality that Uber provides, including turn-by-turn navigation. The app helps users seeing where the nearest cars are and when they can arrive. Now there could be a lot more inside, but on the outside, it is a digital push that has made Uber a US$ 40 billion business.

These all are the Jewels of Digital.

Don't you want to become the next Jewel?

Rahul Neel Mani is the Co-founder and Editor of Grey Head Media.

Digital CIO: Take the Lead or be Led Rahul Neel Mani

Most intriguing discussions these days, be they part of the CIO conferences, boardrooms or (behind closed doors) among peers, are around digital tech, digital business and digital enterprise. This marks a tectonic shift from the classic debates, which, not so long ago, were mostly infrastructure, data centers, and application centric.

While technology still remains the centrepiece, the point I am trying to make here is that Digital isn't a choice anymore for CIOs since this has caught the attention of the CEO. It has now become a compulsion and any disobedience to this amounts to a sure disqualification of a CIO irrespective of the size, type or genre of an enterprise.

While dynamicCIO.com is making a serious effort to enable the CIO digitally and has its CIO Productivity Conclave squarely focused on how to enable businesses digitally, there is a lot that has been talked about by some very authentic sources.

I recently found a very interesting Gartner document in the public domain titled: "Flipping to Digital Leadership: The 2015 CIO Agenda."

This is a summary of Gartner's Executive Programs member report.

"To grasp the digital opportunity, incrementally improving IT performance isn't enough. Enterprises and their CIOs need to "flip" from old to new in terms of information and technology leadership, value leadership and people leadership," it says.

It's true. Even if the CIOs get a hang of the so called digital technologies (popular as SMAC), they can't guarantee a digital business. They will not only have to instrumentalise a flip on tech leadership but also on value, and people - latter two being key to the decisive shift. One of the bases of this Gartner report was an extensive outreach program that reached to 2810 CIOs from 84 countries representing US$ 12.1 trillion in revenue and $US 400 billion in IT spending. I am not highlighting this to just amplify my point of view. I am underlining this to showcase the commitment towards digital which doesn't give CIO the luxury of leaving it out of their work scope. Here in India there more fluff than reality around creating a comprehensive digital business with digital culture.

Another very interesting document that I went through, though not in its entirety, was a report from EY titled Born to be Digital. This is unique. It enlists a galaxy of CIOs who are in various stages of digital transformation. This also is backed by a study of over 180 CIOs from the world over and a specific number of CIOs who further gave detailed inputs on their journey to digital.

This report mainly highlights three areas: 路

How CIOs with the widest remit and greatest responsibility -- those in highly IT-intensive industries -- differ from their peers

路

What lessons CIOs can take from their peers who are leading the digital transformation efforts -- in terms of their core tenets and mindset

路

What career choices CIOs should make to help them fulfil their aspirations for broader roles and greater influence

Now when this report underlines the fact that Digital is a major opportunity for CIOs to fulfil their career aspirations, it means that possibilities of digitally enabling their businesses align closely with their career aspirations. The CIOs who innovate and experiment with digital relentlessly surely have a bright future than those who force themselves to bring some digital flavour due to peer pressure or pressure from the top.

That means, you need to volunteer and not be forced to making digital your next best career move. Either you take the lead or soon you will be led.

While you read the above two documents, which overwhelmingly contain CIO viewpoints, grab this Video of McKinsey Director Paul Willmott where he explains how companies can successfully transition to becoming digital enterprises. Willmott is certain that the IT, the CDO and the CEO will together drive this agenda but the CIO has to be in the command.

Lastly, you may be regularly reading Abbie Lundberg's blogs here on DynamicCIO.com.

Of late, her focus is on Digital and how CIO is the most suitable bet for creating a digital enterprise. But in her latest blog Have CIOs Failed?, she really sounds baffled with the emergence of the idea of Chief Digital Officer. While all her research in past one year points out that the CIO is believed to be the right person to lead the organisation's digital innovation, the emergence of the Chief Digital Officer is quite a worry and anticlimax. "Has CIO not lived upto his/her name?," she asks in the blog.

I have a similar question. While the CIOs are still making technology acquisitions to solve business challenges but are they finding it tough to hold the strategic position in their org? Are they finding it touch to look beyond technology to see larger alignment with business?

Are you forcing yourself to be digital or does it come to you naturally?

Rahul Neel Mani is the Co-founder and Editor of Grey Head Media.

The Digital War: Are We Ready on All Fronts?

Ranajoy Punja

Indians are taking their love of shopping online. The rise of a strong Indian middle class that enjoys high disposable income, coupled with increasing penetration of the internet-- especially in Tier II & Tier III towns--ensures that ecommerce is booming. The value of ecommerce in India today stands at a staggering $13 billion. And this is likely to hit $50-70 billion by 2020! There are 15 million Indians shopping online, 75% of them below the age of 35, which only means that the buildings on the growth bar graph will be really high for many years to come.

What does this mean for the 'Digital Enterprise'?

Actually, are the organisations riding the digital bandwagon digital enterprises in the true sense or are they perennially playing catch up as mediums, expectations and growth trajectories put paid to all forecasts?

The fierce competition in the digital space thanks to 'crowding' in this phenomenally attractive space means that the customer is spoilt (and confused too) for choice. To ensure success, the site needs to draw the customer in with his first click. The site, whether it is an ecommerce site or a catalog site, is where the customer is making decisions.

Not only does the window display need to be attractive enough to tempt him to browse, but once he is in, he expects quick and efficient service with a smile. Read quick loading and response times, no downtime, and secure transactions. A miss on even one of these parameters, even once, will translate into the customer exiting and worse still, going on to check out a competitor.

Clearly, the truism 'It's easy to open a shop but difficult to run it' is a fact in the digital world especially in e commerce. Launching a great online shopping (or cataloging site) or an enabling application like a payment gateway is probably easy (relatively).

However, being ready for a market that is fickle, demanding and is multiplying exponentially in all directions with too many variables in the equation is a challenge which is proving tough to manage.

Forecasts are notoriously off the mark, mediums are morphing into newer forms which demand new solutions (mobile, wearable devices and what not), punishing standards for availability and the ever changing definition of good customer experience mean testing times for all players. It's truly a multi-headed hydra - a powerful beast if controlled, a nightmare if untamed.

It is all about the IT infrastructure Some key gaps which could be the undoing for the digital enterprise are: --Lack of mobile readiness and compatibility; in this world one can't spell h'app'y without 'app' --Availability with full enablement - market & customer readiness is key --Robustness - ready for all fluctuations and ability to resist attacks --Customer experience - easy, seamless, fast; going beyond WOW! Is the normal here --Cost, cost, cost - one cannot over-emphasise the importance of managing costs in a cutthroat market like this A cloud enabled managed hosting IT infrastructure enables the above and more by ensuring the following: •Flexibility: A flexible IT infrastructure built to precise needs •Scalability: The ability to ramp up or down at short notice to cater to various fluctuations •Security: A completely secure site with no possibility of data breaches

•Reliability: Efficient repair/maintenance

support

&

redundancy

and

continuity

even

during

•Cost Optimisation: Flexible pricing options and optimized cost of infrastructure •Seamless Management: Integration across deployments with service automation So, can businesses ensure customer delight and drive the success of ecommerce, without diluting focus on strategic business imperatives? Well, if the managed infrastructure can ensure a strong & scalable backbone which is also secure, it surely can aim to do that.

Also, if one adds peerless customer experience to the mix courtesy an always available and fast website which is also completely mobile friendly (with a super optimum app thrown in, of course) then this should be easily achievable.

The right technology partner in addition to enabling by creating a robust infrastructure will also ensure all nuts and bolts are in place to ensure experience, agility and medium agnostic performance. It is indeed all about infrastructure which binds the underlying kernel of code and processes to the shop front i.e. the website. Its importance cannot be overstated. The mantra is simple if a business wants to tame the digital dragon - 'Tech' it or leave it!

Ranajoy Punja is Vice President & Head – Market Development, Global Data Center Business at Tata Communications Ltd.

Knowing Buzzwords Does Not Make You a Chief Digital Officer!

Arun Gupta

We are going digital and we will change the way the industry leverages digital! You know these 20 year old bright B-school interns? I am sure these kids who were born with technology know a lot about how their generation uses the Internet and devices and Internet of Things and wearables... They will help us take our company into the digital world. I am commissioning a research study on the industry and what is happening globally and how our customers are likely to behave.

Everyone sighed and nodded their heads to the ravings of a man possessed.

This CXO had taken on the mantle of leading the digital transformation of the enterprise; no one had asked him nor did anyone suggest that going digital was a priority for the enterprise. He was good at spewing buzzwords and had a basic though carbon dated understanding of IT. His own function and team tolerated him for his loudmouth tactics that appeared to be getting him attention of those who mattered. One fine day he pronounced that he was going to be the Chief Digital Officer and drive the digital journey for the company.

The CMO who was well grounded and grown in the industry over two decades, heard about it from his team mate who was sitting in on his behalf that day. He felt amused that a rank outsider who had barely spent a year in the industry was willing to make tall promises and claims on how the business shall stand transformed with help of a few college kids ! He asked his team to provide full support to the CXO and keep him informed of progress. He had a business to run and numbers to deliver, the company can learn from someone else's mistakes.

The industry was known to be conservative in adopting technology with no real pressures on growth or profitability especially in growing economies. The company had always attempted to stay in front of the game though not always able to push through the competitive advantage. Globally some early pilots on digital had early success and some of the larger multi-national companies had started investing for mature markets.

It was too early to predict how digital will finally shape outcomes for the industry, companies and the consumer.

The CXO flew people around the world, organized videoconferences, and finally selected a bunch of students from a mid-tier global B-school. The selected team comprised 5 nationalities was seen as a good mix of perspectives and cultures. They were excited as the young can be, and looked up to the CXO to set the agenda for the project. Many meetings later there appeared to be a structure to what was required and the process to get it; a protĂŠgĂŠ of the CXO was entrusted the task of chaperoning the team around their field visits.

The CMO working with the CIO had many projects underway which were significant components towards the digitalization of the enterprise and connect with the ecosystem.

These were kept as low key affairs to keep news from spreading and gaining a competitive advantage. The business knew these would help them get a big boost in the market and supported the CMO/CIO partnership. The CXO made multiple attempts to get a handle on these unsuccessfully and moved on to his globally envisioned digital strategy that will transform the industry.

Months passed away with the teams working across borders, engaging with customers, stakeholders, end consumers, influencers, and everyone who mattered. They collated volumes of quantitative and qualitative data which was put into the churner. The CXO took excerpts and published them as brilliance from the students while crooking a finger at the CMO and how the new strategy will ... Everyone listened and nodded again allowing the CXO to present the findings in the upcoming meeting. The CMO and CIO remained unfazed and continued to toil.

D-day arrived and everyone was anxious to hear the new vision. Everyone listened attentively to the young lady who presented the groups findings based on data and inferences based on interviews globally. The picture that emerged was not too different from the direction chosen by the CMO and the CIO. The company was on the right track, they just needed to get some acceleration into the projects. A sense of relief settled around the room; the CXO changed colors through the presentation, ran out of the room with phone attached to his ear which no one remembered ringing!

The new generation will behave differently to stimulus, who better to validate with?

This blog is reposted with permission from Arun Gupta. To read Arun's Blog, you can visit:http://cio-inverted.blogspot.com

Arun Gupta is Managing Partner & Director at Ingenium Advisory.