Getting Digital Done: An Executive Guide to Growth and Transformation

INTRODUCTION

We get it; the prospect of change is never easy. We’ve spent decades driving these changes ourselves and now, sitting with executives who, for years, have done everything right. They’ve built hugely successful businesses on the backs of top-notch product quality, constant innovation, great channel execution, and a solid brand reputation. They shouldn’t need to change yet again, but technological change is a disruptive force that never ceases. For many organizations, keeping pace is a survive-or-die imperative.

The world continues to change. Customer expectations change. Competition changes. Technology change never stops. The opportunity to collect, deploy, and exploit data grows every day, along with its disruptive ability to inform products, pricing, marketing, and virtually every other aspect of a business.

The reality is that what made companies successful in the past is unlikely to remain the key to success in the future. Looking forward, success will be about more than product quality and distribution—it will be about delivering the most effective customer experience, a just-in-time supplies and parts network, data-driven predictive sales and marketing analytics, personalization, and instant agility.

Clients typically don’t come to us and demand, Make us digital! Instead, they come to us with a business problem: their customers want something that they’re not equipped to provide; they don’t have the data, or it’s not joined up; their infrastructure is running out of capacity; their competition has leapfrogged them; they see opportunities to innovate but they just don’t have the tools, systems, or people they need to execute effectively.

What we realize when we dive in—and what our clients realize as we work with them to find the root of the problem—is that the solutions to most if not all of these issues come back to a fundamental disconnect between the way the world of commerce is evolving today and the legacy systems and processes that so many organizations have become dependent on over decades of investment.

When we talk about becoming digital, people immediately think it’s all about technology, but the truth is that technology is likely at the end of a long list of things to be thinking about. Digital is a mindset, a way of being and not a piece of equipment. Being a data-driven, digital business is the way organizations have to operate to succeed today, in an environment where customers and partners (not to mention employees) expect business to be conducted online, frictionless, in a personalized way, and—in virtually every case—through a self-service experience.

Even the most traditional firms are well past the point of communicating with clients and distributors via email, storing their documents in the cloud, transacting via electronic payments, and managing manufacturing, inventory, and logistics with sophisticated resource planning systems. Data and digital connections intermediate all aspects of our business and economy today.

Becoming digital is all about effective exploitation of data—collecting, organizing, and deploying the information required to inform better business strategies, go beyond the baseline commercial requirements, and actually achieve success as a modern organization. An effective data strategy is the foundation of every successful digital business and will determine winners and losers as we stare down the prospect of an entirely new generation of deeply disruptive AI technologies. This book is about how to build a bridge from the past to the future and how to help executives like you envision the kind of change we’re actually talking about. Every business has different needs, of course, different strengths and challenges, different markets, and different customers—but what ties it all together is this move toward a more digital mindset, and that’s what we set out to illustrate in the chapters to come.

You’ll get a sense of what that journey can look like and how digital transformation can make a real difference in what’s to come for your organization. Digital growth can mean one of two things: continuing to be successful with your portfolio of products and services but leveling up your interactions with your customers and prospects or creating new data-informed products for your market, understanding what the people in your market need, and taking on the challenge of adopting new AI technologies to meet these evolving desires.

This book is about doing both of those things, and doing them successfully. It’s about modernizing business models and developing a real understanding of where your market is moving in the future. Yes, it will likely be enabled by technology in the end, but that’s where we finish, not where we start. It’s a business conversation, not a technical one. And, ultimately, it’s about people—how to serve them, how to help them, how to change for them and with them.

We hope you get something from the pages ahead and that the story helps you better understand the digital direction where the world is heading and how you can be part of that journey.

Good luck, and enjoy the book.

CHAPTER 1

Why Becoming Digital Matters

In this chapter, we are introduced to Sandra, the CEO of Pelican Rental, a global construction rental company, and Mark, a consultant from Mod Op Strategic Consulting. Sandra agrees to meet with Mark after her SVP of operations comes back from a conference recommending Mod Op Strategic Consulting’s team. Pelican has been struggling with its digital capabilities and projects, and with the blessing of the executive team and board, Sandra is open to listening to what Mark and his team have to offer.

I really appreciate you meeting with me and answering some of my questions before we pull the trigger, I said.

I’m glad to do it, replied Mark.

"My operations guys came back from their conference and were on fire. They talked about what you had said during your presentations and insisted we look into Mod Op Strategic Consulting. I was particularly interested in how you help companies like ours with their digital transformation.

Do you create software for companies and help with implementing new tech, including AI? I feel we are woefully behind. I keep hearing about artificial intelligence but don’t have any idea whether or how it’s relevant to my business.

While we can help with getting the right tech and software in place, and we can absolutely help you take advantage of the huge benefits of AI, that is just a small part of what we do. We provide consulting services to help you become a digital company.

I have to be honest. We have hired consulting firms in the past, and it has cost us a lot of money. While some of the things they said were helpful, I am not sure we got our return on investment.

I can appreciate that. But we work in phases. We don’t just make a bunch of recommendations and wish you luck. We work closely in developing the vision and the strategies for achieving that plan, and we offer support in executing that plan, including how to effectively communicate and market your new capabilities to your customers. In addition, we make changes to the plan that align with your needs and, in the long run, will save you money, while at the same time helping you grow a data-driven company.

I’m glad you said that. I feel we need a new approach. We have been focused on new software solutions for our customers, but we aren’t getting the response we have wanted, and the software isn’t keeping up with demand. We are falling behind our competitors in a market we have dominated for a couple of decades.

I do believe we can help you with that. You have mentioned software a couple of times, so I wanted to be clear about what we offer. There is a difference between technology and becoming a data-enabled, digital company. While technology is part of the solution, we help your company become digital throughout your entire enterprise and link data in ways that everyone can access and use. The goal is to help your departments become connected to one another and your clients in real time.

I hate to admit it, but we still accept fax orders, I chuckled.

Like I said, we don’t just focus on outdated technology. My question: How does your current system of taking orders work for you?

It’s slow and archaic. People don’t like not being able to just order equipment and track it online.

You have captured what becoming a digital company is and what the expectations are now. I would guess that your competitors, especially the start-ups, are already ahead of you because they are built digitally native. That doesn’t mean you can’t catch up. After all, you have something new companies don’t have—expertise, a loyal base of customers, and a strong reputation. Unfortunately, those alone won’t help you keep up with the demand for digital.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that being a digital company means that they have new software and technology. Ask a dozen consultants what the term digital transformation means and you’ll likely get a dozen different answers. The term has become so overused and lacking in definition that it has become meaningless. This lack of clarity is problematic for senior executives charged with leading their organizations through increasingly challenging times.

There’s no escape from the fact that the world in which we live and operate today is digital. Transformed or not, all organizations operate in an economy where meaningful transactions and interactions with customers and stakeholders are mediated in the digital realm, and data fuels all of these transactions. The critical question for executives is not whether they can successfully drive a digital transformation but whether they can build a modern operating strategy and model that can thrive in a digital world. Today, of course, that also means incorporating the power of artificial intelligence and deploying these techniques effectively across the organization, including, most critically, in sales and marketing. Even more importantly, can they make these changes in a high-velocity manner to keep up with their competition?

Successful organizations that thrive in a digital world exhibit five key attributes:

• They have empowered cultures where decision-making is pushed outward from the executive team.

• They use data and sophisticated analytics—often in real time—as a foundation for organizational decision-making.

• Automation is deployed as widely as possible to maximize speed and efficiency.

• Service and product design is driven by experimental methods that use users’ data to iteratively maximize value.

• Technology decisions are strategic decisions, and resulting technology choices form the foundational platform upon which value-creating products and services will be built.

I want to thank you for filling out the Mod Op Strategic Consulting Digital Maturity Evaluation. This helps us to determine where on the spectrum of being digital your company lands.

Take the Digital Maturity Evaluation