DATACOM

D ATA CINTELLIGENCE
OM INTELLIGENCE
WHITE
W H IPAPER
T E PA P E R #1
Issued: October 20th 2013
ISSUED April 2016

Digital Transformation:
Keys to success

Datacom Group Limited | All content © Datacom 2013 | Available for release on request
Datacom White Paper | D i g i t a l T r a n s f o r m a t i o n

For successful digital transformation,

focus first on your people

BY BRETT ROBERTS, Put your people first

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR – DIGITAL, CUSTOMERS
AND COLLABORATION GROUP, DATACOM In a sense, the Datacom Digital, Customers and
Collaboration team is at the sharp end of digital
The digital transformation of today’s organisations is akin transformation. Put simply, we exist to enable digital
to their predecessors factoring electricity into formerly business: everything from web design and build, mobile
steam-driven processes and business strategies 100 innovation and app development to implementing data
years ago. It requires new ways of thinking about how analytics, business intelligence, Customer Relationship
organisations, industries and markets operate, or could Management and collaboration technologies, such
operate, in a world where technology-based change is as Microsoft SharePoint. In summary, we connect our
disruptive, constant and accelerating. customers with their customers, people and data using
To give you something of a definition, digital a wide variety of people-oriented technologies and
transformation involves using digital technologies – such platforms.
as the web, cloud, mobile, social media, the Internet of As you would expect, as a technology partner and service
Things and analytics-driven personalisation – to re-shape provider we help customers with technology design, build,
and improve customer interactions, business models and deployment and management, and deliver related big
financial returns. An important focus area is the provision picture strategic advice and consultancy. We understand
and ongoing enhancement of customer experiences that the critical roles these all play, but a major part of what
are multi-channel, data-driven and digitally-enabled. we do is help organisations to operationalise digital
Ideally, it allows organisations to embrace and exploit the innovation – i.e. making transformation ‘stick’
exponential rate of technological change for the benefit of – and, time and time again, we’ve found that the single
themselves and their customers. This often entails a shift most important factor for long-term success is the people
in organisational ‘rhythm’ away from a steady, sustained within the organisation. They operationalise the new
marathon-like jog towards something that more closely technologies and processes; the enhanced customer
resembles orienteering. experience. It is they who need to adopt, embody and
The rapid rise of Amazon, Facebook and the digital express the new mindset that accepts and embraces the
darlings of the sharing economy, such as Uber and new world of constant, or at least hastened, change.
AirBnB, are a few examples amongst many, across all So, if there’s one thing you come away with from this
industries, which underline the opportunity here – and article, we hope it’s the understanding that wherever you
the competitive threat facing organisations that do not start on your digital transformation you should focus
deliberately self-disrupt and re-invent. on your people first and foremost. Implications of this
You could well be thinking that digital transformation is approach and advice on how to go about it are outlined
something your organisation should do now, or should below across four key areas – leadership, recruitment,
at least start thinking about before it’s too late. But, if change management and culture. It should also be noted
conversations we’re having with business and technology that risk management is another important topic for
leaders are anything to go by, you may find it all seems so consideration. This will be the focus of a future paper.
all-encompassing, fundamental and just plain hard that
you don’t know where, or how, to start.
This paper is guidance for you from a technology
company with 50 years of experience in focusing on what
really matters to its customers, and helping organisations
of all shapes and sizes make smart technological
decisions and implement the business innovations that
work best for them.

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Datacom White Paper | D i g i t a l T r a n s f o r m a t i o n

1. Leadership

Who will be the agents of change in your digital transformation?

Senior management will need to play a key role, of course, the extent to
which is summed up in the following quotes.
The MIT Sloan Management Review report last year states that: “Although leaders don’t
need to be technology wizards, they must understand what can be accomplished at the
intersection of business and technology. They should also be prepared to lead the way in
conceptualizing how technology can transform the business.”

Digital business researcher, Jane McConnell,

says in her 2015 report, The Organization in
the Digital Age, that: “The digital workplace
tipping point comes when well over half of senior
management understand the value of the digital
workplace, participate and demonstrate sustained
commitment.”
That is, at least half of your senior management team has to understand the need – the risks
and opportunities at stake – accept them, and work to gain broad buy-in across the business.
Make no mistake: this isn’t easy. As outlined above, the glimmerings of a new mindset is
necessary to begin conceptualising how things could change for the better via digitisation.
That’s one of the reasons behind the recent rise of the role of Chief Digital Officer (CDO).
This person is often a key driver of digitisation projects and the ongoing leveraging of their
potential. They can ‘talk tech’ and understand business. They bridge the chasm that too
often exists between people’s knowledge and understanding of business and technology,
and employees and customers. They help lead their organisation through the initial digital
transformation process and foster and embed a digital mindset that will exploit change and
new opportunities like never before.
But they can only ever be part of the process. As McConnell’s report shows, other senior
managers need to share the load. Indeed, the function of the CDO can be shared across,
and delivered in part by, others, including the CIO and CMO. The functions of both of their
departments are shifting in a digital direction as a result of technological advances.
In IT, for instance, thanks to cloud and other empowering, automating technologies, the focus
is becoming more about strategy, management and influencing the organisation and less
about ‘keeping the lights on’. In some organisations, we’ve seen CIOs competing as service
providers with external parties. They accept a certain loss of control to become enablers
and collaborators rather than strict command-and-controllers. For CMOs, the need for
multichannel engagement with the digital customer, combined with the potential of data
analytics and other technology to market better, means they have a ‘vested dependence’ on
digital transformation-related projects.
However, even CDOs, CIOs and other senior managers working in unison can’t bring about
digital transformation on their own. Other change agents are necessary to operationalise the
extensive changes required. To determine who those people might be, look to the hybrid skills
of the CDO, spanning technology and business.

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Datacom White Paper | D i g i t a l T r a n s f o r m a t i o n

2. Recruitment

Hiring the best candidates is a perpetual Lean Startup author, Eric Ries, said: “The modern rule They can sit in a room with a customer and others for
challenge, full of risk and opportunity. If you of competition is whoever learns fastest, wins.” In other a week and work with them to design, build and test
words, you need to recruit smart people who you can a prototype application that the customer takes to
take the best, then your competition is left teach to do anything, and who can thrive amid disruption. their Board and gets approval to fully implement. In
with the rest – and vice versa. But in the new You need people with varied, hybrid abilities. You might our accelerating, digital business world, this kind of
digital world, the best people may not be think this means hiring a cohort of digitally-minded rapid ideation and prototyping activity is becoming
Millennials, but digital skills can be taught. What you are commonplace, even core business for many
who you are looking for or who you already after is rarer: attitude on top of aptitude – which can exist organisations – and applicable to all manner of product
have on board. in people of all ages. or service innovation – making the diverse attributes
described above more mission-critical every day. It’s how
For example, the Datacom Digital team regularly the Datacom Digital team works, on many projects.
interviews candidates for senior developer roles.
We look for technical proficiency, of course, but favour There is an interesting macro trend at play here – a
people with the ability to have an engaging conversation contradiction: the more digital businesses become, the
with a customer about their business issues over those less they need people with traditional IT skills. As the
who are more technically skilled but unable to talk example above shows, there are plenty of roles for highly
outside their domain. technical people in specialist firms like Datacom. But as
business (and consumer) technology becomes easier to
In general, we look for a broader mix of skills within the use, more automated, provided as-a-Service, and so on,
ideal candidate, and a growth mindset. This means they the need for deep technical knowledge and skills within
are mentally flexible, a fast learner, comfortable with other types of businesses recedes. If these skills and
uncertainty, accepting of the need to take risks and services are required, then organisations can call on the
experiment – and fail sometimes – in order to succeed specialists.
and grow. They are able to stand up for themselves, but
recognise, and run, with better ideas. They collaborate and Conversely, the need for people who can leverage new
communicate well, and have empathy for their customers, digital technology to learn faster, work more productively,
colleagues, partners and suppliers. be more creative, and come up with new innovations and
solutions and run with them, is exploding. And if you bring
in people with an expansive, flexible attitude and these
skills, then you will help your organisation to foster
a digital mindset and culture.

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Datacom White Paper | D i g i t a l T r a n s f o r m a t i o n

3. Change management

Bringing in new blood will almost certainly Change management, along with training and ongoing Underlining the importance of proper change
challenge your current leadership, support, is required. Your people will need to adapt, and management to recruitment and retention, the Deloitte
this can be very difficult for them. You may lose some of Millennial Survey 2016 found that putting employees first
colleagues and employees. So how do you them along the way. There will be resistance, and you need was the most important value businesses should follow
bring those people already within your to plan for that. We’ve seen this first hand while working to have long-term success. Millennials, now the largest
organisation on the digital transformation for customers on major IT projects that involve substantial generation of active workers in the global workforce,
changes to people and processes, alongside technology. expect such from their employers.
journey?
The way server engineers have had to adapt to major
public cloud adoption within their organisations illustrates According to the report, they:
the issues. With public cloud operations, engineers
don’t have direct access to infrastructure. Servers are
“…want businesses to focus
monitored and manipulated using software. This means more on people (employees,
engineers need to move away from traditional, manual
methods of monitoring and control to using scripts and customers, and society),
coding to enable process automation and managing by
exception. To do this, some of them may need to adopt a
products, and purpose – and
new mentality and learn new skills. less on profits.”
As these engineers steadily remove manual intervention Change management is important with any major IT
and human error through automation, however, they can implementation of course, but with digital transformation
free themselves up to have control over more of their the potential change is fundamental, permanent and,
organisation’s estate – and better handle increasing afterwards, ongoing. Things will never be the same again,
complexity. They can also be more proactive and and they won’t stay the same for long.
strategic, moving from ‘fire-fighting’ towards an innovation
and value-add mentality. For instance, they can get more Whatever the project, Datacom helps organisations to
involved in higher-value activities, such as capacity devise and implement a change management programme
planning and service management and delivery. that supports both the organisation and the individuals
in it, helping them to accept, implement, and benefit
There is often understandable resistance to these from systematic change. Key to this is determining
changes though. Some will not want to change or the stakeholders at all levels that are essential to the
upskill, and may move elsewhere. Those who see the changes required, and guiding, informing, empowering
opportunity and decide to remain stand to gain from the and incentivising them to plan, design, innovate and
IT horsepower being added to their dominion – if they can collaborate to pursue common goals.
leverage it for themselves and their organisation – just
as digitisation in general can empower others in the
business. To do so, however, they will almost certainly
need training and support.
The MIT Sloan Management Review report found that
digitally mature organisations were four times more
likely to invest in workforce skill building and education
for digital business than their less mature counterparts.
The former know the importance of proper change
management and ongoing investment in building and
maintaining a digital mindset and culture.

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Datacom White Paper | D i g i t a l T r a n s f o r m a t i o n

4. Culture

There are also structural, procedural and, of This could have been the title of this paper. If you That doesn’t necessarily mean turning into a tech startup
course, technological ways you can foster haven’t got the culture – the attitudes, behaviours and (although some organisations, like Datacom, foster
expectations – then even the smartest of strategies will risk taking, entrepreneurial activity and competitive
this approach and these behaviours. But as fail. You need strategy and planning, of course, but the far collaboration by setting up internal groups that act like
management guru, Peter Drucker, once said: harder job within a digital transformation project, and as startups). But it does mean showing employees and
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” this paper argues the most important thing to focus on, is candidates that you are at least dedicated to digital
the people involved. They collectively influence business improvement and have the technology, support and
culture every hour of every day. opportunities available to help them develop in this way.
Business leaders can set the tone and nature of the As this paper has shown, however, a top down, centralised
culture they want to foster, and indeed exemplify it with approach won’t work on its own. Digital transformation
their commitment and actions. This is important for sticks when a broad group of change agents at different
recruiting the type of talent needed to forward digital levels and in different areas of the organisation are
transformation. empowered with technology, resources, knowledge and
support. That’s the best way to nurture a regenerating
The MIT Sloan Management digital business culture built for orienteering rather than
marathon running.
Review research shows that:
“Employees want to work for
digital leaders...Employees
across all age groups want to
work for businesses that are
deeply committed to digital
progress. Company leaders
need to bear this in mind in
order to attract and retain the
best talent.”

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Datacom White Paper | D i g i t a l T r a n s f o r m a t i o n

5. A
 matter of business
life and death

Salim Ismail says in his book, Exponential

Organisations: “Any company designed
for success in the 20th century is doomed
for failure in the 21st.” At Datacom, we’ve
taken this and similar insights on board and
decentralised control in some areas so that
smaller, connected teams can work together
and in competition on solutions for clients.
These entrepreneurial teams leverage different digital
technologies to innovate faster, solve problems and
correct their course earlier, and work more closely with
customers. Their introduction has already given the
business greater pace and agility, which means that we
can help our customers faster and more effectively than
ever.
Taking the digital transformation trend to the next level,
Edward Hess, Professor & Batten Executive-in-Residence
at Darden Graduate Business School, USA, said: “The
company of the future is going to be staffed by some
combination of smart robots, artificially intelligent smart
machines, and humans. And the humans are going to be
doing the things the technology can’t do well, which will
be complex critical thinking, innovative thinking, and high
emotional engagement with other humans.”
References:
This scenario, although still some way off, is no longer just
the stuff of science fiction; it’s a future that is inevitable for • MIT Sloan Management Review (2015): http://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/strategy-drives-digital-transformation/
many organisations. Adapting to this brave new world, let
along thriving in it, will be one of the top challenges for all • The Organization in the Digital Age (2015): http://www.organization-digital-age.com/
of us over the next decade or two. It won’t be easy, but it’s
• The Lean Startup (2008): http://theleanstartup.com/
clearly necessary, and the opportunities are enormous.
• The Deloitte Millennial Survey 2016: http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html
As this paper has shown, it will require among other
things the adoption of a mindset and the nurturing of • Exponential Organisations (2014): http://www.exponentialorgs.com/
an organisational culture that emphasises and supports
experimentation, collaboration and learning. This means
putting your leaders, colleagues and employees first.
Their actions and approach are central to the success of
technology-driven organisational change, big or small.
If you'd like to find out more about how Datacom can
assist with your digital transformation, please don't
hesitate to contact us at [email protected].

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