In my series of articles on “the Digital Shift,” I started in 2016 up to now early 2023, I’ve explored a variety of topics related to the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation. From the importance of having a clear vision and strategy, to development of digital skills and expertise and how to consider technology, I’ve sought to provide insights and practical advice for organizations looking to navigate the rapidly-evolving digital landscape. 7 years after my first article, here’s a personal reflection on whether my thoughts are still the same in light of what I’ve experienced or exchanged with peers so far.
One of the key themes that I highlighted through my writing was the importance for companies to know how to do things differently compared to traditional patterns.
From a technological perspective, I was sharing my view on where companies could stand from a sourcing perspective of their tech teams in “IT outsourcing or in-house development, the battle”. Investing in internal teams around the core business as I then explained is still in 2023 a key enabler from my point of view. After the Covid years we’ve been going through, I would add the opportunity to leverage more on sourcing teams worldwide, to embrace a culture of distributed and remote working to make up with the shortage of tech talents in every part of the world. Even though end of 2022 and early 2023 have seen significant layoffs in tech companies which probably hired way too fast during the pandemy, I believe this does not change the overall trend of shortage of talents in a more and more technological society. And even though there was probably an irrational upwards spiral of salaries in startups, crypto, tech companies partly explaining the recent layoffs, companies should still have the right approach about salary and digital skills. Technology speaking, “Transforming your legacy IT systems from Titanic to speed boats” still remains a major challenge for traditional companies but much has been put on the table especially through the Covid period as there was not much choice left to digitize operations further for companies to continue operating.
Another important theme I touched upon over the past years was the importance of leadership and change management. In my view, digital transformation is not just about technology, but also about people and the way organizations are structured and operate. In “Management 3.0, a mindset revolution from the C-Suite to every level” , I was mentioning that a radical change should happen starting from a C-level. I believe this is still a challenge for some C-level to switch behaviors and from there pull the rest of their organization. After all, behavioral change is one of the most difficult change for every individual, as it touches upon beliefs acquired through years and that these changes inevitably follow bumpy roads as I wrote in “Management 3.0 (continued), “la fête du slip”? “, requiring perseverance and discipline. In that respect, it is interesting for example to see how many leaders and companies did not believe in remote working even after 2 years of Covid, did invest in remote collaboration tools (MS Teams, Slack, Zoom…) but did not go to the bottom of process changes and ways of working to make a more durable transformation as described by companies like Gitlab.
To make all this happen, my last article in this period was “Digital Transformation”: the ONE thing to focus on?, in which I shared my conviction that OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) were probably the most important management tool to put in place in such complex transformations. As I’ve seen over these years, this OKR approach cannot succeed without a firm belief and commitment of C-level over time as it is a long and hard change but which I’ve seen starting to pay off. So, at this stage, still convinced on this!
Is that all? No for sure, there are much more down the road. Technology keeps accelerating and more specifically around Artificial Intelligence – if you have not interacted with chatGPT yet, go for it now and you will understand the jump we are going through now. This poses a challenge not only for traditional companies but even to some digital natives having been around for 15+ years – some also let a legacy building up and are now facing disruptions of new entrants using faster and more advanced technologies. And sustainability, climate change challenges are going up the agenda very fast (at last), requiring deep transformation in business models, mindset and leverage of technologies.
From “The Digital Shift” to “The Digital and Sustainable Shift”, much to still work, think and exchange on how to address systemic complex changes in our companies and in our societies!
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