Beyond Digital Transformation

On the other hand, companies, which claim undergoing a digital transformation but retain their existing processes, will face a serious challenge with fulfilling its service level commitment.

Similar to the people and culture, the internal process review must be done as a holistic program, sponsored by the highest level of management in the organization, normally its CEO or chairperson, and fully supported by the senior and middle management team. The review should start with the process closest to customers, which naturally begins with the customer acquisition, to customer servicing, until the back-end process, including finance and operations. This exercise usually takes place over a time span of one to two years, and continues evolving as the business grows. It is also very important to make sure that the new processes are being properly documented, although, they are not written in stone.

Customer Focus

A common expression is saying that no one should do change for the sake of change only. For any organization, change is to be conducted for an improved performance of the organization. In digital transformation, customer must always stay at the center of the transformation objective. Many transformations fail as they are carried away from the main focus, namely customer. Hence, at the end of the journey, the management does not see the actual and quantifiable benefit of the program and decide to change the course of the journey and restart the process.

Design thinking framework helps us to stay focus on customers, as each process under the framework put customer at the center. The most interesting part is that the framework starts with empathize, which ensures that everyone doing the project completely understands what matters the most for their target customers. Validation by customers is also carried out at every step, and without customers’ endorsement, the solution, which could be a product, a new process, a system, needs to be re-assessed from the very first step, or from the step when customers’ confirmations were obtained.

Agility is also key to make sure a customer centric delivery process. Under agile delivery framework, any additional requirement or any deviation from the initial objective, can be addressed very quickly, without waiting for the project to complete.

Data Analytics and Monetization

Some research is saying that in 2022, it is expected that more than 77.5 exabytes of mobile data will be going around globally per month. Today, data is the new currency. However, without the right interpretation, the massive amount of data will go wasted. On the other hand, when data is rightly analyzed, a company can massively improve its ability to target the right customers, to give the right incentive to its customers and partners, and to reach a high degree of service personalization. In the insurance industry, it is very important to have propensity to buy, the propensity to pay, the right price, and the type of protection demanded by the customers.

Monetizing the data is as important to make sure that the organization gains the right level of revenue and profit from the business it is running. Many digital banks, for example, are very successful in acquiring new customers by providing incentives, such as cash back, for every account opening. Nevertheless, the real challenge is to ignite new deposits, new loans, and new transactions from the newly acquired customers.

Conclusion

When digital transformation sounds like a very common process that everyone in the industry is doing, the process involves a holistic transformation program, which is sponsored and driven by the top leader of the company and everyone in the company is actively participating in. As a result of a digital transformation, in many organizations, the corporate culture, the internal process, the mindset of the people, and the way data is being monetized, has never been the same compared to before the journey started.