The DX roadmap: David Rogers on driving digital transformation success

Rogers: For effective digital transformation that drives change, results, and growth, it is critical to define a vision that is shared by everyone in the organization. The vision must be unique and specific to that organization. Generally, the person who is most well positioned to frame this vision is the CEO. However, CEOs don’t develop this in isolation, especially if they are trying to understand how technology is rapidly shifting the landscape for businesses and how are they going to leverage the new capabilities. In most organizations, CEOs need partners to help them in developing the vision. The CIO is typically one of the most important people to work with the CEO to define the vision. The strategic business unit heads may also be involved.

Generally, those who have the insights into the organization’s particular market and its characteristics as well as the understanding of the strategic importance, not really the technical understanding, of all the digital changes that are happening are involved in developing the vision. Very often, such a person is the CIO. The CEO must take charge and take the vision thus finalized to the employees.

What capabilities does an organization need if it is trying something new? What should a CIO do to get these capabilities?

Rogers: I look at in terms of the key capabilities an enterprise will have to invest in the long term for a successful transformation. To me there are three areas that are equally critical. The first is the technology infrastructure — invest in building a modular, flexible, and more adaptable IT infrastructure for change. Along with the core infrastructure, a CIO would need data, which is an important strategic asset, and technology governance to balance access with integrity of data, security, and compliance. This all is one critical pillar.

The second capability is talent. CIOs think a lot about technical skills, but they also need to think about having non-technical skills. Enterprises need individuals or teams that are T-shaped that bring together intersection of technical and business knowledge or knowledge about things like design for user experience. For instance, Amazon has lots of PhD economists, which it sprinkles across the company to build new products and experiment new business models. Talent is not only about hiring but retaining also.

The third pillar is culture. This aspect is something that I see lots of CIOs and leaders in general often underweighting. They are spending more time on the technical skills instead of building the right culture within the organization. They should be thinking of hiring change makers. For instance, someone who would be great in collaborating with different parts of the organization and different types of people. They must bring onboard people who are going to have a real sense of ownership and entrepreneurship around their work and push new ideas. It’s good to hire people who are comfortable with ambiguity, who are comfortable with learn-as-you-go approach and with iterative plans. So, culture is just as important as talent and technology.

Then comes the most important part of asking for money for these capabilities. I call this business theory — an explanation of how you expect to earn back the investments you are making in your digital transformation. This is not a business case with detailed numbers and projections about a particular investment. It is about looking at the transformation broadly and saying what are our paths to capture back value. Is this going to pay back through operation efficiencies in our core business, is it going to reduce risk, will it expand our markets and customers, is it going to increase our customer loyalty and share of the wallet, or is it going to finding new revenue models?

It is important to discuss these aspects and align with them because that will shape, on a broad level, many of the investments to come. CIOs need to be thinking about the financial drivers of the technology they are investing in and have a clear vision of how it is going to pay off.

While most organizations undertake the digital transformation journey, only a few succeed. How can more organizations succeed in their digital efforts?

Rogers: There are as many paths to digital transformation as there are organizations. While every company is solving for the same organizational barriers that will otherwise prevent it from getting success, a sizeable minority of 20% to 30% is really succeeding. I found that every company that is succeeding is doing the same five things correctly.

First, they all have a shared vision. Second, they pick the problems that matter most to their business. There could be a hundred directions a company could go in looking at digital investments. It should rather have a strong focus on a few strategic problems. Third, they validate new ventures. Whenever they are doing anything different, which may or may not be within their core, they rapidly test and experiment. They skip the planning process, sketch out the vision in one week and build the first tests. Fourth, they learn to manage growth at scale. They take the ideas that work and scale them up by funnelling resources to them rapidly. Fifth, and last thing they do is they invest in their technology, talent, and culture. This is the foundation on which everything builds. I call these five iterative steps as ‘the DX roadmap.’

Key stakeholders in a company look at digital as an instant cure-all for all organizational objectives. How can a CIO get the company’s leadership to be more realistic for digital transformation?