Deliver the digital promise

Businesses are under increasing pressure to respond to rapid technological advances and societal change. The pace of disruptive change from digital technologies is accelerating, which means companies must develop capabilities to identify what is happening and deal with threats and opportunities that arise. In our view, it is clear that the winners in the digital world will be those that use technology to harness the potential of data and have a mindset and culture that responds to change.

Our point of view (POV), Deliver the digital promise—Operating in a digital world, aims to help organizations understand and to identify capabilities to achieve operational digital congruence. We hope this POV provides valuable insights and lessons for your business.

Eight disruptive forces you need to embrace

The following digital technologies are reshaping the way companies create value, but the level of maturity differs between industries.

1. Cloud
   Access to storage and processing power at speed and scale. Companies are moving toward a cloud-first landscape to reduce costs and improve performance.
   
2. Internet of Things (IoT)
   IoT means all things connected to the internet. What is the impact for you when everything is measurable? Bold IoT initiatives can create new business models.
3. Robotics
   Whether it is physical robots augmenting human physical activities or software robots automating rule-based processes, robotics is rapidly becoming high stakes for many industries.
   
4. Machine Intelligence & Big Data Architecture
   A collection of advances in machine learning and data analytics help organizations move from retrospective data analysis to making inferences and predictions.
   
5. Collaborative Innovation
   New ways of collaboration including crowdsourcing and open source offer superior ways to access outside knowledge and use it to innovate faster and smarter.
   
6. Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS)
   The goal of XaaS is to transform existing business products, processes and legacy systems into a collection of services that can be used both inside and outside the organization.
   
7. Design Thinking & Agile Delivery
   Use Design Thinking to reduce unnecessary complexity by putting employee and customer experience first. Master Agile Delivery to respond faster to changes and accelerate product iteration.
   
8. Blockchain
   Shared ledger technology that removes intermediaries in a contractual agreement, blockchain is assuming the role of trusted gatekeeper and purveyor of transparency.
   

Foundations for delivering the digital promise

Digital winners have two fundamental attributes—they are insight-driven and agile. These qualifies reinforce each other to achieve continuous improvement.

Insight-driven: This approach puts data-based insights at the heart of value creation and streamlines decision-making across all business functions. Using data strategically enables companies to scale their operations and deliver a personalized customer experience faster and at less cost. Coherent investments in dedicated talent, platforms and processes enable companies to turn information into insights.

Agility is essential for responding to the speed of business change, societal shifts and technological advances.  It enables rapid organizational learning by providing a feedback loop based on accurate, prompt analysis of customer data. It also enables teams to self-organize and collaborate, continuously improve and make fast, transparent decisions.

Operating in a digital world

Successful companies achieve digital congruence in their operations—configuring the right capabilities in the right way within their operating model. When fully adopted, digital can cause a paradigm shift in operational delivery.