Digital transformation is the re-envisioning of business strategy, tactics, processes, culture and stakeholder experiences, by leveraging new technologies, to meet evolving social and economic needs.

As we mentioned in part one of this three-part mini-blog series, the digital transformation journey for any organisation must take a holistic approach, recognising cultural, strategic, operational changes and wellbeing of people in the digital transformation process to yield the greatest benefit.

In this final part, we look at the last letter of our acronym “START”.

Technology

There is an array of technologies available for any organisation to use and adopt to improve its business operations. Below we highlight in a simple way a few upcoming technologies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI or machine intelligence), can include any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its programmed goals. AI is driven by machine learning, often through complex algorithms, which provide AI-enabled devices a set of rules and instructions as guide to help solve problems and arrive at probability-based decisions. For instance, a translation service business using natural language processing through text generation is an example of AI in action. Through continual learning and refinement, AI can help speed up transaction process as well as personalise the written tone of text to the individual user’s preference.

Blockchains are digital data blocks that can record transactional data between parties that are timestamped and linked to previous data block using cryptography. These digital data blocks are distributed ledgers, meaning there is consensus of replicated, shared, and synchronized digital data geographically spread across multiple sites, countries, or institutions. This makes blockchains highly secure and addresses the digital counterfeit problem. The Institueof Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) called blockchain an accounting technology, as it helps to securely record transfer and ownership of assets while maintaining financial information.

Cyber Security aims to reduce the risk of cyber-attack, to prevent unauthorised access to the vast amounts of information. Inherent within cyber security is the need to have embedded processes relating to data protection and training within an organisation.

Data Wisdom is essential for data-driven decision making. It is reliant upon how an organisation can harness technology to climb the DIKW (data, information, knowledge and wisdom) pyramid rapidly to make well informed actionable decisions. For instance, an organisation may need to access the various data collection points in its operations, how they are channeled into actionable information, knowledge and wisdom to enable decision markers to take decisive action. Organisation should implement systems which allows this to happen rapidly and seamlessly with minimal reliance on legacy systems as this is an important component of future-proofing an organisation’s operations and processes.

In summary, the digital transformation journey can be a long one, but tackled with the right corporate culture and attitude the outcome can yield significant returns to the organisation and all its stakeholders.

Remember our short acronym, as you START (State, Training, Agreement, Responsibilities and Technology) your digital transformation journey.

Read more

Part 1 – Digitial transformation is about people

Part 2 – Digital transformation is a journey

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