Digital transformation continues to remain a hot topic, and with good reason.
Decision-makers and Chief information officers (CIO) who have successfully placed technology at the core of their enterprise have been able to reap specific or even multiple business benefits, including growing their company’s competitive edge, enhancing efficiency and agility, elevating their customer experience, and even allowing the organisation to tap into new markets.
Real-world success stories are plain to see — governments have vastly improved the process by which people enter and exit a country through some airports in the region. They have made it easier for citizens and residents to make payments, and they have even created online portals for most commonly needed services. Today, governments continue to transform existing offerings, while rolling out all-new services, serving as case studies for regional digital transformation success stories.
The successful use of technology is clearly a game changer. But despite the potential benefits, digital transformation in the Middle East enterprise segment is moving at a much slower pace compared to the rest of the world, and even when compared to the region’s consumer segment. There are exceptions of course, but generally speaking, CIOs seem to be facing an uphill struggle towards digital transformation.
What are the challenges?
One reason CIOs struggle to build digital momentum is because — in this part of the world — spending on IT is still widely viewed as an expense. Decision-makers tend to believe that adopting new technology will simply digitise their existing business and processes, and offer no other measurable benefits. Since the Middle East has been experiencing tepid market conditions over the last several months, this is perhaps one of the biggest challenges a CIO faces as IT budgets are almost always the first to be reduced in a bid to keep profits healthy.
A CIO may also find it challenging to push for digital transformation because he or she may not be responsible for setting the company’s digital strategy and/or vision. Across the Middle East, there are enterprises whose digital vision and strategy is set by the CEO or CMO — here the CIO’s role is focused purely on execution.
What this means is the CIO does not work with the CEO or CMO to draw up plans and strategies. Instead, he or she is just responsible for executing and rolling out IT systems in line with the requirements that were outlined.
What can CIOs do?
The first step to embarking on a digital transformation drive is a thorough understanding of the organisation in its current state. This entails researching the organisation from the top to the bottom, and liaising with all the necessary department heads. The research should be backed by hard data, which could come from department or companywide audits or even by deploying powerful analytics tools, which when used correctly should be able to help the CIO identify existing bottlenecks and other relevant issues.
The CIO should also fully understand current and future business goals, be they increasing profits or margins, enhancing speed-to-market, boosting customer satisfaction, increasing organisational efficiency, etc. All of this is critical as it is only by knowing this that he or she can then demonstrate the value of the proposed digital transformation.
At its core, digital transformation is essentially a way for organisations to become better focused by leveraging technology to achieve business goals, and this is exactly what has to be demonstrated to stakeholders. CIOs should be able to work with trusted partners to draw up plans and strategies that highlight what the transformation will entail, how the transformation will be implemented, and what the tangible benefits will be towards the company’s current and future business goals.
As before, the CIO should be able to provide hard data to stakeholders via the same audits and analytics tools (after the upgrade) to demonstrate the benefits of the technology. Once stakeholders realise that, and there is a solid business case behind investing in technology, they too will embrace digital transformation.
The writer is Senior Vice-President for Middle East, Central Asia and Africa, Tata Communications.
