Thinking Strategically About Digital TransformationThinking Strategically About Digital Transformation

In the age of digital transformation, technology buying decisions should never be just about price, and they can no longer be solely made by IT for IT.

That’s the essence of the messaging I gleaned from an SCTC event I attended last week that should resonate most for No Jitter readers. I’m going to illustrate that here in terms of how digital transformation is impacting the enterprise environment. (I’ll be writing about other notable takeaways from the event in another post soon.)

Mitel and the Transformation Imperative

Aside from being a vendor helping businesses adapt to digital transformation, Mitel is an enterprise itself, just like its customers. Not only that, but with a long history of growing via acquisition, Mitel has more than once needed to integrate new cultures and operations into the organization. At the event, Mitel CIO Jamshid Rezaei talked about Mitel’s transformation imperative, and here are four lessons learned that should help any enterprise in developing a successful strategy for digital transformation.

1. Be adaptive -- there will always be something better

Jamshid cited the familiar but highly apropos example of evolution in the handheld technology space. When the BlackBerry first came out, there was no better way to do mobile communications -- it was truly a breakthrough product. Its creator, RIM, arguably invented the smartphone market and dominated it to the point it was hard to imagine how there could be anything better. The same was true with the PalmPilot for PDAs, and the Sony Walkman for portable music. Each stood alone in parallel universes, and there was no reason to think their paths would ever cross.

Then, of course, Apple came along and integrated all of this into a single device, and with the iPhone’s debut created the smartphone category that has been the standard since 2007. There has been no turning back, and those pioneering single-use devices were rendered largely obsolete overnight.

This is long-winded way of saying don’t make big, long-term bets on technology, especially those that are singular in purpose, like a PBX. Being adaptive here means two things. First, don’t lock into one technology, especially in isolation, and be open to combining technologies in new ways. Until recently, nobody was talking about using speech technology to manage our calendars, nor about integrating contact center with UC. For many reasons, the cloud is a fundamental driver of this ongoing change, and it’s still early days for what’s possible.

2. Digital transformation never ends

This is a natural extension of the above example, but needs to be considered on its own as well. Rather than view digital transformation through a technology lens where new tools replace old tools, the focus should be on improving processes and outcomes. More specifically, this approach is kaizen-based, where you’re on a never-ending journey of continuous improvement. As technology evolves, so do the possibilities for improving everything -- processes, quality, teamwork, job satisfaction, even personal fulfillment.

With kaizen being a form of philosophy rather than textbook MBA school theory, this approach to digital transformation becomes elevated to supporting more humanistic goals around a harmonious workplace where everyone makes meaningful contributions toward serving customers with the best possible products and experiences. This noble vision is really about investing in technology to support people -- not the other way around -- and that makes the ongoing journey easier to embrace and make part of the company’s culture.

Continue to next page for lessons learned three and four

3. IT isn’t just about IT

Digital transformation is bigger than IT, and as per the above, it’s going to become a big driver of culture across an organization, especially for businesses that are serious -- and even better, truly passionate -- about being customer-centric. That’s certainly the bar businesses are trying to set for themselves today, and getting there is a strategy that very much reflects the kaizen principles touched on above. Technology is important, but it’s not what makes a business customer-centric; rather, it’s about empowering employees and enabling agents to do their best work.

There’s also an element of change management to consider, especially with a multi-generational workforce. Collaboration technology has a major role to play in terms of providing a consistent user experience that all employees can manage, but that’s not the endgame. Again, it’s about a holistic view, where IT is riding digital transformation to make the entire organization more productive and agile.

Jamshid talked about his challenges trying to manage four distinct streams with technology change -- ERP, workplace productivity, customer-facing tools, and CRM. They all have distinct needs, and while it’s one thing to manage them inside their streams, the orchestration needs to be seamless to customers, which as he correctly noted should only need to see one Mitel.

IT cannot deliver that outcome with a legacy mindset of needing to manage technology centrally -- digital transformation is holistic, and IT needs a different approach. Along those lines, as Jamshid expanded his IT team to support digital transformation, he added many people who did not have technical backgrounds. Instead, they had expertise in change management, and understanding how culture change is a big part for having success here.

4. Digital transformation needs a starting point

This lesson learned is easy to overlook since digital transformation is a fluid concept. Being a never-ending journey, knowing your point of entry is hard, and since businesses don’t like uncertainty, resistance to going down this path is easy to understand. As with adopting any new technology, the starting point needs to be a clearly defined use case that addresses a particular business challenge or problem.

As mentioned, by virtue of having made many acquisitions, Mitel has faced an ongoing challenge for integrating various operational systems into its DNA. Jamshid cited examples such as having more than 30 email gateways, five email systems, multiple PBXs, multiple IM platforms, and 18 ERP systems to manage. That’s simply untenable if the objective is for customers to only see one Mitel. Streamlining all this became a key driver for the company’s transformation imperative.

When challenges have a measurable starting point, the rationale becomes clear to all -- not just for IT, but the entire organization. Mitel eventually consolidated those 18 ERP systems into just one, and the associated metrics from that transformation are success markers that everyone can understand. The resulting operational efficiencies are also important outcomes, but the process probably doesn’t begin until there’s a measurable starting point.

While the other aspects of digital transformation covered in this post are rather qualitative, equally important is having a clearly defined starting point. Without that compass, you won’t know where you’re going with digital transformation, and when the going gets tough, management could easily lose interest and move on to priorities that are more readily understood.

BCStrategies is an industry resource for enterprises, vendors, system integrators, and anyone interested in the growing business communications arena. A supplier of objective information on business communications, BCStrategies is supported by an alliance of leading communication industry advisors, analysts, and consultants who have worked in the various segments of the dynamic business communications market.

Attend Enterprise Connect 2019, taking place March 18 to 21 in Orlando, Fla., to learn more about digital transformation and its relationship to enterprise communications and collaboration. Register by Friday, Jan. 18, to receive the Advance Rate -- and as a No Jitter reader you can use the code NJPOSTS to save an extra $200.