siliconindia | | June 20188THE FORMULA FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATIONBy Niel Nickolaisen, Chief Technology Officer, O.C. TannerO.C. Tanner is the global leader in employment recognition and work place culture specializes in providing world-class training, social appreciation, employee recognition, service awards and many more.I learned a long time ago that the world of technology loves `buzzwords'. These are phras-es that come into vogue, gen-erate a lot of excitement and end-up in the marketing plans of various technology product & ser-vice vendors. Often, when something becomes a buzzword, it tends to lose its meaning as everyone finds a way to map what they are doing ­ their prod-ucts & services ­ into some form of the `buzzword'. The past several years, one of the most popular buzzwords is `digital transformation'. In order to achieve some level of consistency in our use of the phrase `digital transformation,' I will share with you my explanation of the term. Digital transformation is what happens when advances in tech-nology (currently in the four areas of social, mobile, analytics and cloud) transform any organization ­ indepen-dent of its products & services ­ into a technology company. This does not mean that every company is being a software company or a networking company or a cloud company. This does mean that we now all succeed or fail based on the customer experience we deliver through technology. As we consider how digital transformation affects each of us, we should remem-ber that now, because of advances in technology, people (our clients & em-ployees) compare what we offer with what the best technology companies in the world offer.Since all changes are now driven by technology, these changes happen fast and so, in general, the pace of the market has increased. Along with a higher rate of speed, technology-driv-en change also increased ambiguity & uncertainty as to the future. Who can now, with confidence, predict what conditions will be like in five years, one year or even six months? Speed & ambiguity put tremendous amounts of pressure on our organizations & our employees. I have spent my career in the high-stakes, fast-paced world of digital transformation and have learned a few lessons that have helped me and my organizations not only survive but thrive in this world. These lessons fall into three primary categories.1. We should focus our innovation only on what creates our sustainable competitive advantage. Today, we have many choices as to what we will IN MY OPINION
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