Sharpen Three Business Elements to Get the Organization “Digital Ready”

Organizations large and small are on the journey for digital transformation. “Being digital ready” goes beyond just applying the latest digital technology, or renovate IT organization only. It is a multifaceted effort and touches every aspect of the business. Here are three critical business factors to get the organization “Digital Ready.”
Digital capability building: The business capability is the ability to achieve the desired effect under specified performance standards and conditions through combinations of talents and resources, processes, and technologies to perform a set of activities. Compared to the business capability of the traditional organization, digital capability is more dynamic, agile, and innovation. Because digital technology is more powerful, but lightweight, as a “superglue” to weave all necessarily important business elements into the building blocks of business capability and highlight the characteristics of “Changeable Organization.” Building a set of high-effective and lego like recombinant digital capabilities is the preparatory steps in Digital Strategy Management. Besides operational capability to keep the lights on, in any case to monitor or seek disruptive opportunities requires businesses’ transformational capability with agility to adapt to changes, and the innovation ability to build differentiated competency of the business.
Digital structure tuning: In a world that has been transformed by technology, many old and powerful hierarchies became ‘commoditized,” the digital blurs the functional, business, and even industrial territories. Compared to traditional organizational structure with rigid hierarchy, digital organizations need to fine tune a successful structure to improve customer-centricity. Traditional hierarchical lines will phase out and a collective of business partners will emerge working collaboratively to set and achieve organizational goals as well as strategy. Currently, the emphasis of an organizational business partner will spread to all employees of an organization and its ecosystem. The challenge for any business is to find a successful structure that helps empower people, enforce iterative communication, and cross-functional collaboration and deliver better business results. Limited hierarchy works best in a creative environment where the free flow of ideas and their prompt implementation is a key element of success.
Digital workforce performance system design: Digital is the age of people, both for delighting customers and engaging employees. Digital workforce management needs to focus on “future” - how to help employees to make continuous improvement, not just get stuck on the past behaviors. You cannot command innovation and adaptation, but you can enable, encourage, inspire and even lead for improving workforce performance. Hence, workforce performance improvement must take the long view and may require a core DNA transplant - the culture transformation. Designing a performance management system that makes sense for your company depends on many factors, including the nature of your business, your company culture, and your mission.  There is no single initiative or program or the "theme for the year" that will suffice to raise the performance of a company or business function. The key  is not to choose one path over the other, but to tailor the talent management and performance management solutions depending on the situation and advantages, you want to gain. Also, you can't command someone to be creative or adaptive. People must have other intangible performance drivers that get them motivated with ambition and creativity. In some cases, a more traditional method might make sense, but with increasing speed of change, the performance of Performance Management needs to be continuously assessed and adjusted as well.
There is no magic formula to get your business digital ready. It takes practices, practices, and practice to sharpen all crucial business factors. Practice to enforce digital ways. Not only are “digital pivotals” who are pioneering what this all looks like and how to really ground it and manifest it in the business dynamic, but mainstream companies are gradually opening up to the next practice to enforce digital ways and build up business competency.
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