As companies continue to include technology as a pivotal part of their operations, it is becoming tougher for CEO’s to stay on top of the changes.
But it is incredible how just 4 percent CEO’s believe that they have a complete understanding of the digital business strategy of their company. Even when it comes to IT companies, just 9 percent say that they are on top of every development. How could they be? There is only so much time in the day.
That is why you have to hire people you trust.
Rapid growth of technology
These are astonishing numbers for sure. Part of this is because technology changes so quickly these days. But it is also a problem about the mindset of people and how they look at technology.
More than 50 percent of the businesses polled expected cloud services to earn at least 40 percent of their total revenue by the year 2020. This may just prove to be an optimistic number since they have no idea how to achieve the target.
Just a quarter of them have strategies which define how they are going to transform their companies into digital businesses by creating new sources of customer value. 48 percent are only enhancing their existing models with the help of digital elements like websites, social media, or apps. A quarter of them are planning bolt-on approaches whereas 2 percent are ignoring digital developments.
The first wave of digital transformation came about in the late 90’s when e-commerce and websites were introduced. The second wave came with cloud computing, mobile apps, and social media around 2005. The third wave promises to be even more comprehensive and holistic. Technology is no longer going to be looked at for improving efficiency. It will now be the foundation of successful revenue growth and strategies.
Targeting individual customers
When it comes to manufacturing, sensors, and robotics, let companies tailor outputs for individual customers as opposed to mass production. Media companies are shifting to the cloud for delivering entertainment and content to individual customers.
IT needs to move to the front office and be the driver of revenue in tomorrow’s world. But business units currently look at IT as suppliers instead of as partners. This attitude must change. They need to work from the perspective of the customer and make their business more agile by designing digital experiences into every service and product.
The ecosystem
Luckily, CIO’s do not have to do all of this on their own. They can draw them from the ecosystem of the cloud by choosing partners who have the skills required to build cloud-enabled systems.
The cloud is restructuring and disrupting everything. All enterprises are going to be using cloud technologies by the year 2025. At this point, 85 percent of the workload is going to be in the cloud according to predictions. Business leaders will need to change their mindset from looking at IT as just a support system and start seeing it as a critical part of their organization. They need to be bold enough to make use of IT for driving innovation.
Companies have to redesign their traditional processes with these new technologies instead of passively adapting existing technologies for existing processes.
