The Digital Transformation Revolution

The world is moving digital, it is part of everything we do in our daily life but, what about transformation? Everyone seems to know what it means but, what is the real digital transformation for a company? Olivier Van Duüren, Founder of The Dualarity, is a leader in personal and business transformation that participates in the Digital Business Global Master as a professor. In the video below, Olivier illustrates his vision of the Digital Transformation Revolution based on three pillars: the customer as the Heart, people as the Soul and digital as the Oxygen.What defines us, what we need to live, our heart, our soul and oxygen, can be mapped by how we view business and organizations. The same three pillars form the foundation for your business: put the customer at the heart, see digital as the oxygen and value people as the soul. These need to go hand-in-hand with the company’s overarching why – your purpose, your cause, what you believe and for whom – and the what – proof, the result, what you do. Transforming while performing is a true balancing act, challenging companies of all sizes in this digital revolution powered by new technologies crossing the physical, digital and biological world. How do you find the right balance between performing – delivering on the short-term commitments of your core products and services, such as scorecard, P&L, market share – and transforming – the long-term belief in your future and the power to adapt and lead? You do this by looking at the three interconnected pillars for your organization: heart, soul and oxygen. There are three fundamental questions in making 'digital' transformation real. How do you:

1. Engage your customers, deliver and enhance the end to end customer experience for products and services, and put the customer at the heart? How do you innovate your products to deliver a great and frictionless experience? Are you a customer centric organization? How do I turn them into fans? Can I track my metrics real-time?
2. Transform your business, such as your business model, operations, process, offerings and products, by embracing innovation to be more responsive, efficient, fluid, agile and predictive? How do you make digital the oxygen of your company?
3. Empower your employees and organize yourself in the most productive way, reward cross-group collaboration, develop the right skills and mindsets, and attract and retain the right talent by having people as the soul? Reward performing and transforming and cross-boundary collaboration. Foster dynamic vs static hierarchies.

But first, you must determine your why, your purpose, and what, your aspiration, before you craft your heart, soul and oxygen pillars. Simon O. Sinek, author, speaker and consultant wrote Start With Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action (2009), described by TED as ‘a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?”’, says, ‘Feel inspired and inspire others. Do you know why? The purpose, cause, or belief that inspires you to do what you do?’ He discovered that all inspiring leaders and organizations of the world think, act and communicate in a similar way. They do not only know what they do and how they do it, but they know exactly why they do it. Sinek’s model has what you actually do in the outer circle. In the middle circle is how you do what you do. The most important circle, though, is the inner circle – why you do what you do. This can be applied to people, your personal life, as easily as it can be applied to businesses and start-ups. The goal is to do business with people who have the same beliefs and you will attract people who believe what you believe. Some great examples of whys: Uber wants to evolve the way the world moves; Life is Good wants to spread the power of optimism; Ikea wants to create a better everyday life for people and Steve Jobs wanted to make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind An MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology study on digital transformation has shown the companies that have digitally transformed are 26% more profitable than their average industry competitors. And this transformation is not just about technology, innovation and science; it’s about people, culture, behaviours, passion and mindsets. The real question will be: how can you accelerate, scale and mainstream digital transformation in your organization? And it has to be more than new words with old instruments. No one has really cracked it yet and there is probably no single formula, but what I will do in the next postings is share some of my views and my learnings to act as a guide for you and your business so you can thrive in this fast-paced world.

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