Digital Transformation Blog

Digital disruption and transformation are reshaping the business landscape, making it more important than ever for companies to have a board of directors with the right skills. In this article, we will explore the benefits of digital transformation and what to look for when appointing a digital transformation director.  Whether a company is a start-up or a well-established enterprise, understanding the impact of digital disruption and having a board with the right skills is crucial for success in today's rapidly evolving business environment.

According to the World Economic Forum by 2025, 85 million jobs will be displaced by automation and technology but 97 million new roles will be created by 2025 as humans, machines and algorithms work together. These include robots to aid physical activities such as coral reef conservation, drones to deliver much needed medicine to remote locations, generative artificial intelligence to create new media and automation to remove routine tasks.

How Will We Get There?

As the role of the CIO continues to evolve and become increasingly complex, it is important to be able to effectively navigate uncertainty and adapt to change. Digital technology has not only disrupted traditional business models, but it has also fundamentally transformed the way that leadership is approached and executed. According to research from Gartner, successful digital initiatives require significant shifts in technology leadership and a willingness to embrace new ways of thinking and problem-solving. 

https://www.gartner.com/en/topics/data-and-analytics

The latest Digital Ireland report from Microsoft reveals that business leaders have accelerated their digital transformations due to the Covid-19 pandemic but are only scratching the surface when keeping up with customer demand and employee engagement.

The Systems Development Lifecycle (SDLC) is an older IS development method used for large projects with formal specifications and tight controls. However it is expensive, rigid, time-consuming, expensive and discourages changes once user requirements are done (Morgan, 2020). SDLC works in traditional systems development models in structured environments. According to Morgan (2020), SDLC provides high degrees of control, accountability and error detection. There are alternative methods:

There are several definitions of supply chain management (SCM). ‘The design and management of seamless, value-added processes across organizational boundaries to meet the real needs of the end customer’ (Institute for Supply Management).

Does your data have value? If it does, do you know how to monetise it?

Customer relationship management (CRM) is an organizational strategy (not a technology) focused on assessing and satisfying customers needs. CRM provides front line sales/marketing/support staff with a single view of customer data. It is used to maximize the lifetime value of a customer and minimize customer churn. It can be used to support customer relationships by attracting new customers, satisfy existing customers, retaining them and extracting further revenue via cross-selling and up-selling. This can be supported by an organisations CRM system such as salesforce or SAP.

What is a ‘business model’

IS is an ‘Interrelated components working together to collect, process, store, and disseminate information to support decision making, coordination, control, analysis, and visualization in an organization.’ (Laudon and Laudon 2019). IS supports operations, management, decision-making (Bulgacs & Simon, 2013), interaction and support business processes (Kroenke 2008 and O 'Brien 2003). Alter (2003) captures, transmits, stores, retrieves, manipulates and displays information (Alter 2006).