The Digital Battle — The Roles of Business and IT in Digital Transformation

 Welcome to the 100th episode of the Digital Enterprise Society podcast.  Today  Thom Singer and Craig Brown reflect on the depth and breadth of the first 100 episodes of the podcast as well as look forward to the future of the podcast. This milestone episode also marks the first episode of The Digital Battle, a new opportunity for listeners to hear both the point and counterpoint of a hot topic in the digital world.  To help with the first debate they are joined by Digital Enterprise Society Trustee for Content IT Mark Pendergast.  Craig and Mark debate the role of business and IT in digital transformation, addressing who should lead, the roles of vendors, outsourcers and consultants, and lessons that can be learned from both successful and unsuccessful digital transformation initiatives.    On today’s podcast, you will learn:   Business or IT — who should lead? The person with the skills and knowledge should be the leader, but that often isn’t the case.  Greater alignment across all boards leads to greater productivity and results.  Define what measures of success are to each interested party — increased communication will lead to increased alignment in efforts. Digital transformations too often fail because IT doesn’t understand business processes.   What drives digital transformation? Crisis is a great driver to instigate change in a company.  The pandemic has created great opportunities to create change.  Changing consumers, conditions and efficiencies also drive change.  Cost centers and enabling savings are both critical considerations when implementing change. “If it’s not broken don’t fix it” is not the right mindset for an effective digital transformation.   What is the potential payback for a digital transformation?  A true transformation goes far beyond a few low-cost tweaks here and there. Process corrections need to happen before a digital transformation can happen.  Longer term paybacks are most likely to come to companies that are led by system thinkers.    Partnership or competition? There will always be a competition if the measures are inconsistent between business and IT groups.  Competitive advantages come when IT departments and business departments both bring solutions and meaningful data to the table.  There are important lessons that can be learned from successful partnerships in digital transformation.   Continue the conversation with us within the Digital Enterprise Society Community at www.DigitalEnterpriseSociety.org.   Digital Guideposts Blog