On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Why You Need to Embrace Digital Operations

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Why You Need to Embrace Digital Operations Its difficult to imagine getting through your day without using technology, whether its checking your email, downloading new music or tracking your fitness level. Just as you as an individual rely on technology every day to run your life, so are businesses going digital to run their operations and disrupt entire industries. An Accenturereportnotes digital is upending the way businesses have run in the past consumer products companies are becoming Internet companies, energy companies are becoming information companies and media companies are becoming logistics companies. Thats why its not a matter of if but when companies will embracedigital operations. As the report notes: If every business is a digital business, then the operations that enable and support the business whether theyre delivered internally or through an external provider must be digital as well. Still, its not going to be an easy transformation. There is a common misconception that technology alone can produce magical results. But the reality is the results depend on how people use it, writes McKinseysMarkus Hammer,Malte Hippe,Christoph Schmitz,Richard SellschopandKen Somersin anarticletitled: The Dirty Little Secret About Digitally Transforming Operations. McKinseyresearchfinds that only 26% of major organizational transformations succeed. Those who aresuccessfuluse advanced planning, rely on local solutions to capture value quickly while building long-term solutions and rely on a variety of skills such as production processes and change management, research shows. At the same time, more than 90% of large organizations with revenues over $1 billion now use outside providers for the operations of one or more of their business processes, finds HfS Research. This provides as additional challenge as the external sourcing of operations has in many cases continued on an analog path, and isnt keeping up with digital in other business areas, Accenture research shows. For many companies, the dilemma may be whether they are moving quickly enough toward digital operations. In the Accenture study, 49% of those surveyed say they are currently making only simple transfers of processes and people to a service provider with limited business transformation. But in about two years, 49% say they expect to be engaged with operations focused on transformation of the business and its processes. The payoff forcompanies that embrace digital operationsis lower costs, better compliance, more engaged workers, key business insights and better predictions of where the business needs to go, the report says. With that in mind, Accenture advises these are the keys to success forcreating a successful digital operations environment: Understanding that a digital platform will (read more here)