Starting today, I will give a list of small tips that I will give systematically, and want to be always short and basic, but provide a reason for reflection.
They come as Deep Dive (DD), and that is the reason for the different naming. They are thought between newsletter editions as an argument to analyze more vertically.
A first important tip when you work on a digital transformation is to be sure that everyone you work with has the same understanding of it and how it differs from digitization or digitalization.
Digitization is the activity related to bringing a certain process or product from analog to digital. For example, a newspaper that was historically on paper and started to make a digital version of it executed a digitization of the product.
Digitalization is instead the use of digital technologies to enable or improve a business process. Again, taking the newspaper, the fact that a newspaper is now digitally available, brings the opportunity to add video and other content or introduce added services, like online payment for ad hoc content.
A digital transformation is a coordinated effort, in terms of digitalization actions, across all aspects of business, touching processes, people, technology, and metrics, bringing a strategic transformation of the entire company, to bring meaningful outcomes. Taking the example of the newspaper again, it would be a comprehensive way that the newspaper would change the way to operate, the strategic revenue sources, toward digital products, transforming the model of business entirely.
They represent different stages of an evolution process, and it is important to understand that while a Technology lead is executing a digital transformation, the overall Digital transformation is led by the top management as one group, because it is transforming entirely how the company is operating, and the strategic impact is influencing the entire company.
Giuseppe Genovesi (GG)