Turning Victims into Victors of Digital Disruption

4 min read

Michael Dai, Global Head for Digital Transformation shares why Consulus is introducing the DigitalCORE™ solution

Preventing more Economic Victims
Digital disruption by the 4th Industrial Revolution has forced many companies to shut down. But these companies are not the only victims of digital disruption. Many people have and will lose their jobs and their dignity because they do not have the technical skills to enable them to return to the workforce. Victims also include the older generation due to their age and lack of digital skills to be employed.

Many victims have tried hard to find jobs but remain unemployed despite their efforts. Pope Francis called on entrepreneurs to work toward changing the rules of the games of the socio-economic system to not only caring for victims but build a system where there are ever fewer victims¹.

I was in the audience listening to Pope Francis together with my colleagues from Consulus, and we felt that we can make a difference in the area of digital transformation with an emphasis on helping people adapt to the rapid changes.

A recent Forbes article by Bruce Rogers² provides a harsh reality check. 84 percent of Digital Transformation projects have failed because businesses were not prepared to change their behaviour. Only 16 percent of organizations were doing well with Digital Transformation projects; and these people were aware and understood the challenge of Digital Transformation. From the Capgemini Digital Transformation Institute Survey³, 62% of responses found that the cultural issues within the institutions were the top hurdle to digital transformation.

Find out more about DigitalCORE™

A growing human crisis requires a specific solution
According to the World Economic Forum in 2016⁴, digital disruption has caused many well-known brands and company names to disappear from the Fortune 500 company list because their once successful businesses did not respond fast enough to become new digital business models. This means a lot of people will face unemployment and uncertainty. So as a team, we decided to put our solution out there in a direct way to say that we are here help. This is a commitment to do something concrete so as to make a difference.

In reality, many companies face challenges of keeping up-to-date with emerging technology. Often, companies do not know where to turn for technical advice with their day-to-day technical issues. Businesses resist asking for help because of the fear of the unknown, a lack of understanding of issues and sometimes, embarrassment. Unless their technical issues are becoming critical and having an impact on their business, companies are reluctant to seek consultancy services. It is only when these technical issues have reached a point of crisis that management will seek a trusted consulting company for IT advice and technical services urgently.

What is DigitalCORE™’s Approach
Consulus advantage has always an expert in helping companies discover their existential purpose before embarking on a comprehensive organisational transformation. DigitalCORE™ builds upon this experience with a special emphasis on how to design a system to reduce the victims of unemployment and ensure the survival rate of the company.

The key ingredient is to involve the staff in the organisation regardless of whether they are technically inclined or their age. Involving existing staff will be beneficial for the Digital Transformation initiative because it will leverage on their professional skills, their work experience and the domain knowledge of existing business processes. The starting point of DigitalCORE™ will be to consider upskilling staff so that they can become familiar with emerging digital technologies through technical training.

Once the staff have been trained, a DigitalCORE™ Team will collaborate with HR, the staff from both business and IT units to explore and develop a suitable digital solution for the business. HR, who understand the strength and weakness of existing staff, is the key enabler to bring the workforce together to reimagine the business processes based on Digital Technologies, such as Cloud, Big Data, Virtual Reality (VR), Social Media and Mobility services.

The purpose of DigitalCORE™ is to collaborate with our clients to identify their digital training requirements for their staff and assist them to formulate a Digital Transformation Strategy to determine how Digital Technology may create value for their business. Fundamentally we believe that people should not be replaced by IT Technology merely to reduce the workforce. The professional skills and domain knowledge of their staff are the most valuable asset to the organization. Therefore, it is important to empower the staff to work on the Digital Transformation project to redesign their existing business processes.

The aim of the Digital Transformation project is to collaborate with our clients to respond effectively to a situation where digital disruption challenges are impacting their business. Our method involves the following:

• Reviewing the impact of digitalisation on their industry and business
• Determining the level of digital skills and domain knowledge of the current workforce
• Raising Digital Technology awareness through technical training to enable the workforce to understand the benefits of deploying Digital Technologies for the business
• Designing a balanced digital and human transformation roadmap to ensure innovation and growth
• Implementing a Human-centered Digital Transformation Strategy, Roadmap and Solution Development Approach
• Leveraging on Digital Technology Solutions such as Cloud, Big Data, Virtual Reality (VR), Social Media and Mobility online services to empower human development

References

1. http://www.edc-online.org/en/home-en/international-events/eocwiththepope/12836-the-pope-francis-speech.html
2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2016/01/07/why-84-of-companies-fail-at-digital-transformation/#6824b325397b
3. https://www.capgemini.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/embracing_digital_technology_a_new_strategic_imperative.pdf
4. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/digital-disruption-has-only-just-begun/

Michael Dai serves as the Global Head for Digital Transformation at Consulus
He has 29 years of experience in technology and digital transformation working in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong and China. He specialises in IT Transformation such as Cloud Technology, IT Infrastructure, Complex Application Systems, Digital Solutions based on Messaging, Internet Portal & Mobile Apps and Enterprise Security.