The age of digital experimentation is over, according to global consultancy McKinsey & Co. To stay competitive, companies should now be making a full commitment to going digital. To make the transition, the consultancy suggests seven “highly effective” habits to transform enterprises.
There is no blueprint for success, but there are plenty of examples that offer insights into the approaches and actions of a successful digital transformation, according to a recently released McKinsey report.
They suggest:
• Be unreasonably aspirational – make someone accountable at board level; create a stretch vision; measure digital value and not digital transactions
• Acquire new capabilities – buy scarce talent en masse; hire for digital skills, not industry experience; move into adjacent markets
• Ring fence and cultivate talent – protect digital talent from “business as usual”; don’t rely on existing HR models
• Challenge everything – don’t accept historical norms; question the status quo; create a plan covering every function, product, business unit, and location
• Be quick and data driven – continually evolve your value proposition; embrace live testing; create a data-based view of each customer
• Follow the money – create a zero-base tech budget aligned with value at stake; invest across the value chain; scale success rapidly
• Be obsessed with the customer – learn from every interaction; relentlessly evolve and improve the customer experience.
It’s not enough to develop just one or two of these habits, say the report’s authors. “The real innovators will learn to excel at all seven of them.” But doing so does call for a “radically different mindset and operating approach”.
For more information go to: www.mckinsey.com
