For digital transformation, the industry has many different definitions and statements, which are dazzling, which leads to the misunderstanding of many enterprise leaders that digitization is similar to the previous informatization, and can be handed over to the informatization department for planning and implementation. If we understand the digital transformation in this way, it is inevitable that it will not achieve the effect.
Successful symbol of digital transformation
What is digital transformation? To sum up in one sentence is to reconstruct business and organization with digital technology.
This means doing business again with emerging digital technologies. The most extreme examples are apple and Tesla turning mobile phones and cars into digital products. However, this is only the reconstruction of products. The reconstruction of organizations and business processes will lead to more profound organizational changes.
The application of emerging digital technology requires corresponding organizational changes, and its potential can be fully released.
The former is relatively simple and easy, while the latter is more complex and arduous, because it involves the change of production relations and overcoming organizational inertia.
But the latter is more powerful. Production relationship is the relationship between people in production, which involves reconstructing external partnership and activating internal organization and people.
Therefore, digital transformation depends on technology and organization.
Successful enterprises in digital transformation have two significant signs: truly customer-centric and data-driven, that is, they are all customer-centric technology enterprises.
Huawei and other leading enterprises have long adhered to the customer-centered concept. Does the implementation of this concept rely more on technology or organizational strength?
What are the similarities between Haier, an old benchmark of manufacturing industry, and handu clothes house, a digital original e-commerce enterprise?
They are customer-centric.
Haier emphasizes rendanheyi, and handu Yishe emphasizes the independent business entity composed of three person groups. The common feature is that they have formed an “inverted triangle” organizational structure. Customers are high above everything else. Below is the small front-end that provides personalized services, and then below is the big platform that empowers the small front-end.
Today’s digital technology can portray users’ behaviors and preferences, making users’ insight more accurate than ever.
However, without the concept of “rendanheyi” and the corresponding inverted triangular organizational structure, there is no small front-end close to customers to carry out the whole process of personalized service from product R & D to sales and after-sales, and employees have no independent management right and incentive. Even if the user’s portrait ability is strong, its role is very limited.
Obviously, the realization of the customer-centric concept depends more on the organization than on digital technology.
Digital transformation must be accompanied by organizational change
A thorough digital transformation must be accompanied by organizational change. It involves at least the following four aspects.
● first, in order to unleash the great potential of digital technology, rather than transform for transformation, enterprises need to redefine their mission, vision and business strategy to drive and lead digital transformation.
For example, the new vision of Sany Heavy Industry Co.Ltd(600031) is to double the sales revenue within five years (from more than 100 billion yuan to 300 billion yuan), reduce the industrial workers of 30000 people to 3000 people, and expand the R & D and engineer team of less than 5000 people to 30000 people.
The composition of employees will change fundamentally. As a result, enterprises will reduce thousands of workers every year, and each department should “back” indicators, which are converted into active transformation measures such as how many Siasun Robot&Automation Co.Ltd(300024) or robots will be added every year, and how many are realized by the improvement of process technology.
This new vision will drive enterprises to completely transform from labor-intensive traditional manufacturing enterprises to knowledge intensive enterprises.
Similar to Sany Heavy Industry Co.Ltd(600031) , New Hope Liuhe Co.Ltd(000876) group also clearly puts forward the “five new” concept, namely “new mechanism, new youth, new technology, new track and new responsibility”. Liu Yonghao uses the “five new” concept to promote intelligence and form a new business strategy.
He asked each department of the group to carry out information, intelligent and digital construction, and must go to the forefront of the industry and become the first or tied for the first place.
The new vision will be transformed into a strong organizational driving force, because there is no other way and means to realize this vision, only through intelligent manufacturing and digital transformation.
● secondly, with a new vision and business strategy, it also needs a new organizational structure and incentive mechanism.
Successful transformation enterprises have established permanent specialized agencies to promote digital transformation, such as business process department or Intelligent Manufacturing Research Institute. From the group to each subordinate unit, there are special digital or intelligent manufacturing teams and principals.
In addition, the original organization also needs to be reconstructed to make it more “Data-Driven” and customer-centric. In response to the increasingly changeable personalized needs of customers, the new organizational form must be borderless, flat, platform and ecological.
Flattening is also an inevitable result of digitization, because once all businesses are online, a large amount of employee behavior data will precipitate, everything will become transparent, and many management functions will not be necessary.
● thirdly, digital transformation requires new people and new thinking, because disruptive innovation requires diversified thought collision.
Most of the successful transformation enterprises actively introduce key high-end talents from the outside, especially those with digital thinking and skills. In addition to introducing new people, the training of existing employees is more important, including the transformation of top leaders and top leaders of units at all levels.
This is a triangular cycle of learning to change cognition, then produce action, and finally feed back learning. All profound organizational changes and business paradigm changes must be based on the leap of cognition. Enterprises that have successfully achieved digital transformation have a key commonality: leaders with high self-discipline and love of learning.
They pay special attention to external learning, are keen to learn from industry benchmarks and digital original enterprises, and strive to promote all staff to learn and train the theories, methods and tools of digital transformation, so as to build a learning organization.
In addition, the entry point of reconstructing business using digital technology is usually the biggest pain point of enterprises or industries. However, the pain points of each enterprise are different, which is very different from the previous informatization.
ERP, MES and CRM, which are mainly involved in traditional informatization, are essentially standardized kits and provide standardized processes; In the process of digital transformation, each enterprise has different pain points, different technological processes and different equipment standards, so the digital transformation scheme and path are highly personalized and thousands of enterprises and thousands of aspects.
Therefore, digital transformation cannot be completed by external forces or IT departments, let alone “turnkey” projects. Digital transformation must be driven by business and driven by business and it, which is an endogenous innovation of the enterprise.
At present, with the increasing popularity of light code applications, business personnel can build various management systems by “dragging” through the graphical interface of the instrumental platform, so as to play a main role in the digital transformation.
In the future, the digital transformation of enterprises cannot rely on Internet companies or external suppliers, but on the digital talents and data scientists of business origin trained in the enterprise. Finally, the main body of digital transformation is business personnel, not it personnel.
For example, nailing has become a light code development platform for enterprise digital transformation.
The digital ecosystem built by nailing in the early stage mainly covers some management functions, including human resource management such as office coordination, attendance and performance, as well as online business such as financial reimbursement. Nowadays, a large number of production management applications have been extended, even industrial Internet and IOT (Internet of things) applications.
Through the third-party interface, the sensors on key equipment can transmit the equipment operation status to the nailing platform, and business personnel can build various applications such as production, material and quality management through low code.
Non it business personnel, including process and process engineers, can combine digital technology with business. Business personnel will become the main force of digital transformation, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises.
● finally, digital transformation requires Shanghai New Culture Media Group Co.Ltd(300336) a culture that encourages innovation, tolerates failure, and new data thinking that uses digital technology to solve all pain points.
Only in this way can enterprises emerge endlessly with endogenous and self driven innovation. Employees constantly build new applications iteratively for various business scenarios to realize bottom-up innovation. Therefore, Shanghai New Culture Media Group Co.Ltd(300336) is the guarantee of successful transformation like the organization. From leaders to employees, we should internalize the concept of digital transformation in our hearts in order to turn it into conscious action.
The experience of successful transformation enterprises shows that digital transformation is a profound organizational change, which needs the guarantee of new vision and business blueprint, new organization, newcomers and Shanghai New Culture Media Group Co.Ltd(300336) .