and labor rights
Health and safety
Environmental sustainability
Trade and export controls
Alexander: How should business models evolve to survive and thrive in an increasingly digital world?
Edna: The global pandemic has accelerated the pace of the digital transformation journey that so many governments and enterprises were already on. In fact, that transformation became an immediate necessity. It also has uncovered the opportunity we have before us to rethink the efficiency and productivity of our business models.
To thrive in the digital world, we must optimize to leverage human talent to meet the needs of customers. After all, digital capacity has a singular purpose: to serve people, not the other way around.
As we evolve our business models to thrive in the increasingly digital economy, we must consider two fundamentals. First, understand what can and should be automated. Second, undertake a core versus context analysis. Digitize using internal core competencies with your own capabilities and talent. Leverage third-party services and solutions (for example, XaaS1) to optimize the implementation of your digital strategy and drive efficiency.
Working through these fundamentals will allow you to begin to free your internal talent to address strategy, transformation, and the roadmap for the next generation of your business. To thrive in the digital world, we must optimize to leverage human talent to meet the needs of customers. After all, digital capacity has a single purpose: to serve people, not the other way around.
Alexander: How can technology shift the roles and responsibilities of the workforce?
Edna: We need to remind ourselves that technology can often give us insight into performance, trends, and anomalies. That insight can empower us to make changes before the full negative impact of an anomaly takes place. Conversely, such insight can provide us with a view to a positive change that we may not have otherwise been able to appreciate without the “help” of technology.
Imagine, for example, a sensor on a manufacturing line that provides real-time feedback. A digitally connected sensor can offer data that can be analyzed in a cloud-based IoT service, affording the manufacturer an opportunity to take action to adjust anomalies or capitalize upon an otherwise undetectable process improvement. Absent that assist from technology, our operational effectiveness may not be as swiftly optimized.
This digital insight allows enterprises to achieve and maintain their critical commitment to customers — trust.
Alexander: Which technology or digital capabilities are essential for a digital strategy?
Edna: To answer that we must first appreciate that we have entered a platform economy. In fact, platforms are pervasive in industry and our personal lives, from connected factories leveraging a single platform for visibility to operations to our own individual use of on-demand personal transportation platforms.
Given that reality, we must apply a layered approach to our digital strategies. There are two technologies that form the foundational layer of any digital strategy: cloud and mobile. These two are must-haves.
Of course, no conversation about digital strategy would be complete without addressing the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. These capabilities can only be deployed on a foundation of mobile data capture, data storage, and data sharing within a cloud platform.
As a start, I suggest applying your digital strategy to your data storage needs. Then you can move on to address the variety of compute capacity needs for your business.
Alexander: What ingredients are required to establish a digital culture?
Edna: As I list those ingredients, let me first note that I believe culture is about people, not technology, so my answers are offered with that perspective.
The first ingredient is fostering open minds that are comfortable with technology.
The second ingredient is appreciating the criticality of including those who may not be comfortable with technology. After all, if you have a group of citizens or a group of co-workers who are not digitally savvy, you are not optimizing the use of their skills and also risking reducing the resilience of your enterprise.
The third ingredient is relentless curiosity: continuously exploring how operations currently work, what can make them more efficient, and how value can be added. This rigorous approach will create a culture that builds digital thinking into strategy and operations.
Alexander: What approaches will managers need to take to advance an enterprise's digital culture?
Edna: Similar to what I shared about the ingredients for establishing a digital culture, managers must focus on people.
First, managers should ensure that those whom they have the privilege of leading have a strong digital foundation. That foundation must include methods to assess and further develop digital skills and techniques to evaluate where and how a digital solution could enhance the business.
Second, managers must embrace regular reevaluation of their operational plans. That reevaluation should include asking yourself and your team these questions:
Is there already an existing tool that we could leverage to free time for critical thinking rather than task implementation?
Does another team already have a digitized process that can be applied to this team's work and goals?
Can we, and how would we automate operational tasks?
What are the platforms and tools we are using or could use to collaborate digitally and serve as the repository(ies) of our work product?
Applying this approach to managing routine operations and new initiatives allows a manager to make digital thinking part of the team's DNA.
Alexander: What are the most important digital capabilities for protecting users' identities and data?
Edna: I would focus on the following four digital capabilities to protect identity and data:
Role-based access control
Digital identity management
Encryption
Network and function segmentation
And, as always, educate users on how to identify and evade efforts to gain credentials and information.
Alexander: A recent study found that unmanaged devices are 71 percent more likely to have malware.2 What's the most effective way to combat this?
Edna: Today's reality is that the workforces of both private enterprises and the public sector use their own devices. No one entity can manage all the devices in the modern economy.
