Planning and time: factors for the success of digital transformation

As much as we might say it outright, the level of implementation of digital transformation within organizations is not satisfactory. The implementation of large group-startup programs, the development of mobile applications, massive recruitment of data scientists and AI specialists... we are most often witnessing the implementation of disorganized initiatives, and one may wonder whether the objective is not more to satisfy financial analysts than to carry out real in-depth work. It is true that there are few companies that have demonstrated that it is possible to make a complete digital transition. However, companies such as General Electric, Decathlon, Haier... have shown that it is possible, provided that they devote a significant amount of energy and total management commitment. The necessary prerequisite is that the digital revolution induces a radical organisational change, which will eventually affect the corporate culture. The collapse of symbols of power and hierarchy, risk-taking, radical and plural confrontation are some of the consequences of the digital transformation, which are generally very unexpected by management. And while managers are often very willing to talk proudly about the use of deep-learning within their company, they find it infinitely more difficult to admit that they are now working within a project group, on an equal footing with a twenty-five year old coder. The first mistake to avoid is to consider digital transformation over too short a period of time, under the pretext of a high competitive risk, requiring them to adapt their production system to the same standard as the identified competitor. Since it is a change that, beyond technology, will induce profound modifications in business model, managerial organization and even culture, it is much better to take the full measure of these inducements and to accept to project its digital transformation over a long period of time. From our experience, a minimum of four to five years is necessary. To those who might observe that these are not the temporal rhythms to which companies are generally accustomed, it should be objected that a transformation as important as the one induced by the digital revolution might only occur once a century. The implementation of a digital transformation project therefore requires planning and method. While the theoretical framework is still poorly described, the most advanced companies are providing us with valuable lessons on what needs to be done. Four steps in particular seem to be almost inevitable. 1/Competency mapping The starting point of a serious digital transformation project requires the identification of the digital skills already present in the organisation at all hierarchical levels and not only in the managerial layers. This question of available skills leads to other questions: what is the starting point for mapping this expertise? What is the place of soft skills in this reference framework? How can this repository of dynamic skills be kept up to date? Human resources are often overwhelmed by the pace of change in the environment and struggle to establish a relevant and up-to-date GPEC. Experience shows that mapping reveals a lot of surprises. Experts in code, digital culture and social networks are sometimes located at the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid because this is where the younger generations, who are more skillful on these subjects, sometimes concentrate. This expertise is also frequently found outside the IT department. But this obviously differs from one organisation to another. 2/ Create a Digital Transformation Task Force Once the skills mapping of current and future talent has been completed, it is important to select the profiles that will carry this transformation and drive it forward: this will then be a task force of "digital transformation champions, internal. With them, the aim here is to ensure that a limited number of employees integrate a new way of doing things and behaving in the organization so that it then becomes part of the organization's collective consciousness. This is the "hundredth monkey phenomenon" observed by the anthropologist Ken Keyes with the macaques on the island of Koshima in Japan: it only takes a critical minimum number of "converted" individuals to turn an entire organisation upside down by widely communicating awareness.

This work of identifying and mobilizing champions is a prerequisite for any transformation. And relying on these internal driving forces costs significantly less than hiring a battery of external consultants and, above all, provides a superior training force. 3/ initiating projects in lab mode In order to effectively rely on champions, the organization will need to ensure that they are provided with specific training adapted to the company's strategy. This team can be entrusted with many tasks, including the implementation of digital innovations in a new organizational framework. It is highly desirable to give a different physical framework to these players, so that they can more easily find new brands, implement new schemes, encourage breakthrough thinking, risk-taking and project mode. The objective of such a framework is as much to experiment, to implement digital projects that are important to the company as to allow a new daring, because what is not possible within an incremental organization, often becomes possible when we isolate employees and confront them with new collaborators. For example, a large French company could not envisage creating a free mobile banking service, which was considered to be too far removed from the original business, and finally implemented it under good conditions by "isolating" employees who wanted to test this model. However, it is important not to cut these employees off from their original organizations, and ideally to avoid them spending more than a week away from their traditional employees, in order to avoid producing schisms in the company and to prevent the contamination of the new management models. 4/ Create a roadmap for digital transformation Beyond that, leading a digital transformation also means being able to describe and widely share a long time project. Many managers are reluctant to expose the digital transformation project to all employees for fear of revealing their uncertainty about the company's future business models, or even, de facto, to expose their poor mastery of these issues. This transparency on the long-term vision is however essential for the adhesion to a project of technological and human transformation and an evolution of the company's business model. The most advanced organizations, such as Amazon, for example, present roadmaps on these three components (technological, human, business model) with a horizon of 5 years or more. We might as well not lie to ourselves: reality will certainly invalidate a good part of this roadmap...but it will serve above all to inspire change, set the troops in motion and develop a culture of risk and boldness that will be decisive in this new epic. But by observing more than 230 organizations of all sizes and from all sectors, valuable lessons can be learned about what works. The construction of this roadmap could be assigned to "champions", obviously in collaboration with the company's management, and would consist of developing a roadmap for digital transformation. Make no mistake, this is an ambitious project, which will require strong management involvement. It will be a matter of making hypotheses about what the medium-term business model could be, of thinking about the gradual evolution of technological tools and technology governance models, as well as initiating a human capital roadmap that will be articulated with the vision and the technological roadmap. It would indeed be absurd to have technologies such as IPAs, data lakes, etc. and not have enough in-house skills to implement them. Conclusion Contrary to a widespread feeling, the most delicate point will generally not be found in the technology, but in the management model and corporate culture: how to gradually dismantle the divisions in order to generalize the project mode? How to convince researchers to become "open innovators"? If each company is a particular case, all of them will nevertheless require management to show unfailing determination and courage.

The pitfalls are particularly numerous. The main one is the belief that we can make the digital revolution from within, by gradually introducing transversality, project mode and new business models. Those who have tried this approach have only been able to see how powerful antibodies and other resistances to innovation are: generally speaking, "innovative viruses" are quickly decried, marginalized and unable to implement their project. The whole art of management therefore consists in creating the conditions for the emergence of a new culture, new tools, new business models without these being either too much outside the company or too much within it, thus allowing them to develop and gradually contaminate it.