Adopt or die

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Digital disruption is real, it is happening now – at pace. Everything that can be digitised will be digitised, including products, services, business models, and value chains. No company is immune, irrespective of industry, age, or previous and current success.

As the world of work continues to change, impacted by Digital Disruption and Digital Business Transformation – the workplace must change too. If we acknowledge digital business transformation as being organisational change that relies on the use of digital technologies and business models to improve performance, then we must ask why do so many of these company transformations fail? Let’s be very clear, the failure rate is as high as 95 per cent.

For a start, conventional change management does not lend itself to major changes in complex, entangled organisations. And, at no point should the importance of business agility and corporate culture be underestimated as components critical to successful transformation. However, we should perhaps also think about the technology itself, or more importantly how well the technology is adopted – or not. The pace of technological change is exponential. People and things are connected in ways we could never have imagined even five years ago. The opportunity to do great things using technology as an enabler is not disputed. The problem is not with the technology. The challenge lies in the adoption of the technology, often stemming from the way it is sold. There is much work to do pre and post-sale to ensure business value is derived from the point of initial investment, and the required business outcomes are achieved. The responsibility for successful adoption is a shared endeavour for the technology vendor, their partners, and the customer organisation. In today’s world of customer driven business innovation and the unquestionable need for businesses to develop agile operating models, the need for continuous innovation is the difference between thriving and perishing. Innovation of this nature requires unprecedented levels of collaboration across an entire business eco-system.

As we look to the future of work, and as we embrace the opportunities and benefits offered by the multi-generational work-force, we need to re-imagine the workplace. It is imperative to create spaces and places that attract the right talent, irrespective of location. The right people in the wrong places is a whole lot better than the wrong people in the right places. Technology breaks down the barriers of talent location and allows the right people to be located anywhere, where any place can be an office, and everyone can be a team.

Businesses must embrace flexible working practices, promote agility, and create conducive physical and virtual environments for collaboration. Those who adopt and embrace technology to collaborate will facilitate innovation at pace, and will be able to do more, better, for less. A holistic approach to workplace transformation across space, place, talent and technology is a must to attract and retain the right talent; to innovate at pace with a happier, healthier, more productive work-force centre-stage within the company.

How does your company measure up?

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Ali Hawksworth

Ali Hawksworth

Envisioning lead and Future of Work visionary for Adoptt. Identifying and resolving the big workplace problems that are ‘hiding in plain sight’. Preparing and equipping the leadership teams of partners, customers and vendors to survive and thrive in a world of digital disruption.

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