IS DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ABOUT TECHNOLOGY?

In the first of an eight-part series titled “Is Digital Transformation About Technology?” The authors discuss six themes in the digital transformation process. These topics are Technology, Strategy, Business Models, Engineering Change Management, and Insiders Leverage. The authors write, “The articles in Digital McKinsey Insights offer consultants with an inside perspective on the digital transformation and the individuals, processes, and technology that are critical to their achievement. The series offers both professionals and corporate executives practical real-life advice on how to successfully transform businesses.”

Technology: Is digital transformation about technology? This question is at the core of the first article in the series. I think it is very important to ask this question because digital technologies have changed a lot and the future still looks bright. In fact, just recently at a conference, some of the speakers made a speech about how quickly digital technologies will go beyond traditional design. It seems that some of them see technology as a category of its own and not a subset of all the things that they do.

Technology is also being transformed by the way people view and perceive it. In previous articles, we saw how the transformation process includes a shift from the old business model to the new technologies in which customers are demanding. This has caused a shift in how employees fear about being replaced and how customers fear losing their familiar technology. There is also a fear about losing their skills and being left behind as a result of this change and some fear of being completely left out of the digital transformation process.

People: The transformation means that people will have to experience new technologies in order to participate in the design process. This involves new ways of thinking about design. However, it is not enough to be a designer if you are not going to understand technology. You have to be able to understand the logic behind a design, in order to leverage that logic when designing. Being able to understand technology is the key to being able to successfully leverage it.

Companies: Companies will also need to have a change of mindset. They will need to stop thinking in terms of their “golden years” and start focusing on their “carbon units”. This means that they will have to think about the effect that their actions will have on climate change and on the global economy in general. At the same time, they will also need to understand that there are going to be a lot of changes that come as a result of their adoption of new technology.

Employees: Finally, employees are likely to be affected more by the changes that they face because of the way that they are trained to think about technology. In particular, they are likely to be afraid of being replaced. When you think about it, most people are afraid of being replaced by machines or even their colleagues. Employees, on the other hand, do not know where their job is located. As such, they are less likely to identify with the fear of being replaced.

If you ask an employee if he is scared of being replaced, he is probably not going to be able to answer yes. Instead, he is going to have to analyze the impact that the digital transformation will have on him. He will need to be able to identify how that impact will affect his life and his place in the company. More importantly, he needs to be able to identify how those changes will affect him as a person, since the technology has a huge impact on the way we think and behave as individuals.

Technology is changing. It is changing rapidly. However, most of us are not necessarily going to be completely impacted by it. Many of us will not even notice a difference until it is too late. The question is, how is the digital transformation about technology impacting the world we live in today?