We now live in a landscape of digital disruption caused by three new technology paradigms – the simultaneous rise of Cloud, Social, and Mobile working together are changing the way we do things in every part of our business and personal lives. They are part of what we call the Digital Enterprise Wave of change and emerging technologies that are changing business and the world of work. But up to now that potential has been unrealised in so many companies and organisations. This manifesto lays down our roadmap for making digital and social work at the heart of business.
1. We want to transform “business as usual” – everyone’s business model is under threat from digital disruption as the shift to cloud, social, and mobile are happening simultaneously. Businesses have no option – change or risk being leapfrogged by a more nimble competitor. More here.
2. Business has become a social object – business always was social, but it is now becoming a social object – social networks form around it naturally, and we need to foster and facilitate those networks to add both tangible and intangible value. More here.
3. There are no one size fits all solutions – all businesses are different and evolve at different rates – our approach to helping them innovate, change and transform needs to be adaptable, an evolution not a revolution.
4. Digital Transformation needs to work across the entire value chain – corporations have realised they can collaborate with their consumers using social media and digital tools for sales, marketing and service, but we want to shift the emphasis towards social collaboration, digital tools and new ways of working between employees, teams and other stakeholders directly connected to the business process to drive returns across value networks inside and out.
5. Treat people as Individuals, not nodes or cogs – part of the shift to social and digital is turning us from consumer into the product itself. We don’t want to be treated as nodes in the network – our approach needs to balance transparency with privacy to build trust.
6. It’s time to get real – Digital Transformation is the plan to break away from “business as usual”, but like any major implementation you need commitment from the top to really make it happen. Executive leadership is essential.
7. Stop talking technology, start talking results – for executives in the C suite to take notice we need to stop talking about technology and theory and start talking about business process and adding real value to the bottom line.
8. We need to focus on the practical and the pragmatic – we need to move from evangelism to planning and proof, with continual experimentation and real world case studies showing what works, what doesn’t, what next?
9. Don’t worry about what we call it – we are talking Digital Transformation, Social Business, Social Collaboration, Digital Workplace, Digital Disruption but many of these terms are over hyped or mean different things to different people. Let’s focus on culture change and business outcomes with real returns – better terminology will evolve naturally.
10. It’s the people, stupid! – culture is the key to success. Open, connected, innovative businesses are more attractive to Gen X, Millenials and the real talent that can future proof your business. It’s all about getting and keeping the best people. It’s easy to copy technology, but much more difficult to replicate a new culture, and that gives you a competitive advantage.
11. Learn from what has worked so far – businesses need to learn from the experience of bloggers, social media practitioners, digital pioneers and the way the web has developed over the last 10 years – the key values are authenticity, openness, sharing, and transparency.
12. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it – our approach should avoid the mistakes of the past and incorporate existing business ideas where appropriate – the theory of constraints, TQM, Six Sigma, continuous improvement, lean, Kanban and agile.
13. Our approach should be in “perpetual beta” – change is a constant, continuous reinvention is the new normal and we need to recognise that in what we do.