Digital is Creating New Market Leaders - Invest or be Left Behind

The message is loud and clear. “Your enterprise’s business model is already under attack from digital disrupters,” says Geoffrey Moore. “Its time to bite the bullet.”

Investment in Digital Disruption is critical. Executives are declaring a goal to make their business to Digital by 2020. But how will they get there and will it be fast enough?  Every aspect of the worlds largest and long standing industries is being disrupted – all at the same time.  Retail, Automotive, and Banking are just a few that come to top of mind for major shifts.

Venture capital investment in the US alone in 2015 doubled that of 2011; with a total investment of $58.8 billion. The technologies being created are there to challenge the incumbents across every major industry from financial services to retail and consumer products.  (PWC Money Tree Q4 2015)  Poshmark and TheRealReal in Retail or Faraday Future and Local Motors in Automotive, or Wealthfront and Zenefits in Banking – disruption is here. 

In parallel, mergers and acquisitions dominated the Internet of Things (IoT) landscape in 2015 and there is no sign of slowing down. Software industry players and traditional businesses are investing in technology, and data, to ensure their place in the future.

IBM has acquired The Weather Channel as data input to a vast number of analytics algorithms. Cisco acquired Jasper, the hub for device and access management for all of the major telecommunications companies.

Under Armor is quickly becoming a technology company. A series of acquisitions, their newly built connected fitness HQ, and connected apparel is putting them on a path to disrupt themselves and their competitors. GM jumped into the fray with an investment in Lyft and the acquisition of assets from SideCar to ensure their place in the world of autonomous vehicles. 

The quiet – but not sleeping – giant Tyco has joined the ranks of the Digital disruption leaders. The industry leader in security and fire monitoring last year they acquired Footfall, a retail solution to track in-store traffic.  Recently they acquired ShopperTrak, the analytics company that also monitors the movements of shoppers. Combining in-store movement with the security (think RFID tag) data, can provide an opportunity to create new customer experiences. The latest announcement of the Tyco and Johnson Control merger takes their market position from being part of the smart building ecosystem to owning it.  While Apple, Google, and Amazon fight each other for their place in the retail and smart buildings market, Tyco is an incumbent that is making sure they are part of the future.

What type of investment is needed? Marketing, M&A, and Venture investments are a great start - but alone will not create the new market leaders. Building the foundation is a must. There are two foundational components of transformation; people and technology. Without investment in these two areas, the success of acquisitions, or investment in Omni-channel reach, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), or the next sharing economy, will be unlikely. 

People

The core of your success will be your people. Not just the culture you create, but their skills. The world is changing and along with it the skills required. Retail sales associates will need to interact with in-store technology, use data generated from historical purchases, and social media data to create personalized experiences. Plant floor managers will need to make meaning from equipment, weather, and other generated data for decision making and quick action. They will be required to marrying the physical plant floor with the ability to redesign and reinvent old processes and systems in real time.  

Utilities, Manufacturing and Agriculture - industries where specialized skills have been required and infrastructure is costly - are most likely to have tenures reaching an average of 20+ years or more. The median tenure at these companies is 9 years. Recently, AT&T provided insight to their own transformation. The average tenure is 12 years; and 22 years if you exclude call centers. In 2014, corporate training grew 15%, the highest rate in seven years.  Investment in training is growing, but is it driving the skills needed for the platform economy? Innovation platforms where third parties build on top of the business or transaction platforms where everything is sold as a service – both change not only IT skills required, but business models and the related sales, marketing, service, and operations skills. 

Technology and business wait for no one. It is important to invest in retooling your employees to meet the changing market needs.  Randall Stephenson, Chief Executive at AT&T, talked about their transformation to Cloud – and the retooling they are investing in for their employees.   The company is both requiring employees invest in their own personal growth with time and dollars, and in parallel, AT&T is investing in their education. Udacity and AT&T partnered to create curriculum that would allow their employees to prepare themselves for AT&T’s future, as well as the future of the broader economy. The company is very clear that some will move forward and others wont – but for the company to survive, new skills are a must.  

Core Technology

Many executives are investing in things you can see and feel.  This investment is reflected in a recent Gartner report that notes the Chief Marketing Officers budgets increased by 10% year over year in 2015; including dedicated Innovation budgets.  

Matt Turck, in his latest post the Big Data Landscape, notes products and services that receive widespread interest beyond the technology teams inside a large company tend to be those things that people can touch and see or relate to such as mobile apps, social networks, wearables, etc. Investment goes to things you can see and touch. Things like big data and analytics are plumbing – no one sees it – yet these technologies power the consumer and business user experiences these companies are seeking to transform. Yet, overall IT spend was down in 2015 according to Gartner.  

Digital transformation and Internet of Things initiatives rely on the the underlying tools, technology and data. A single view of the customer is a major effort in any organization. Data cleanup from years of acquisitions both at large corporations, and at their customers, is a costly effort.  Without it, the customer experience journey, or the automation of your supply chain becomes challenging at best. APIs across all data sources and services, internal and external, that will ultimately feed your analytics engine requires prioritization.  Planning the architecture of a target state and the migration to that architecture requires investment in time, people, and resources across the business. Finally, the investment in the infrastructure, cloud computing and big data, and the selection of the analytics platforms such as machine learning, log or social analytics and visualization tools.  If you want to build the next global automotive company, you need a way to collect and create value from the data of your autonomous cars and the sharing economy they support! These investments cannot be overlooked as they sit at the core of successful implementations of new customer and business experiences.  

Conclusion

Steven Denning pointed out a few years ago in Forbes that fifty years ago, the life expectancy of a firm in the Fortune 500 was around 75 years. Today, it’s less than 15 years and declining all the time.  Playing offense, and adding value for the customer will drive longevity.

New market leaders are created by strategy and execution. Digital Transformation is a long game.  Investment in people and skills, and the underlying enabling technologies are the foundation for creating customer value- and a long lasting company.

Consumer Innovation is Driving Enterprise Transformation

The the best-kept secret of today’s IoT world is that enterprises are taking advantage of connected consumer technology to transform their business.

Technology innovation has often started with enterprise use and moved to the consumer market. IBM mainframes to Apple Macs or Cisco Telepresence to Skype are just a couple of examples.

At this year’s CES there were discussions of a lull in innovation, and of slower than expected adoption.  No surprise; consumer gadgets take time and dollars. Hardware, firmware, and software make up a complex system. Adoption can be  slow due to the complexity of integration – e.g. the connected home – or pricing that does not match perceived value.   

Complexity and value are not an issue with large companies. Enterprise technology organizations are comfortable with integration – it is what they do. Companies seek automation to reduce costs or transform business models; time is money. We can see this by the momentum and investment being allocated in companies across industries into the Internet of Things (IoT). Industry giant GE with it’s Predix platform is one example.  Honeywell, Rockwell, and Schneider Electric are all looking to drive efficiency and transform their business. To consumers, the value of automation is not always immediately apparent.

Let’s look technologies on display at  CES from an enterprise view.  Take wearable fitness monitors and smartwatches.  We may want to track calories, heart rate, and other interesting things with wearable jewelry – but adoption has been limited to a subset of consumers. The selling point needs to be stronger for consumers to adopt in mass.   

In the enterprise, however, a smartwatch or fitness tracker could be used in safety situations. Proximity safety – wear a device that sends a signal when you are too close to a piece of machinery to automate shutting it down or stopping a collision. Air quality – tracking heart rate and movement to ensure an employee in an oil refinery is safe. Investment might need to be made – and making it independent from the phone – but there is value to the wearable.  Companies will pay for that value.

Breathalyzers: another CES item positioned as a consumer product. While we want individuals to be responsible, and we can clearly save lives by tying them to the car – what will the near-term adoption really be for individuals?   In the enterprise, some industries (such as transportation, construction, and manufacturing) are required to administer random drug and alcohol tests in the field.  These tests can be expensive and complicated or inconvenient.  Add a gadget to a smartphone and collect the data digitally. Companies can simplify the process, reduced cost, improved compliance and increased safety.

Amazon’s Alexa was noted as the star of CES. We all would love the convenience of turning on and off the lights, closing the garage door, or turning on our car with our voice; finally the Jetson’s era has arrived.

In a business context natural language speech has tremendous value. Automating an assistant in the retail aisles could improve customer service. When you cannot locate the item you need at Home Depot, Alexa can.   Combine a smart watch application with Alexa to enable voice-based search for maintenance records and parts inventory or logging a service note, all while making the repair. Better use of time, and better service records.

The list could go on – use your imagination. From heads up display helmets for mining or construction, to augmented reality glasses for maintenance activities. Both could provide employees with information in context. Smartwheel, a technology that prevents accidents caused by distracted driving, could  be used for bus drivers, taxi services, or transportation environments to prevent texting while driving.  And of course, we cannot forget drones. Beyond same day delivery, companies are looking to leverage these devices in agriculture for land survey and crop evaluation.

We are now in an era where the consumer innovation is the foundation for innovation inside an enterprise. In 2016 and beyond we will see further adoption of consumer technology in the enterprise – with an enterprise bent – of course

The 3 Pillars for Successful Innovation Inside an Enterprise

Over the next 5-10 years companies will transform themselves as part of the Digital Revolution. Innovation will be at the heart of companies, old and not so old, as they compete with the dizzying and relentless speed of technology advances across all industries. A large number of companies already have Chief Innovation Officers, Innovation Labs or Emerging Technology teams. Those that have not yet established an innovation organization are creating one to help lead the shift to Digital Transformation and the Internet of Things (IoT).

The motivation for creating an innovation organization is to keep pace with the changing landscape. To be successful, an innovation organization must create value that can be measured (e.g. as better customer engagement, increased revenue, improved operational efficiency), and do this in quickly enough to ensure ongoing support by the company.

There are three pillars that will ensure the success of an innovation organization inside a corporation. 

1. People and culture. It seems cliche, but it requires careful curation of internal and external resources.
2. Focus and execution. Identifying new customer experiences, products or business models requires as much energy and focus as the core business.
3. The funding model. It is the most critical component for success and yet is what holds most innovation organizations back. 

Below are additional thoughts on each of these pillars and an approach to creating a successful innovation organization.

People and Culture

The goal of any innovation organization is to identify new opportunities for transforming customer experience, business models, and business processes.

Identifying the right people internally and externally is the first hurdle. You want to find people from within the company who like change, and yet know the company processes. Their role is to help figure out what processes can be worked around, changed, or just need to be followed. Internal team members need to be confident of executive support for identifying and executingneeded changes.

Team members hired from outside the company should have backgrounds that complement the internal team member skills. It is invaluable if you can find individuals who have worked in both a startup environment and large companies.  Look for individuals who understand the potential roadblocks and challenges, but know how to get things done quickly. 

Beyond passion and technology skills, the ability to collaborate is critical, and its importance cannot be underestimated. An innovation organization does not have a lot of time to earn credibility, so does not have the luxury of learning to collaborate before executing.  An innovation organizations’ credibility comes from people and culture as much as execution.   

Focus and Execution

An innovation organization must show it can have a near term impact on the business. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, innovation is “the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices, or methods”—fast time to market and immediate value. It is not research, which connotes lengthy study and evaluation. Focus and execution are the next pillar to a successful innovation organization.  A new idea or technology is not a success for an innovation organization in a corporation.

For example, drones, while interesting technology, could be an area for research but are not an outcome from an innovation organization.   On the other hand, implementing a same-day delivery service, would be a valuable business outcome. It is important to identify and focus on innovations that address tangible, outcome based, business opportunities. Exploring new technologies can be fun and interesting, but unless the investment is addressing a critical business problem, gaining support from the business will be challenging. Focus is required. Create selection criteriabased on targeted outcomes---nothing complicated but something to prioritize the projects.

Success will be measuredby the percentage of projects turned into products.  This means execution; product management is crucial for success. The innovation organization may not own implementation, so there will be a handoff of any prototype from the innovation organization to the product owners/ development teams who take the product to market.  Documentation of architecture, requirements, assumptions, revenue or business model, and the draft of an overall business case all help execution. Borrow best practices from the startup ecosystem: successful startups still have a business plans and capture requirements.  The traditional Product Requirement Document (PRD) is overkill, however, the User Story model from Agile Development are a simple way to capture requirements. Documentation is important to create the alignment with the business, and to prevent rework at handoff to the product owners and delivery teams. 

Funding

Delivering on the promise of innovation projects is the “Crossing the Chasm” moment.  Getting value from an innovation organization requires a combination of business readiness and investment.

Funding the implementation is the Achilles Heel of innovation inside an enterprise; it is more challenging than entrepreneurs looking for a round of venture funding. It is important to have in-year budget available to begin execution on the successful projects; the productization.  The traditional capital planning process allocates the budget to specific projects at the beginning of the year and does not take into account “innovation activity.”  The innovation team can create a successful prototype, but if the product owners do not have current funding for implementation, the work of the innovation organization will die after handoff. This decreases the innovation organizations credibility with the business owners, and diminishes the usefulness of the organization.

Successful ways to address funding the productization of innovation projects range from dedicated centralized innovation budgets, to department- level engineering tax and co-development funding with industry partners. Communicating to the business how and when successful innovation projects will be funded through production will determine the organization’s overall success.

Conclusion

Innovation is not just about new products (or business models), it is about changing behavior.  Behavior changes start at the top.  Innovation organizations in an enterprise requires executive support. The executive leaderships role will be to reduce the overhead that comes with a large, shareholder-based business. The support ranges from helping to drive changes needed to internal processes such as funding models, to the need for legal support and expedited decision making.   Innovation organizations require the same foundational elements of your core business: people, execution, and funding.  Without multi-year support and commitment from executive leadership, the Digital Revolution will pass you by.

CC: David True - thank you for the conversation and the assistance in capturing the essence of this interesting topic.

The Internet of Things: Changing How Technology Companies Sell

We know the Internet of Things (IoT) is a lot of hype, but the opportunity is real.   The biggest challenge for customers will be seeing the forest through the trees.  From sensors and connectivity to fog computing and platforms, to data storage and analytics - the stack is daunting. The cost and implementation is daunting. The promise of operational efficiencies and new business models is still nascent.

I have talked to colleagues at companies large and small - technology companies and system integrators - who are selling the dream. My perspective is that, as an ecosystem, we are not ready to help customers be successful. To move from hype to tangible value, new startups and large corporations alike need to change how they sell. Yes, sell.

Sell an Outcome

The Internet of Things is not a single product, it is a stack of technology and a series of process changes that are an enabler of business transformation.  It is not an application.  It is not a platform. It is not a sensor and connectivity.   You need to sell a business outcome. Define what problems your technology, solution, or service is solving for your customer. Every industry has hundreds of potential business outcomes from an IoT project and it is important that you are clear about what use cases you are solving.   The use case may expand over time - pick 3-5 to start. Learn and experience the real outcomes.  Own those use cases within that market. An example might be that you focus on Smart Cities and address 7 of the 30 use cases.  Perfect. Own it and repeat it on a few Smart Cities projects. Understand and communicate the real business benefits for your customers. Then do it again.

Know the Business

Projects related to IoT might be owned by any number of people, depending upon the industry, and the outcomes being targeted or business problem being solved. Technology companies might be selling to the CIO, but more than likely you are selling to the Chief Digital Officer or the Production Manager in the case of the Internet of Things.  Scenarios to drive new revenue with IoT tend to be the GM of a Business Unit, or a CMO. In the early days of any industry it is important to find the self-declared innovator within your target customer - IoT is no different. The first wins will come from the early adopters. Find them. Make them heros.  

The next eighteen to twenty-four months of IoT deals will be consultative sales -  a business development or market development role. Someone to learn the customers needs across their business.  The early adopter will teach you if you are willing to listen, have patience,  and can help them solve a real problem.  You need to partner to understand the use cases and the outcomes they are seeking to solve and the language they use.  A great example of this might be a phrase used in discrete manufacturing - Carpet (IT) vs concrete (plant floor).  It is their language, how they think about their world, and it has impact on the technology used.  The plant floor brings with it different security requirements; selling cloud services to the technology people on the concrete will be difficult.  The same industry uses something called Nelson rules.  This is a method in process control of determining if a measured variable is out of control and is critical to Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Understanding this will help you understand their use cases. Creating journey maps for each of the business problems you are addressing will help provide the documentation needed for project funding. It is important that you understand the customer's world. 

Make it Simple

There are three components to making the Industrial Internet of Things simple for your customer.   Sell a solution based on a reference architecture.  Build an ecosystem.  Change your compensation structure.

 The reference architecture should be done based on the business outcome and its related requirements.  Understand the IoT stack.  Identify  how your technology fits the problem being solved.  The customer may already have connectivity from OSIsoft, and may already have device management from See Control (now Autodesk), or they already use Hadoop for storage. One example might be proximity safety. In construction or manufacturing processing will need to be done at the edge and require an architecture that is designed for response times in milliseconds. Predictive maintenance in manufacturing needs to be done on the plant floor for security reasons; but the response time is broader. It could be hours, days or weeks needed to predict a possible outage - and need for scheduled maintenance.  The reference architecture for the use case is the base to understand what the customers has and what they need.

The Industrial Internet of things requires an ecosystem. There are several components that make up the stack, and dozens of technology providers for each component. Sensors, connectivity, security, algorithms - you know the list.  System Integrators have expertise on IT and OT systems and processes across different verticals. Leverage the reference architecture by business problem, by industry, to build your ecosystem of technology partners and system integrators.  Knowledge about an industry and integration across technology platforms are the keys to the success.

Change your compensation structure to match how customer wants to buy. The customer does not care about the structure of your company or who gets paid to sell each product.  Customers are seeking your help in solving a business problem. The lack of consultative sales, the complexity of purchasing multiple products in the stack (yours and your partners), and the lack of understanding the vertical industry all become the roadblock to simplification. One sales team that is compensated on the IoT use cases, one contract for an IoT reference architecture.  This won't always work, but if you make it the target, you can get close. The Internet of Things is complex. Make it simple.

Solve a business problem, know your customers, keep it simple. It is up to you to connect the dots between investments and outcomes for your customer. Build trust. Build the right partnerships. To move from hype to tangible value, vendors need to change how they sell.

The 5 Pillars of a Digital Transformation and IoT Strategy

Digital transformation means different things to different businesses. Whether businesses are seeking to optimize manufacturing,  improve an in-store experience or create a new business model, the transformation required crosses multiple lines of business. I believe to succeed, enterprises need to use a company-wide framework for their digital transformation and IoT strategy. Transformation, if done right, will require alignment across the entire business - including investment dollars, priorities, measurement and metrics, and the path to execution.

There are five pillars that I believe provide the framework needed to achieve success in large corporations:

• Vision
• Customer Understanding
• Technology Alignment
• Metrics and Measurement
• Governance

There is a great deal of information and learning to be shared in each of these pillars.  My first draft at this post turned into a lengthy white paper; for now I will just address a few high level concepts to optimize your reading time.

Vision

Establishing a vision, and a strategy to achieve that vision, is the most challenging pillar.  The vision needs to have buy-in from across the company, starting at the CEO.   It is critical to create a foundation by which everyone can agree to prioritize funding and resources, and agree to the processes that need to be changed along the way.  Digital strategy impacts legal, finance, and in the case of changing business models, it could impact sales and quota structures.  Digital transformation impacts everyone from IT and Marketing to Customer Service and Sales.  Companies have dozens of touch-points, hundreds of applications and backend systems, and hundreds of legacy processes. In parallel, there is an ongoing business to run and operate. Existing products and services drive immediate revenue targets and are required for companies to keep their commitments to the market.  To create a vision and strategy,  it starts with getting everyone in the same room. Yes. The same room. There are different methodologies and workshops for how to drive out a vision and strategy - it could be Design Thinking or Innovation Games, it is about getting people to be a part of the thought process.  Evaluate macro/global trends that will impact the business, walk through a day in the life of your customer, figure out what things will help you move forward faster and what is holding you back.   You will be surprised at the alignment that exists and the alignment that is created by the nature of the face-to-face process.  Jointly create a high level roadmap that addresses both near-term wins and a path to achieve longer-term wins that begins now but the value is realized further out.   Derive a mission statement for your digital transformation - “Our mission is to get the right information, at the right time and place, to the right person (or machine). “

Customer Understanding

Customers are at the core of every business's digital transformation.  Creating the roadmap and priorities should start with the customer in mind.  The initial roadmap considerations that came out of your Vision discussion now need to be validated. Your roadmap should be prioritized based on outcomes; near-term wins with customers and cost savings, while working on the new business model which will more than likely take longer to execute but needs to be done in parallel.  

Begin by addressing customer pain points.  Do a detailed analysis of your business - call center data, net promoter scores and verbatim’s, analytics from the online and physical stores, and areas with high or increasing costs in the business such as services and manufacturing.  Evaluating, correlating, and understanding the pain points should drive the priority. Use your customer advisory councils to correlate and test your findings.  

One example might include looking at Net Promotor Score (NPS) and verbatims which might highlight something as simple as “we want to be kept informed of the status.”  The longer term problem to solve might be cycle time reduction, however, the near term solution could be as simple as a notification to inform a customer of the order status.

Once you have identified the quick wins, and the priority areas that will take longer time and investment, it is important to model the new processes and experience. A Journey map is a visual interpretation of the overall story.  It is  the view from an individual’s perspective of their relationship with an organization, service, or product, over time and across touch-points.  That individual can be a customer, a partner, or an internal employee.  Journey maps will save you time and dollars, ensuring that you have thought through the steps of the new processes created or automated.  They should be done for everything -  including IoT process changes.  The journey maps should be used as the foundation for user stories, architecture discussions, and prioritization. They architect experiences that drive value to the business while enabling prioritization of strategic initiatives.  

Technology Alignment

There are more than 350 companies that are over 100 years old, Nike is 51 years old and eBay is 20 years old.  The collection of underlying technology at these companies spans decades and is a daunting challenge in itself.  Any collection of acquisitions or years of existence will bring legacy technology and the need for thoughtful planning. A technology roadmap will be at the forefront of any digital roadmap.   Technology is at the core of customer-facing channels (online, mobile, and in store), IT platforms (inventory, billing, service/ticketing), and manufacturing environments (PLC, SCADA, MES).  Every company is a software company.  

New platforms will need to be implemented.  Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) will need to be implemented. Data cleanup will be necessary and planning end of life for legacy technologies will be required.  It all influences timing - and your ability to execute.  New platforms appear to be a great place to start, but the technology is new to the engineering team and depending upon the complexity, it will take time for the engineering team to build understanding.   With API enablement, build the abstraction layer to enable the migration from an old platform to the new one if you need to run both in parallel.   Data cleanup will be the thing that slows down the big wins.  Whether you are implementing IoT in a manufacturing environment and data is entered manually today from OT to IT systems, or you are trying to consolidate to a single customer ID, clean data is critical to any transformation strategy. Data cleanup is costly, but it is what will take the pain out of your processes you are trying to move to digital.  Outline an end of life (EOL) plan for each product and platform that will not be part of the future state of your business. Align the EOL plan with the prioritized roadmap.

New processes will be required. More than likely you will also have some legacy products that still follow a waterfall delivery methodology, and new platforms and applications following agile.  Plan upfront how to run these processes in parallel and in some cases merge concepts. Many organizations with large development teams and 20+ years of code through eras of programming languages and styles, and skills practice “wagile” (waterfall + agile) which tends to have an impact on the expectations.  Ensure everyone is clear on which teams follow which methodology and the overall impact that has on delivery.  

Metrics and Measurement

Every project needs to be outcome-based --increase operational efficiency by 15% or increase revenue by 3% YoY through a new business model. Establishing a baseline will be easy for areas of the business where data is already collected. The critical success of the program will be alignment on measuring areas of the business where there is no historical reference. New business models create measurement and metrics challenges as well. Is this revenue incremental or replacement revenue?  Is revenue shifting from one business unit to another?

Pay per use models are the big shift associated with digital transformation and IoT - selling compressed air instead of compressors, charging for hours of use of an industrial cleaner instead of selling the equipment, etc - these new business models may impact compensation structures in the sales organization, as well as how the revenue is recognized.

Setting metrics across each area includes development.  The metrics in development will require a great deal of patience and reassurance with your engineering teams that transparency is good for everyone.  When used to help improve the entire team, metrics will be a key part of managing your progress towards transformation. Information Technology (IT) metrics will vary based on the complexity of the work, and the age and complexity of the systems involved.  Transformation projects have several teams involved such as engineering, business architecture, design and UX, and software delivery teams - and production management/Operational Technology (OT)leaders.  

All of the team members need to understand how the development metrics are being measured and need to be included in the process, and be part of the overall target (win together). The IT and OT teams will also need to understand the business metrics to ensure priorities remain aligned.

Governance

Governance is a four letter word for most people within large organizations.  It carries connotations of being complex, time-consuming, and political.   There is an opportunity to make Governance help move your digital transformation strategy forward.  It will be a productive and successful endeavor if the previous areas discussed were done in a collaborative and transparent approach.  Openly sharing priorities, key drivers for those priorities, investment needs and timing will help as Digital Transformation is a multi-year program.   Governance can be used to remove roadblocks in processes. It can be used to re-prioritize when the market changes.  A global view of a dashboard is provided to each business owner.  The dashboard includes a view of the individual business unit  impacts, as well as that of their peers.  

The dashboard provides a view of investment dollars allocated and shared across business units.  It will include targets and attainment of the targets by each functional area.  This includes a view of priorities across the business related to revenue growth/new business models, and business efficiencies/cost reduction.  Everyone will need to be comfortable with transparency.   The governance model that gets put in place is the influencing body for the changes needed.

Digital transformation is really series of small and large projects across your business that will drive new revenue and create efficiencies.   In its entirety it is big. Really big.  Everything and everyone will not be aligned perfectly, however, sharing an understanding of the goals and providing transparency are paramount. And providing a mechanism for change, will increase your opportunity for success. I believe these five pillars of a digital transformation and IoT strategy are a foundation for alignment and prioritization that allow you to optimize investment in people, technology, and time.