Please visit the COVID-19 response page for resources and advice on managing through the crisis today and beyond.
It’s primarily two aspects. One is on consumer experience, where customers can see a vastly better experience with digital. On the other side, digital can drive significant internal efficiencies, breaking away from all of the legacy that's been built up over 20 years of technological development.
The opportunities for digital at scale are actually really vast. The big trouble that organisations can have is where to start. There are three areas to approach. One is a change in mindset. Two is a change in people and the culture in the organisation. And the third is adoption of new technologies that can support digital at scale.
One of the big shifts that we are beginning to see is the change in mindset and culture. We believe this is truly key to driving the transformation that every CEO wants but has the trouble executing.
Two primary areas. One is, employees should prioritize speed and velocity, which means adopting a more lean, agile, and test-and-learn thinking, which has traditionally not been the case in most traditional organisations.
The second is to think around legacy, instead of being weighed down by it. It is certainly possible today, and organizations will be well-served with employees looking at opportunities than roadblocks.
In practice, behavioural change has to start small, because it is very difficult at any level for the organisation to drive it meaningfully very quickly. We are very big on focusing on starting small, which is the key area with the right sponsorships where we can actually drive some meaningful impact, and let success breed further success.
We are working with very large organisations in finance and insurance, retail and so on, who have a lot of legacy, but are starting to believe that change is possible. That’s a great first step.
At Cognizant, we bring together a fairly diverse set of skills, to drive healthy tension in problem-solving. In terms of changing the culture, we bring anthropologists, behavioural scientists, creative thinkers, into the mix. We really tend to push the envelope and break away from the status quo. We support all this with our technology backbone, which is ultimately a big part of any solution.
Very senior level sponsorship is one of the key characteristics that we see among companies that are driving this change: a CEO or a board member taking this on as a personal challenge and driving the change.
There's definitely an element of risk taking that people are ready to take on – especially when there is no sense of urgency to change – when the business is so far doing well. And the third is, to very openly embrace new ideas from different avenues.
I'd say the leaders who are driving digital change have three characteristics. The first one is the ability to work with a diverse set of people and embrace a lot of new ideas. The second is to understand that transformation is a journey made up of small steps, with the ability to evangelise it. And the third is around driving smaller benefits rather than looking for moonshots.
Digital seemed to be the harbinger of the end for brick and...
It isn't enough to simply "do digital". Organizations must be...
Companies who want to embrace digital need to display 4...
With AI and machine learning on the rise, the data that your...