The digitized company may gain a serious competitive advantage -- but all that cool software imposes its own costs and burdens. And it’s definitely possible for digital transformation to hit a wall, beyond which it’s no longer profitable to keep scaling -- especially these days. Good strategizing will help you identify that inflection point - and thus enable you to turn to other core activities, like marketing, as the Cira Apps CTO Vern Weitzman notes here.
Read Vern Weitzman on digital transformation trends in 2020:
“Even if your product is digital, without doing market research and thinking about how to market the product, the technology may not continue to find customers... Execution trumps knowledge every day of the week. This is just as true for mature digital enterprises as for the smallest start-up.
"The mistake successful organizations sometimes make is thinking, well, we’ve arrived — now we’re the big dogs on the block, we can take our foot off the marketing gas pedal. Big mistake,’ he said. ‘The resilience you built as a growing, younger company can easily become fragility. Then you’re unprepared for new developments in consumer taste, acquisition opportunities, or other kinds of business surprises.
"The goal of all organizations should be to lean into uncertainty and come out stronger and more successful on the other side.'"
As CMSWire says, it’s crucial to lean hard into digital-transformation efforts -- to research whatever digital avenue you are considering, and “really push to use everything it has to offer.” Taking a half-baked or tentative approach, as in the famous case of GE Digital, can rob your company of its ability to react to unexpected events. Without thoughtful strategy underlying every part of the digital initiative, you may find yourself unable to pivot when required -- the very opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.
The digital-transformation trends of 2020: strategy and maturity
This suggests there’s no clear endpoint to a given company’s digital-transformation efforts -- there are only digitally-mature organizations and early-stage ones just learning to walk. Every step of the way, you need clear-eyed strategic analysis - and that starts with the CEO and CTO.