What’s Ahead for Business Transformation?
As we recently announced, iGrafx partnered with PEX Network, the leading news source for process professionals and business leaders, on the topic of disruption. The result is a comprehensive primary research report, describing the challenges and opportunities for digital transformation professionals.
We were pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of responders. You can download the entire report here to see everything they have to say about disruption. But in today’s blog we want to focus solely on the current state vs. the future of transformation.
In our research, we asked two simple questions:
- What transformation projects are mission critical to your organization today?
- What transformation projects will be mission critical to your organization in the next 18 months?
Below is a breakdown of the responses we got from over 150 business leaders.
So, what does this all mean? Our partners at PEX noted several key takeaways.
Continuous Improvement is far and away the most important to organizations today, and over the next 18 months. And this makes sense since “taking the cost out of the business” has been a crucial driver for businesses. However, over more time, it may find itself edged off the top spot if the trends here continue. And this makes sense since “taking cost out of the business” has been a crucial driver for businesses.
Observing a fall of the importance of CoE at 18 months was unexpected given that the rise of new technologies such as automation and blockchain is likely driving the increase in importance of the CoE. This is especially true in the context of driving compliance initiatives. Unfortunately, the survey didn’t specifically ask about “compliance” as a current and future driver.
Customer Journey Mapping
Customer journey mapping also drops a number of places. Our observation and best guess is there’s a detachment between it and the impact to the business. Today CX efforts yield more observational benefits. However, tying CX into the impact to the business will eventually show the real value of customer journey mapping and other CX initiatives.
At the bottom of the list are IoT and Blockchain – ideas that promised big disruptions when they first appeared, but which few regard as mission critical today or in the future. Things can change quickly, however; the low ranking of security/cyber protection seems at odds with customers’ concerns about the safety of their information in the wake of highly publicized data breaches and the threat of cyber-attack. Perhaps we’re all guilty of not worrying too much about it – until it happens to us?
The Automation Buzz
Automation is generating a lot of buzz at the moment, and for good reason: customers are being told that they can simply purchase a few bots and their problems will be solved. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case today, since many RPA projects fail, or don’t achieve the promised results. We believe that RPA still holds tremendous promise, especially when processes governed by a CoE ensure that the automation initiatives are selected appropriately and remain compliant.
As both Automation and Blockchain are the only answers making upward progress in these questions, maybe the lesson here is: beware of over-promising and under-delivery. if you’re going to incorporate new technology, do it carefully and be aware of the pitfalls before you start.
Key Questions to Ask
The experts also noted some key questions you can ask yourself, as you consider your own transformation initiatives:
- What can you do to ensure the success of your automation projects?
- How will you make sure automation projects are done in a compliant fashion and overall compliance is maintained?
- Do you have a method of prioritizing automation projects and ensuring effectiveness/success?
And don’t forget to download the entire report to see everything the top leaders are saying about disruption, digital transformation and process automation.