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Forrester in a Flash: Highlights from Digital Transformation 2016

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Did you miss Forrester Digital Transformation 2016 last week? Well you’re in luck. As a sponsor and speaker, Bizagi was right in the thick of it. Here you’ll find a simple list of our top takeaways from Forrester’s fantastic event.

If I was going to sum up the event in one slide then it would be this one, which highlights the key areas of business technology strategy, all themes that speakers returned to throughout the event:

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But if you want the deeper insights, let’s dig in a bit more…

Early on in the two-day event we were introduced to the 4 design principles of the customer-obsessed operating model – providing a helpful structure for everything that was discussed throughout the event. These points closely match Bizagi’s perspective on the top strategies for transformation:

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Let’s look at each of these areas in turn…

From customer-aware to customer-led

We’ve been talking about customer obsession for a while now. Why? Easy…it’s because our customers are talking about it. Here’s the challenge to every other business under the sun: Do you know what your customers are talking about? And even more importantly, are you acting on it? Are you being led by it?

But how can organizations really become customer led? Here are some tips for businesses that we picked up:

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From data-rich to insights-driven

Today’s businesses store a lot of data. But most businesses have a wealth of information, and precious little insight. The immediate challenge is for companies to unlock the insights hidden in their structured and unstructured data. This is about really understanding the behavior of customers, and responding with initiatives to grow, serve and retain those customers.

Forrester shared three critical actions for becoming an insights-driven business:

  • Focus on the business question
  • Adopt agile and collaborative methods
  • Be prepared to take action

 

From perfect to fast

Historically, the rule was this: You want Good, Fast, and Cheap – but you can only pick two. The rules of digital business are different, with business models being radically disrupted, most businesses aren’t stressing about the cost of transformation – it’s a given that it’s not going to be cheap. The cost almost doesn’t matter, because the cost of doing nothing is even greater. So what every business is really talking about is how to get to the right place, and get there fast.

For big incumbent businesses, the resounding advice is to do as the disruptors do, taking a lean start-up approach to change, where speed is prioritized over perfection. At this year’s event, we heard a lot of people talking about ways to run quickly and constantly towards the goal – all through a methodology of rapid innovation.

Here are the 3 best practices that were shared for moving from perfect and slow to perfectly fast:

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From siloed to connected

Still a major issue facing big businesses is the challenge of breaking down silos to achieve effective, digital collaboration. There’s a real disconnect between Business and IT, even though the lines between the two are increasingly blurred. My conclusion from the conversation is that siloed businesses are not set up to deliver a unified customer experience. A disparate business creates a disparate experience, so a siloed business is incapable of being truly customer-led.

 

So what did we learn?

Attendees at this year’s event saw a flood of evidence demonstrating that the customer’s expectations must be the foundation of digital transformation programmes. We also learned a series of strategies for delivering the software required to succeed in 2016.  I’ll allow Forrester to conclude this post for me, through a powerful description of the very real challenge at hand:

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