Digital Humanism and Digital Enterprise Maturity: How do you measure up?

Shawn Collinson, Chief Strategy Officer at Accenture’s Institute for High Performance and Technology Labs, identifies five success criteria for 2015 in his article ‘From Looking Digital to Being Digital.’  Accenture can evaluate its impact of technology on the future work by exploring these five areas: Strategic content, technical capabilities, data content, organizational structure and work processes and culture and behavior (Thomas, Kass, Davarzani, 2015, p. 38). These five areas are visually represented in Figure 1 below in the digital enterprise maturity model.

 

 

APP 2- human (figure 1)

 

Three categories of performance. A thumbnail evaluation can be made to establish competency and potential for future growth taking a cross section of the five areas aligned into three categories: lagging, performing or leading illustrated in Table 1 (Thomas, Kass, Davarzani, 2015, p. 39).

 

When are decisions made? Where is the work located? What skills required?  These are all questions Robert Thomas, Managing Director with Accenture, posed to management and then answered. The focus is moving from employer to consumer.

 

Link the value of business with technical value. We witnessed this with the shift in private-sector employer-provided retirement plans from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans, and are observing this again with social engagement of consumer electronics and the previously conventional retail players like Nike that are selling less shoes and more software.  The digital enterprise maturity model (see Figure 2.) promotes the value of business (strategic, culture and behavior) synchronized with technical value (technical capabilities and creating actionable steps from information).  The more tightly coupled this alignment the closer the organization is to world class results.

 

Dynamic decisions are everything. Strategic content is important as this drives ‘edge-centric decision making’ where decisions are made at the level where the more knowledge resides.  Typically this knowledge of context impacts pricing and product or service designs and is increasingly at a lower level in the organizational structure. This data based decision making accounts for ‘real-time adaptation.’  Knowledge of the foundational elements of the business, armed with real-time information positions Accenture to adapt to change leading to more dynamic decision making.

 

People are the most important asset. During the 2014 Gartner CIO Symposium, analysts launched the Digital Humanist Manifesto, outlined in Figure 3. The future is not people, technology, or things.  The future is the intersection amidst people, technology, and things.  What makes this model sticky is putting people at the center.  Every asset of value in an organization links back to its people and Accenture was aware of this. 

APP 2- human (figure 2)

Center decisions around your customer. We as leaders must introduce new ideas for management including human and digital recombination, experiment-driven design, developing and deploying the right talent, employing the right tools in the right way, evolving the right management mindset and building a path to intelligent digital processes.  What is common about these areas is that people are in the center- their employees and their customers.

 

“The message is clear: if data is the raw asset, it must be available to those who can turn it into information, knowledge and value” (Thomas, Kass, Davarzani, 2015, p. 34). Leaders have to anticipate change and build a culture and organizational behavior that embraces uncertainty putting people first. This shift will result in advanced decision making and moving employees from ‘order takers’ to ‘weather forecasters.’

APP 2- human (figure 3)

 

As you run, grow and transform your business take time to incorporate digital humanism.  Without digital humanism, there is no consumer engagement. 

 

Strategic focus supported by business and technical capabilities realigns strategic priorities with individual, team and organizational objectives. This alignment generates long term customer focused value, propelled by an organization investing in their people; their most important asset.

 

 

 

 

References

Ballard, B. (2014). Gartner Symposium 2014: CIOs need to embrace digital humanism to put people first | ITProPortal.com (online image). Retrieved from http://www.itproportal.com/2014/11/10/gartner-symposium-2014-cios-need-embrace-digital-humanism-put-people-first/

 

Thomas, R. J., Kass, A., & Davarzani, L. (2015). Accenture: From Looking Digital to Being Digital – Accenture. Retrieved from http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Impact-of-Technology-April-2014.pdf

 

Thomas, R. J., Kass, A., & Davarzani, L. (2015). Accenture: From Looking Digital to Being Digital – Accenture (online image). Retrieved from http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Impact-of-Technology-April-2014.pdf

 

ZDnet. (2014). The next big tech gig: Digital humanist (online image). Retrieved June 16, 2015, from http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-next-big-tech-gig-digital-humanist/

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Peter is a technology executive with over 20 years of experience, dedicated to driving innovation, digital transformation, leadership, and data in business. He helps organizations connect strategy to execution to maximize company performance. He has been recognized for Digital Innovation by CIO 100, MIT Sloan, Computerworld, and the Project Management Institute. As Managing Director at OROCA Innovations, Peter leads the CXO advisory services practice, driving digital strategies. Peter was honored as an MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award Finalist in 2015 and is a regular contributor to CIO.com on innovation. Peter has led businesses through complex changes, including the adoption of data-first approaches for portfolio management, lean six sigma for operational excellence, departmental transformations, process improvements, maximizing team performance, designing new IT operating models, digitizing platforms, leading large-scale mission-critical technology deployments, product management, agile methodologies, and building high-performance teams. As Chief Information Officer, Peter was responsible for Connecticut’s Health Insurance Exchange’s (HIX) industry-leading digital platform transforming consumerism and retail-oriented services for the health insurance industry. Peter championed the Connecticut marketplace digital implementation with a transformational cloud-based SaaS platform and mobile application recognized as a 2014 PMI Project of the Year Award finalist, CIO 100, and awards for best digital services, API, and platform. He also received a lifetime achievement award for leadership and digital transformation, honored as a 2016 Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leader. Peter is the author of Learning Intelligence: Expand Thinking. Absorb Alternative. Unlock Possibilities (2017), which Marshall Goldsmith, author of the New York Times No. 1 bestseller Triggers, calls "a must-read for any leader wanting to compete in the innovation-powered landscape of today." Peter also authored The Power of Blockchain for Healthcare: How Blockchain Will Ignite The Future of Healthcare (2017), the first book to explore the vast opportunities for blockchain to transform the patient experience. Peter has a B.S. in C.I.S from Bentley University and an MBA from Quinnipiac University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. He earned his PMP® in 2001 and is a certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Masters in Business Relationship Management (MBRM) and Certified Scrum Master. As a Commercial Rated Aviation Pilot and Master Scuba Diver, Peter understands first hand, how to anticipate change and lead boldly.