Capgemini senior vice president leader digital transformation, Didier Bonnet
The 2nd annual Digital Disruption Conference 2016 was all about disruption and the ways modern businesses can transform through to digital maturity.
According to Capgemini senior vice-president and leader of digital transformation, Didier Bonnet, it is leadership capabilities that turn digital investment into digital advantage.
There needs to be a fusion of IT and business to vision, to governance, to engagement. Digital maturity combines digital capability and leadership capability,” he said.
Bonnet described the execution as anything but linear and clean.
“The important bit is making sure you align the top team to the vision, then move into prioritisation, follow a road map and sustain the momentum,” he said.
Internal collaboration was also a key focus. He said, “everyone is now wanting a chief digital officer in their business because marketing and IT are fighting. It’s got to be about fusion.”
He said successful transformation is also about how businesses mesh the old and the new, and that he is a firm believer in automation processes.
“People can resist for as long as they want, but if a process can be automated, automate it. There will be a big productivity uplift, as well as efficiency,” he added.
Additionally, Bonnet focused on customer experience and engagement as important factors of digital transformation.
“We know today that customer experience beats functionality every time. Everyone today is talking about personalisation, but if you don’t get your data sorted out, personalisation won’t happen. It’s what you do with the data that drives insights and recommendations,” he said.
“Digital technology will remain the endless agitator of the business world. We are going to see masses of opportunity, masses of risk and masses of disruption happening. If you are a company that is slightly passive or complacent, and hasn’t started to go down this route, shake up your management.”
Bonnet added that to combat disruptive businesses, companies should learn to either ‘beat them, buy them, or wear them out’.
He suggested businesses should invest more resources than new entrants in the new technology, acquire or license that technology or use key assets of the business value chain that are difficult to replicate.
