Expertise Digital engineering & advisory Our digital futures 2016 It’s people, not technology

People are the agents of digital transformation

People are the agents of digital transformation. Without their input, nothing will change. When this digital change does happen, it will have a ripple effect throughout your organisation. Some people will, to continue with this same metaphorical theme, take to it like a duck to water, while others will feel like they’re sinking. With foresight, nobody will drown.

The positive culture of change

Whenever digitisation occurs within an organisation, it requires an understanding of the necessary culture changes and employee readiness that are critical for the new processes to be embraced early on in the process. Incentivising people to do this, or even better to drive change, relies on people reassessing their attitudes and ways of working and developing a level of comfort with the ambiguity of ‘new’. There will often be a need to empower an ageing, potentially less tech-savvy, section of the workforce. The effects of the change to the culture, external to an organisation, can be equally important. It can impact on, or require support from, trade unions, end users and governments.

The positive culture of change

Bridging the digital skills gap

To bridge the inevitable digital knowledge and skills gap, it’s essential to train people so they can understand the new processes, systems, tools and, in particular, the software. When clients implement new digital processes or strategies, their people need to be educated on the benefits of the digital changes.

Bridging the digital skills gap

Setting digital standards

There was a desire for a digital common language, particularly in the infrastructure industry. The ability to communicate easily across all industries, technology platforms, states and countries was important, especially to those clients with a global footprint. The standardisation of quality control in digital models was key for clients in their internal information management and, particularly at the point, when they share with stakeholders. However, there was a concern about who is or can be responsible for the development of these necessary standards.

Setting digital standards

The following sections give details of what we’ve learnt about digitisation and ‘digital’ from the interviews with our clients:

Digital possibilities

From the way we consume entertainment in our homes to how smart phones navigate us around the world, the way digitisation has changed people’s lives for the better is there for everyone to see. How you choose to harness this digital power in the future will be key to the success of your organisation.

Digital inertia

When something moves as fast as the world of digital technologies, there’s bound to be a degree of nervousness around uptake. You might worry if there’s ever a ‘right time’ to make your move but there’s a far stronger argument that the longer you delay your commitment to digital readiness, the more exposed you become to the threat of digital disruption.

Know your customer

By understanding how you can add digital value to your clients and customers, you can define your own digital strategy. Your organisation’s digital solutions will come about through a process of human-centred observation and engagement of your own customers’ needs.

Our Digital Futures - start page

To better understand how we can help our clients take charge of their digital futures, we spoke at length to a broad group of professionals across many organisations, industries and countries and asked them to share their thoughts on how digital technologies would shape and change their organisations in the future.