Leading The Change

Pursuit of the digital should be accompanied by a well-thought-out strategy. Only then can it help reap rich dividends.

- Dr Abhishek Narain Singh

 In the present digital era, technology—IT and ICT—is incorporated into different domains of businss organisations. For some, it might entail only a change in the way things used to be done, while for others, there may be a complete transformation of business processes and activities. Technology plays a big role—be it collaborating with a range of suppliers and distributors, managing inventory, handling customer data (online as well as offline), internal resources, employee records, or tracking performance of digital media campaigns. In such a dynamically changing environment, the challenge faced by leaders is whether to have a wait-and-see approach, or be proactive and lead the organisation triumphantly through the digital turmoil.

For any organisation, there are various levels of impact of digitisation, and also associated risks and rewards. If it is simply the automation of an existing process (for example, updating a bank passbook—replacing a manual system with an automated one), then it has limited risks and rewards. If it is a complete redesign of a business process or a paradigm shift in the business, then it may yield high rewards, but pose high risks.

A leader in any organisation has to take a call, whether he or she wants a slow-moving, slow-changing strategy with modest returns but little risk, or a faster and more comprehensive change that carries high rewards but also has substantial chances of failure. Which road would you like to take? Many follow the path of calculated risk and moderate gain; and that is not bad. But some take the challenge to turn digital technologies into business transformation, and they lead the future. Let us explore how a leader can transform business through digital mastery.

Craft your digital vision