CIOs should evolve, not transform

Digital transformation isn’t something you try when times are good, then pull back on when things get tough. It’s a steady, controlled, ongoing process of adapting your digital infrastructure. Ultimately, a true digital transformation is what enables you to deliver the improved employee and customer experiences that help you survive—and even thrive—in uncertain economic times.

More than 70% of digital transformation initiatives fail, according to KPMG research. Despite the varied and complex technologies involved, these failures all share the same, relatively simple common denominator.

CIOs too often think of tech transformation as involving a single heavy lift. Think of projects like installing a new customer relationship management (CRM) package, or moving workloads from local machines to the cloud. In fact, successful transformations are typically about racking up continuous, steady improvements.

As a CIO with two decades of experience in the IT world, I’ve found that companies too often see digital transformation as a quest for a single pot of gold. Instead, they should focus on building better systems that can adapt to constant change.

They should aim for evolution, not transformation. And they should always focus on improving the experiences of customers and employees. This is true everywhere in the economy, but here I’ll speak to three fields I know well: high-tech manufacturing, healthcare, and pro sports.

Putting the R back in CRM

I know a network equipment manufacturer that recently installed an expensive CRM system. The software itself worked flawlessly, but the company forgot about the “relationship” part of CRM, especially the connections between its own sales staff and the buyers at customer sites. These interactions have an emotional component that software can’t entirely replace.

For example, the company discovered that the software wasn’t flexible enough to handle the kinds of urgent requests— “Hey, I need those routers in July, not October”—that its human sales staff could easily accommodate.

The company faced intense competition. Despite being known for top-tier products, it lost market share to firms with CRM systems that offered more flexible ways of working with customers.

An AI boost for healthcare

Few sectors of the economy have invested more in IT than healthcare. Over the past decade, billions of dollars have been spent digitising healthcare records. Here’s the catch: That infrastructure was built to accommodate the record-keeping needs of hospitals, not the health needs of patients.

Patients often visit new care centers when they move or travel, only to find that their records haven’t made the journey with them. These records need to be as mobile as the patient population has become, and not stay in their own siloed repositories.

Artificial intelligence can help problems like this. It can, for example, put together a palette of care by routing patients to the right specialists in the right locations. A patient with heart ailments could get a referral to a facility with the best coronary care, just as one suffering from lung ailments should be directed to a hospital with expertise in pulmonary medicine.

Mining data for happier customers

The goal of consistent personalised experiences is equally relevant to professional sports venues. Cloud-based systems can help sports franchises provide better service by mining customer data for simple insights about fan habits.

Did they buy beer at the start of the game? If so, have them ready for the next contest, even if it occurs at another venue. Make ticketing smart enough that fans can use their mobile devices to gain entrance, allowing groups of friends to meet at their seats rather than having to find each other in the crowd outside the venue at the start of the game.

In all these cases, the common denominator is the focus on bettering the human experience. Today’s workforce, increasingly dominated by digital natives, is largely intolerant of anything short of concierge-level attention and service.

Two very different generations of the Couture family mirror this transformation with their car purchases. My father was a happy Dodge customer who would visit his local dealer to arrange a trade-in when he was ready to buy a new one.

My millennial son, on the other hand, buys his cars online and waits for them to be delivered to his driveway. Imagine the digital infrastructure needed to keep him happy.

The rickety systems of a bygone era don’t stand a chance. But neither do CIOs with modern technology if they aren’t focused on solving for human needs.

Find out how ServiceNow can help your organisation evolve to improve customer and employee experiences.

This article originally appeared on Workflow.

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