• Babar Hayat, Head of Technology & Transformation at Konexo


• 20.12.2021 07:00 am
#Digital #wealth

The internet has a wealth of information and opinion on the importance of digital transformation to future business success. But what is often missing is the crucial role that people play in being the driving force to integrate and use the technology to its full potential. Individual digitalization will be just as, if not more, important than corporate transformation.

According to Dell’s Digital Transformation Index eight in 10 businesses fast-tracked their digital transformation projects in 2020, demonstrating how boardrooms recognise the importance of progress in this area.

On this evidence, the intent is there to transform for the future. However, the World Economic Forum has identified that skills gaps in the local labour market remain among the leading barriers to the adoption of new technologies.

It is this barrier that we see in our work with businesses across financial services and other industries. Yet, so often the reasons why are not down to a lack of willing on the part of individuals or training opportunities from companies, but the unknown quantities of the potential in the software at their fingertips.

For example, Forrester Consulting found that ROI could be as much as 127% three years after migration to Microsoft 365 – one of the most common software packages. But with so many cases where employees are unaware of full functionality its potential is very often not realised

A knock-on effect of this is that businesses will spend significant chunks of budgets and months and years integrating software they have been sold which they may not need. In some cases the capabilities needed to meet their requirements may already be available on systems within underutilized packages.

This can drive the cost of digital transformation up and make individual and organiation-wide digitalization lumpy and inconsistent.

Finally, within many high paying professions comfort can be a problem to progress.

So often, in such a highly-productive sector as financial services there is a tendency to not fix what isn’t broken. If an individual is performing well, enjoying their work and being rewarded for it then there is no incentive to evolve. This is understandable. However, if the benefits of personal digitalization including improvement to personal life and satisfaction are made clear then this could accelerate adoption and prevent people falling behind in the future.

We have seen multiple times that it is the quality of the people behind the organisation that power their companies and the economy towards success. It is because of this that we have to look towards individuals to ensure that digitalisation fulfils its potential.

Organisations have chance to teach teams about the benefits and hidden opportunities of transforming digitally to them personally,  identifying the use cases and issues before acquiring new software and utilizing all software at their fingertips. If they can do this then it is highly likely we will have individuals and companies which are on the right track to protect their futures and get the returns on investment in training and technology that can make them a success.