What are the most important considerations for organisations that are planning to accelerate?
Acceleration comes from removing bottlenecks. Organisations tend to be very siloed in nature, having introduced multiple governance models over the years. The older generation of the organisation had very little time for transformation – and that culture became a bottleneck.
Acceleration can happen when you remove the bottom line of the governance model and replace it with a new generation of governance model, that we call ‘social governance’. It’s an inclusive, participation governance model. Rather than a chain of command where we say, ‘this is the role that you play,” you’re working towards more of an ecosystem model. Start offering multiple things for many of the customer base, accelerating in multiple lanes.
We advise clients not to get stuck to one technology – that’s why I call myself a business architect and not a technology architect. If you get married to one technology – whether it’s blockchain or VR goggles – and that technology goes down, then you’ll go down with it. We try to cherry-pick aspects of technology, understand the end goal of that technology, and embed pieces of those technologies to create a cooperative technology integrator, architecture and platform.
Acceleration can happen when you remove the bottom line of the governance model and replace it with a new generation of governance model, that we call ‘social governance’.
What are the most effective strategies to help clients enhance customer engagement and better serve their customers?
Customers have changed in the past two decades; we’ve moved from a place where baby boomers were customers, to having Gen Z and millennial customers. If you don’t engage the way they like to conduct their lives, you’re going to be in trouble.
You can send a memo and ask people for feedback, but it’s better to create a system that talks to them in ways they relate to. We create an engagement model for every customer, by looking at the blueprint of their organisations, how they are running, what their business model is, how their customer ecosystem works – basically helping them to make money.
We create an engagement model for every customer, by looking at the blueprint of their organisations.
How has the pandemic influenced the way that you deliver transformation services?
The majority of people are starting to get used to working remotely and virtually, and during this time new vulnerabilities have been exposed in the way we work.
One of the major challenges is we had a lot of spoon feeding, so getting 100% productivity out of people is very difficult when people are working out of office. People are expecting some kind of hybrid opportunity, and so we have a challenge of providing that and keeping people engaged and productive.
That’s also an opportunity in some respects. You can create an environment that delivers remote engagements for customers and employees, with unified communication. Zoom is really only one small aspect of that. I would say every customer should focus on using unified communication and artificial intelligence in their ecosystem.
People are expecting some kind of hybrid opportunity, and so we have a challenge of providing that and keeping people engaged and productive.
What initiatives do organisations need to take to help people to adapt or keep up with the pace of change?
Learning and development is such a big focus around resilience and change. I see this as a sign that learning needs to be user centred. We need to meet people where they are and provide learning that is easy to consume and easy to engage with. Traditional learning often fails to answer the question of, “How do we set up people for a career journey that’s fulfilling for them but also valuable for the business in the future?”
We’re increasingly looking at learning that incorporates AI and personalisation. We have the power to personalise content for different types of users, depending on their goals and strengths – which can be really valuable for the business and the users.
MAYA KANNAN
Managing Director, User Experience
& Product Design
digiBlitz/Sonicorn
Sonicorn is about unicorn companies in sonic space. We liberate business systems and technology systems from the current configured architecture and create more resilient, agile platforms that put businesses on a path to increased growth. We bring digital transformation from both a business and technology perspective.