The Digital Transformation CEO

Subtitle - (Should the E in CEO be for Ecosystem?)

CEO’s need to become more digitally savvy to ensure that their business takes advantage of the benefits that it can provide but this isn’t just about the technology model. Can you apply the same thinking to your business? Let me explain how thinking of your company as a digital ecosystem can help you achieve this.

About three years ago I went to a conference in London for Box and one of the presentations was on Uber and the technology they use to drive their business. In particular it was about the Uber app, which in its most rudimentary form is a platform to bring together a buyer and a seller.  The slide showed how Uber had utilised several software providers, each credible in their own right, that when integrated together gave Uber the platform to deliver a customer experience that allowed them to grow and scale and be cited as a disruptor. The software at the time was Twilio for communications, AWS for infrastructure, Google for maps, Braintree for payments and SendGrid for emails. All individual components neatly integrated into this app, and one that they’ve managed to replicate with Uber Eats and a good example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

At Peterborough Council we replicated this approach with the same componentised platform approach with the digital tools we looked to move to. We broke down the various components of our IT infrastructure and had a common tool for each element, which importantly were designed to work together. At Peterborough we had Okta for security, G-Suite for productivity, Salesforce for Case Management, Box for file storage and document management, AWS for infrastructure, Qlik for business intelligence, GoCardless for direct debits and a few other apps as well. Again, as per Uber, all these applications are fantastic as standalone apps, but bring them all together and they can perform much better as a whole. They also had the added benefit of all being designed to work together, really giving you that ecosystem of apps that you could apply across the council. It was all about breaking down the components and having a common answer to the problem that was reusable across departments and using the right mix to deliver individual services. It was the ecosystem of joined up apps though that made the whole thing work.

Similarly, the Government Digital Service (GDS) worked to the same model. If every govt department that takes payments uses the same solution then providing services is simpler, more efficient and repeatable. They worked to provide an ecosystem of common components that could be re-used across multiple government agencies streamlining processes. There are numerous local government organisations also looking at this platform ecosystem model. Generally, its referred to as Government-as-a-Platform and makes sense that if there’s 400 council’s that deliver similar services that they use the same components to build their services.

What’s this got to do with the CEO?

Well what digital is bringing to the party is not just a new way of being able to deliver digital services but also a new way of organising your business. You will also have an ecosystem of teams that each in their own right are perfectly capable. But what if you brought them together, would the whole be greater than the sum of the parts. Imagine HR was Twilio, Finance was Braintree, Sales was Google, Marketing was SendGrid and so on. As individual apps and teams they all work perfectly well as standalone systems. But now imagine you could bring them together to create that Uber experience or team. Could that provide your customers with a better level of service? Could you align teams to products or services rather than by job function creating multidisciplinary teams all working together to provide the best service they can? All with an understanding of how each other operates and seamlessly integrating their work together. Using digital tools, even as simple as Teams or Slack can bring the right resources together to super charge your service without making huge organisational changes.

As a separate example, in football (or any team sport) you often hear the commentators talk about teams with less skilled players playing as a team outperforming better players that don’t play in unity. Again, we’re talking about bringing Forwards, Midfield, Defenders and a Goalkeeper together and integrating them as a unit rather than as standalone functions. The whole being better than the sum of the parts.

So, like a Football Manager or as digital components, as a CEO you need to manage the ecosystem of teams and systems that you currently have to provide the best experience for your customers. Use digital tools to bring your teams together with the right mixed skill set to deliver that Uber experience to all. Be the Chief of your Ecosystem.

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