Road Map To Digital Transformation

Jeff Roberts, Founder of Innovation Vista-based in the United States, participates in Risk Roundup to discuss Road Map to Digital Transformation.

Road Map to Digital Transformation

While the digital age has been upon us, the COVID 19 pandemic has accelerated the need for digital transformation. The ongoing pandemic has revealed how vulnerable each organization is and how digital technologies and infrastructure are becoming a survival necessity.

Digital technologies and infrastructure have become fundamental to organizations’ survival, security, and sustainability. And to be operational, the only option for organizations is to accelerate the digital transformation and disrupt their traditional organization structures, processes, and systems. The reason behind that is the status quo cannot continue. The need to undergo significant change to fully integrate digital technologies into all aspects of organizations has become crucial.  As a result, it has become fundamental to understand not only the road to digital transformation but the barriers to it as well.

Imagining New Ways

Organizations need to be alert, adjust, adapt, and create new opportunities for themselves for their very survival and security. They need to begin imagining new ways. But first and foremost, they need to forget old ways of thinking and operations to imagine how digital technology and infrastructure can help them define and design new ways of doing things. Once the necessary digitalization is established, it is also essential to evaluate if there is a need for new technologies and digital infrastructure to compete effectively and overtake competitors. The reality is that imagining new ways has become fundamental for survival and security.

It is time every organization begins to carefully walk the path towards digitalization and form a specific strategy to manage its COVID 19 risks and rewards.

Digital Transformation

The coming digital transformation will impact all aspects of organizations lives. Even before COVID 19 pandemic hit us, most organizations acknowledged the need to go digital. They also acknowledged that their business models need to change, given the dawn of the digital age and the rapid road to digitalization. It is essential to understand what is different today as we define the roadmap for digital transformation that we would not have thought about pre-COVID 19.

The most crucial variable is that digital technologies are contested commons. Everyone has access to it. So, for any entity to get ahead of their competitors using the technologies that everyone has access to does not allow them any inherent advantage. So, how do they differentiate and gain a competitive advantage?

The reality remains that any success in the digital transformation is not at all about technology; it is about the strategy that is at the heart of the digital transformation. So, the question is:

• How should organizations chart digital transformation?
• How should organizations create a digital strategy that transforms effectively into a digital age?

Digital transformation is more about people, and it is the people: and its ability to adjust, adapt, and innovate, that is, and will be the most critical pieces in the COVID-19 digital transformation puzzle.

Complex Challenges

Amidst ongoing COVID 19 pandemics, it is crucial to evaluate what obstacles organizations will face as they try to go for digital transformation. From a lack of strategy and competing priorities, it seems several obstacles stand in the way of digital maturity. While most organizations face challenges with defining effective strategy, there are also many that face security issues.

There is a hope that digitalization can help extend the survival and security of organizations in the COVID 19 era. Also, it will give organizations the ability for the development of new products and services to not only maintain their operation but also reach new markets. However, the potential of the disproportionate rate of digital technology adaptation by organizations within and across nations will most certainly create complex challenges for the sustainable supply chain. It is, therefore, vital to keep an eye on where the complex problems are emerging for our very survival.

As the digital transformation is becoming the ultimate challenge of our time, it is expected to impact not only the current structures, models, systems, and their strategic positioning but everything about the human ecosystem. The question is whether we are up to the challenge of walking on the road to digital transformation.

It is time to evaluate where the power of digital transformation strategy lies and define the roadmap!

For more, please watch the Risk Roundup Webcast or hear the Risk Roundup Podcast

About the Guest

Jeff Roberts is the Founder of Innovation Vista, an IT Strategy consultancy. As a five-time CIO of midsize companies, both public and private, Jeff has deep experience with all aspects of modern IT. Over 2+ decades in IT Leadership, Jeff has achieved $1B+ revenue from IT initiatives, transformed multiple IT departments into profit centers, and was a finalist for the Enterprise CIO of the Year award.  At Innovation Vista, he and his team of former C-level experts leverage his proprietary Innovation framework to drive top-line impact for midsize clients, helping them Stabilize, Rationalize, and Monetize their IT investments for revenue and market share.

About the Host of Risk Roundup

Jayshree Pandya (née Bhatt), Ph.D., is a leading expert at the intersection of science, technology, and security and is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Risk Group LLC. She has been involved in a wide range of research, spanning security of and from science and technology domains. Her work is currently focused on understanding how converging technologies and their interconnectivity across cyberspace, aquaspace, geospace, and space (CAGS), as well as individuals and entities across nations: their governments, industries, organizations, and academia (NGIOA), create survival, security, and sustainability risks. This research is pursued to provide strategic security solutions for the future of humanity. From the National Science Foundation to organizations from across the United States, Europe, and Asia, Dr. Pandya is an invited speaker on emerging technologies, technology transformation, digital disruption, and strategic security risks. Her work has contributed to more than 100 publications in the areas of science and commerce. She is the author of the books, Geopolitics of Cybersecurity and The Global Age.

About Risk Roundup

Risk Roundup, a global initiative launched by Risk Group, is a security risk reporting for risks emerging from existing and emerging technologies, technology convergence, and transformation happening across cyberspace, aquaspace, geospace, and space. Risk Roundup is released in both audio (Podcast) and video (Webcast) format. It is available for subscription at (Risk Group Website, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher Radio, Android, and Risk Group Professional Social Media).

About Risk Group

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