Follow Us:
I have failed. Have you?
Maybe not today, or even last week, but have you ever failed at anything? Be honest. We’ve all failed at something, yet as common as failure is, by-and-large we tend to avoid talking about failure like it’s the plague. But the truth is, I’ve learned a ton from failure. Haven’t you?
Back in 2013, Gartner predicted that through 2015, 80% of social business efforts would fail to achieve their intended benefits; in other words, they would be a let down. They were right, and we see it every day, even into 2016. In fact, today at C5 Insight, 2 out of 3 new clients (59%) that we work with is what we call CPR – a rescue and resuscitation project. We’ve written numerous articles on why social collaboration and relationship management projects fail, but suffice it to say that the cycle continues, and honestly, I don’t see it stopping any time soon. But a new failure trend is on the horizon, and we think it could be more disruptive to your organization than anything else.
By now, most of you have probably heard the term “Digital Transformation” or “Digital Workplace.” In fact, many of you may be involved in these initiatives right now. A recent survey conducted by IDG Research for Unisys found that nearly two-thirds (65%) of the respondents said they consider it highly important for their organizations to modify technology, IT processes or IT resources over the next 12 months to implement digital business, focusing especially on five key priority areas: mobile application development, cloud deployment, social media, data science and security.
Despite this, the study goes on to indicate that 54% of respondents say that their organization's progress toward a digital transformation that delivers on user expectations is average or below average (32 and 22 percent, respectively). So in other words, 54 percent of those surveyed feel like their organization is falling behind or failing to put together a digital transformation plan that would meet or exceed user expectations.
But here’s what I find interesting about this – everything listed above from this survey has to do with technology. “Two-thirds (65%) of the respondents said they consider it highly important for their organizations to modify technology, IT processes or IT resources” and “five key priority areas: mobile application development, cloud deployment, social media, data science and security.”
Now don’t hear me wrong, I love technology and fully understand that technology is a large part of any organization’s transition to a digital business. But my fear is that organizations will fall (and are falling) into the same trap with the rise of Enterprise 2.0, Social Collaboration or whatever buzzword you want to give it. You see, in our experience, especially among this nearly 60% that we help rescue, there is one factor that causes a majority of the struggles – The Human Factor. You see, technology is great, in fact it’s mandatory for a digital business, but I want to caution all those who are involved with or leading a digital transformation effort to not put the cart before the horse. People, and not technology, will always determine success or failure. We have seen it time and time again. We’ve seen organizations with great strategy, plenty of budget, and even executive buy-in fall short of their expectations, all because somewhere along the way, they lost sight of the people or personas who are on the receiving end of this digital journey. You see, without people who embrace and use these tools, there is no ROI on your digital investment. Don’t forget about people while focusing on the tools.
At C5 Insight, it’s not just one of our goals to put people first and help organizations work together better, it’s why we exist. Success for us is when organizations are able to make this digital transition all while engaging and empowering employees to enjoy their work, innovate and invent, solve complex problems, and leave work to go into the world to do good. Yes, it has been proven that employees who are happy and engaged at work are more likely to volunteer and give back to the world. Lofty goal? Maybe. But it’s certainly one that we believe is worth pursing!
We wish you the best of luck on your digital transformation initiative, and if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to shoot us an email.
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. — Albert Einstein
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
— Albert Einstein
The complementary paper includes over 12 years of research, recent survey results, and CRM turnaround success stories.
Request Download
This 60-second assessment is designed to evaluate your organization's collaboration readiness.
Learn how you rank compared to organizations typically in years 1 to 5 of implementation - and which areas to focus on to improve.
This is a sandbox solution which can be activated per site collection to allow you to easily collect feedback from users into a custom Feedback list.
Whether you are upgrading to SharePoint Online, 2010, 2013 or the latest 2016, this checklist contains everything you need to know for a successful transition.