EM – 70% is the estimated number of businesses that have failed in digital transformation. It is a mistake to focus on the technology side without understanding that the essence of the problem lies in the thinking and the management process.
I don’t mean digital transformation as something superficial, hard to reach. Before getting into this, let’s talk about the business as a living entity, don’t you agree?
If it is an entity, it must have eyes, nose, hands, feet, … which are parts of that business. Warehouse is the stomach, the heart is the production department, the blood is the cash flow, communication – Marketing is the eyes, the mouth, the ears. The brain plays the role of a leader, making decisions and controlling everything so that it can function smoothly.
Like your body, imagine if the pain in the stomach didn’t reach the brain. At that time, that entity can only be vegetative and has no value. Therefore, in order to survive and develop, all parts must be healthy and must not be deformed.
Now when it comes to the business development process, we build “water tanks” which is departments. But we will not be able to manage it if we do not have a connection tool, connection method, connection line. If we had to “take water from one bucket to the other” manually, it would take a lot of work.
In modern management, there is a famous formula 5M+1E+1I: Man, Machine, Method, Material, Measure, Enviroment; Information. In particular, information management is especially important.
We expand production, add more factories, how many companies is not important, but it is important that you have tools to connect information between departments and units together to make effective decisions.
We will find that our businesses have connectivity “pains” and then digital transformation is the remedy to solve this situation.
Enterprise digital transformation is a process of transforming the entire model, as well as operating, production and business activities of an enterprise organization from traditional methods to digitization, towards automation and intelligentalization the entire organization. That is the transformation of the management system.
Digital transformation needs to provide a comprehensive, tailor-made solution. It is not just about technology problem.
Digital transformation needs to provide a comprehensive, tailor-made solution. It is not just about technology problem.
According to Eastern Sun’s experience, digital transformation will be done in 6 steps:
-Enterprises must build a short, medium and long term vision.
-Standardize the business operating process system, on that basis build corporate governance culture.
-Step by step digitize operational processes and data in a way that can be stored, measured, analyzed and predicted.
-Automate processes and data, create Big Data to support intelligent development of organizations and businesses.
-Implement processes to intelligent each department and the entire organization.
-Improve (kaizen) and upgrade the next cycle to optimize the system.
Accordingly, achieving the above goals takes a lot of time, even the standardization of traditional businesses takes a lot of time, let alone the story of digital transformation. However, the most important issue is still the mindset of the leader and the perception of all employees of the enterprise.
To a certain extent, the first step of digital transformation has to be changing thinking and perception, which takes a lot of time, although the concept of digital transformation is well communicated by society and people are familiar with it. But to understand the nature as well as go into the implementation steps, there are still many problems. Otherwise, it will fail.
In addition, whether digital transformation is fast or slow, it also needs an approach (Method) of each business according to the actual situation. There are times when we follow the strategy outlined step by step, sometimes we will handle it synchronously if we have enough resources.
Moreover, there are many pioneering businesses, but they do not understand correctly, so they fail because of the wrong approach, it is also a bad precedent for other organizations and businesses to follow. Accordingly, as a basis for those who are afraid to change for the reason of delay.
Besides, digital transformation is a long-term investment in both human and financial terms, so it is also an obstacle to our digital transformation implementation.
There are hundreds of causes, but in the end, people are still the biggest barrier that slows down all problems. Digital transformation is about synchronizing thoughts from leaders to employees, being united and thinking the same way, so that digital transformation will be convenient and successful.
But just now we’ve talked about the basics of digital transformation. You may ask: So what are the real benefits that businesses get?
Business will get a lot benefit, both tangible and intangible. I can’t list them all, but only list the most basic benefits, not only for businesses but also for the digital economy that we are aiming for. That is:
+ Improve customer experience.
+ Improve the productivity of the business from 25-50%, even higher in many departments.
+ Optimize operating system, reduce costs.
+ Improve sales opportunities and expand to the world market.
+ Improve governance capacity, enhance competitiveness, gradually build a modern corporate culture in the direction of a digital enterprise, more transparent, create trust and easily empower administration.
+ Meet the development requirements of digital government, digital citizenship, digital economy and digital society.
+ Unleash leadership in the management of organizations and businesses.
+ Enhance connectivity and business intelligence.
Back to the point is: why does digital conversion take such a long time to do? Why do so many businesses fail?
In my understanding, perhaps because of our economy, it lacks a long-term management mindset, is the reason for being fragmented (?!)
Whichever road opens, there are also bistro that stick to the road to do business. Therefore, it does not have a master plan on economic development, becoming messy. We are not foreign, western cultists but need to look at their knowledge economy, their industrialized economy, it is clear that it has many differences and brings many different results compared to ours.
That is not to say that the culture of Vietnam is bad, but to see that our economy is not really sustainable.
There are businesses that have come to us after several unsuccessful digital transformation attempts. Deeply digging, we realized they were wrong from their initial approach. Then the method is the main problem, there will be a solution if there is a vision, we can’t do it all but have to do it step by step.
Just like in building a house, we must have a strategy based on a planning design drawing. From there, dissecting materials, labor, … to minimize the possibility of generating costs. Build a strong foundation, and from there, the layering will be quick.
Saying that to see how important the solution is. Therefore, Eastern Sun considers its mission as a springboard and strives for development. We believe that competition in the digital transformation market is not merely a technology product, but rather the most appropriate problem-solving method for businesses, such as in accordance with finance, management culture, etc. values, national culture, management capacity, products and business models.
Just like a doctor, it is necessary to diagnose correctly to have a cure for the business, but absolutely cannot give miscellaneous drugs.
I also think that corporate governance culture plays a key role to gradually implement the digital transformation strategy of enterprises. It is the backbone of sustainable business development, and those are the values we embed in our digital solutions.
Corporate culture is the pillar, the soul of the business, it plays an extremely important role, sometimes even the survival of the business, and its value is difficult to measure. For example, if an enterprise apply for ISO to get a formal certificate, but without the application in practice, that business is gradually harming itself, and in the long run it will be very dangerous. Therefore, if the corporate culture is only a formality, just a few uniforms, or a shell, it will be difficult for that business to develop.
Moreover, corporate culture is not really built from any archetypal formula, but it is the journey that each person in the business and organization jointly creates, develops, improves according to the characteristics and evolution of the company, towards beauty and longevity.
Editor’s note: 1 and 0 are two numbers in the binary system, which is the language of computers and is a classic symbol of the former information technology, the digital technology of today. On this suggestion, on April 22, 2022, the Prime Minister issued Decision 505 on National Digital Transformation Day. Accordingly, October 10 every year is taken as National Digital Transformation Day. The organization of the annual National Digital Transformation Day aims to speed up the implementation of national digital transformation tasks, effectively implement the National Digital Transformation Program to 2025, with orientation to 2030. In the trend of the era of digital transformation, the elevator industry is also gradually transforming management thinking, standardizing the workforce, putting people at the center, applying advances in science and technology. Modern techniques in production and system administration. Vietnam Elevator Association is committed to accompanying the industry’s business community in digital transformation to promote sustainable development of the young industry and contribute high value to the digital economy in the coming time.
