Companies flaunt the term digital transformation almost as if it’s a badge of honor. It’s a phrase that can signify an enterprise is on the cutting edge of innovation with a constant eye toward the future. But Joanne Friedman, CEO of Connektedminds, has another word for it.
“It’s a misnomer,” she said. “Any company that isn’t constantly in some state of transformation isn’t alive.”
Joanne believes that companies don’t simply go through a digital transformation once and then pat themselves on the back — at least, the good ones don’t. No, she is of the mind that digital transformation is an ongoing process, and it’s one she’s been going through her entire career. An industry visionary, entrepreneur, and IT executive, Joanne envisions herself and Connektedminds as the leaders of the team helping companies reach their goals when it comes to their IT needs and how to constantly improve.
“Coach Is the best description because we stay with the client throughout the whole process,” she said. “It’s not just helping them choose technology. It’s what do you want to be when you grow up as a digital business? You have to define the outcomes. You have to look at the business model of how that company is going to operate. This is what you’re going to have to go through to get to that point. So we act as a coach.”
On this episode of IT Visionaries, Joanne dives deep into the world of digital transformations, how companies should be thinking about the process, the role a proper analyst plays in helping to make those decisions, and why it might be time to alter the phase all together. Plus, Joanne discusses the intricacies of IoT and why it’s time to finally set some standards when it comes to connected devices.
Main Takeaways
- What is Digital Transformation: Digital transformation is a gradual process, it does not happen overnight and companies need to stop thinking they can take on large tasks in a swift manner. What they should be thinking about is their technology stack as a toolkit, filled with 15-20 different tools. Each of those tools should have one goal: does it drive value to the overall business? If it does not, it should not be in your tech stack.
- Coach Friedman: Analysts are coaches, there to help you reach your goals and accomplish the task at hand. When you are an analyst, you have to constantly be thinking about the company’s future and what it could be in five to ten years and then reverse engineer strategies to help get them there.
- Can we Get Some Standards Up in Here?: Right now, one of the biggest problems surrounding the IoT space is the lack of defined standards between consumer IoT, which includes items such as iPads, phones and routers and industrial IoT devices. Currently, there is ambiguity about where industrial IoT falls and the list of guidelines it must adhere to.
For a more in-depth look at this episode, check out the article below.
Article
Companies flaunt the term digital transformation almost as if it’s a badge of honor. It’s a phrase that can signify an enterprise is on the cutting edge of innovation with a constant eye toward the future. But Joanne Friedman, CEO of Connektedminds, has another word for it.
“It’s a misnomer,” she said. “Any company that isn’t constantly in some state of transformation isn’t alive.”
Joanne believes that companies don’t simply go through a digital transformation once and then pat themselves on the back — at least, the good ones don’t. No, she is of the mind that digital transformation is an ongoing process, and it’s one she’s been going through her entire career. An industry visionary, entrepreneur, and IT executive, Joanne envisions herself and Connektedminds as the leaders of the team, calling the shots and helping companies reach the end zone when it comes to their IT needs and how they go about constantly improving.
“Coach Is the best description because we stay with the client throughout the whole process,” she said. “It’s not just helping them choose technology. It’s what do you want to be when you grow up as a digital business? You have to define the outcomes. You have to look at the business model of how that company is going to operate. This is what you’re going to have to go through to get to that point. So we act as a coach.”
On this episode of IT Visionaries, Joanne dives deep into the world of digital transformations, how companies should be thinking about the process, the role a proper analyst plays in helping to make those decisions, and why it might be time to alter the phase all together. Plus, Joanne discusses the intricacies of IoT and why it’s time to finally set some standards when it comes to connected devices.
Connektedminds is a disruptive IT advisory group that helps organizations take a different approach when it come to IT guidance, helping large organizations drive value from the beginning as opposed to later on. One of the main obstacles Friedman and her team help corporations tackle is digital transformation, which she said can be a bit of a misleading term.
“I would say I view digital transformation as a BS phrase,” Friedman said. “Transformation is a process. It’s change across an organization with an end result in mind. Whether it’s more value to your customers, robust revenue stream, cost savings, productivity improvement, any of those things. I call it continuous process improvement.”
Friedman said companies need to start thinking about their digital transformation efforts as an actual toolbox, where their technology stacks are filled with 15 to 20 tools that could be used to drive value. But a big part of the problem continues to be customers purchasing the wrong tools for that toolbox.
“This is one of the biggest hurdles companies have to overcome,” Friedman said. “They buy the wrong technology. They buy a technology that may solve problem one, but won’t solve three, five or seven.”
As companies continue to migrate their existing data centers and tech stacks to native cloud technologies, their budgets are being shifted toward these kinds of technologies. But Friedman said there are better use cases for how to spend that money.
“There’s a huge amount of spend in things like augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality,” she said. “It’s all well and good to train somebody to do something in a factory using augmented reality or even virtual reality, but you’re missing the sense of touch. So when they get to actually doing something or troubleshooting something in a remote location, it’s going to take someone who’s used to being hands-on in the field and saying, ‘Now, do it remotely because that sense of touch is gone.’ What we recommend to clients for example is at the same time you’re training people with augmented reality or virtual reality, give them something close to what they would actually have hands on and let them get a feel for it. And we’ve had very good results with that.”
To hear more about how Connektedminds and Joanne Friedman are helping companies with their digital transformations, check out the full episode of IT Visionaries!
—
To hear the entire discussion, tune into IT Visionaries here.
