{"id":14392,"date":"2019-01-22T11:00:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T19:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/01\/22\/news-8144\/"},"modified":"2019-01-22T11:00:26","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T19:00:26","slug":"news-8144","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2019\/01\/22\/news-8144\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading digital innovation takes a network"},"content":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Herv\u00e9 Coureil| Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2019 07:20:38 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBureaucracy has few fans,\u201d management experts Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini declare in \u201cThe End of Bureaucracy\u201d (Harvard Business Review)<\/em>.[i]<\/a> Some call it a \u201cvillain\u201d;<\/em> others a \u201cdisease.\u201d <\/em>I call it a weighty obstacle to any innovation.<\/p>\n

\"Ilustration <\/p>\n

Fortunately, as I\u2019ve said before, technology flattens everything<\/a>. That includes organizations and decision processes. This may seem like a challenging proposition for long-standing companies, but it\u2019s an essential first step for fostering an innovative culture that can fuel digital transformation. Removing the silos takes a mind shift: from controlling every layer to \u201cleading like gardeners,\u201d as retired 4-star U.S. General Stanley A. McChrystal says, \u201ccreating and maintaining a viable ecosystem in which the organization operates.\u201d<\/p>\n

So how does a 180-year-old industrial enterprise such as Schneider Electric take this leap? <\/em>By leading digital transformation from within<\/em> \u2014 not just from the top \u2014 with a network of digital innovators committed to the journey.<\/p>\n

We must look to forward-thinking employees as the real digital change agents who can drive digital business strategy \u2014 instead of just calling for change \u201cfrom the top.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

As AWS CEO Andy Jassy says so well, \u201cThere is no compression algorithm for experience.\u201d Every digital enterprise, therefore, must empower people to be agile and responsive, while also inspiring them to seek innovative outcomes every day. This mindset needs a culture that fosters creativity, innovation, flexibility, and the freedom to be disruptive.\u00a0 The Netflix culture deck,[ii]<\/a> for instance, became famous for promoting empowerment over control.<\/p>\n

Fueling a digital culture<\/span><\/h3>\n

As Hamel and Zanini go on to point out, you don\u2019t want to throw out bureaucracy completely, as \u201cit\"\" works, at least to a degree.\u201d What does this mean for digital transformation? It\u2019s simple. Instead of dictating digital change as a multi-layered process, use a guiding framework<\/em> to qualify engagement in a way that doesn\u2019t place innovation at the mercy of process. Jeff Bezos famously said in 2017 that \u201cGood process serves you so you can serve customers. But if you\u2019re not watchful, the process can become the thing.[\u2026] The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you\u2019re doing the process right.\u201d[iii]<\/a><\/p>\n

We keep our eye on outcomes. Our goal \u2014 as we progress in our digital journey \u2014 is to establish discipline for a limited number of control points such as cybersecurity and a few common standards such as identity, API management, or UX. And from there, we make sure that our digital thinkers can move full speed ahead by using and re-using some transversal primitives while focusing on their stakeholders instead of spending energy convincing internal gatekeepers. \u00a0A framework that meshes a license to experiment and innovate with a limited number of explicit control points is a necessary foundation in order to act as a network (as an extended enterprise with its ecosystem of partners).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to note that, with digital, customers are more approachable than ever, bringing elements of customer understanding deeper in the organization. Everyone can see bits and pieces of the customer experience, starting with the company\u2019s own website. Take advantage of this reality to foster more customer-centricity within the technology teams. Enable your engineers and developers to innovate more targeted solutions aligned closely to customer needs and opportunities.<\/p>\n

An example of DNA convergence<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

There is no need to re-invent the wheel when you go digital (transform the customer experience) and digitize (create digital offers). We found a way to converge our core business expertise with Schneider\u2019s Digital Services Factory (DSF), developed with Accenture<\/a>. \u00a0DSF is an engagement model that provides a roadmap and technology capabilities for developing repeatable, customer-driven digital offers our customers can scale according to their stage in the digital journey. DSF stakeholders can re-use technology primitives along the way instead of restarting from scratch with every idea.<\/p>\n

Through the Digital Services Factory, Schneider marries its traditional, deep domain expertise and digital DNA to drive customer-centric technology.<\/p>\n

In fact, customers are a core part of this co-innovation approach. We\u2019ve\u00a0\"\"also established multi-R&D hubs to leverage the best of nearby talent pools and the localized extended enterprise<\/a> to accelerate digital innovation, as our ecosystem is a core tenet of our digital innovation strategy.<\/p>\n

For example, our engineers innovated with B\u00fchler<\/a> \u2014 a global market leader in the supply of flour production plants, pasta, and chocolate production lines \u2014 to solve B\u00fchler\u2019s need to provide mobile-first, useful, customized information to its customers (Food & Bev manufacturers). By bringing together R&D, the business, and the customer during development, EcoStruxure\"\u2122\" Augmented Operator Advisor<\/a> paves the way for new digital capabilities and business models for machine builders.<\/p>\n

The payoff is in the \u201cmiddle\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

There is no silver bullet for building a culture that fosters digital innovation, but the Agile model is a good entry point that goes beyond just being digital. It influences how you operate: in short sprints, with small teams, in the spirit of collaborative innovation, and in iterations that can reflect concrete customer feedback.<\/p>\n

Becoming a digital business is not about going digital on one hand and managing the rest on the other hand; it\u2019s about how you mesh together the two.\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

Digital transformation in the B2B world essentially is a long tail-game with a lot of specific use cases. Each scenario is quite different. Success, therefore, depends on conflating deep industry expertise with a disruptive digital mindset. Not one against the other, but instead creating the right conditions so that a network of industry experts and digital disruptors can join forces \u2014 in an agile way \u2014 to deliver value one sprint at a time.<\/p>\n

Niall Ferguson[iv]<\/a> in his wonderful recent book The Square and the Tower<\/em>[v]<\/a> compares top-down hierarchies (the Tower) to the volunteer networking of people (the Square), and shows that real power throughout history often has resided in networks more than we care to know. I would tend to believe that this analogy applies to digital innovation, too. We must balance empowerment and control to solve immediate customer needs while also keeping a creative and committed eye on the digital future beyond.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Download<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n
[i]<\/a> Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini, \u201cThe End of Bureaucracy,\u201d Harvard Business Review<\/em>. November-December 2018, https:\/\/hbr.org\/2018\/11\/the-end-of-bureaucracy<\/a><\/h6>\n
[ii]<\/a> jobs.netflix.com\/culture<\/a><\/h6>\n
[iii]<\/a> https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/Archives\/edgar\/data\/1018724\/000119312517120198\/d373368dex991.htm<\/a><\/h6>\n
[iv]<\/a> http:\/\/www.niallferguson.com\/<\/a><\/h6>\n
[v]<\/a> https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/0735222916\/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_2j7nCbEHQV8GB<\/a><\/h6>\n
\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/h6>\n

The post Leading digital innovation takes a network<\/a> appeared first on Schneider Electric Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.schneider-electric.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit to Author: Herv\u00e9 Coureil| Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2019 07:20:38 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBureaucracy has few fans,\u201d management experts Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini declare in \u201cThe End of Bureaucracy\u201d (Harvard Business Review).[i] Some call it a \u201cvillain\u201d; others a \u201cdisease.\u201d I call… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Leading digital innovation takes a network<\/a> appeared first on Schneider Electric Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[12389,12388],"tags":[12427],"class_list":["post-14392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scadaics","category-schneider","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}