Before 2020 most of the CIOs in FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) were planning to consider digitalization some day in the future. Since then, especially due to the pandemic, those CIOs are hurrying up to align the corporate strategy with the –not yet defined– digital strategy. The first thing to remark here is: there are not two different strategies. It is essential to define what our organization aims to achieve, and a clear sense of urgency of defining the digital strategy is starting to predominate.
Digital has to do with the business needs and should be the enhancer to achieve the corporate strategic goals.
Hence, the corporate strategy must embed the digital approach. It is not only about CEOs considering digital in their corporate strategy, it is about defining a single strategy considering the challenges that digital implies in the present enterprise landscape. Such challenges are related to Customers: how we make the most of interactions with clients and consumers, Competition: how we change our relationship with competitors due to digital, Data: how the business produces, manages and takes advantage of the information, Value: how we add value to our customers, and Innovation: the way we are able to reinvent our business and processes to avoid staying out of the curve. In my opinion, the capacity of the company to adapt to this new reality will determine its success in the following years.
In the process of designing a global strategy including the digital approach, we have to understand that the time when CIOs decided on using a global platform to give response to the whole corporate processes has expired.
We are currently facing a new paradigm in which digital leaders are focusing on the business needs and therefore, selecting the technology and enablers that better fit those requirements. The difference remains in the approach. Now we tackle every business need as a different project for which we will define a business case. We will then determine the incomes or the savings that the specific initiative will bring back to the organization and then compare them to the cost of implementation.
Therefore, make the choice of the suitable technology that meets the business needs. We could then conclude that the digital implementation must be bottom-up. Starting from the specific needs of each area or business unit, i.e. reporting, automation, process digitization, etc, and framing them in a digital strategy regarding technology, processes and governance, we will transform the organization from the foundations in a gradual manner.
Far from the bottom-up implementation mentioned above is the sponsorship needed in the organization, which must imperatively be top-down. This means that the board and the top management team should be the first ones to sponsor, understand and enhance the digital mindset in the organization. The CIO or the CDO must take the driving seat to plan workshops and sessions with them in order to explain why becoming a data-driven-decision-making company is mandatory, what implications arise for the company and the new ways of working that should penetrate in the organization, like agile methodologies.
All of the above entail a cultural change that will only succeed if the CEO embarks on the digital journey, progressing then more than half of the ride.
