At the most basic level, digital transformation involves using digital technologies to change a business process to become more efficient or effective. It can involve many things, whether it’s process automation, a new website, improved user experience, or a migration to the cloud. The idea is to use technology not to replicate an existing service in a digital form, but to transform that service into something significantly better. Does your organization have a digital transformation strategy in place?

A recent study by Mordor Intelligence valued digital transformation at US$263 billion, and it is projected to reach US$767 billion by 2026. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, unpredictability has become the new normal in nearly every sector of business. Gartner’s forecasts indicate that IT spending will reach US$4.4 trillion this year. Leveraging digital transformation can help businesses build resilience to accelerate their growth, remain competitive, and take advantage of unique market opportunities.

Broad Culture Shifts for Companies

Changing business processes and corporate culture are just as vital to the success of digital transformation as the technical implementations. Company culture can heavily impact employees’ perception of change, and an unresponsive culture can result in wasted time and money. 

According to an article on ZDNet, there are five skills every company needs to achieve successful transformation: 

1. Digital fluency – Depending on the industry, digital fluency can range from a basic knowledge of Microsoft Suite to an in depth understanding of cloud computing.
2. Data analytics – Data analysis skills are needed to process data and use it in a way that’s both permissible and productive.
3. Digital marketing – Marketing skills are essential in engaging your customer base and ensuring a product’s financial success.
4. Cyber security – Cover potential risk areas by hiring those with cyber security skills
5. Leadership – Company leaders should possess a multitude of “soft” skills, such as expertise in communication, influence, empathy, and strategic thinking.

Digital transformation is about investing in a complete transformation of the business to increase the competitiveness and value of the organization. To increase the growth and ROI of technology investments, companies must be proactive in developing a digital transformation strategy that details the intended transformation of processes, work styles, and more.

Creating a More Sustainable Business

Digital transformation has played a key role in enabling remote working. There is a growing focus on leveraging IoT technologies to drive a seamless experience for the employees while creating carbon-neutral office spaces. Digital transformation has also helped employees to focus less on manual, monotonous activities and instead channel their efforts into more purposeful work thereby enabling a better work-life balance.

Sustainability and digital transformation initiatives impact one another in tandem. A sustainable business model alongside a digital business model makes sense, because transforming business processes to be more data-driven and efficient inevitably improves sustainability. Companies should start by renovating their economic models, work processes, and communication paradigms. 

Start Your Digital Transformation Journey

It’s important to prepare for your organization’s digital transformation journey beforehand. Check out Digital Transformation: Moving Toward a Digital Society, a five-course program from IEEE that provides the background knowledge needed to smartly implement digital tools into organizations.

Contact an IEEE Account Specialist to get organizational access.

Check it out for yourself on the IEEE Learning Network.

Resources

Charpentier, Laurent. (23 August 2022). Decades Into The ‘New’ Millennium, Finance Teams Still Struggle With (Lack Of) Digital Transformation. Forbes.

Ene, Carmen. (25 August 2022). The Next Frontier of Digital: Technology as A Sustainable Business Asset. Forbes.

Ganapathi, Chidambaram. (8 August 2022). Digital transformation is paving the way for a sustainable workplace. The Times of India.

Kenkare, Pallavi. (10 August 2022). Digital transformation: Top 5 skills you need to succeed. ZDNET. 

Ramalho, Tiago. (22 August 2022). Why You Can’t Have Digital Transformation Without Sustainability. Readwrite.

Samuels, Mark. (5 August 2022). What is digital transformation? Everything you need to know about how technology is changing business. ZDNET.

Williams, Daniel. (18 August 2022). How CIOs can approach digital transformation investments to increase value. TechRepublic.

If you thought your digital transformation was going to be a slow-moving transition, think again. According to a recent research report from Information Services Group (ISG), the COVID-19 pandemic has expedited enterprise digital transformation by three to five years. Also, it’s a major trend in modern business fueling demand for technology and service providers, reports by Help Net Security.

“The pandemic has forced enterprises to explore new ways to enable remote work, manage supply and demand and remain competitive,” Prashant Kelker, partner and America’s leader, ISG Digital, told the publication. “Providers are supporting transformations that involve not just technology but a company’s entire operations and organization.”

How Can You Ensure Success for Your Organization in 2022?

Below is a summary of four Do’s and Don’ts for starting your digital transformation, according to Rajan Sethuraman, CEO of LatentView Analytics, originally published in Enterpriser Projects:

Focus on security:
With thousands of organizations transitioning to remote and hybrid office environments, many are at risk of cyber attacks. These new online environments mean that IT departments will have an even more difficult time making sure their employees aren’t falling prey to phishing and other scams. Organizations need to prioritize security with processes such as auditing employees’ remote work equipment and retraining them on IT guidelines for remote work as needed.

Don’t begin your digital transformation initiative without relying on your data:
Because your data is key to knowing where and how to start your digital transformation, it can guide you on how to make the best use of your resources and prevent bottlenecks in your workflow. 

Establish an effective, long-term hybrid work model:
With the ongoing pandemic, there is a good chance that hybrid work will become a new normal. It’s important to think about how to make your hybrid work model effective. For example, how will  your employees work together across different time zones? Also, how frequently will you require them to come to the office?

Don’t underestimate customer experience:
Digital transformation and customer experience are deeply entwined. Be sure to keep customer experience central to your transition. Consider where in the process you can enhance customer service. For example, creating a more “robust and organized database” will allow your customer service team to better respond to customers. To do this, you need deep knowledge of the customer journey. This means familiarizing yourself with every aspect of the customer experience, so you can make improvements as necessary. 

Your organization’s efforts are almost certain to face setbacks and uncertainty, especially as the pandemic continues to trigger unexpected supply chain and labor force hiccups. Staying focused on what you know while learning to navigate the unexpected will be essential to the success of your transformation.

Prepare Your Organization for Digital Transformation

Get your organization ready for digital transformation. The IEEE five-course program, Digital Transformation: Moving Toward a Digital Society, aims to foster a discussion around how digital transformation can transform various industries while also providing the background knowledge needed to smartly implement digital tools into organizations.

Contact an IEEE Account Specialist to get organizational access, or check it out for yourself on the IEEE Learning Network.

Resources

(11 January 2022). How the pandemic fueled enterprise digital transformation. Help Net Security.

Sethuraman, Rajan. (3 January 2022). Digital transformation: 4 do’s and don’ts for 2022. Enterpriser Project.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created major disruptions for business leaders, including a sudden shift to digital transformation. This change has forced many to rethink how they lead newly established remote and hybrid teams. While this change has been difficult for some, it’s nothing an effective leader can’t handle. According to Benoni Tagoe, the president of Raedio, an “audio everywhere” company, there are six ways to improve leadership in this new environment. Below is a summary of his tips, originally published in Rolling Stone: 

1. Be transparent and listen: Leaders who are implementing new ways to work should take time to understand how this affects their teams. “Spend a few meetings observing and listening to them,” states Tagoe. “You’ll gain more by letting them speak first, before responding to their ideas and opinions.”

2. Establish policies that encourage staff “to protect their space”: To help your employees work better from home, consider budgeting for work-from-home office setups.

3. Check-in with your employees: Take time to get to know your team members and form connections with them beyond the office. This can be done through virtual lunches or other gatherings. “With my team, I sent everyone a gift card for Goldbelly that allowed them to order food from restaurants around the country,” writes Tagoe. “My note was simple: Since we all can’t visit our favorite restaurants, we’re bringing your favorite menu items to you. Then I followed up on a team meeting and asked them what they ordered, which allowed the entire team to bond over their favorite meals.”

4. Establish “rules of engagement” for video calls: You don’t always need to conduct team meetings over video but you should probably use video for client meetings, writes Tagoe. Leaders should also make sure calls on the calendar are absolutely necessary. This will help prevent unneeded calls that could have been emails. 

5. Regularly update your employees on remote policies: Leaders planning a return to physical offices should keep their employees informed with a general timeline. 

6. Keep in mind that most employees want the ability to choose: Staff value being able to choose who they work with, what projects they work on, and how they perform their tasks. “As a leader, your mandate is to make sure you engineer events that create camaraderie and allow fellow team members to create a bond around the work,” Tagoe writes. One way to accomplish this would be to restate company goals, explain decisions made that impact them directly, and make sure they are up-to date with financials and business challenges so that they feel a sense of transparency and can also make informed decisions.  

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rattle global markets, leaders will continue to face challenges. However, you may find it easier to navigate this new world of remote/hybrid work by following these simple tips. 

Create Leaders in Organization

IEEE has partnered with Rutgers Business School to offer the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA. Designed specifically for groups of ten or more within an organization, this program operates entirely online. It features topics including business strategy, managing product development, finance, negotiation, managing human capital, intellectual property strategy, and transformational agility.

Participants will learn how to make organizational decisions with both technical and operational considerations. After developing an understanding of how different functional groups interact to achieve overall goals, they will learn to apply their newly developed business skills to better align their technical capabilities with business strategy.

The program offers the option of a customized capstone project, completely aligned to the needs of your organization. As part of the project, you’ll receive feedback from program professors who have worked as engineering leaders themselves.

To learn more about the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for your organization, contact an IEEE Account Manager today.

Resources

Tagoe, Benoni. (15 November 2021). 6 Tips for Effective Leadership in Uncertain Times. Rolling Stone.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rattle industries, many organizations are turning to digital transformation to ease disruptions. While this shift requires business leaders to make a great deal of technological change, digital transformation also requires them to re-examine their attitudes and culture.

“As I’ve gone down this route, I’ve become increasingly aware of how much digital transformation is really about behaviour change within an organisation,” Matthew Reinbold, former director of API & event streaming platform services at Capital One, told Information Age. “It’s not enough to simply do what we did yesterday using new tools. It’s about changing how we behave when given certain problems or certain opportunities. And behaviour change for people is really, really hard.” 

One of the key digital transformation changes organizations will need to implement is adopting a “data-driven decision making culture,” according to Cynthia A. Conway, CEO Peer Advisory Group Chair of Vistage Worldwide, Inc. and Mitch Codkind, president of Initiative Consulting, a division of Initiatives, Inc. To implement such a culture, Conway and Codkind recommend hiring a data scientist who can help you interpret and implement the data that your digitization efforts will rely on, and who can create a “technology architectural plan.”

Writing in Harvard Business Review, they say your plan should outline how to store your company’s data and include:

• technology solutions that allow you to meet your corporate governance requirements 
• analytical capabilities that “connect and share information” throughout your organization
• “a data visualization layer” that helps you see your “prioritized performance metrics quickly and easily” for more efficient decision making

“With this in place, you, your data scientist, and their peers will develop processes across your organization to foster a data-driven decision-making culture for a customer-centric organization — without bias,” Conway and Codkind said.

How To Know Your Digitization Efforts Are Working

Once you’ve implemented digital transformation at your organization, how will you know these efforts are paying off? According to Andrew Butt, co-founder and CEO of Enable, a cloud-based B2B software solution for rebate management, there are five ways to gauge success:

1. Your employee’s productivity has gone up. If staff engagement and productivity have improved and employees are able to dedicate their time to more important activities, you know your digitization efforts are proving effective. To ensure you are meeting this goal, determine a way to track employee productivity.
2. You see a return on your investment. Instead of looking solely at your revenue, compare sales before and after the digitization. Consider variables like project costs and shifting economic and market conditions. 
3. Your employees have been able to fully adapt to your digital transformation. To measure adaptation, you need a system or process in place to determine if and how your employees are using new software. This tool will help you make decisions about what technologies and systems are bringing value to your organization.
4. Your rate of innovation has improved. The amount of innovation that comes out of your digitization efforts is a good indication that these efforts have been successful. This goes beyond providing new digital products and services — it means “making digital experiences as intuitive and streamlined as possible.”
5. You are reaching a greater number of customers. To understand how many customers you are reaching, you should track how they are finding you online using digital tools, and use this data to make improvements and further boost your retention.

Digital transformation requires organizations to undergo an evolution in technology and culture. By implementing a strong data-driven culture and a plan for measuring success, they can reap huge benefits. 

Prepare Your Organization for Digital Transformation

Get your organization ready for digital transformation. The IEEE five-course program, Digital Transformation: Moving Toward a Digital Society, aims to foster a discussion around how digital transformation can transform various industries and provide the background knowledge needed to smartly implement digital tools into organizations.

Contact an IEEE Account Specialist to get access for your organization.

Interested in the course for yourself? Check out the course program on the IEEE Learning Network.

Resources

(2 September 2021). Digital transformation – it’s a people problem. Information Age.

Butt, Andrew. (30 August 2021). Digital transformation metrics: 5 questions to ask. Enterprise Project. 

Conway, Cynthia A. and Codkind, Mitch. (24 August 2021). Where Digital Transformations Go Wrong in Small and Midsize Companies. Harvard Business Review.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, more and more organizations are making the switch to virtual workspaces. Because remote employees rely on their home networks and equipment to do their jobs, this digital transformation poses some hefty security risks. 

A new report from Randori, a security consulting company, which surveyed 400 security-decision makers, reveals how cyber security risks have grown during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the report, three out of four security leaders saw a boost in cyber attacks. 

Leaders are struggling to take action against these threats, with 76% feeling that the attacks were unavoidable and agreeing that prioritizing what to patch has become more difficult. Additionally, although 85% said they had a good understanding of their attack surfaces (the various points within a network that a hacker can target), 48% said they are knowledgeable of less than half of their attack surfaces. 

According to Scott Ikeda, a senior correspondent for CPO Magazine, a majority of decision makers view their ability to secure their networks’ most sensitive information and minimize reputational damage to their organizations as their top priorities. However, they are unclear about how to create strategies for doing so.

“Randori believes the central problem at present is that security experts simply do not know what is exposed to cyber attacks and what the relative network security risk levels are given this flurry of fairly rapid changes,” states Ikeda in CPO Magazine. 

Six Considerations for Building An Effective Cyber Security Strategy

Leading cyber security experts told Information Age there are six ways to create an effective cyber strategy for remote, hybrid, and office-based work.

Leverage communication and teamwork:

Every department within the organization should be involved in ensuring infrastructure security. Furthermore,  there should be regular communication over email, video conferencing, and other tools on the topic.

“Once a strategy is created it needs to be communicated to the wider business, ensuring buy-in and understanding. Everyone plays a role in cyber security, especially as employees are often the weakest link in your defence against cyber crime,” said Colin Blumenthal, managing director at Complete I.T., part of Sharp, a B2B product provider.

Analyze the risks and adopt the results:

Rather than simply following compliance-related security procedures, organizations should proactively evaluate possible risks within their networks, work to understand and reduce those vulnerabilities, and figure out how to eradicate them systematically.

“Once you’ve fixed what you’ve found, iterate. Do it until you think you’ve matured your incident response. Then start conducting red team exercises to see how [your team can] respond to a real attack, and again, continue to iterate–probably, forever,” said Kevin Reed, CISO at Acronis.

Build multiple lines of defense:

In today’s age of digital transformation, one line of defense won’t be enough to secure your organization against cyber attacks. You need to consider both internal and external threats to your data. 

“Whether it’s through a firewall breach, a stolen password, or a brute-force attack, a comprehensive and therefore effective security strategy should act to also protect the interior network—limiting any data loss or damage and maintaining continuity,” said Rashid Ali, enterprise solutions manager at WALLIX.

Tighten access to critical infrastructure:

Make sure you’re covering all the security basics, whether it’s “patching, implementing regular system updates, or tightening controls over privileged accounts and administrator credentials,” said David Higgins, technical director EMEA at CyberArk. However, you also need to go beyond the basics of security, he added. “Adopting strong privileged access management is a must. This helps prevent lateral movement, contain an attack and limit damage.”

Establish security priorities based on risk and value:

“A data security strategy has to consider all data and prioritise according to the actual risk,” said Chris Waynforth, area vice-president at Imperva. Audit your data to understand exactly what risk it poses; delete high-liability data while retaining only necessary data; and monitor the data in ways that allow you to spot and avert leaks. 

Leverage technology to reduce pressure on IT staff:

Implement top-notch technologies that will reduce “the impact of cyber breaches” and make your IT employees’ jobs easier, said Ian Pratt, global head of security for personal systems at HP. 

Cyber Training Solution for Your Organization Offered by IEEE

Having the proper tools and systems in place can prevent data breaches and cyber crimes. As the world becomes more automated, it’s crucial for your organization to understand the available cyber security measures to protect its data and devices. Cyber Security Tools for Today’s Environment, an online 11-course program from IEEE, helps businesses improve their security techniques.

Contact an IEEE Account Specialist today to get access to the course program for your organization.

Interested in learning about getting access to the course program for yourself? Visit the IEEE Learning Network to learn more.

Resources

Hurst, Aaron. (16 April 2021). Creating and rolling out an effective cyber security strategy. Information Age. 

HOW COVID-19 CHANGED SECURITY – A LOOK BACK. Randori. 

Scott Ikea. (19 March). Cybersecurity Programs Struggling To Keep up With Attack Surfaces, Risk Priorities in Pandemic Conditions. CPO Magazine.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many organizations around the world to digitize their workforces. As the pandemic continues and remote work becomes the new norm for many organizations, leaders who fail to effectively transition into the digital realm may struggle. However, there are steps they can take to adopt the increasingly digital workspace and become digitally savvy leaders.

Employees Want Digitally Savvy Leaders

According to a newly released report from MIT Sloan Management Review, 93% of employees across regions and industries think digital savviness is necessary to succeed. Having a sense of purpose is also important. 72% of workers surveyed stated that they “strongly agree that it is very important to them to work for an organization with a purpose they believe in,” according to the Leadership’s Digital Transformation report. Additionally, 88% of workers surveyed reported that having leaders who are digitally savvy is critical to their company’s ability to achieve that purpose. 

However, less than half of those surveyed said their organizations have created project teams that are intentionally diverse when it comes to digital savviness. Furthermore, only 31% thought their companies were assessing the digital skills of their managers. Less than 20% thought their companies were ensuring digital know-how among their high ranking managers. 

Focus on Purpose

Your workers can often sense if you aren’t passionate about the organization and its purpose. If you want them to feel more confident in your leadership, you need to regularly communicate the organization’s strategic purposes to your team. It can help to specify how the organization’s purposes align with their productivity and goals.

“Having a compelling mission statement isn’t enough,” the report states. “Serious leaders must appear as genuinely passionate about enterprise purpose as they are about strategy, agility, and customer centricity. The key is to authentically embed and enable purpose as part of the organization’s digital transformation trajectory. Purpose thus has an operational as well as an aspirational rationale that invites new leadership accountability.”

Develop “Digital Situational Awareness”

Since the pandemic began, remote work has blurred the traditional boundaries between work and home. Even when the work day is over, many workers still find themselves fielding emails. Often, they have to choose between work and family obligations. 

Just 28% of workers surveyed said their company had policies on how and when to contact them beyond work hours. Furthermore, only 24% said their company stuck to these policies if they had them. 

For many, gone are the days when workers could simply knock on their manager’s door. Remote employees need clarity around when and how to reach out to their bosses. This means leaders need to establish boundaries and make an effort to respect these guidelines.

“The key to being measurably more effective is becoming measurably more affective,” the report states. “Leaders who want to succeed have no choice but to digitally transform themselves. Leaders who are unwilling or unable to proactively use data and analytics to understand how their leadership is experienced will underperform.”

Take Advantage of “Mutual Mentoring”

One way leaders can digitally transform themselves is through “mutual” or “reverse” mentoring, in which younger employees mentor those who are older. Although 71% of survey respondents thought younger workers were more successful at obtaining value from digital tools at their organizations, just 19% said their organizations engaged in this kind of mentorship.

The pandemic will eventually end, but remote work is here to stay for many people. If leaders want to be successful, they need to adjust to a new way of managing employees, and for many, digital transformation will be key to their success.

Create Leaders in Your Organization

IEEE has partnered with Rutgers Business School to offer the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers. Designed specifically for groups of ten or more within an organization, this program operates entirely online. It features topics including business strategy, managing product development, finance, negotiation, managing human capital, intellectual property strategy, and transformational agility.

Participants will learn how to make organizational decisions with both technical and operational considerations. After developing an understanding of how different functional groups interact to achieve overall goals, they will learn to apply their newly developed business skills to better align their technical capabilities with business strategy.

The program offers the option of a customized capstone project, completely aligned to the needs of your organization. As part of the project, you’ll receive feedback from program professors who have worked as engineering leaders themselves.

To learn more about the IEEE | Rutgers Online Mini-MBA for Engineers for your organization, contact an IEEE Account Manager today.

Resources

(26 January 2021). Leadership’s Digital Transformation: Leading Purposely in an Era of Context Collapse. MIT Sloan Management Review.

The COVID-19 pandemic is fueling reliance on remote work, thereby increasing the need for cloud computing in organizations.

The video conferencing platform Zoom has received a 300% day-to-day increase in use, according to a JPMorgan study. Additionally, Microsoft’s collaboration platform Teams saw a jump in 12 million daily users the week of March 18. In India, 64% of organizations are expected to transition to cloud computing amidst the pandemic. In Europe, a cloud computing project dubbed Gaia-X—a collaboration between the European Commission and the French and German governments—aims to create a European-based cloud environment that will lessen the continent’s dependence on private companies. 

“Cloud computing, which has been touted for its flexibility, reliability and security, has emerged as one of the few saving graces for businesses during this pandemic,” writes Evan Ellis, CEO and President of K2, in Forbes. “Its use is critical for companies to maintain operations, but even more critical for their ability to continue to service their customers. However, many organizations have lost sight of the original purpose of the cloud and are therefore failing to fully harness its potential.”

The Benefits of Transitioning to the Cloud

Without cloud computing, this large-scale dependence on remote work would not be possible. As the pandemic pushes more organizations to rely on the cloud, it will likely speed a shift from hybrid public-private cloud models to fully-integrated cloud models. According to David Linthicum, Chief Cloud Strategy Officer at Deloitte Consulting LLP, the benefits of fully transitioning to the cloud include:

1) Flexible storage: Because the public cloud is more flexible than physical storage, it offers benefits such as virtual servers that don’t need to be managed manually, quick access to on-demand storage with no limit to the amount you can store, and the ability to embed resiliency.
2) The ability to shift processes to different areas in the cloud and maneuver around disruptions.
3) Enhanced security features including identity advanced encryption in flight and at rest, multifactor authentication (MFA), access management (IAM), and biometrics.
4) Advanced remote control over assets in the public cloud in situations where physical assets cannot be accessed, such as the current situation of widespread business closures during the pandemic.

How to Adopt Fully to the Cloud

To transition fully to the cloud, Ellis recommends the following steps:

1) Have a plan: Make an assessment of your current infrastructure before moving forward.
2) Prepare your apps: Some apps may already be ready to move to the cloud, while you may need to be modernize or replace others.
3) Make the commitment to transition fully to the cloud: Enable and train your users to utilize apps in the cloud. Additionally, prepare to adapt to a cloud system that will require smaller and more frequent updates.

Understand the Challenges

Before moving forward, you’ll need to consider the challenges involved. First, inexperienced IT professionals may inadvertently expose private data when transitioning data to the public cloud—meaning it is vital to make sure they are properly trained before making the transition. Second, it’s important to have a good understanding of how much storage you will need to provision before you make the switch.

“The overall message here is that there is value in looking at potential cloud computing solutions,” writes Linthicum. “When the crisis passes and IT falls into a ‘new normal’ routine, enterprises should assess how well they fared through the event by checking in with their ops teams. If your ops teams have worked regular days during the crisis, chances are you had the right mix of cloud or noncloud technology. A stressed ops team could mean there is much that can be improved.”

Understand the Cloud

Learn more about the benefits and challenges of cloud computing and how it pertains to your organization. Check out the Cloud Computing Course Program, which offers 37 self-paced courses focused on various aspects of cloud computing technologies.

Contact an IEEE Content Specialist for more details about getting access to this program for your organization.

Interested in getting the program for yourself? Visit the IEEE Learning Network today.

Resources

(3 June 2020). 64% Indian firms to adopt cloud computing amid COVID-19 pandemic: IDC. The News Minute.

Potoroaca, Adrian. (4 June 2020). France and Germany back plans to create a European cloud computing ecosystem dubbed Gaia-X. TECHSPOT.

Linthicum, David. (26 May 2020). Leveraging The Cloud During The Pandemic. Forbes.

Ellis, Evan. (22 May 2020). The Current Pandemic Gives Cloud Computing A Needed Jolt. Forbes.