Bestselling author David Rogers: Digital transformation is a matter of culture

To survive in the digital age, a company has to reinvent itself and create new business models all the time. For traditional companies, this is an immense task, but it can be done, according to David Rogers in his new book, The Digital Transformation Roadmap. His tip to supply chain directors: “Make sure that your department does not become a bottleneck, but rather an enabler of change.”

The remarkable thing about the term ‘digital transformation’ is that everyone has a different view of it. Some think it includes a company-wide implementation of an ERP system. Others think more of making the logistics operation completely paperless. There are also plenty of companies that see digital transformation as a buzzword to be used mainly in company presentations and annual reports, but which you don’t have to do anything else with.

As David Rogers describes in his book, this immediately creates an important problem: companies have high expectations of their digital transformation without knowing what they are actually talking about. Not surprisingly, 70% of digital transformations do not lead to the desired results, as several studies by BDG and McKinsey, among others, have shown.

“Transforming an existing business in such a way that it can thrive in a world of constant digital change” – that is how the American defines the term digital transformation in his book. So that is emphatically very different from automating existing business processes, as many people think. It is much more about adapting those business processes to new circumstances, and making them suitable for new business models. Because even though your company may still be making good profits now, the rapid digital changes in the world can alter this very quickly. A company’s lifecycle is getting shorter and shorter, and to prevent disruptive newcomers from shaking up your market too, it is better to be a step ahead of them. By continuously innovating yourself. But the question is, how do you do that? Or rather, how do you become a company that does this naturally? … … …

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