How Can Organizations Adapt To The New Norm? Interview With Darren Thayre.
In today’s Digital Transformation series, we are very happy to have Darren Thayre, the Head of Digital Transformation and Digital Ventures (JAPAC) at Google with us!
In this interview, Darren breaks down the concept of digital transformation, greatest barriers to successful digital transformation and myths about digital transformation. Enjoy the interview!
0:10 Darren’s Background
Darren worked across the Middle East and Africa before delving right into his speciality in digital transformation in Asia for seven and a half years now. His current role involves evangelising Google’s suite of products to enterprises which prioritise speed and innovation in response to their customers’ demand.
Darren’s team, together with other stakeholders, is looking at where they can establish long-term relationships to bring the different services of Google to their customers.
Right now, Darren focuses on doing talent management programs that involves sourcing for new talents, upskilling what they have, retaining, and driving new culture within the organisation.
3:39 Defining “Digital Transformation“
Darren’s definition of digital transformation is looking at how to change the totality of a business. This involves seeking answers and asking whether these answers are relevant, and will still be relevant tomorrow.
There is a need to evolve its services according to the customers’ preferences to offer best in class solutions. Digital transformation is an end to end process involving personnel and technology transformation.
5:39 Defining “Digitalization”
Digitalization, on the other hand, is focused on a more specific problem. There is specifically a change in a product, personnel, or process, instead of changing the entire organization.
One example is transforming a contact centre operation to provide a better experience for the customers. In Google, they have a solution called “contact centre AI” that is dedicated to solving issues, whether technical or business-related.
This AI can be a game-changer in terms of the experience the customer has whenever they contact the company’s call centre.
7:16 Darren’s view of starting a new digital venture
Darren also expounded on the concept of starting up a new digital venture alongside the existing business. According to him, this is a method that companies can experiment with, when it comes to both digitalisation and digital transformation.
His view is that generally, it’s easier to build new entities than to transform, but it still depends on the company’s context and the right solution for the business. The only thing Darren is 100% certain is that doing nothing is not an option.
9:18 COVID-19 period
Because of the pandemic situation today, various industries had to change, especially in education and health care services. Businesses and organisations had to shift online. Doing nothing is not an option unless a company is already digital in its services.
10:13 Correlation between cloud computing and digital transformation
Digital transformation tends to have a few common strategic goals, and one is to reduce costs. There is also a desire to enable the organization to do things that it was unable to do before. There are several levers an organization can pull to achieve and launch new digital services. Still, when it comes to technology, it is nearly impossible to do these things in a data center or on a private cloud due to construction costs and enormous capital demands.
Darren has done a lot of data center audits over the years, and he noticed that companies tend to buy packets of technology for specific peak traffic. But he also discovered that clients are using 50% or even less of their data center estate and its technology. Through rationalization of the data center and technology sizing, things can come down by as much as 50-60%, and a company will just pay for the amount it needs. This premise will provide operational efficiency to the company and help the company focus on value-adding services.
The opportunity of using cloud to leverage AI can completely change how one collaborates with the organisation. Darren thinks that the cloud is a critical enabler for digital businesses.
17:43 Top three impediments to digital transformation
Darren provides three common patterns based on the programs he worked in:
- Having the right talent in place, and the freedom of that talent to focus on change.
An organization needs ‘change agents’ – people who are experts in change management. Bringing outside experiences such as conducting outside interviews from other company that has done digital transformation often helps augment different thinking. Getting the right talent means the company is giving its teams the time, space, and freedom to focus on the change.
- A lack of focus on people, process, and technology.
Companies may fail to execute a program if they don’t have business model innovation. For example, the iPhone by Apple is a highly engineered piece of technology with a premium price. Apple then works with mobile operators to bring down the upfront costs and spread the remaining cost throughout monthly bill payments. What Apple did was an innovative thing, making iPhone pervasive and as inexpensive as possible for consumers.
- Inability to quantify the cost and benefit that comes with digital transformation.
There are big firms that haven’t gone through digital transformation and are accelerating downwards in terms of bottom-line and growth. These large companies need to invest millions of dollars in transforming at that moment. Darren personally experienced the struggle of quantifying the impact of digital transformation. He suggests that qualifying cost savings in other areas might be a better idea as opposed to seeking new funds to go and kick-off a program gives the company certainty as to how they are going to fund the digital transformation process.
27:41 The largest myth about digital transformation
A lot of people believe that digital transformation is simply about getting good at technology.
According to Darren, it is not possible that technology alone makes today’s significant digital firms. It is how companies reinvent and innovate the business model and how they develop great customer-centric products.
30:09 Darren’s parting note
Industries should think of digital transformation as a journey, not a destination. Society today–as well as consumer demands–is changing rapidly. Organizations should focus on getting good at digital, and if they are already digitizing, they should get better at it and think about it as a never-ending journey.
Darren recommends that firms should accept that change is constant, and embrace the mindset of continually enhancing their innovations and be prepared for the next one. It will provide a much healthier and agile business that will be able to ride any wave of change.
We hope you have enjoyed today’s interview with Darren Thayre–Share this post and leave a comment!