5 actions to start a Digital Transformation

In practice, how can digital transformation be applied? 5 practical recommendations that fit to any company.

In the Early of 1970s, FedEx began to grow in the delivery market. Its founder said: "Information about the package is more important than the package itself". He was able to foster a culture where customer and data went hand in hand.

And in practice, how can digital transformation be applied? Taking lessons from his book "Innovators: Frederick W. Smith: Founder of Fedex", I bring 5 practical recommendations that work for any organization, not necessarily in order of priority on this list.

1- Have an attacking mentality. Large companies with a long time on the road end up having the so-called “legacy systems”, and any new implementation can cause problems. But the mentality of starting something in this direction is imperative nowadays

2-Start using “edge” technologies. With the developments and infrastructure located in the  “container” and with “microservices”, system changes can be done independently.

3 - Invest in cloud technologies (better known as “Cloud Computing”). They tend to be more flexible, and with costs that grow as you grow. That means paying for the technology you use instead of buying more than you need.

4 Have confidence regarding your Solution Architecture, but also bring visibility into deployments. Change Management techniques are increasingly common. Give strength to this, and value the deployments, but also the mistakes to fix them quickly.

5 -  If you have different business units (such as FedEx which is an airline, a trucking company, an office services company...among others), think about roles and responsibilities in the company that do an integration activity. It is worth consulting agile practices and correlated frameworks such as Scrum (at the team level) and SAFe (called “Business Agility”).

Have the courage to create new ways of doing your activities, as the risk of not upgrading can generate even more impact. Choose where to start. But start.