Digital Transformation — Why It Matters with guest Anand Swaminathan

Steven W. May is your host for Projectified with PMI. In this episode, Steven talks Digital Transformation with guest Anand Swaminathan, a senior partner at McKinsey. They talk about what digital transformation means today, why it’s important to almost every organization’s future, the role of project management and realising its benefits, the risks and challenges it introduces, and the changes it can bring to your work culture, teams and customer experiences.
 
Anand Swaminathan is also one of the authors of Digital @ Scale: The Playbook You Need to Transform Your Company. Anand covers some of topics in the book such as the changes in strategy that happen as part of the digital transformation, changes in culture, the organization model and operating model, as well as the changes in fundamental capabilities.
 
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Key Takeaways:
[1:27] What ‘Digital Transformation’ represents
[3:22] What is different today in digitizing processes and the capabilities in technology
[5:33] The fundamental difference between ‘strategy’ vs. ‘execution’
[7:07] The breadth of relevance of digital transformation as a modern movement
[7:38] Where we should look today to see the most significant impact from an industry perspective
[10:01] Going Digital: Embracing the capabilities (John Deere serving as an example)
[13:47] Connection to Culture: The culture shift from digital transformation
[15:22] The big red flags in digital transformation initiatives
[19:36] Tailoring your digital transformation to better suit your customers
[21:02] Infusing and not replacing talent; Putting together the organization ‘puzzle’
[22:11] Planning a major digital transformation program vs. Planning a large technology implementation
 
Links:
McKinsey & Company
Digital @ Scale: The Playbook You Need to Transform Your Company, by Anand Swaminathan and Jürgen Meffert