The Parallel Universe

Organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to keep pace with recent & rapid technology changes. 37% of respondents in a Capgemini survey of industry executives reported being worried that their organisations would not be able to keep up with technology changes and as a result, would lose their competitive edge. Incumbents need to constantly revisit their business model to ensure it is not outdated. Digital workplace programmes often lose their way or fail, due to a fragmented approach that prioritises a few technology “fixes” over business strategy, says Gartner, Inc. 

As discussed in this report by Carol Rozwell, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner: "The digital workplace promises a more flexible, engaging and intelligent work environment that is able to exploit changing business conditions…To be successful, a digital workplace can't be built in a vacuum. It must be part of a wider business strategy that seeks to boost employee agility and engagement by developing a more consumerised work environment". To combat this, Gartner argues that digital workplace leaders need to employ a framework to ensure their digital workplace initiatives address 8 critical components required for a successful implementation, which we have compiled into a succinct infographic below:

VISION: Define What Success is in a Digital Workplace

The vision will promote the future ethos of the digital workplace at your company and how it will be beneficial to all partners and stakeholders. This vision must be aligned with the organisation’s core values to serve as an inspiration to employees and stakeholders who will deploy the strategy and policies to manifest this vision.

STRATEGY: Create a Roadmap to Reach Your Final Destination

Your Digital Workplace Strategy is what you will use to achieve your vision and what you will use to facilitate a digitally empowered workforce. Clearly outlining a strategic roadmap to achieve your organisation’s goals is imperative in creating a Digital Workplace.

METRICS: Quantify Performance & Value

The way in which leaders of this Digital Transformation measure the worth of their initiatives should be valued alongside current Digital Workplace strategies. Each initiative should be aligned to positive reinforcements to drive business value metrics, workforce effectiveness and employee agility, satisfaction and retention. Tools such as: change management and the structure for employee incentivisation are symptomatic of an effective metric measurement feedback mechanism.

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE: Improve Employee Workplace Design

How employees experience and interact is imperative with a digital workplace strategy. An engaged, creative and dynamic workforce will outperform your competition in terms of delivery, execution and product design. By increasing employee participation and interaction in a workplace redesign, there will be a more effective and energetic approach to business outcomes.

ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE: Little steps, Big Goals

There will be tiny changes that organisations will make towards internal processes, departmental structures, incentives, skills, culture and behaviour that as digital workplace initiatives mature, will gradually affect the organisation on a larger scale.

PROCESSES: Re-engineer How High-Impact Work is Done

Digital workplace programmes are significantly more powerful when they’re focusing on increasing the effectiveness of people who do high-impact work. Such work benefits from more agile, responsive and collaborative processes that depend more on the ability to respond rapidly to evolving circumstances. There is a requirement to take a closer look at how employees are currently working to re-engineer business processes & redesign new work journeys. Innovative and enhanced work processes will include the application of new tools to facilitate collaborative work, use of bleeding-edge technologies and the adaptation of out-of-date processes.

INFORMATION: Revise Access and Use of Content and Analytics

Employees anticipate enterprise tools used for searching, sharing and consuming information to be as evocative and “smart” (so to speak) in comparison to the ones they use in their personal lives. They want information and analytics to be inspected, based on their work and delivered when they want or need it. It has been predicted that by 2020 algorithms will enhance the performance of over 1 billion workers.  

TECHNOLOGY: Use a Platform Approach to Workplace Investments

It is strategically critical for application leaders driving digital workplace programmes to know how to use technology and apply new forms of innovation to reach customers, IoT connected devices and ecosystems. Using new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things can facilitate significantly more effective ways to work and also exploit bleeding-edge technology innovation without consistently rebuilding.

OUR SERVICES & HOW WE CAN HELP

Nicole Wright, the Head of Parallel’s Digital Transformation & Business Change practice, works with organisations in the Retail, eCommerce & Financial Services sectors focussing on accelerating growth through Digital Transformation. With over 12 years’ experience in the Digital Transformation & Technologymarket, Nicole has helped organisations across a range of sectors achieve positive technology outcomes. She has a strong track record of building close, productive, long-term relationships with clients and bring a genuine interest in my market, excellent knowledge and a real passion for delivering results. You can contact Nicole at nicole.wright@parallelconsulting.com, give her a call at +44 (0) 20 323 4122 or visit her LinkedIn page. 

If you're interested in driving change and are looking for new jobs within our Digital Transformation & Business Change, be sure to check out our current vacancies!

A more detailed analysis about Digital Workplace practices is available to Gartner clients in the report Eight Building Blocks You Need to Construct Your Digital Workplace Plan.  Be sure to partake in Gartner’s Analysts as They Discuss the Latest Digital Workplace Best Practices at Gartner Digital Workplace Summit, September 18-19 2017 in London, U.K. We know that we will be there!