Saturday, March 16, 2013

Three “D”s in Digital Leaders

The boundaries of the corporation become fluid and permeable integration gives way to orchestration.

More and more organizations are heading to the digital journey, it takes digital leadership to encompass the right direction, empower the right talent and enable the long-term transformation. 

Digital leadership also does not come from one individual executive; all effective leaders need to cultivate the digital mindset and become digital pioneers today.  There is three “D”s in digital leaders:   


1.    Data-Friendly 

Digital leaders become the champions to cultivate data-driven culture, embed data into business process to manage innovation via discipline and satisfy customer via creativity. 

  • Digital leaders improve business’s digital IQ: As data turns to be one of the most valuable assets in business today. High-performance organizations have higher digital IQ: Digital IQ is a measure of how well companies understand the value of data & technology and weave it into the fabric of their organization.
  • Digital leaders take advantage of big data to think differently: Although businesses start to appreciate information as a strategic asset, they are overwhelmed with big data – from growing volumes and increasing complexity to the proliferation of unstructured data sources and a surge in external data streams. Big data isn’t primarily a technology issue; it’s more of a mindset issue. Big data has given business the opportunity – and the need – to start thinking in new ways
  •  Digital leaders cultivate the culture of innovation to delight Customer: Digital leaders take practical and ingenious solutions that help the customer succeed. The boundaries of the corporation become fluid and permeable integration gives way to orchestration. Digital leaders take charge of managing big data & small data, capture insight about product/service trend, customer satisfaction, operational effectiveness and talent management as well. 

2.    Decision Right 

One of the major responsibilities of leaders is to make the right decisions, digital leaders will naturally embrace data and streamline data-driven decision making.

  • Digital leaders are more comfortable with leveraging data and intuition to make the decision right. Changing attitudes on the role of data in decision-making may still be a working progress for many executives; Digital leaders can leverage both pieces accordingly: The value from a gut feeling is probably setting the context of the problem up and making sure to use the right data. Secondly, It’s always important to use more than one source of information analysis to drive decisions
  • The art & science of decision-making: Digital leaders take consideration of simple data and more complex data analysis—in the mix with intuition and experience, a mix that collectively makes up the art and science of decision-making. Humans may catch what a computer can’t see as human eyes, with their ability to detect symmetry and adjacency, can see patterns in data that even sophisticated automated recognizers can overlook. So digital leaders need think fast and slow to decision right.

3. Dynamic Nature 

  Organizations have more dynamic workplace and workforces at digital era than ever, it takes digital leaders’ dynamic nature to embrace such new normal:

  • Digital leaders shape digital enterprise with agility—doing things better & faster; elasticity: scale up & down seamlessly and resilience A digital organization is empowered by digital tools and relying on a winning combination of face-to-face and virtual initiatives. It involves the creation of an interactive multi-channel communication and sharing the process to generate awareness about new digital tools and processes to help accelerate and secure workforce buy-in. 
  • Digital leaders accelerate digital globalization: Firms are increasingly transforming from multi-national to truly global operations. Digital technology coupled with integrated information is allowing firms to gain global synergies while remaining locally responsive. They are, in the words of digital executives, “becoming more centralized and decentralized at the same time." Globalization also entails a different approach to policy: “fewer mandates from headquarters, but more guidelines.” 
  • Digital leaders cultivate digital capabilities of business: They are fundamental building blocks for transformation in customer experience, operational processes, and business models. The unique set of digital capabilities will make high digital IQ organizations more competitive than laggards.
A digital leader with such three “D”s will also be an insightful leader, transformational leader, adaptable leader, effective leader and global leader as well.

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