A short, simple and visual history of digital transformation and a few key future digital trends to provoke thinking and stretch innovation in your digital strategy.

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A Simple Visual History of Digital Transformation
Since the Mosaic Browser helped introduce the internet to the world in 1993,
we have experienced an accelerated digital transformation of business. We
had digital activities in our organisations before. We had already spend
almost 50 years computerising processes. However, the digital connectivity
of the internet began more radical change. Here’s a simple graphical
reminder and some examples of elements of that journey.
We began by creating digital channels to connect our organisations to their
customers. The website began with simple digital brochures and basic
contact information. Very quickly our websites became richer and more
valuable. Innovation began outside the organisation that showed the way for
all subsequent phases of digital transformation with start-ups like

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Amazon.com, Google.com and others
We added processes to support the customer interactions. In many cases
these processes were new, partial and designed solely to support the new
digital channels. For example, websites, early internet banking platforms and
e-commerce platforms were largely standalone and largely handcrafted.
We saw potential in these digital processes and started to apply them more
widely. These processes worked in the midst of our legacy process and often
in unconnected ways. For example, ecommerce activities often used entirely
separate customer management, inventory and logistics and payment
processes to the core business.

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As the breadth of our digital channels expanded and we needed to manage
new social and mobile channel needs, we needed a dedicated digital team to
manage the expanding offering and to help integrate the core digital
processes and infrastructure required to support growing digital ambitions.
Organisations began to hire Chief Digital Officers. Organisations were
responding to the creation of Facebook, Twitter and other social channels
and the potential of apps on iphone and Android mobile platforms.
With a digital team to advocate and lead the way on growing digital
opportunities, we saw digital interaction takeover much of the electronic
communication in the organisation and new integrated digital processes
develop in supply chains, shareholder & community management and other
forms of stakeholder engagement. APIs began to standardise digital
communication formats in an increasing way for organisations. Organisations

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could leverage vast amounts of data on interactions and increasingly on
activity across the organisation. Examples include supply chain integration,
procurement systems and authorization APIs.
With digital interactions dominating & pressure to focus on core business
activities, organisations began to become more aware that they operated in
digital networks, connected to customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.
Importantly, it became increasingly obvious that these networks connected
all stakeholders reducing transaction costs and increasing transparency.
Most dangerously these networks & data flows gave competitive advantage
to those most able to leverage digital technologies in disruptive ways.
Ratings and price comparison sites were just one example of this new
transparency and connection.

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Seeing potential in connectivity, new and existing organisations saw the
ability to focus on platforms that connected system players, creating new
value and disrupting the traditional business of intermediaries. These
platforms were increasingly agnostic of whether they ran on a computer, a
phone or another device, giving them greater geographic and temporal
reach. We began to connect all processes & devices into networks to
leverage the power of information. Concepts like employee, contractor,
supplier and customer had less secure meaning in a networked world as
chains of connectivity ran in all directions & right through the organisation.
Examples include: eBay, Airbnb, Uber, Etsy, Alibaba, Salesforce.com,
Microsoft Office365.
With platforms and networks running through and beyond the organisation,
people began to explore the opportunities in new ways of working using
digital. The boundaries of organisations no longer constrained the
boundaries of work. Seeking to retain talent, leverage information more
effectively and create greater agility, organisations experimented with new
digital ways of working and organising work. Examples include Task Rabbit,
Sidekicker, Atlassian, Expert 360, Change Agents Worldwide and many more.

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Where Next?
This digital transformation has only just begun. There are many more phases
ahead. The innovations and experiments of organisations will take us even
further into exploring the potential of globally connected digital networks.
Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future - traditional Danish
saying often attributed to Nils Bohr
Make any predictions on digital transformation and you can be sure that
someone is currently working to undermine your credibility. The following
suggestions for the future of digital transformation are offered on the basis
that these are ideas that exist already
“The future already exists but is not yet widely distributed” to quote from
author William Gibson.

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As the costs of digital connectivity and computing power fall, these
capabilities are being added to more and more devices. The internet of
things has reached our homes and our workplaces. The increased ability to
gather and use information in real time will drive new innovations in our
businesses and our lives. Examples include Fitbit, Nest, RaspberryPi and
many more internet of things applications.
Add enough digital connectivity and computing power and you have created
the potential for a mesh of sensors, connectivity and processing power to fill
our environments. Now our digital things and our communication devices
can be in constant contact and new applications will be developed to take
advantage of the rich digital environment.

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The digital mesh will help accelerate digital automation as many traditional
roles of knowledge workers, such as the gathering, digesting and processing
of information now flow from an ambient mesh and are managed through
algorithms and their managers. Examples include Watson, the evergrowing
Google algorithms and many new predictive and analytical algorithms
leveraging big data and machine learning.
A digital mess also enables the greater leverage of bots, digital agents that
can navigate the mesh and achieve outcomes for their owners, clients and
masters. These algorithms take on the role of making local decisions or
acting as advisers or facilitators across the breadth of the networks. Digital
Agents help manage the scale of information and the real time demands of
the mesh. Examples include personal agents like Siri, Cortana and Alexa and
also the rise of chatbots in applications like Slack.

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Distributed and connected computing power also enables us to revisit
concepts of how we record, store and share information on concepts like
ownership, identity and history of transactions. Instead of a single ledger
located in one location, the transaction history can be distributed and
validated across the network, as in blockchain. Innovations will build on
these capabilities into new domains. Current examples include Bitcoin,
Blockchain ledgers in financial services and Ethereum.
The digital mesh increasing can enable individuals by supplying capabilities
need for individuals to have greater awareness, connection or to do work
that was previously beyond the capability of a single individual. If an
organisation is a solution to transaction costs as Roald Coase suggested,
there are new implications for the role and future of our organisations and
the growing capabilities of the digital systems will shape the work individuals

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will do (or don’t do).
We have not yet begun to explore the potential of extending this digital mesh
and its capabilities to the entire world. We can already see new approaches,
such using e-commerce villages in China, video in education in India, market
pricing data for farmers in the third world or MPesa mobile payments in
Africa. As the costs of digital technologies fall and reach expands new
entrepreneurs will solve new problems for those beyond the reach of this
technology today.
What are you planning to do to leverage the capabilities of a digitally
connected world?