BBC: Digital Transformation for Analysts

In our previous post on the 2016 Building Business Capability (BBC) conference, we introduced 3 future trends for business analysis. Digital transformation is a hot-topic in technology trends. The speakers at BBC explored how analysts can help companies navigate these new challenges by applying analysis techniques to understand the customer needs, the technology options, and business outcome desired.

The Essence Of Strategy Is Saying “No.”

In 2017, companies will explore artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, virtual reality, augmented reality, and other digital transformation aspects to enable and augment technology services. When exploring these options, analysts must understand the desired outcome for the customer and the business. The key is knowing when to say “No” – or rather, to understand which investments will not achieve the desire result.

The Value Of Internet Of Things (IoT)

The value of IoT is not in the technology, but how it can improve, aid, and create a better customer experience. We see the divide between marketing and IT disappearing as organizations strive to catch up to customer needs. Analysts must understand not just the technology but how IoT implementations improve or detract from the customer experience.

Robots And Automation

The goal of automation is to move people from manual work to work which allows challenge, purpose, and mastery. To do this, organizations must invest in growing their people.

Technology systems fall into 3 categories:

1. Transactional: Systems which run daily business operations. Applications such as SAP, Oracle Financials,      and IBM pureScale.
2. Analytics: Systems to enable business decisions by identifying trends, anomalies, and opportunities. Applications include Tableau and PowerBI.
3. Cognitive: Systems which use AI and Machine Learning to predict trends. IBM Watson is the best-known application available to researchers.

Business analysts must understand the difference between these technology systems, so organizations invest in the correct solution. You don’t want to use cognitive power for transactional problems.

Don’t Ask “Can We Do It?” But “Should We Automate?”

The digital transformation for organizations is similar to the social media transformation. Then, companies jumped into Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts before determining if these were useful platforms to engage their customers. Now, companies must apply those learnings to digital transformation. Select options which enhance your customer experience and increase your return on investment.