It is human ingenuity that determines how technology is exploited to effect better human outcomes. Human judgement and creativity drive the innovation that frees us to focus on what really matters. And human insight is what’s required to navigate the limitless choices – the opportunities and threats – that a digital world presents.
This is why, while it is easy to internalize technology or data as being the core of digital transformation, it is far more valuable to look at humans as the key to success. The choice to use a word such as “human” is a conscious one. We must allow ourselves to focus on the individual and collective people that are part of our business journey. The sheer awkwardness of the word “human” gives us the pause required to have empathy and face the personal interaction head on, as opposed to words such as “audiences,” “people,” “consumers” or “users” which are often so abstract and impersonal as to lose the emotional connection. We must focus on humans to drive digital business strategies effectively.
The humans
As we transform industries to embrace digital at the core of business strategy, it is helpful to think of businesses delivering experiences to humans. Products, services and the way they interact with customers are re-contextualized when we move from the language of transactions to that of experiences. In a business context, there are three key species of humans for whom we power new experiences through digital.
- Employees: First, businesses have employees inspired through a sense of purpose, motivated to create value in the companies where they work. And, increasingly those employees have new expectations about the role technology should play as part of their professional experience, largely shaped by the rapid pace of digital innovation in their personal lives. Digital has the power to surprise and delight employees by making tasks that should be easy actually be easy, enhanced by more intuitive interfaces, sheer speed and responsiveness, and deeper connections between things that should be connected.
- Customers: Second, businesses engage with their customers – whether B2B or B2C – to connect supply with demand, selling products and services. This particular species of humans increasingly begs for the experience of discovery, delivery, and relationship to be enhanced by digital. Digital affords the promise of powerful new customer engagement: targeted marketing efforts that are more personally relevant, transactions without friction, and deeper relationships with companies that increasingly anticipate a customer’s needs.
- Partners: Third, an ecosystem of partners – and the humans within those partner companies – surrounds a business and its digital endeavors. Businesses increasingly recognize that great value can be created by working more closely with a range of partners – from vendors to other industry participants, even those previously considered competition. As disruption transforms the shape of industries, digital enables better workflows across ecosystems, driven by stronger industry collaboration. Digital enables new value to be created with partners, from tightening a supply chain to transacting on industry-wide standards.
From employees, to customers, to partners, the common thread is that the digital experiences we create must put humans at the core to maximize engagement and value creation.
Business, not digital
As we start to recognize what digital brings to the human experience so, too, we must recognize what it brings to the organization. Digital is not some discrete function, rather it should be considered as part of the whole. We see business issues not digital ones. Likewise, we see business opportunities from the human experiences we transform through digital.