Digital technologies (DT), also referred to as “iCAMSS” (Cloud, analytics, mobile, social, security, internet of things), and used interchangeably in this article, are at the forefront of current wave of business disruption, enabling anytime anywhere transactions and relationships. Digital technologies (DT), through analytics driven, customer intimate - social and mobile channels; supported by always available, highly reliable cloud infrastructure; and state of the art security solutions, are unfolding new ways of doing business, challenging the existing business models across industries and geographies. DT have empowered organizations with instantaneous connect to overwhelmingly diverse individuals and groups of people, far beyond the immediately visible stakeholders. The power of DT to enable people, to continually sense, understand, respond, communicate and exchange, the perceptions and perspectives of each other directly, into social/professional/ organizational networks, groups and communities; provides a unique opportunity for value creation, by gathering insights and implementing decisive actions.

Why digital is different

Digitization has put businesses on an inflection point, to chart a new course, quite dissimilar to many other traversed in the past. In particular, DT expand the reach of organizations to an overwhelmingly large number of people comprising stakeholders; not limited to; partners, suppliers, employees, customers, communities, social and activist groups in immediate and the extended value chain. This connect with “people”, marks the key inflection, as the relationships between and with people; and subsequent exchange of their perspectives, ideas and opinions, within and beyond their immediate networks; forms the founts of value creation. In this new virtuous growth path, the people network, their inter relationships and interactive communication makes, for a new way, to beat customer needs and meet the new gratification demands. Gains from “people connect ", and extended relationships can be remarkably unique, significant and valuable, compared to “process” efficiency gains that earlier generation technologies delivered and continue to, with standardization, consolidation and automation focus. DT help meet customers’ deep emotional needs such as personalization, privacy, interactive communication, behavioral understanding, and instant gratification; through rich immersive and predictive experiences. In order to serve the emotional needs, it is imperative for organizations to reimagine business models and customer experience. This requires new expertise and behavior training to employees, job re-design, rehash of roles and responsibilities, new definition of accountabilities in a re-aligned organization. So, as much as DT enable a new way of engaging with stakeholders outside the organization, they demand a new way of working within, to create value for all. The new way of working implies fostering a new culture, aligned with digital strategy, where people, their social network relationships and interactive communications help generate and share knowledge, ideas, opinions, insights and valuable feedbacks. Digital thus, paves way for businesses to unlock value, from the most residing deep within and outside organizations– The People.

How value is created uniquely 

Shareholder value maximization, key traditional objective of corporate performance, has been an abiding metric for assessing organization management effectiveness and value creation. However, it has attracted criticism from various quarters, as it has failed to resolve the following paradoxes:

a) Short term market expectations prioritized vs long term sustainable organizational performance

b) Managerial bias for short term results and rewards vs stakeholder interest for impactful outcomes

c) Inequitable favor to financial (creditors and investors) stakeholders over other (employees, suppliers, society, communities and government) stakeholders

In the new “sharing economy” where “not what you know, but how and what you share” is the mantra, iCAMSS enables stakeholders across the value chain to transparently view decisions, actions, and responses of various individuals, groups, network members and communities in the organization eco-system. In particular, the value is created by exchange of information, knowledge, ideas and appreciation of differences of opinions; between individuals and groups, having varied social, cultural, economic, religious and political, beliefs, attitudes and experiences. Deliberations and debate, progressively funnel and filtrate ideas into valuable insights. Understanding these insights via pervasive, ubiquitous and multi-way communications, through enabling digital technologies, delivers enhanced understanding and rich takeaways for all stakeholders.

Conclusion

DT are helping organizations to significantly strengthen their bonds with stakeholders, forging deeper relationships and meaningful engagement. They help build a 360 degree view of "people's ideas"; funneled and filtrated through lenses and perspectives of individuals and groups across relationships, in networks and communities. The passion and power of people’s collective capabilities transforms the ideas into insights in a virtuously additive, associative and exponentially progressive manner. These rich insights form the bedrock for new founts of value and growth for organizations, who are iteratively able to re-examine and re-discover, untapped value residing deep inside and outside their value chains.Quick adoption of digital technologies, can help organizations stay ahead of the curve in the market place, by enhancing functional / organizational effectiveness, deepening engagement with customers, suppliers and all other stakeholders (regulators, bankers, communities and extended networks of value chain), delivering value and driving growth.

Disclaimer: This is a contributed post. The statements, opinions and data contained are solely those of the individual authors and contributors and not of People Matters and the editor(s).