24

BACKGROUND Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner surveyed several hundred companies, examining the capabilities needed for digital transformation and the impacts of those capabilities on organizational performance. They learned that top-performing organizations are "future-ready", i.e., they are able to innovate to engage and satisfy customers while at the same time reducing costs. In their short article, titled "Is Your Company Ready for a Digital Future?", Weill and Woerner explain: "The most successful enterprises will need to become future-ready and ambidextrous constantly innovating to improve customer experience while also working to reduce costs. Those that don't become future-ready will likely suffer a death by a thousand cuts, with startups, players from other industries, and agile competitors slicing bits out of their businesses" (p. 25). They also describe four different pathways through which companies can become "future-ready" and illustrate those pathways by discussing four major Banks: Danske Bank, mBank, BBVA, and ING. Future-ready companies are those who successfully build a digital strategy. They often use data analytics to innovate and to reduce costs, while many other companies continue to invest in data analytics but without reaping the same benefits. For example, when describing "Industrialized" companies seeking to become "future-ready", Weill and Woerner explain: "Many attempt to improve the customer experience by investing in analytics. However, we have found that these enterprises typically are unable to simplify or automate the underlying and complex business processes, technology, and data landscape. As a result, they see their costs of serving customers increase". This finding is consistent with discussions in the popular press. For example, a recent Forbes.com article (available here Links to an external site.) suggests that up to 80% of data initiatives fail. ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS Read Weill and Woerner's short article available HERE. Then, respond to this Discussion board by creating A SINGLE POST with an answer to the following: A regional Bank in South Florida initiated a digital business transformation program to move from "Industrialized" to become "future-ready". You're advising this Bank and was asked to provide TWO recommendations to help the company use data analytics to become "future-ready". Since you're aware of the results of the Weill and Woerner's study, you know that many "Industrialized" companies struggle to leverage data analytics. How would you advise this company? Note: the 2X2 table on page 22 and the Forbes.com article mentioned above may be helpful in identifying TWO recommendations.