Need new tactics to master the digital game? Are your services state of the art, yet, your clients are demanding faster, cheaper, and more data driven solutions? Wondering, how you are going to master digital transformation as a service organization and beat the technology firms that are vying for your clients?
Digital transformation
Don’t confuse digital transformation with the move from analogue to digital signal processing that happened decades ago. For most service firms, this meant replacing old equipment with a modern, smaller digital version, such as for example rotary phones. No fundamental shift in strategy or culture was needed to accomplish that transformation.
The current digital transformation is fundamentally different. It is not about processing signals, but about data, and it has a profound impact on any service provider.
In the video below, I explain what service firms need to know about their technology counterparts to survive and win the digital transformation battle.
Fundamentally different tactics
Even when the problems of your clients have not changed, your current way of addressing their problems may no longer be sufficient. Since your client’s expectations about service delivery are changing rapidly. Watch the video, to learn the differences in the business models service and technology firms use to address and solve a client problem.
From tailored to optimized
Do you want to change your tactics from tailored to optimized data driven solutions as a service provider? I cannot answer that question for you. It is a strategic choice you will have to make.
The need for tailored service offerings will always remain. However, the predictions are that the size of this market will significantly shrink compared to what it is today.
The optimized recommendations that data driven solutions can deliver, will become better and more nuanced with more data becoming available. As a result, over time these optimized recommendations will capture a larger and larger market share over tailored solutions. Below are two examples to explain which tailored offerings are likely to remain and which are most likely to disappear.
Healthcare example
Physicians and other healthcare providers are probably always going to be the preferred choice for anyone who is sick. Patients who faces significant health issues, want to make sure they get the treatment that is best for them.
Yet what about the healthy? Are they willing to put up with waiting for hours, if not days, to get seen by a physician? And wait even longer for possible final recommendations to stay healthy? Probably not. Most of us prefer instantaneous answers. Healthy individuals probably prefer a good-enough answer based on predictions and algorithms over the alternative – an answer tailored to you specifically, for which you must wait a few days, and which in the majority of cases yields exactly the same outcome.
Legal profession example
When at fault and in need of a lawyer to defend you in court, you probably don’t take an algorithmic derived likelihood as an acceptable defense. You want a lawyer to look into the details of your case and bail you out.
However, regarding all the preventative work law firms do, getting a likelihood prediction is probably good enough for most clients. Optimized recommendations will work fine, to prevent clients from getting into legal trouble.
Tech companies cannot deliver the tailored solutions. As it requires years of training, to enter the professional field. Yet, for data-driven optimized solutions, they don’t need years of training to master the professional’s knowledge, expertise, and insights. What they need, is large amount of data, predictive analytical models, and other machine learning tools. No knowledge or training in the profession is required.
Often the solutions tech firms can offer focus on the most prevalent cases and issues only. Yet, that yields plenty of market share for these tech companies. In those areas, they will outperform most professionals, as software can deliver answers instantaneously and computer models work 24/7 to improve their outputs.
All about the data
Data is key in the digital transformation battle. As a service provider, you have the huge advantage of having such data about your current clients.
In addition, you have the knowledge, expertise and insight to understand what this data truly means.
Use it! That is what digital transformation is about!
It is likely also what your clients are demanding, when they are asking for faster and cheaper services, and a different experience. They want you to do what tech companies promise, just do it better!
Changing your tactics
Wondering how to make all this happen? I am not saying it is easy. However, it is not impossible either. Big firms like Kaiser Permanente and Littler have been successful in taking advantage of the data they have. Yet, smaller firms like Buckley Sandler LLP are able to play this game successfully too.
You just have to take innovation – that is turning ideas about utilizing your data into valuable service offerings- seriously.
Evaluate what problems of your clients could be solved by data-driven algorithms. Assess your current innovation capabilities and infrastructure. Take a good look at the innovation processes in use. What works and what does not? And work diligently to crank out these new services solutions that your clients are waiting for!
P.S. Organizing4Innovation enables service firms to change their tactics and win the digital transformation battle. We help you achieve your innovation and digital transformation goals by putting in place the appropriate processes, metrics, and training programs. Our website has lots of resources that are specifically designed to help service firms boost their innovation outcomes, including workshops and training programs.
