CoVid19 hit us and has now created the “new Normal” in terms WFH, Video conferences, balancing the family and all the nice domestic interruptions during these video conferences. While all this was happening, I decided to go and get myself “educated” on the very interesting topic of Digital Strategy. Let me tell you – for a person who has been traveling every week for God knows how many years, sitting in front of the PC on an “online course” was not the easiest of challenges.

Nevertheless, I am penning down some of my thoughts and observations here:

1.      Digital is here to stay: Many organizations have already embarked with significant investments in this space. With the need for “contactless” deals, this is going to assume enormous proportions in the weeks, months to follow.

2.      Crowd Sourcing: I will not claim to be an expert here. However, with the intense pressure on Corporates to cut costs, leveraging the “Crowd” to get things done is going to become a trend. Many organizations have gained significant savings by leveraging the crowd. Importantly, with organizations cutting down on the employees, it is my belief (actually a request) to all those who find themselves without jobs to put themselves up as “domain experts” (if they are knowledgeable, of course) online, for some organization to leverage their knowledge. I am still a bit puzzled on why organizations don’t really go out and explore online forums to have things built for them. They can get fantastic results while achieving savings.

3.      Machine/Deep Learning: There is a lot of data with corporates today. If this data were to be analyzed, the decision-making process can become far more efficient. There is a need to restructure businesses in these difficult times. Rather than the age-old process of a few people sitting in a board room and making these decisions, leveraging machine learning to make the decisions based on real data will probably be more productive and efficient.

4.      Leveraging Blockchain: There are also areas like Blockchain and Smart Contracts to be leveraged in these hard times – surely will create a superior customer experience.

While I have put some of these thoughts down, I would really like to hear more from folks who have experienced the digital journeys. It will be great also to be a part of a Digital Transformation from the time that the strategy is put together to align the existing processes, systems and people to the transformed Digital state.