Digital Transformation - Alike or Different

Rishabh Garg, CTO at U GRO Capital & Ramesh Mallya, Head of Technology - India at DBS Bank, share different perspectives on similarities and differences in digital transformation:

When it comes to digital transformation among the BFSI organizations, there are 2 parts – thinking and doing. Banking Frontiers asked the CTOs about the 4 possible combinations of these: (i) think and act similarly or (ii) think similarly but act differently or (iii) they think differently but act similarly, and (iv) think and act differently.

2 SETS OF OPINIONS

According to Rishabh, most of the businesses fall in category 3, ie, they think similarly but act differently. Many of the businesses start with the same vision of digital transformation, but their execution varies vastly, defining whether the transformation journey had been a success or disaster. “I am using the term disaster instead of failure as the resulting process further reduces efficiency and causes more dissatisfaction among all the stakeholders,” he clarifies.

He adds: “A successful digital transformation is more about managing technology, data, process and people as a whole and not in silos. Organizations often think it is about implementing the latest technologies. The pace at which new technologies are arriving, and businesses are innovating are incredible, with massive potential of generating value for businesses and societies. This pace, coupled with the burden of legacy systems, poses enormous challenges in adopting these technologies. Another challenge is choosing the right set of technologies from the plethora of technologies that add real value to the business.”