Digital Value Creation: Recent Episodes
Tamas Hevizi
We cover trends, stories, and insights at the intersection of digital transformation and measurable value creation. The episodes are short and sweet, as we explore questions like this:What are the emerging digital trends? How do they impact business growth?How can digital transformation produce more value?What is hype, and what is real?How can you become a better digital leader?How will all of this advance your opportunities?How will we all benefit as a result?Host - Tamas Hevizi
In this episode we dive into the growing phenomenon of AI fatigue, a sentiment increasingly felt by companies as they navigate the overwhelming number of AI technologies and startups in the market. We discuss the complexities of the AI gold rush, where massive investments and high expectations are met with varying degrees of success and skepticism. The conversation highlights the challenges buyers face in making informed decisions amidst the AI hype and the critical need for selecting the right use cases and vendors to drive real value. We also emphasize the importance of AI literacy and education within organizations to bridge the gap between potential and actual productivity gains.
The episode further explores the economic implications of AI investments, particularly the significant role of AI hardware and chip makers, and the pressure on companies to justify the high costs associated with AI development. As we review strategies for surviving the AI hype cycle, we advocate for a use case-centric approach, urging companies to focus on real business problems rather than pursuing AI for the sake of it. We conclude by reflecting on the balance between innovation and process efficiency, encouraging you to be disciplined in their AI endeavors while remaining open to transformative ideas that could reshape their businesses.
š Insights from IMAGINE 2024: Navigating the Realities of Gen-AI Implementations š
In this episode, we share our learnings from a recent customer event in Austin, Texas, where we had the opportunity to connect with fellow executives and discuss the realities of Gen-AI implementations. š¤
We explore three key takeaways from the event:
- To overcome the experimentation cycle, companies should pick a direction, identify an impactful area for their business, and experiment on the "how" rather than the "what." šÆ
- We discuss the pros and cons of applying generative AI to core vs. non-core business areas, considering factors such as industry competition and potential disruption. š§©
- The conversation also touched on the potential game-changers in AI, with multimodal AI and agency being identified as critical for scaling up to enterprise-grade solutions. š
Throughout the video, we emphasize the importance of continuous education in the rapidly evolving field of AI. As models and use cases keep advancing, it's crucial to maintain a modest and open-minded approach to learning. š
Join us in this engaging discussion as we navigate the exciting world of AI together! š” Don't forget to share your thoughts, reactions, and resources in the comments below. š
#IMAGINE2024 #AI #GenAI #BusinessStrategy #ContinuousLearning #AustinTX
In this episode, we discuss the latest trends and insights in the AI space based on our recent experiences at various tech events. We start by sharing a fascinating Taiwanese tradition of using Kuai Kuai chips to ensure smooth operation of electronics. The conversation then moves to the impact of AI on corporate strategy, the shift towards smaller, more efficient AI models, and the current state of generative AI adoption in companies.
We emphasize the growing importance of AI skills for job seekers and discuss how AI can be leveraged to upskill and accelerate impact. We also explore the rise of lightweight AI models and their significance in making AI more accessible globally. The challenges of trusting AI systems, including interpretability and tolerance for mistakes, are discussed, along with suggestions for creating a trusted AI workflow.
The video concludes with a unique Kuai Kuai song composed using AI tools, showcasing the creative possibilities enabled by artificial intelligence.
Chapter Headings:
00:00 - Introduction: AI Trends and Kuai Kuai Chips
00:35 - Kuai Kuai Chips: A Taiwanese Tradition for Smooth Tech Operation
03:19 - World Economic Forum: AI's Impact on Corporate Strategy
05:30 - Microsoft Build: Focus Shifts to Smaller, More Efficient AI Models
07:30 - Generative AI Adoption: Experimentation vs. Scaling
11:18 - The Importance of AI Skills for Job Seekers
14:00 - Upskill and Accelerate Impact - You can not be satisfied with āaverageā
16:55 - AI on the Edge - Democratize access, lower energy cost, reduce environmental impact
19:18 - Challenges in Trusting AI: How to select āfault tolerantā use cases and improve guardrails
24:40 - Conclusion and Kuai Kuai Song
#AI #MachineLearning #TechTrends #Innovation #Upskilling #KwaiKwai
References:
BCG Study: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/from-potential-to-profit-with-genai
Deloitte Study: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/consulting/us-state-of-gen-ai-report-q2.pdf
Microsoft / LinkedIn Study: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/ai-at-work-is-here-now-comes-the-hard-part
WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-job-seekers-without-ai-skills-face-a-new-reality-lower-salaries-and-fewer-roles-db63f6e0
Ethan Mollickās Blog: https://www.oneusefulthing.org
In our latest episode of Digital Value Creation, my brother and I continued our discussion on the personal AI journey from entertainment through education to efficiency and effectiveness. We started with a manifesto: don't roll your own large language model (LLM)! With over 500,000 open-source LLMs available, we believe most businesses don't have problems complex enough to require developing a brand new model from scratch. Instead, companies should invest their time and resources into fine-tuning existing models and optimizing prompts, search, and other parts of the AI pipeline.
We emphasized that the real edge for businesses is figuring out how to integrate AI outputs into their unique workflows and processes through the use of agents. Rather than just talking to us, AI needs to actively help accomplish tasks and solve real business problems in an economical way. This requires carefully considering the cost-benefit tradeoffs in terms of compute resources, context window sizes, precision, and more.
Usability and seamless integration are key - adding friction defeats the purpose of AI automation. We discussed the fast-moving legal landscape around AI and how some companies are proactively addressing it, such as Adobe training on licensed images. The battle between AI companies and content owners is quickly evolving into a licensing model.
Finally, I shared results from a poll showing nearly 30% of respondents are already using AI for business effectiveness, with coding as the top use case. While there are open questions around IP protection, AI is proving valuable for internal code refactoring, testing, and documentation. Exciting new innovations like AI software agents show the potential for AI to resolve real-world coding issues at increasing rates.
The AI journey is evolving rapidly, and we'll continue to discuss the latest developments. Please subscribe, like, and reach out with your own thoughts and experiences!
In this episode we explore the recent developments in Generative AI and the 4E Model of AI Mastery: Entertainment, Education, Efficiency, and Effectiveness. We discuss Microsoft's acquisition of Inflection's Pi chatbot, the monetization concerns surrounding AI systems, and the strategies employed by big tech companies like Microsoft, AWS, Google, and Adobe in the AI space.
We also ādelve intoā AI's impact on academia and how it is changing the way we use language, as evidenced by Professor Nicolai J. Foss analysis of word frequency changes in social media due to GPT. We highlight the growing popularity of smaller AI models and their performance improvements, such as Gemini Nano's integration in Samsung S24 for real-time language translation.
The episode also covers the potential of Gen AI in media, with tools like Sora and Pico, and their impact on advertising, training videos, and the media industry. We discuss the advancements in voice generation, including āEleven Labs' work in text-to-voice and voice-to-voice generation, and its various applications.
Moving from the entertainment phase to education in AI mastery, we introduce Ethan Mollick's book "Co-Intelligence" and the importance of understanding AI tools as collaborators and partners. We also address the shift in academia from research to application and the need for educational institutions to evolve.
Finally, we explore AI's impact on the job market, the rapid changes in skill requirements, and the importance of staying ahead by moving towards efficiency and effectiveness in AI mastery.
Join us as we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of AI and learn how to harness its potential for digital value creation.
- This episode focuses on the insights gained from the inaugural Wharton Gen AI for Business Transformation course. We discuss a study conducted by Boston Consulting Group, which found that consultants with access to GPT-4 outperformed those without AI by 40% in terms of quality and efficiency. The study also revealed that AI serves as a performance leveler, enabling even the worst performers to match the performance of top consultants without AI. This finding has implications for talent sourcing and global competition.
- The episode also touches on the stages of AI adoption, referred to as the "4Es": entertainment, education, efficiency, and effectiveness. We emphasize the importance of moving beyond personal efficiency gains and focusing on driving business outcomes. The biggest challenge in scaling AI adoption is explainability, as the inherent creativity and randomness of AI models can lead to trust issues. We suggest adopting a portfolio approach, engaging teams in experimentation and education, and identifying one or two projects where AI can disrupt or replace major elements of the end-to-end process. The conversation concludes with a preview of future topics, such as AI agents and the move from content to action.
In this episode, we dive into the remarkable experiences and groundbreaking announcements from LEAP 2024 held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. With an overwhelming turnout of over 215,000 attendees and a staggering $13.4 billion in investments, the event showcased Saudi Arabia's ambitious drive to become a global digital leader. Underpinning this transformation is the Vision 2030 initiative, aimed at diversifying the economy beyond oil through significant investments in technology sectors, including AI, which is expected to contribute 15% to the GDP. Highlights include the government's substantial support in attracting tech giants like AWS, Cisco, Dell, IBM, and ServiceNow, who announced major projects like regional cloud services, data centers, and local manufacturing. The event also spotlighted local innovation, with significant investments in Saudi startups and the development of advanced technologies like Aramco's METABRAIN LLM. LEAP 2024 not only reflects Saudi Arabia's technological ambitions but also poses questions about the impact of such government-led initiatives in reshaping the global tech landscape.
Dive into the how AI can accelerate your career!
In this episode, we explore the critical role of artificial intelligence in shaping careers and driving leadership in the digital era. Whether you're in tech, business, or any field in between, understanding and leveraging AI is no longer optionalāit's essential for staying ahead.
Discover why now is the pivotal moment to embrace AI, with insights from the World Economic Forum and leading experts. Learn about the resources available to jumpstart your AI journey, from free online courses offered by tech giants to advanced learning paths at top universities. š”
We'll discuss the steps to not just learn about AI but to apply it in impactful ways, transforming businesses, drive growth and innovation. This episode is a call to action for aspiring AI leaders and anyone looking to harness the power of AI to enhance their career, drive business value, and lead with confidence in the age of digital transformation. Don't just watch the future unfoldābe a part of shaping it with AI.
This episode discusses the impact of AI in business, focusing on its value creation, challenges, and the future of AI-driven enterprises. The hosts, who work for AI-focused companies, share insights on AI trends, business applications, careers, and leadership in AI-enabled workplaces. We explore topics such as code generation, the monetization of AI technologies, the role of large language models (LLMs), and the importance of AI in decision-making and automation. Additionally, we address the need for regulation, the potential of retrieval augmented generation (RAG), and the development of specialized LLMs for enterprise applications. The conversation also touches on the importance of reskilling and becoming a better AI leader.
These are my first impressions from Davos 2024 around AI
1 - AI and GenAI is everywhere from LLMs to oil/gas to supply chains
2 - countries and companies taking risks will outperform those that are cautious
3 - Companies struggle to go beyond experimentation due to lack of prebuilt use cases and industry solutions by providers
4 - Trust is main concern. Who do you trust to hold your data? LLM providers? Hyperscalers?
5 - GenAI gets beyond content generation to autonomous process creation and management
6 - Who will benefit from GenAI the most? Companies? Chip makers? Hyperscalers? Is there real value creation or just a rent to the hyperscalers?
I can't believe it's already been almost a year since game-changing AI like DALL-E and ChatGPT burst onto the tech scene. Even though many AI tools have been around much longer, GPT is what captured the magination of of all us. The energy and hype reminds me so much of the early blockchain and crypto days 10 years ago. The buzz, the startups, the dreams of getting rich quick. But looking back, blockchain didn't really change businesses as profoundly as we thought it would. So will generative AI follow the same path, or can we learn from history this time?
So here we go again. Inflation, recession and uncertainty. While these things happen every decade or so, noone likes a downturn. The last short downturn in 2020 actually accelerated digital transformation, investments and value creation. It can happen again if companies use the right digital playbooks.
I got into technology value creation exactly 19 years ago. I still remember how it happened. I read an article in the Harvard Business Review that made me question everything I was doing as a software executive. It was an article by Nick Carr, titled āIT doesnāt matterā.
The article claimed that technology added no value. Or specifically, technology didnāt create any strategic advantage. Why? Because technology was everywhere, cheap and available to anyone who wanted it.Ā
I disagreed with the article and wanted to do something about it. So I spent almost 20 years trying to prove the author wrong. In some ways he was right and in many ways he was wrong. No matter what, a single article changed everything I ended up doing for a living and made me obsessed about the value technology can create.Ā Here's what happened.
In the last few weeks, I was back on the planes meeting with clients and investors in London, New York, and San Francisco. We often talked about how the role of digital is changing for businesses and investors. How the early digital experimentations have all grown up,Ā real value is created now and many companies are becoming digitally reborn.Ā
But not all.Ā
Some struggled to take advantage of the digital revolution during the pandemic and may not be quite ready for the digital-first competition ahead. There were common themes I heard across geographies and industries.Ā
For example: In past disruptions and uncertainty, leaders could just āthrow peopleā at those problems. Not anymore. With talent shortage, the great resignation, and great migration - digital tools became to go-to remedy for all problems in business. How is the digital remedy working out?Ā
If you Google the difference between efficiency and effectiveness you will find over 1.4 billion hits. There are endless opinions from accountants, business strategists, linguistics, and even psychologists on the topic. Clearly, there is confusion out there and my short video wonāt clear it up.Ā Instead of deciding on the debate, let me share a story on how a customer of mine uses these terms to create value for their business.
The ultimate success in business is to be considered a value creator. Whether you and I are employees, executives, consultants or vendors we should think about the 5 ways we can add value to the business.Ā
- Growth
- Simplicity
- Speed
- New Business Model
- Thinking Big
For the last 20 years there has been one big debate around technology innovation. Should you be a first mover or a fast follower? First movers would take on higher risk experiments expecting higher returns, but also tolerating higher rates of failure.Ā
Fast followers, on the other hand, would wait for the kinks to be worked out or the market to be validated before investing. So which strategy is better?
I was thinking about the most relevant trends for 2022. Almost everything we know about digital has changed and morphed in the last two years. So I looked at what my peers were predicting about the future. I counted over 500 different trends and predictions and it was hard to find a common theme that resonated with me. In the end, I narrowed them down to 5 major trends that I knew my customers were often talking about. So here is my 2022 prediction list.
1) Hybrid Workforce (People + AI)
2) Decentralized Finance becomes mainstream
3) Business Metaverse emerges
4) Digital Offshoring (Digishoring)
5) Convergence of Employee and Customer Experience
+1)Ā First Fully Autonomous Businesses
Welcome to 2022. What a year we have had! While it represented a crisis on many fronts, it also created once in a generation across digital from automation to digital supply chains to new digital customer experiences to blockchain and crypto literally everywhere.
I had so many learnings from this unusual year - I chronicled them in 30 episodes in my channel and in several articles in Forbes. Here are my highlights from a year that will go down as the most transformational in a generation.
The majority of the companies nowadays are in some stage of digital transformation. Some are very tactical, improving their website and app maybe or automating basic customer interactions. Others are fundamentally changing how the business operates. Business model innovation and digital transformation are two buzzwords and they are increasingly interlinked. How should you and I think about business model changes as we become more digital?
In the last couple of weeks, I had numerous conversations about what I call the hierarchy of value. A good friend of mine, I call him Jeff, a private equity investor coined this term to me a few years ago. He used this model to decide which improvement projects to invest in and which to pass on in his companies. He wanted simple rules to help his management teams that go beyond hard value and soft value. He even used it in his personal life to decide what to buy and what not to buy. I keep coming back to the simplicity of the model whenever we discuss the value of digital transformation. So what is this hierarchy of value and why does it matter for digital projects?
The massive global talent shortage is driving businesses to automate in even more areas of their operations. Surveys show that more than 60% of the companies already started their automation journey. Ā
There are always some tradeoffs, of course, when doing any enterprise-wide initiative. It would be cool if you could deploy new automated processes overnight. If you could just start your fully autonomous processes. But that is not possible. At least not quickly. So companies are making various tradeoffs on their way to their automated future.
Here are the 5 biggest tradeoffs I have seen in intelligent automation projects.Ā
1) Top-down vs Bottom Up
2) Hard vs Soft Benefits
3) Speed vs Perfection
4) Pilot vs Scale
5) Short Term vs Long Term
Those of you following this channel, you know this. Iām obsessed with finding out what makes some companies succeed with digital transformation while others struggle. Companies of the same size, same industry, same access to talent, but very different results. \
One key factor is how the digital project gets initiated. Does the transformation start with the CEO or a line manager? Does it really need to happen for the business to reach its goals? Or is it someoneās science project?Ā
In my experience, transformation projects seem to take 3 possible paths and the results can be predicted almost on day 1. Hereās why.
Why do some companies seem to completely digital transformations effortlessly while others struggle? I believe organizations can achieve the same flow state as people when faced with challenges. If the majority of the people working are in flow sate then their organizations are too. And that is what happens when new innovation projects including digital transformations just seem to click.
Iām clearly not in the studio this week. In fact, IĀ am in Las Vegas at HIMSS, the largest healthcare tech conference. We had around 20,000 executives here live and thousands more online. This was the largest post-pandemic business conference focused on digital transformation.Ā This was also one of the first times so many businesses came together to share how they dealt with the crisis, what they learned from it, and what technologies helped them succeed. More importantly, what they will do differently going forward. While the primary topic was healthcare, there were great insights that any industry can use. Here are a few that stood out for me.
If you ask someone how to create more value in business, youāre likely to hear the obvious - drive revenue growth and cut costs. That is of course the physics of any business. But every executive knows that it is not that simple. To increase revenues, you likely have to spend more and if you cut costs, revenue tends to suffer. Either way, revenues, and costs are just indicators, they are not specific actions you can take. In the last few years, business strategists redefined what value creation means. It is all about the steps you take to improve customer experience and increase the customerās willingness to buy. Letās see how that may change your digital value creation strategy.
My latest post is on the massive post-pandemic digital expansion due to labor shortage and massive economic growth.
While businesses focused on cost and lean operations last year - now it is all about growth, and major digital expansion.
Companies are moving from tactical to the strategic use of automation, analytics, and customer experience like never before.
We are living in an unprecedented labor market. Over 10 million jobs were unfilled in May 2021 and millions of people quit their companies last month. While there are many reasons this is happening, one thing is clear. The expectations of your workforce have fundamentally changed in the last year. I believe digital technologies can help stop the exodus and attract new talent.
Here is how
I went back on the road this week. I was having real meetings with real people in real offices in New York. Returning to normal business? Hopefully. The recurring topic of the discussion was this. How will hybrid work change how we work together and the technologies we use going forward?
Every few months I take a look at recent research studies and surveys on the state of digital transformation. Normally there are a dozen such surveys in 6 months. This time I found over 100 reports. This is a testament to the fact that digital transformation is now a top 5 strategy goal at most companies.Ā So letās take a look at what the data shows
In the last few months, I noticed a remarkable shift in businesses from cost to growth. In 2020 digital transformation mainly focused on cost efficiencies and labor arbitrage. This year it is all about growth, digital customer experience, and better employee experience. Economic expansion and labor shortage create great opportunities for companies with a digital-first mindset.
One thing that sets private equity apart is its relentless focus on value creation. That's why we have this channel. We want to bringĀ PE value discipline to any digital transformation program.
A value creation plan, or VCP, is an enterprise-wide view of all initiatives that will improve the company. Above and beyond business as usual. These can be both digital and non-digital projects.
There are some best practices that make this value creation plans particularly effective. There are 3 great things private equity firms do when they create value creation plans.
1) Have very few but high impact initiatives
2) Have the right executive own the results
3) Treat value delivery as important as deadlines and budgets
When talking to digital-first companies I noticed 5 big differences in their way of thinking.Ā
1) Digital is a business model
2) Digitizing core functions
3) Scaling digital capability
4) Measuring business impact
5) The C-Team's ownership of digital
How do you tell your value story in 5 minutes?Ā
A good 5-minute value pitch mostly talks about your audience's needs. Never about yours. The first return on investment you will ever demonstrate to a client is the ROI on those 5 minutes of their time.Ā
If you waste their time, they will assume you will waste their money.
"Go Fast and Break Things" has been the mantra of disruptors since Facebook coined the term a decade ago.Ā
Speed does differentiate industry disruptors from incumbents.
But is going faster enough to win the digital transformation race?Ā
No. We need more than that.
Digital success needs the combination of speed, customer collaboration and positive business impact. Digital leaders like you and I must excel in all these three areas to win. Here is why.
The disruption impacted everyone but not everyone responded equally well. The pandemic, like any crisis, created winners and losers that ultimately can be traced back to a few factors. Here is my summary of what drove the changes in remote value creation.
As we all noticed in the last year, digital projects became an urgent priority at most companies. What was amazing was the speed at which these projects got under way and completed. Urgency became the biggest priority. In normal times there would have been a dozen competing priorities but in crisis mode, it simply became speed and value. Is it possible that project priorities could be that simple even in normal times? Could it just be speed and value? I think so. Here is why.
Some businesses complain that it is difficult to realize the hard benefits of digital programs. In fact, hard benefits seem elusive in many transformation initiatives. Why is that happening? Let's dive into the dynamics of typical corporate finance decisions for the answer.
In business school, a professor told us this: Businesses exist for only 2 reasons: 1) is to make the world better and 2) to turn a profit and not necessarily in that order. His entire course was built around the tangible and intangible value businesses create.Ā
As we think about value creation, both tangible and intangible value drivers become critical. Here's how...
Research shows that lack of digital skills is the main reason why 70% of digital transformations fall short of their goals. Unfortunately, this has been the case for years now. Why is the digital skill gap so hard to fill?
It has become quite a cliche by now that years of digital transformations got done in weeks. It is true of course, but the question remains -why? How come that companies that resisted digital transformation for years finally got on board? Here is what I think.
All digital transformations ultimately need to improve customer experience. Digital project's ultimate value is when they increase revenues and business growth through better customer interactions, loyalty, and higher value exchange. Customers buy more from businesses they trust. We all understand trust in human interactions. But what does Trust mean in the Digital World? Let's take a look
There is a paradox in digital transformation. The Digital Leaders seem to accelerate their transformation efforts and focus on scaling faster and broader. At the same time, digital laggards who are behind, do not have the same urgency. They seem to think they have all the time in the world and tend to pilot and experiment instead of scaling. The latest industry research shows that the digital laggards may never catch up. Here is why.
A few months ago I had an episode about the 3 questions CEOs should ask. Why do anything, Why Now and Why You?Ā Some clients and friends used that approach for months and here is what they learned from it
Is your digital team energized or deflated? If they were in a competition, do you think your team would win? Do they show up unstoppable and ready to conquer? Oh, yeah. We are here to talk about the softer side of value creation.
Having seen a lot of transformation teams in my career, I can often predict how the team will perform based on how they show up every day and in every meeting.
I obviously love digital transformation and clearly believe that AI, automation and machine learning will help create amazing digital businesses. However way too often I see companies solve the wrong problem with the right tools and the right problem with the wrong tools.
Here's what I mean...
2020 turned out to be the year with massive adoption of digital transformation. Some companies used AI and automation strategically to transform their business models, while others used bots and machine learning to deal with business disruption. Some companies had great tangible value creation as a result of their digital projects and others are not sure about the value.
How can we make sure that every digital project delivers measurable value?
We're slowly settling into the new year. Businesses started their new fiscal years, operating on new budgets. And all the assumptions and learnings from the pandemic show up in very different ways in their digital transformation plans. While there are a lot of challenges in many industries, 2/3rd of the companies seem to be as well or better off than before the crisis.
I think the adage in 2020 is that years of digital transformations get done in WEEKS. Every day I notice massive new innovations moving to the mainstream. Here are some recent highlights.Ā
- Digital Currency in China
- AI Language Processing with GPT-3
- More Driverless Cars
- MIT report of future of work
- IMF report of future jobs
and more.
As we're looking ahead to 2021 there are strong trends emerging in the world of digital. I looked at the global impact of AI on labor markets during the pandemic and also at surveys reading the minds of Boards and CFOs as they set the digital goals of companies. In this second edition of "looking ahead", I will be discussing the longer-term shifts of digital investments and how to prepare for them.
This is budgeting time for most companies. Budgeting like no other. Budgeting without a safety net. As companies compare their original plans for 2020 with the results, they realize that something fundamentally needs to change about planning ahead. What assumptions can we make about technology investments and returns? How far ahead can we realistically plan? What should we change?
It is all too easy to assume that everyone has the same assumptions as we do. So, I spent a long weekend looking through over 50 recent digital research reports and surveys on what companies are doing in the crisis and how they plan to move forward. Some I expected and others surprised me. Here are the highlights:
Most companies claim that the pandemic accelerated their digital projects. Others say that digital projects were the only that have not been put on hold. As weāll learn itās a lot more complicated than that. Some digital programs are going faster and others are sidelined. Letās take a closer look at whatās happening.
Several studies have shown that less than 20% of digital transformations deliver significant value. Multiple researchers claim that hundreds of billions of dollars are wasted every year on IT projects that don't produce any business benefits.
Is there something we can learn from private equity' value focus to ensure our digital project will be one of the winners? I sure think so.
I always admired the relentless value creation focus of private equity. While public companies are often prone to endless technology pilots and experiments, private equity focuses their companies to the tangible business impact of such programs. They ask the management teams to do fewer initiatives with higher value delivered. So I assembled my favorite 6 questions I hear the most from private equity firms when they review and approve digital initiatives. I covered some of these in more detail in other videos. Check them out too.
QUESTION 1) What is the Art of the Possible?
One of the greatest way private equity guides conversations around digital transformation is to ask for the ultimate value impact of the project. This is often the best case scenario, but helps management determine if the "juice is worth the squeeze", so to speak. If the best case is not exciting enough, then a more realistic estimate will clearly miss the mark. Asking for the art of the possible also forces the business and IT to go beyond the safe and comfortable use cases for digital projects and push the agenda to areas with the highest value impact: revenue growth, customer retention and fundamental cost structure changes, not just process efficiencies.
QUESTION 2) What is the value of the project in cash flow terms?
Business valuations ultimately boil down to discounted cash flows. It may be harsh but everything we do in business is either increasing the value of our company or reduces it. Any project that does not create positive cash flows will hurt shareholder or equity value. That's just the physics of business. There is really no way around it. But value needs to be viewed enterprise wide and over time. A customer experience initiative will have negative cash flow within IT but bigger positive cash flow in sales. The reverse is also true. IT focusing on only TCO reductions within their own budgets vs focusing on enterprise cash flow impact in the business could be one of the main reasons why many IT projects end up creating little value.
PE firms push their companies to show value in hard benefits, free cash flow (that is EBITDA). Soft benefits are useful and they help with change management and adoption but no project should move forward until the hard benefits in cash terms are clear.
QUESTION 3) Who will sign up to the benefits?
By private equity logic, someone should own the benefit numbers. An executive with a P&L will need to commit to the cash flow / EBITDA impact in their budget. Not just the cost but the upside as well. This is the true test of project buy-in. Many IT project managers complain that the business is not as engaged in the project as they should be. A great way to fix that is to ensure that some executive's success is tied to the financial success of the program. This also implies that the benefits will be significant enough to the business. A great conversation I heard was when an IT team asked their business counterpart the following: "how much in EBITDA gains does this project have to deliver to make it a priority for you?". There is always a number. And project teams that fail to ask are, frankly, asking to fail.
QUESTION 4) Do we have the right skills?
This may seem trivial but digital transformations require a new skillset. Most companies address the obvious skills, like developers, data scientists and project managers. There are other skills that are often missed. These include the roles focused on value creation. Ensuring that the program office has experience managing projects to value ta
Weāve all gotten so busy in the last couple of months. The time spent working actually went up, productivity actually increased too but we are all looking for ways to be more efficient.
30% of our time is spent on emails, the other 40% in meetings, preparing for them, holding them following up taking activities and tasks. How can we use AI tools to save 10% of that time and add 200 hours a year back to our life and sanity...
One of the areas the pandemic disrupted in the last few months was how companies source and deploy talent. It is true in most industries with remote work but especailly true in sectors still growing like digital technology. Access to talent in the crisis is more critical than access to capital, which is still widely available.Ā
There are global trends emerging that may shift how we work for a long time.. I call this the new digital labor arbitrage.
Some digital projects create millions in enterprise value while others struggle to make a tangible impact. A recent Accenture research shows that only 13% of digital transformations delivered their targeted value. What makes high impact projects so different? Over the last decade I've seen endless examples of both scaling and struggling digital transformations in private equity portfolio companies. Here's what I learned about digital projects that deliver great value.
There's a lot of talk about how the crisis accelerated digital projects. So what is the long term impact of the new speed of digital transformations
Projects that were previously on hold for months, or sometimes longer, got approved, and in production in weeks. Teams made design decisions in days that otherwise used to take weeks or months. Companies not only found this new agility, but they also learned the lesson of minimum viable products for digital projects.
Many gained confidence in their ability to produce results under stressful conditions with limited people and funds. Many businesses realized that they had the necessary digital talent all along in-house, and all they needed was to unleash them.Ā
By some estimates, there are 5-10 times more digital transformation projects underway than the same time last year. I'm not sure anybody really knows. What is clear, though, is how much faster projects move from idea to implementation. The same teams that had spent months pondering transformation programs, were now called upon to deliver them quickly. Their tactical initiative, all of a sudden became a mission-critical board-ready program.Ā
My discussion with Peter Bartek, President of Focused Technology Solutions at Marmon Berkshire Hathaway. In addition to successfully selling his company to Berkshire Hathaway, Peter is also a technologist and holds 18 patents on sensors and transportation safety. We discuss how sensors and IoT are evolving to improve industries, smart cities, and the quality of data available for businesses.
We get to explore how the crisis is changing the operational model of companies that deal with physical products and infrastructure where remote work is inherently more difficult. The pandemic accelerated the agility of businesses, responding to customers with accelerated innovation cycles. It has also changed the talent dynamics. Smaller businesses were able to attract talent that was furloughed in large companies and used the new talent for accelerated business growth and development.
I'm here today with Kyle Garman. Kyle is an SVP of global business development at SAP, and he's also a bestselling author of The Entrepreneurial Mindset. He also won an Author of the Year award from Amazon.Ā
Kyle and I discuss how a new mindset is needed for the next generation of entrepreneurs and leaders as the digital transformation is accelerating post-Covid. In this wide-ranging discussion, we cover the essential traits Kyle believes winners will bring to the new normal of business.
My conversation with Dave Noonan, RSM's Head of Private Equity Strategy. We discuss how PE firms and their portfolio companies weathered the storm and how technology helped them get back to normal. We look ahead beyond the crisis on how businesses will likely come out much stronger as they learn from this experience.
We also look at where digital technology really adds value and where it may fall short of its promise.
Many project teams struggle with creating compelling business cases, and CFOs are often skeptical about whether they will deliver the value targets. There are great learnings from PE value creation plans that would make your business cases better. Here is how.
A private equity firm once told me they believed there were two kinds of business cases. One is the check-the-box business case where you have to satisfy some hurdle rate to get approval for your project. The other type is the bet-you-career value creation plans, where you measure delivering the stated financial benefits. The firm believed many companies went through business case development motions without any intention of measuring and delivering targeted results.Ā
Digital project teams often get frustrated when they think they have a high ROI, but the CFO or the board are not equally excited. Value creation plans can teach us a lot about how to build compelling business cases for the board.
ROI and value creation may sound similar, but they are very different approaches to results. I spent half my career with project teams developing ROI studies and then the other half around private equity firms thinking in terms of value creation plans. So letās get to the three differences that could make your business case more impactful
I recently polled a few of my collaborators about lessons they learned from their digital endeavors. I wanted to hear unusual lessons beyond the cliches, like have an executive sponsor and align business and IT priorities. In the end, we had 20 ideas and voted on the top five.Lesson 1) Decentralize innovation, centralize scale
Lesson 2) Have someone own the results
Lesson 3) Share the success with the team
Lesson 4) Outsource the mundane, insource innovation
Lesson 5) Speed - Cut time in half - Go for Speed
My interview with Thomas Rasmussen, who's operating at the intersection of marketing and finance. We talk about how to attribute value creation to marketing strategies and whether digital marketing truly outperforms traditional marketing techniques.Ā
We cover the relationship between the CMO and the CFO, exploring traditional and digital media. Also how strategies that are measurable are not necessarily the most effective.
How does the CMO actually answer the question from the CFO, "What happens if I take half of your budget?" What strategies would the CMO sacrifice to still hit the pipeline goals?
Thomas explores the range of activities in marketing from branding to activation and argues that all marketing pillars contribute to the final customer engagement. Digital marketers sometimes argue that because digital strategies create more data and are more measurable therefore they are clearly more effective. Thomas argues that such a focus on activation ignores all the research on branding and traditional marketing channels like TV on influencing customer choice.
I recently interviewed Alex von Gramatzki. Alex is a serial entrepreneur with 40+ M&A transactions and dozens of early-stage investments across real estate, tech, health, and digital rights.Ā
Alex has a unique perspective on value creation, digital automation, and disrupting various sectors that refuse to innovate at speed.
In a wide-ranging conversation, we cover his approach to leveraging machine learning and analytics in investments and running a business and also identifying areas where disruption is likely to happen. We discuss where he thought the promise of digital was realized and also where it fell short.
I had a great discussion with Peter Fader, who is a Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School and best known for his decades-long research in customer lifetime value. Peter is also a serial entrepreneur and in 2015 sold his customer analytics company, Zodiac to Nike.
We discuss how the new frontiers of customer analytics help us better understand not just the value of the customer but true enterprise value as well.
We also look into why some companies missed the opportunity in the crisis to transform their customer relationships to retain customers and gain market share. In his signature candid style and through vivid anecdotes, Peter points out how companies sometimes chase shiny digital tools and forget to analyze the vast customer data they already have. He asserts that digital technology in marketing is often ahead of where the companies are in their maturity.
We dive into the most important dialog around value creation and how the CMOs and CFOs need a better way to agree on growth initiatives that benefit the enterprise.
He encourages us to take the long term view of the customer value and make sure we all understand which segments are truly profitable and help us grow our business and what needs those customers actually have.
Peter's latest research on customer-based corporate valuation (CBCV) has introduced a framework and common language to fundamentally change the dialog between the shareholders, CEO, CFO, and the CMO on what it takes to build world-class, sustainable high growth businesses.
My guest this week is Stephen Messer, co-founder and Vice Chairman of Collective[I], an AI-driven B2B sales network platform. Stephen was also instrumental in creating the affiliate marketing category with Linkshare in 1996. He comes from an entrepreneurial family and spent his life trying to reimagine and disrupt the way business historically operated and to find ways to create outsize value. Stephen is also an early-stage venture investor.
He shares his insights on how COVID changed the speed of digital transformation in sales and also how companies stopped tolerating inaccurate sales forecasts in the crisis and what that may mean for the future of sales and marketing.
He also talks about why collaborative and network-based business models consistently outperform isolated and rigid processes.
He provides insight into why he believes that beyond AI, quantum computing may be the most revolutionary part of the technology developments.
We also discuss how executives have a growth mindset outperform those with an efficiency mindset, especially when it comes to digital innovation.Ā
We cover topics from society, digital transformation to the future of technology.
An investor asked me last week: what questions should they ask about their companiesā digital projects?
I thought wow, what a great question. I told them I actually would have a great answer to that because as a weird habit I write down every question executives ever ask meĀ
So I went back to dozens of old notebooks to find the answer. Do digital leaders ask better questions?
Hereās what I learned
I discuss the challenges in the future of digital transformation in manufacturing and the automotive industry. My guest is Dharm Sadasivan, VP of Marketing of Thirdware. Having spent a quarter of a century digitizing and automating the manufacturing industry- he has unique insights into the challenges in the industry. Ā
I had an amazing session with Vinnie Mirchandani on the future of digital.Ā Vinnie is an award-winning analyst, author of several best-selling books on technology and its impact on society and business.Ā
We discuss topics like the evolution of digital transformation and how the current crisis accelerated the adoption of digital. We explore the differences in how technology innovation moves in different industry sectors and what makes leading digital adopters different from laggards.Ā
Vinnie shares plenty of specific examples of how companies dealt with the crisis and what transformation has already happened. We also get to peek into the future and consider how the changes will be permanent in healthcare, education, and other sectors.
As businesses return to normal - the question of consistent value creation with digital is again top of mind. One way to look at the difference between leaders and laggards is what key levers they use to keep projects generating value.
Digital transformations don't fail for lack of data scientists or technologies, the issue is often lack of digital strategy or leadership.
As businesses hire and train digital talent like data scientists - many companies now wonder if they need to train their executives as well leading digital transformation .
As businesses look at digital disruptors and they start to emulate their tools and tech. All too often the real power of disruptors is not that their tools are digital but their business model is.Ā
As one PE investor put it: digital projects fall into two categories:Ā
- digital disruptions, that create value and
- digital distractions that destroy it.
Projects with clear value cases and strong alignment with strategic KPIs are taking off.Ā
The ones that are struggling typically have no clear business case and no process in place to track EBITDA attainment
Companies doing digital pilots are increasingly falling behind their peers executing digital transformations at scale.Ā
For the laggards, there is a risk that the digital gap is widening without decisive executive action.Ā
Running pilots and not scaling is like betting against digital transformation.Ā
And that bet, I believe, is too risky to make.
Digital transformation is rapidly changing all three levels of private equity value creation.Ā
Many PE firms are already betting on what I call the digital value creation trifecta along the traditional value creation drivers - multiple expansion, operational value creation, and even debt repayment.
First, letās take a step back. For those new to private equity, there are basically 3 ways PE firms generate outsize returns, which is called value creation. In an overly simplified way, these are:
Many businesses change their value creation plans anticipating the new normal. Some trends influence their assumptions: - digital products over physical productsĀ
- virtualizing physical infrastructure
- shifting project investments from maintaining the old business model to enabling the new
- increased working capital to accommodate buffer stock due to supply chain disruptions - more shifts to digital currency and contactless payments
In my experience, there are 3 questions every project team needs to answer to succeed.Ā
In times like this digital transformation projects are under a lot of scrutiny.Ā
Many great projects fail and canāt deliver compelling value to the board.Ā
There are many ways to close a performance gap. Many believe digital is compelling but others will feel otherwise.
Will we see fully automated AI driven enterprises in this decade? I think we are getting closeā¦ Ā
As more and more processes get automated, we see the building blocks of completely autonomous companies. Automation becomes more cognitive and AI-based.Ā
With intelligent algorithms fewer and fewer exceptions require human intervention.Ā Soon, no more interventions will be needed at all. Machine learning and AI can anticipate and navigate all essential process steps and business situations. Bots will make decisions based on their experience and predictive intelligence. As a result, thoseĀ processes will become truly autonomous. Humans can intervene but it wonāt be necessary.
Noone has the answers on what to do in the current disruption.Ā
How do companies compare notes and what are they learning from each other?
My insights from discussions with private equity firms and their portfolio companies over the last few weeks.
During the disruption digital transformation is accelerating for many companies. Tactical projects are sidelined and companies that are watching the digital transformation from the sidelines are increasingly left behind.Ā
My discussions on digital transformation in private equity circles shifted significantly. For many PE firms, digital transformation became a lot more pressing and short term.
The current crisis massively accelerated digital transformation across sectors. Projects that would normally take months or a year to complete got done in weeks. For some businesses, it meant taking advantage of the growth of healthcare and e-commerce, for others digital meant the survival of the business.
In the last few weeks, I noticed that the private equity digital playbook is changing, What initiatives are given priority in a crisis?
When I started with private equity value creation it was 2009, the height of the last recession. This was the time when private equity firms got more hands on with their portfolio companies to help them through disruption. For most firms, this was the first time they formed an operating team focusing on cross-portfolio initiatives and hired their first IT operating partners. In my experience, PE firms always had an effective playbook for managing through business disruption and in 2009 they added some digital strategies to the mix. In those days it was spend analytics and e-sourcing to help companies reduce cost and maverick spend. It was also the time firms started using sales analytics and e-commerce as core elements of a crisis management playbook.Ā
There are many innovations emerging in this crisis to help manage business disruption and help overloaded workforces cope with the demand. Physical and software robots find new applications as some innovative business models emerge.