Digital Transformation – the gap between the expectation vs outcomes
Did I read this right? Billions invested in digital healthcare and yet we do not see the results? I suspect that a lot of CIOs face this exact same question during their planning cycle. How did my investments in the fancy new digital tool go? What did it do? How much did we save? How much additional business did it bring in? And while the budgets may be grudgingly approved or cut down as the case may be, 70% of the technology leaders that I speak with themselves feel that they do not have an objective answer to this question.
Inadequate vision, planning, dependencies and inadequate execution – these are all good reasons that the audit on NHS captures and technology leaders agree and believe in. I agree, but also would like to take a look at what happened with various organizations in the social media, ecommerce, banking and manufacturing during the same time. I am tempted to put in tables and charts and links to websites, but that won’t be necessary, right? Yes, almost all of these sectors leveraged similar technology and delivered true transformation for their business and operational stakeholders.
For the healthcare world we need to look at the outcome from 2 different buckets
Ecosystem Bucket
It’s an incredibly complex ecosystem – Patients, Payers, Providers, TPAs, Banks, Pharmacos, Retailers …. the list goes on and on. The question as to whether any innovation induce an efficiency in the entire system/process or will it just get eaten up by someone else’s inefficiency or worse still is it just a mechanism to Rob Peter and pay Paul?
Enterprise Bucket
Did it improve revenue?
Did it create more stickiness?
Did it significantly save the cost of doing business?
Did it help us to launch something new and successful for our clients?
- Engagement scores
- Efficiency Scores
- Execution Simplicity
Cloud Engineering/DevOps
Has the cloud and the delivery sprints really helped me become more agile and am I being able to meet the business expectations fast enough? Or is cloud just a cheaper option to my current infrastructure?
Adapting Agile
Or are we still developing in small chunks and spending enormous amounts of time and money testing and putting it all back together?
Analytics
Have I just providing enhanced reports and visualizations or do I ensure that the business has the insights it needs to define the strategy and measure its performance
Automation
Is it something that I am using as a tactical tool or am I leveraging it as I should – as the last mile transformation of operations and processes?
API Ecosystem
Are we ready for integration within the organization and outside with our partners in a safe and secure way? More importantly can we leverage external innovation rapidly to create better value?
Mobility
Is your mobile platform a true extension of your organization? If yes which audience, does it serve and how? Can you use the same yardstick to measure your performance across different audience pools?
AI and ML
This is all about being ready for tomorrow. Today using AI and ML, we are able to use automation for tasks that previously needed a human to work. Granted that these are simple tasks today, but the complexity is increasing and systems are learning over time. More importantly the Digital platforms that you will integrate with will be powered by them – what is your business case for success?
By this time, you are probably wondering – where are the insights? They are all inside your organization and you need to keep on asking questions review the answers continuously, as both keeps changing! So, keep in mind the 3 overarching parameters and follow those to define the new metrics of success in your Digital Transformation Journey – remember it is not a “reengineering” project!
It is important that your vendor partners understand the same as well. Historically the external partners have been used reduce cost or source skills and have been measured against metrics like SLAs and capacity utilization. Even your vendors have defined their operating model and approach to maximize their organizational benefits according to those parameters. It is not that easy to change.
Newscape can provide that fresh outlook for you to move in the right direction. As a challenger to your strategic partners, we can not only deliver goods, but also act as the change catalyst for your vendor / partner ecosystem.
Let us discuss your digital journey, understand the success stories and missed opportunities and together drive a new future for healthcare.
