And Digicel's missed opportunity for Digital Transformation

Good day everyone. Today’s Issue is a follow-up from Issue 12, Management in the Digital Age. Let’s get straight to it.

Don’t forget to listen to the podcast I was a guest on ;) 

Kadia Francis (@digitaljamaican) asked me a question on twitter, I thought was very interesting:

@TFIDNewsletter Absolutely loved this. In terms of obsoletion isn't the same true for companies reluctant to incorporate technology into their business operations? We are in complete agreement that the future is digital, I say it all the time so stubbornness in that regard would be fatal.

Continuing with an external analysis

Good day everyone, I hope you’re all doing well and had a great week.

In any project that requires change on a large scale, an inescapable part of that process is the initial diagnostic. I’ve written about the PESTEL tool and how you can use it to analyse the external environment and how the Value Chain helps you understand the component parts of your business and the value each link brings towards your final profit.

... and its obesity problem

Hello everyone.

Back on track today after an eventful few weeks. I’m really happy to be writing this and hope you like this weeks’ discussion. As I mentioned in the recap Issue a couple of weeks back, this Issue is about a thought I’ve have had for quite some time. In fact, if I’m honest it started some time in the 1980s. I was on a day trip from school visit to an automated car assembly line in the West Midlands in the UK. We were asked to think about how automated manufacturing was likely to change the workforce. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how … well, let’s get in to that in this Issue.

Continuing the analysis

Good day.

I’ll get straight in to this week’s topic, with the idea being that it is a continuation of what I started last week. This is the second instalment of a series designed to directly and practically help you with your own Digital Transformation. On to this issue.

To get the best out of this Issue, I recommend reading Part 1 first.

Last week we looked at a simple but effective framework tool, the PESTEL, that is designed to give you a broader look at the market around you and the issues that may or may not affect your business. This issue takes brief look at Michael Porter’s Value Chain model. I’ve talked about the value chain previously, and how it needs to be taken in to account when designing products and services, so I thought I’d develop exactly what it is here. Whole books have been written about the subject, but as the tool is fairly simple to use at its most basic level, it’s worth learning and using regularly.

Let’s start with the basics

Good Morning everyone.

A big welcome to all the new subscribers, it’s a privilege to have you here. Please share with as much of your entourage as you can. Thank you.

As promised, this is the start of a series dedicated to helping you in a practical manner, start and develop your Digital Transformation.

On to this issue.

In order to start your Digital Transformation journey, an initial diagnostic is necessary to understand the digital penetration in your business operations. Most of us have email, file servers and dedicated financial software (billing, accounts etc.). But I have found that these are mostly self-contained applications silos that don’t offer any value outside their basic usage. Digital Transformation helps to resolve this situation, enabling benefit from potential synergies. Simply put — Synergy is the creation of a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts. Classical strategy analysis is sufficient to start the process, with more digital specific strategies developed as you progress.

And a request for feedback

Good morning. This will be a short issue as I am currently on convalescence after a major RTA due to no fault of my own. We’re fine, so let’s not dwell on that too long!

I usually pre-write a number of articles but this time I didn’t have the time to finish anything that I would be proud to publish. In that respect I thought I’d take a quick retrospective look at the past issues and show you what I’m currently working on as drafts and ideas. I’d love your feedback (hit reply to this email) about these in-progress topics and if you think I should cover anything else. I know many of you are French native speakers, don’t be shy, write to me in French ;) Oh, I’ve also added a nice little header graphic to each email.

Stats and stats (... at least I'm honest)

Good morning and welcome to another issue of the newsletter. As I write this, it’s been announced that the EU has approved by the new Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive, the FT has a summary here. To be honest, by linking that article in my newsletter, I’m unclear if I would be breaking the law once it becomes legislation in my territory. I guess we’ll find out in a couple of years or so.

Why it’s so fundamental to Digital Transformation

Good morning, from the eastern Caribbean, its sunny, warm and very dry here currently. We’ve had a couple of local brush fires with one getting perilously close to housing. Well, it’s Issue 7 already, and others are in the works, thank you for being loyal readers.

This week’s issue dabbles in a little theory — bear with me — it’s not as heavy as previous issues, I hope the illustrations will help you relate. Enjoy and let me have your feedback, it really helps.

A lesson in explaining why you have to consider the whole chain and not just the part you control

Good morning. I hope you’re enjoying my newsletter, I would love to get your feedback as I think it would be great to continue the conversation on some points and additionally help me better align content to your desires. I’m planning to open a Slack channel in the near future — acting as a discussion forum. It will be invite-only for the moment, but if you’d like to be on this list drop me an email at thefutureisdigital@substack.com and I’ll get back to you.

It’s a journey, not a project

I hope you all had a good Carnival in your region. I know that here in Martinique it’s a pretty big affair with 5 days of festivities. On to this issue that gets to the heart of Digital Transformation. But before that I wanted to explain another component that is central in this subject.

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

Follow up: “Someone is wrong on the Internet”