Digital transformation: that’s probably it.

Honestly, I’m getting tired of writing about the digital transformation. This has to do with the fact that I think I’ve said pretty much everything I have to say about it. But it also has a lot to do with the fact that digital transformation has become the business dumbass topic par excellence. Everyone is talking about it. Especially non-sense.

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In 2012

Six years ago, I founded a consulting agency that dealt with digital transformation issues. I had to explain to practically every new client what digital transformation was. Most of them asked questions like: “Do you make websites?” Raising awareness that it was important to think about this at a strategic and tactical level was incredibly difficult.

It was clear to everyone involved in the topic what was going to happen. Only the business leaders were difficult to convince. It is precisely these business leaders who can no longer stop talking about digitalization. With a minimum of reflection, we would make progress here. But most of them don’t.

Miss the next wave

And so most people are probably missing out on what the next wave is really about: developing new business models. I have already written quite a lot about the difference between digitalization and business disruption through new technologies. I would say that 80% of all CEOs in Germany can’t explain the difference.

Already not in control of digitization

But it is simple. When the existing business model is handled with digital means and tools, we speak of digitization. As I have already written about, this is the duty. And quite honestly, it’s not that complicated or pretentious. You just have to do the most obvious things. Create digital ordering options, provide information, become a little faster and cheaper everywhere. Pretty unspectacular but very effective.

Ikea, for example, shows that even large companies can do this. The “digitalization experts” will now cry out. Ikea is far too late, has missed this and that and so on. But when I see that even my mother checks Ikea.ch to see whether goods are in stock and then drives to the furniture store, I think they’ve simply done something right. Because although “user-centered design” is highly praised everywhere, most larger companies create digital offers that don’t benefit the user at all.

No, most companies fail even on basic and small things. And this is not the fault of technology, but of an entrepreneurial mentality that is characterized by the fear of losing something.

They take a hesitant approach, invest too little and in the end, when “half-baked” things that don’t work come out, they wallow in the self-affirmation that they knew from the start that customers wouldn’t want that.

Without exaggerating, I’ve experienced this more than 100 times in the last few years. And I’m sick of it.

Digitization business jester sayings

A whole armada of sayings and memes has also emerged. “Digitalization begins in the mind”, “Culture eats technology for breakfast”, “Digital transformation is like children – it can’t be planned” and so on. In the beginning, it was still kind of funny and apt. In the meantime, however, we’ve really overdosed. And the slogans are usually misleading for the uninitiated.

No, digitalization doesn’t start in your head, it starts every morning. Anew.

Maximum inspiration – and procrastination

Because there is simply far too much talk and far too little action. Sometimes I get the feeling that everyone knows exactly what needs to be done. But they can’t bring themselves to actually do it.

Yes, of course this has to do with the much-vaunted comfort zone. “Proactive” action is really difficult because it requires a certain level of dissatisfaction with a situation that is actually good at the moment. Or genuine ambition. Both are extremely rare in today’s saturated Western society. Nobody is interested in social advancement anymore. On the one hand, because there is usually not much room for advancement and because these conventional divisions into social classes have, fortunately, also somehow disappeared. In such a situation, why should I take risks as an individual?

And that’s why we’re continuing to text. I’m currently sitting in the airport lounge and counting how many times a minute I hear the word digitalization or digital transformation (with 3 takes): 4.5 times on average. I’m sure it’s a one-off coincidence.

Then just not

A certain indifference is slowly but surely growing in me. I no longer have to convince anyone to change themselves and their company. Anyone who doesn’t push ahead today will simply go under. “If you don’t want to hear, you have to feel,” my grandmother used to say blissfully. The whole thing: not my job.

On the contrary. I think I have changed sides. Instead of helping entrepreneurs to advance digitalization, I prefer to use new technology to bring new business models to these sleepy industries and sectors. The reason why these start-ups exist is almost always because the established players sleep through the changes. The reason we exist is because of you. So to speak.

Courage to set out

I have resolved to tackle bigger issues over the next few years. To take more risks. Things that others say you can’t do in reality. Otherwise I could just start a consulting business again. It would run like clockwork. But it wouldn’t make any real difference in the world. I’d rather fail on the way than not go on the way. And if your head voice is now shouting “Fail fast”: I think failure is deeply uncool.

Taking more risk is something that even large companies will increasingly have to do. Restructure their business model before there is a concrete financial reason to do so. What many do not realize is that speed does play a role. Because while large companies are still fiddling around and wondering whether this or that will prevail, facts for the future are already being created elsewhere. Which is initially smiled at with relish by the established players. Fair enough.

Compared to the creation of new business models during ongoing operations, digitalization is a joke. What follows the “digital transformation” is the “business transformation”. One way or another.