Technology is not enough.

In a digital world, customers interact with business through technology, but putting in place new tech is not enough to be a digital business.

At the basic level technology can automate business processes and reduce costs. At it’s most sophisticated, technology IS the product or service – a platform at the heart of the business model (Airbnb, Uber, Salesforce). Somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, traditional businesses use technology to increase the value of a physical product or service by augmenting it, enhancing customer experience. Great examples of this include Disney’s MagicBand and Starbucks order-and-pay.

To become digital, customer centricity, business value and technology opportunities are three points that must be joined up.

Where something is valuable to a customer, this in turn creates opportunity and value for a business. In the digital world, this cycle must start with the customer, and being ‘customer-centric’ means an entire organisation is focused first and foremost on what a customer values. Being focused means to connect, to listen, to understand and be relevant in all interactions. In this way business value can be created when process and technology is continually reconfigured to improve a customer’s experience. No matter how much is invested in an app, web, or CRM platform – if it’s poorly conceived, can’t change quickly enough, doesn’t meet a user’s goals, or is not seamless with other aspects of the experience, then it won’t be used and there will be no business value.

Some businesses are born online by exploiting technology opportunity, but all businesses now have many possibilities to adapt their model by weaving technology into their customer experience. Of course, technology opportunities are moderated by limitations; in languages and frameworks, considerations of performance, security, interoperability, and in the enterprise multi-year and large investments that can lead to lock-in of large and complex platforms.

So for a company to become digital, customer centricity, business value and technology opportunities and limitations are the three points that must be joined up and kept in balance. In the centre of this triangle are the people with the attitude, knowledge, skills, tools and approach to bring it all together, focused doggedly on measures of success that come directly from the customer. Teams such as these will continuously adapt to changing customer and business demands, whilst exploring opportunities and limitations in technology.

Customer and business goals are highly inter-related, and how you improve them with technology is an ever-changing challenge – a balancing act of customer, business and technology – that only the right people, working in the right way, can solve. Perhaps ironically, in the digital world, people, skills and culture have never been more important.