Opinion: You have to live and breathe the technology to be good at it

Digital Transformation and Cloud Transformation are phrases that I hear bandied around at nearly every large organization that I currently doing consulting work for.

Yet, in so many cases, I can’t see the organization achieving the changes required. This is for two core reasons:

• The first is that the culture within the organizations is a major hurdle. There just isn’t enough flexibility to think outside the box about alternative ways to work.
• Worse (and probably more concerning), I see these companies taking advice on how to make these transformations from companies who don’t themselves “get it”.

An organization that is cloud-antagonistic internally, and stuck in an endless IT management quagmire, isn’t likely to make a good cloud transformation, and they’re certainly not going to be a successful partner to be able to help you to make a successful cloud migration or to implement a cloud transformation within your company.

An organization that doesn’t use business intelligence (BI) or analytics internally isn’t going to be able to help you make that transition either.

If the organization is claiming to be proficient in an area of technology, ask them about the use that they are making themselves of those same technologies. As a simple example, ask them about their internal analytics that they can see on their own phones.

To be any good at any of these areas of technology, companies need to live and breathe them daily. If they don’t, find someone to help you who does.

2018-02-06