Solving problems is limiting and outdated. The new race is to create new problems.

Of course I am exaggerating. Or maybe not.

Let's see. Your business is generating a lot of problems of different entity, as it is common, normal and unavoidable.
Fine. Let's say that with a huge effort in any sense you managed it to solve enough of those problems at an enough deepness to feel you again in what is left of your comfort zone, if you're lucky to still have one.

And everyone lived relatively happily ever after. Right?

No.

Because somewhere in the planet, some competitors of yours have been completely and blatantly ignoring the same problems you had, and embarked in a challenging and reasonably risky transformation of the entire organisation. Top-down. Projects, processes, programs, and the strategy itself before everything else have changed.

• The sources of those problems in their organisations are no longer existing.
• Their stakeholders - comparable to those directly working to what your problems are related to - are now studying to keep up with the change. Those in the IT/tech sectors are doing so to bring the higher skill set required by this more and more picky technology advancement. The non techy ones are studying to develop a general tech confidence previously missing as it's unavoidable now, while reallocated from writing on the computer to tasks requiring qualities that only humans have, perhaps with some digital support.
• Their beneficiary stakeholders - comparable to those of what your problems are related to - are more demanding than yours, and aim higher. Because they know that they can.

The transformation I'm speaking about is not the one you may know or often hear about: "The goal of any transformation is to solve problems".
Sound fair, but no longer enough for those competitors.

That's a transformation having as a core digital capabilities: tech, IT, digital skills, digital awareness, digital confidence. Digital whatever. Like a spiderweb, this core connects all the organisations' entities, at all levels and deepness: people, skills, processes, assets, stakeholders, policies, ethics, politics. Just add to the list anything I've missed.

This is what Digital Transformation is about.

It's a holistic approach, not just a bunch of hardware and software.

You may say: and so?

Here is the thing: while keeping the same vision, those competitors are replacing the old way to make business and problems, with a new, more profitable way to make business with a new generation of problems.

They are more likely to steal from you your current and potential customers. An the worst part is that they are increasing in number more and more.

And now, the good news. Finally.
You can survive, and win.

Of course you are asked to make an(other) effort.
Don't be conservative.
Don't start small with the change.
Don't try to make some laboratory-like experiment in a protected and isolated environment by attempting some digitisation, automation, or anything closer to a digitalisation. Even if it works, that is not what your competitors are doing to outrace you.
Start from purposes, not goals or objectives.

Be daring. Be brave. Think bigger than you think you're capable of.