EMERGING FROM DIGITAL DOLDRUMS: TRIPLE LOOP STRATEGY

Events, over recent years, have compelled organisations to operate in new ways; often with operations cobbled together to work in a remotely model via a mix of digital workarounds.

Such mixed experiences have often compelled organisations to rethink:

• “What really is our digital strategy?

• “What does our digital business really look like?”

• “Does our business model make sense?”

• “Does our strategic sense making approach fit?”

Finding real answers to these questions has become mission critical as the real drivers for digital pursuits have also seen intensified demands for quick access mobile applications, customer-understanding algorithms, automation, and secure experience-centred applications (for B2B and B2C).

Indeed, now pandemic-accelerated behaviour shows 68% customers now prefer those businesses and brands that offer those deep digital customer experiences, and which have honed capabilities to quickly fulfill demands with compelling digital interactions. Responding to this, The post-COVID world sees, as surveyed, now 79% of small, medium and major enterprise Businesses accelerating moves to embed digital as a vital component of business strategy.

Yet, Project Management Institute [PMI] cite 70% of projects, worldwide, continue to fail with over $ 2 trillion wasted investment occurring per annum. This continued trend, despite all the advances in modern business-change, digital and project methodologies, indicates that organisations, clearly, still grapple with how to compete and adjust to new ways of operating; while wading through the complexity of unravelling complex legacy ICT environments to create seamless digital experiences (across, now, two very different working constructs) – and in a cybersafe way.

Issues vary, but service quality, operational continuity issues, business intelligence gaps, technological inadequacies and performance, security, collaboration methods changed, isolation, burnout, staff motivation and retention were among key challenges. Attempts to shoehorn or overlay various forms of digital substitution upon traditional business models, to present a “digital face” and “digital operation” has become the new problem that even the dark arts of break/fix and managed support IT, that made all the miracles happen, are now seen to be missing the mark where just 3% of firms are geared for real transformation.

In fact, 48% of firms feel their “IT” exists in a perpetual “struggle” to ‘keep the lights’.

Business leaders have stressed the need for and importance of a “digital rethink” as the real drivers for digital have been intensified by increased demands for quick access mobile applications, customer-understanding algorithms, automation, secure experience-centred applications (B2B and B2C) and rapid fulfillment.

In fact, now pandemic-accelerated behaviour shows 68% customers now prefer those businesses and brands that offer those deep digital customer experiences, and which have honed capabilities to quickly fulfill demands with compelling digital interactions. Yet, in the backdrop of widespread need and opportunity, NZ’s rapid slump to from 9th to 24th in world innovation rankings, reflects weak and deteriorating digital adoption and productization (with digital) across all-major indices.

From an international perspective, led by ‘government effectiveness’ steeply dropping from 4th in the world (2016) to 14th (2022), ICT access dropping to 23rd and consequential ‘ICT utilisation dropping to 36th, layers of knowledge creation & market sophistication, the credibility of the often technically or product-geared, “cloud” or “digital” transformation propositions is being questioned. Unsurprisingly, from an overall market level digital effective and innovation perspective, NZ’s market sophistication ranking has dropped rapidly from 8th in the world (2016) to 24th (2022).

Although these declines do not reveal, yet, the impacts of technocratic civil and business health controls – aka the COVID response - domestic market scale and sophistication contracted to 71st in the world. This underpins local market medium and high-tech outputs sliding down to 71st in the world with ‘Creative outputs’ have plummeting to 22nd (2022) from 12th (2016).

Unsurprisingly, with ‘ICT service exports’ at 63rd in the world and ‘high-tech exports at 55th, businesses are finally voicing the oft-buried truth that the IT value proposition remains elusive and has, for many, become a high-cost barrier and a disconnected department in business – with global positioning concerns for the nation.

During “Covid”, major opportunities to digitally modernise education, the life-line for national survivability, were not taken. With industrial solutions to human capital development and skill shortages ignored and stymied resulting in school or student engagement quality rates, plunging to 69th in the world, the absence of an education-to-market connected digital ecosystem means NZ falters itself with diffusing knowledge leading to low impetus for digital creativity, weak knowledge creation throughput and digital adoption. However, failings with digital implementation continues to be a worldwide phenomenon.

Interestingly, over near 30 years strategic and project research, explanations of and for poor digital adoption tend to isolate key and the usual features of practice including:

• Executive sponsor

• Top driven strategy

• misunderstanding the role and differences of strategy & project management

• Low or weak continuous training & support

• Hierarchical structures

• Digital substitution

• Race to the bottom tech-investment choices

• Inappropriate / traditional project management methodologies

However, is the issue of poor digital about the quality and fitness of the IT or Digital value proposition &\or is the issue of “executive” to “coal face” disconnects more or really about the strategic sophistication, model and practice of the business within which any proposition is applied?

Does the results driven paradigm work in a transformative digital ream? &\or, are the issues with digital adoption or success really about the manner in which new business strategy through digital transformation occurs? Or a combination of the above?

Indeed - less spoken of throughout strategic, digital and project research (stemming from the Enterprise systems era and then Cloud/Digital era) however, is the evaluation of the firms strategic choice, sophistication and the consequential business model’s within which they operate and digital transformation is attempted or applied.

To understand these impacts, to avoid the pitfalls of reform (without knowing the overall organisational environment), are encouraged to explore and evaluate the both the sophistication and modernity of the business “strategic” practice currently and that intended. This is because, and as a sign or symptom of strategic drift, where single-loop incremental practice exists unchecked or “silver-bullet” syndrome double-loop strategy, meaningful and profound digital adoption often remains stuck, is weak and or prone to high-cost failure.

Thus, key to even engaging business change with a successful digital approach and that which relies upon human-centred digital transformation, let alone designing and delivering successful and empowering “digital” for customer attraction and service fulfillment, relies, itself, on understanding the significant differences between Single Loop, Double Loop, and Triple Loop strategy – different forms of strategic consideration, human thinking, sense making and action. This gives rise to the real and fundamental factor that differentiates triple loop as the means to effect successful authentic human centred digital transformation; that results in positive outcomes and experiences in an internal and external environment context by “knowing the entire environment” for digital.

Read the new and full paper