Quanta D: Yeah, Regus is, I mean I’m not really that versed on everything that Regus is, but I’ve come across a great deal of Regus in advertisements.
Simon Chan: And in the Marketing space?
Quanta D: Yeah. And you know how you can look at certain advertisements and tell how much money has gone into that campaign or how much goes into that campaign or how much else has gone into it so, Regus is big business when it comes to just Technical space period. Wow.
Well Mr. Chan, we’re seeing a lot, ok, online and I mean, it’s crazy how much discussion is taking place about this. Even outside of event spaces that I’ve had to circulate, even coming up randomly at cafes, ok? There’s a lot of talk of inquiry, borderline hype, confusion and anxiety around what Digital Strategy is, what the best strategies are, and also Digital Transformation. Now, it’s kind of freaky when you hear it coming up in cafes. I have no idea, with the Law of Attraction thing, because of my work with Quanta D, maybe I am hearing this as per the Law of Attraction? Maybe it’s gravitating towards me but I’m talking about cafes outside of work, I’m hearing this, people are talking about it. And it really does seem like it’s something that causes a lot of anxiety and confusion. Now, what I would like to ask you, being that you do have so much going on in your background for Digital period, and Business and Consulting. I just, are most of us defining this properly?
You know, Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation, because, I mean it just looks like we’re all confused because there are so many definitions by it. People that have nowhere near your years of experience, regarding Digital, are giving their own definitions and I mean, it just looks like there’s more anxiety and confusion. So,
Q: Would you please, please explain to us, well first of all, are we even defining this properly, overall, Digital Strategy, Digital Transformation, generally speaking?
Simon Chan: Sure, let me try to simplify this for you. On LinkedIn, someone published a post on “What do you think Digital Transformation is?” And, he was going to come up with a list of 300 different types of definitions for Digital Transformation, so that kind of gives you an idea of what we are dealing with, it could mean different things to different people.
Quanta D: Right.
Simon Chan: And you’ve got to break-down the three words themselves, Digital, Strategy, Transformation, to understand the reasons for this? The three words themselves aren’t very well-defined anyway, so that probably results in a lot of the confusion So I’m going to attempt to define them here for you right here
The first one is Digital, which is really about computing, the reason why it’s called Digital is because computers talk to each other using binary code, and binary means using ones and zeros, yeah? And that’s what Digital is of course, ones and zeros. So Digital means computing and this makes it a lot easier to understand, so it’s about Information Technology! The next thing is Strategy. Now strategy, I have lost count of the conversations we have had about this over the years.
Quanta D: Yes.
Simon Chan: I mean it could mean anything from a plan of action to a mission statement to a set of actions to a set of objectives, depending on who you are talking to, so, if you’re going to define strategy, you’ve got to come up with a standard definition for it, because nobody knows what they’re talking about when it comes to strategy, a lot of people just don’t understand it. Some people have one opinion of it, other people have another opinion, different things to different people, once again.
Quanta D: Right.
Simon Chan: So, I tend to take the definition that strategy is basically the accumulation of three things The first thing you’ve got to do, you’ve got to analyze the market, analyze what you are doing, analyze what the competitor is doing, and take a market view to take a stance to where you want to go. And then you’ve got to set some objectives, as to how you are going to progress and actually beat the competition, because ultimately, strategy is about winning so you need to take market-share from competition by increasing profit or increasing revenue So you need some objectives, and then you need some actions to back that up. So strategy, in summary is, is really a stance, a market-view, and taking that stance and backing up it up with some objectives and then some actions. And you need all three basically, otherwise it’s not a strategy.
Quanta D: I think that’s an excellent definition. I couldn’t agree with you more from what you just said, you need all three. Like you said, different things for different people but I mean, it just seems like the inter-web space, I mean it’s just thrown around so much so thank you so much for defining Digital and Strategy. Now what can we speak on about Digital Transformation?
Simon Chan: Transformation is needed for making the changes to implement your strategy, think about that and it could mean quite a few things. To implement change, you probably have to go through business model changes, which then can involve people, process and technology. So then it involves culture, involves changing and streamlining your business processes to make them more efficient. And obviously selecting and designing the Tech to fit-in with the people and the process. So it is quite a big journey and requires a lot of experience to actually push people through that journey, so you need to have people on the ground who know what they are talking about, who are experienced, and who are able to advise businesses in the best way possible. Now, we’ve got the tree definitions, Digital, Transformation, Digital Strategy. I would say Digital Strategy is to do with obviously IT, but actually using IT to actually advance a businesses’ strategy in terms of actually solving problems for customers.
