Innovation in a Digital World

We live and work in a VUCA world. A world where Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity reign supreme. And it is only going to get worse. To perform in this environment, you need a strong culture of adaptation and innovation. One of the main challenges of innovation is in your ability to "cross the chasm", to move from exploration to exploitation, from ideas to execution. To this end, you can either, start with a problem and find the technology required or, start with a technology and explore the possible applications.

Innovation should not ba a gimmick but a core preoccupation of the company. Hence, companies should focus on the user first, and then think about the customer. Find a solution that works, then find a way to monetize it. Innovation should be consistent, across time but also in terms of quality. Finally, stand out, you need to think and to do things differently.

The Digital Revolution
The world is changing, fast. We live in a hyperconnected world where customers, employees, regulation, competition, and technologies have changed. Customers do not pay attention anymore. They have become more connected, informed, unfaithful, innovative and impatient. On top of that, new players are regularly disturbing established market (Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, etc). Technology has changed the relationship between customers and organizations, deeply affecting organizational models and management systems.

Sure, it costs money to invest in digital transformation, but the cost of not doing anything or bad IT can be worst. It leads to a loss of customers or vulnerability to hacks. Companies should invest before they became irrelevant. If you are not being disrupted now, you will be in the future. Better be ready or even lead the charge.

The mutation of a company usually takes place in 3 steps: Digitization, Digitalization, and finally, Digital Transformation. Digitization is the process of converting analogic DATA into digital DATA. Digitalization is the conversion of processes. Digital Transformation is the conversion of businesses, organizational activities, competencies, etc. It is usually recommended to complete the previous step before moving to the next one.

Internet & the Web
Before explaining the internet and the web, we must define what information is. What is the difference between DATA, information, and knowledge? Put simply:
 * 1) DATA are raw, unorganized facts, numbers, word, etc.
 * 2) Information is this same DATA with an added context to give it meaning.
 * 3) Knowledge is the capacity to understand the connection between information and find something to do with it.

Information technologies (IT) and information system (IS)
IT refers to the tools that tool that people use to work with information and support the information and information-processing needs of an organization. It can refer to software, hardware, storage or even telecommunication.

IS refers to a set of Interrelated computer-based hardware, software, and telecommunications that collect, process, store and distribute information to support decision making, control, analysis, planning and learning in an organization. IS takes DATA as input and output information.

To understand how a company can link its technologies to its business strategy, refers to digital transformation doing.

The internet
The Internet is nothing more than a huge network that connects millions of computers together. It started as a defense funding application before finding its way into the public market. After the explosion of telecommunication infrastructure and mobile platforms, the future of the internet resides nowadays on the internet of things. The Internet went through 3 phases :
 * 1.0 : Webmaster creates content for all users to enjoy
 * 2.0 : Users can now easily create there own contents
 * 3.0 : The internet can recognize context and understand what you are looking for.

To navigate the internet, we commonly use search engines, Google, Baidu, Bing, Yahoo (lol). They constantly fight to gain market share. If Google holds 87% of the market on computers, they have nearly 95% market share on mobile. If as a business, you are not in Google or not on the 1st page of Google, you are nonexistent. However, even if the market seems ruled by Google, we can identify regional leaders. In some countries, like China, Google is simply nonexistent.

How does Google work? Google sends crawlers in every website to collect DATA.Google looks into every text, URL, meta tag, and file names. All this DATA is then indexed and used to shortlist websites when a search query is made. Finally, an algorithm is used to rank the pages. We do not know exactly how the algorithm works, but one of the important elements are links and backlinks. To improve ranking, a website needs to have external links to it, the quality of the links is also important as they must come from reputable sources. Social Media is therefore key to generate enough links.

I for IOT
To evaluate how efficient is your company at leveraging Data and new technologies, we can look at 5 key aspects: Social media, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud and IOT.

IOT is mainly use to monitor, analyze, optimize, and autonomy

S for Social media
Social Media is a one fit all names to regroup the spaces where your customers are having conversations. Social media are used to share experience, create & influence, and make buying decisions. But if "Social media" is a generic name, each platform has its own specificity, audience, and rules. For example, Facebook is for what you like, LinkedIn for your professional skills, and youtube for video content.

2/3 of the population uses social media, and if your customers are there, you must be too. However, one cannot go there bluntly. You need to understand on which platform is your audience, how are they using it, and design a strategy and a purpose for each and every platform. This is called a digital ecosystem. You want to create a specific relationship with your customers. If you listen to them, they will tell you which platform to use and how, not the other way around. Social media is about creating an experience with your customers. It is not a channel anymore

Whether or not you want to go on social media, you are already there because your customers and employee are talking about you there. You better take the lead and manage the conversation. You cannot control what people are going to say but you can participate. Investing in Social Media requires time, money, specific monitoring tools, and constant activity.

M for Mobile
The world counts 3 billion active smartphone users. As a business, mobile should not be limited to only commerce but also cover marketing, payment, money transfers, financial services, and so on. Your mobile strategy should answer questions like what type of mobile app you want to use, what kind of services, marketing, monetization, and analytics you are going to use. As always, mobile should not be a one fit all solution but be part of a wider strategy encompassing all devices (tv, internet, tablet, etc). A mobile page or app cannot just be a copy-paste of your internet page. Screens are smaller, the interface is touch-based, usage is shorter.

Mobile offers its own set of challenges and opportunities. On the user side, it needs easy, intuitive, touch-based UI with minimal typing. On the app side, you need to be able to use it without connection and move from connections to connections; information should be easy to access, short, and focused. On the hardware side, you get contextual information about its user but the evolution is faster than in any other tech product. Finally, security is critical for you and for users. To add to the aforementioned challenges, the wide range of OS, devices, app type, etc, make development, maintenance, updates and after sell more complicated than with other media.

3 Main approaches exist to develop your app: There is no "Go to" strategy in choosing how to develop your app. It depends on many factors including your customers, your budget, the required features, your purpose, etc. Mobile websites are good for fast marketing, delivering content, and establishing a presence. Mobil apps are there if you need interactivity and functionality. If your budget allows it, you can even have both.
 * Native: Downloadable app designed for a specific OS. Offer the best access to the hardware giving better performances, look, and feel. But require more development and maintenance if you target several OSs
 * Web: Runs entirely on the web, no need to download. Executed by the browser and not the OS, offering limited access to the hardware but lower development cost and easy deployment across multiple devices. They offer limited monetization possibilities.
 * Hybrid: Native app with embedded HTML. Live in the app store but are rendered in a browser. Easier to deploy on multiple devices.

Finally, monetization is a key component of your app and business. A lot of options are available, see Monetization for more information

There are 6 main trends in mobile app development and utilization that you want to keep in mind:
 * AR and VR. The phone can be used as a medium to access VR or to display digital objects in the real world (AR).
 * Chatbot and AI. Useful for customer interaction
 * Voice-based service. See voice interface
 * Social Media. See Social media
 * Gamification. find a way to turn your app in a fun experience with rewards and progression
 * SOLOMO. Social, localization, and mobile. Use the phone to localize and share experience on social media, like running app.

C for Cloud
Cloud is a steadily growing business fueled by the increasing amount of DATA that companies need to handle. Cloud services are more attractive for businesses than hardware storage. Pay-per-use is more beneficial than building your own capabilities. Cloud is mainly provided as a SAAS by many vendors. In the near future, cloud will be key to other breakthroughs like autonomous cars, AI, robotics, etc. When choosing a Cloud provider, consider security, DATA residency, costs, future-proofing, customization, integration, and experience.

When implementing a cloud strategy, you need to choose a service (SAAS, PAAS, IAAS) and a deployment model (Public, Hybrid, Private). Cloud offers low-cost solutions, with faster time to market, capital efficiency, and allows you to focus on your business. On the other hand, it makes you dependent on a provider, creates a security issue, performance issue, and loss of know-how. On a bigger scale, cloud makes you dependent on the internet, can create legal issues like DATA ownership or DATA localization.

E-commerce
E-commerce is the fact of buying and selling products and services online. It is not the same as e-business which involves improving the overall performance through connectivity. E-commerce is a small part of it focused on sales. For your customers, there are little to no differences between brick and mortar and e-commerce. They are just shopping therefore, for businesses, it should just be commerce. E-commerce is not meant to replace brick and mortar, they cover different needs of different customers. Businesses should assess if one is better than the other or if the two need to coexist.

Phase I: '''Understanding the market. '''You want to asses what already exists. what works and what does not. You also want to start thinking about your own brand and how it should exist online. For a more detailed approach look into How to evaluate your competitors.

Phase II: Creating your online store. Creating your online store is more than just creating a website. You will have all the classical struggles of a website (domain hosting, web design, shopping cart, SEO, etc) but you will need to add the struggles of a business: the blended experience (store, website, mobile), marketing, customer services, loyalty, etc. You are creating a platform, not just a shopping page.

Phase III: Payment. you do not decide how your customers should pay, they decide. Research their preferences, how do they like to pay: cash? credit? mobile? do they accept fees? are they already using pay-pal? visa? crypto?

Phase IV: Legal obligation. This is an expert phase where you have to look into data protection, privacy, terms of use, taxation, intellectual policy, etc. Hire some legal consultant if you need to.

'''Phase V: Promotion. '''This is where your marketing strategy kicks in. You want to start looking into SEO, social media, affiliates program, retention rates, CRM, etc. For more information on marketing see Marketing and Marketing for decision making

Phase VI: Logistic. Back to the real world with real-world issues. How to manage stocks, packing, delivery. The return policy, customer services, etc. for more information see Operation management

Phase VII: Post-implementation. You want to build monitoring tools to follow up on your website. You need analytics, sales funnel management, community management, dashboards, tracking (incident, fraud), customer satisfaction, etc.

Sharing economy
The sharing economy designates a set of practices and models that allows users to share access to products and services thanks to technologies and communities. They are built on platforms and if products have features, platforms have communities. It is a demand-side increase return market were platform fight over customers.

Why is this model rising? On one hand, a social need was created by a desire for sustainability and community combined with increased density and altruism. This need is reinforced by the economic pressure born from the crisis, high unemployment, and record levels of individual debt. On the other hand, advanced payment systems, the Internet, mobile tech, and social network have opened technological opportunities to answer the need.

There are clear advantages to the sharing economy. The users save money, it’s better for the environment, it provides flexibility and gives access to goods and services. They also get a sense of generosity (you can help yourself and others), they belong to a community, it makes them feel smart and part of a movement. There are also risks embedded in this model. The 3 main risks are worker's rights, insurance concerns (who is responsible), and the protection of customer's rights.

If platforms have created new marketplaces and business models, they can be perceived as a mutual and centralized control system where the money is for the investor, not the workers. They transformed private lives in a deregulated free-market.

Voice assistant
One of the growing technology is voice assistant. These devices understand what we say and try to fulfill our request without the use of a text interface. Voice assistants use IA and natural language processing to understand and interpret what we say. Basically, they connect our needs to apps that are designed for this specific task. Alexa, for example, uses "skills" developed by partner companies to link your need for coffee with the closest Starbucks. Voice assistants are used in smartphones, TV, cars mainly but are popping up everywhere.

Voice assistant for us to rethink the way we present the content
 * 1) The commands tend to be more direct, action-focused.
 * 2) The user wants to be presented with one correct answer directly. He does not want to "choose" between answers.
 * 3) If you are the second answer, you do not exist
 * 4) How do you advertise on voice assistant platforms? What is the business model?

DATA Mining
DATA mining refers to the process of using pattern recognition software to extract new patterns from old DATA. It combines AI, Statistics, and DATAbase management. DATA mining, for example, can be used to identify the probability of a credit user to default based on its buying habits.

DATA mining goes deep into the DATA and operates on a detailed level.

Big DATA
Big DATA refers to the ability to collect, organize, and analyze the vast amount of DATA we are generating. To be qualified as "Big" DATA must check 3 parameters: If Volume, Velocity, and Variety are key characteristics of Big DATA, "Veracity" and "Value" determine the quality of the DATA.
 * 1) Volume: The amount of DATA must be in a volume too big to be handle by classical DATA management tools
 * 2) Velocity: The DATA must be near real-time or a stream of DATA pouring rapidly through the system
 * 3) Variety: The DATA can be structured or unstructured but is generally composed of several metrics (video, text, numerical, etc)

To help you manage your big DATA, it is recommended to use a service provider. Hadoop (PaaS) is a solution that helps companies deal with DATA. It is composed of a storage part (HDFS) and a processing part (MapReduce).

The huge amount of DATA we generate has created DATA lake. Vast storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw, unclassified DATA. This DATA  is not used and kept "just in case". DATA lakes are a recommended place to run pattern analysis, looking for missed information in this DATA mess. DATA lakes are the perfect example of what is Big DATA without analytics, just noise.

There is a huge difference between classical analytics and big DATA analytics. The classical approach uses samples and extrapolates to the whole population. Big DATA directly uses all available DATA. There are 4 ways to analyze DATA : More than 80% of Big DATA projects fail. On top of the reasons why we find scattered DATA, absence of a business case, ineffective coordination, lack of skills, top management support, or clarity on the tools. To correctly implement Big DATA analytics: understand your business objectives (optimize, identify, monitor, improve, enhance, etc), choose the right platform (and have a strategy for it), build a DATA driven culture. and as always, building the culture is the most time consuming and challenging part.
 * Descriptive: What happened?
 * Diagnostic: Why it happened?
 * Predictive: What will happen? (based on past patterns)
 * Prescriptive: What should we do if? (based on data mining)

Business Intelligence
Business intelligence is the act of transforming raw data into meaningful information for business purposes. It starts with ERP, to collect and store DATA, move to OLAP for multidimensional analysis.

ERP Enterprise resource planning
Daily, companies manage several intricating processes, from pre-sales to payment including deliveries, billing, inventory management, etc. Each department uses its own software and DATA bases to manage its part of the business. Meaning that everyone only sees its part of the company but no one can access the full vision of it. ERP is a commercial integrated software package that supports managerial functions by integrated DATA to a centralized DATA base. It is composed of core components, one for each department, and can then be further personalized with specific modules. The most famous ERP software in use is mySAP, followed by Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle.

ERP opens the door to more agility, integration, and standardization. It is the nervous system of a digital business. Using ERP allows for transactional processes, and transactional processes are key to implement your strategy. ERP allows managers to combined DATA from HR, sales, inventory, etc, to satisfy their customers efficiently. Organized DATA can be transformed into information, information transforms into knowledge, and knowledge is money.

OLAP On-Line Analytical Processing
ERP store DATA on huge servers call DATA warehouses. DATA warehouses are huge archives of information stored under a unified schema at a single site. Data warehouses simplify queries and allow the study of historical trends. Instead of organizing DATA by processes or tasks (sales, inventory), they are reorganized by subjects (customer, geography, product).

OLAP lets you extract multidimensional DATA, adding granularity to the analysis. OLAP offers you a broad view of your business, it is used to make forecasts and answer operation questions like the sales of standard men shampoo from the second semester of 2015, by country.

Implementing IS
Successful Implementation of an new IS is as much about people and processes as it is about Technology. How to adapt the implementation to your goals
 * People: The people's side should include a wide range of functions. From end-users to top management it should also involve the ERP vendors, consultants, and a project team. Consultants will help you manage the implementation, support the managerial change, and offer an unbiased software selection.
 * Processes: A Accelerated SAP is a proven and comprehensive methodology to implement ERP in a company. It is composed of 5 steps: Project preparation, business blueprint, realization, final preparation, Live & support. The first 2 steps are the most important as you need to define your business goals and processes (As-is and To-be analysis). It is extremely important to understand how your company works and what it needs. If not, you may get a copy-paste of another company ERP and/or a badly tailored system. If you cannot explain the suit you want to a tailor, you will get the suit they have. Not only you need that vision, but it needs to be shared by all the people involved.
 * Technologies: If you need to tailor the technology, do not risk tinkering it. Make the customizations you need (10-20%) but do not modify the code. It is extremely expensive, may lead to unpredicted bugs, maintenance issues, cause delay, and create an unupgradable version.

Cybersecurity
Businesses are attacked daily. Hackers are looking for DATA to leverage/sell including financial information, customer identification, credit card number, intelligence, etc. 73% of the breaches are done by outsiders and 28% involve internal actors. hackers can leverage disgruntled employees, unintentional errors, poor passwords, and bad IT usage. 48% of the breaches featured hacking and 30% includes malware.

DATA breaches will be the new normal for businesses, expect more leaks and exposure in the future, not only on computers but also on mobiles and portable devices. There is a close to 100% chance that you will be hacked someday.

Hackers look for your weakest link and will exploit it. Cybersecurity is something you do not buy. It involves technology, the processes, and the people. But technology represents only 10% of the solution, people are the last layer of defense. they need to be trained & lead. IS is about protecting the core information and systems that keep the company running. You want to ensure : A formal IS security program is based on 4 interconnected pillars: Prevention/risk management, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. all steps must be rehearsed, maintain, and review regularly.
 * Data integrity, availability, and confidentiality.
 * Business continuity

= BI =

Business intelligence relies on a source system to extract data and populate a Data warehouse before reaching the user interface.

A data warehouse is a repository or archive of information gathered from multiple sources and stored under a unifed schema in a single location. It greatly simplifies querying, permitting study of historical trends.

BI also allow the use of OLAP – On Line Analytical Processing. This is a category of software able to analyse and summarize a multidimensional set of data. Generally 3 dimensions.

Data mining

Data mining is the process of discovering new patterns in existing large data warehouse or data lake. It combines technologies from AI, statistic, and database management

Big Data

Big data refers less to the data in itself than our ability to handle them. Big data refers to specific type of data that we cannot processed using classical data management tools. Big data is not only about volume, it is also about the velocity and the variety of the data. Keep in mind than 75% of the data are unstructured data (video, pictures, text, voice, etc).

We can also add veracity and value to further qualify big data.

Traditionnaly we only analyzed parts of a sample, with Big Data we can now analyze the whole set of available data. This is Big data analytics.

Big data provide either descriptive analytics (what happened) Predictive (what if) or prescriptive (what should we do).

60 to 85% of big data projects failed. Either because of a bad implementation, a lack of ressources or no real strategy behind it. So First, define your goal with big data. What do you want to achieve. Choose the right plateform(s), and build a data driven culture. The last one is a hard one. It required every department to share the same goals.

Adoop

We solved the issueof big data analysis by using Hadoop. Hadoop is an open source project that use a storage part and a processing part called MapReduced. This specific process cut data into smaller chunk that can be mapped and processed in parallel.

Sentiment analysis or opinion Mining

Customers are sharing their sentiments on Social Media. They are mixing facts with opinions, sometimes powerful opinion like love, hate, joy, anger etc. Sentiment analysis is about being able to determine if a piece of opinion is either positive, neutral or negative.

= Digital transformation =

Digital transformation is about the what and the How. The what include digital capabilities or the investments in technology, customer engagements, internal operations and even business models.

The how is about leadership capability and consists in creating the right conditions for the transformation.

Leadership and digital capabilities are corelated both to revenue generation and profitability.

The goal of digital transformation is to increase value creation for the business through digitally enhanced processes that increase internal efficiency and overall customer and employee satisfaction.

Digital transformation relies on four pillars: Customer experience, Operational processes, business model and digital capabilities. In term of customer experience, we now talk about anywhere, anytime, any device and any content. For operational process, it is about improving worker condition by working anywhere and anytime, with broader and faster communication, but also performance management with operational transparency and data driven decision making.

Analyzing your business

How the organization operates at every level, understanding what are the obsolete practices and acknowledging wich processes are hindering the organization and people’s potential. Therefore, digital transformation is a collective effort and not only a one man/one team project.

You have to disrupt you business before someone else does. The bigger you are, the more vulnerable you may be.

Digital transformation journey

Frame the challenge and understand the impact, your digital maturity, and develop a vision and align around it. You must fall in love with the problem not the solution. Understand truly what is wrong and focus on the users not the features. People don’t care about your solution, they care about their problems. Most of the time, current IT systeme and silo thinking are the 2 mains pain points to digital transformation.

Focus your investments by building a digital road map, an investment case, and setting up a governance model.

Engage the organization by signaling the change, mobilizing at scale, evolving the culture, and adapting work practices.

Substain the transformation by building diital capabilities, aligning incentives and rewards, and measure; monitor and iterate.

= Cloud =

Cloud computing is the ability to store DATA outside your computer but still being able to access it anytime, anywhere thanks to internet.

Public cloud

The cloud is own by a cloud service provider and made available to the general public or a large industry group. The users do not have any control over the location of the infrastructure. All the data and processes are mixed together on a server. The cost is shared by all user or even free.

Private cloud

Operate by a single organization and managed by this organization or a third party. It retains high degree of control, privacy and security. It can be host internally or externally.

Hybrid Cloud

Use both private and public cloud to perform distinct functions within an organization. It offers both scalability, flexibility and security. An example is using private cloud for internal data but use public cloud to interact with customers.

Pros

Management can focus on core activities (not distracted by IT functions)

Cost saving

Increased flexibility (capacity and software update

Cons

Dependency on internet

Data security

You can become lock in with a specific provider

Loss of performance and know how