DIGITAL

CHECKBOOK
Article Series:
Leadership in the Digital Era

By
Rajiv Jayaraman
Founder & CEO
KNOLSKAPE

First Published on
 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. In an increasingly digital world, business leaders must learn to operate in a

boundary-less way ...........................................................................................................3

2. HiPPO is out. Data analytics can now help you come up with
game-changing results .......................................................................................................5

3. Successful leaders in the digital age will be those who care about designing
stellar experiences .............................................................................................................7

4. In the digital world, stay obsessed with changing customer wants and
embrace agile ways of working .............................................................................................9

5. In the digital age, teaming is the new way of working, by collaborating

beyond boundaries ............................................................................................................11

6. A leader must distinguish between digitalization and digitization to

accelerate change .............................................................................................................13

7. Opinion | Businesses must learn to use the power of social media to

achieve extraordinary results ............................................................................................15

8. The 5 systemic challenges firms must overcome to derive value

from data ..........................................................................................................................17

9. About the Author ..............................................................................................................19

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #1. Published: Wed, Jul 04 2018. 3

IN AN INCREASINGLY DIGITAL WORLD,

BUSINESS LEADERS MUST LEARN TO
OPERATE IN A BOUNDARY-LESS WAY
Leaders need to move from a command-and-control style
to a collaborative style

One of the business realities in the digital age

is that organizations have become
increasingly boundary-less. Uber has more
than a million drivers across the world, but not
one of them is on their payroll. Airbnb delivers
great accommodation experience for
travellers across the world, but not one of the
rooms it offers is theirs. In essence, these
organizations operate in a boundary-less
fashion, leveraging assets and people outside
their organization to deliver value to the
customer. Furthermore, there is a marked
Companies like Apple have used digital technology to shift in the labour market towards freelancing,
disrupt numerous industries. Photo: AFP a trend now called the “gig economy”.
According to a 2015 Intuit study, 43% of the US
workforce will be freelancing by 2020. This
Around seven years ago, Netscape founder fundamentally alters how leaders need to think
and venture capitalist Marc Andreesen about organizational boundaries.
famously said, “Software is eating the world.”
Today, we can see that his prediction has
come true. The top 5 publicly traded With the rise of digital companies, I can
companies by market capitalization are all foresee, more than anything else, a leadership
software companies—Apple, Alphabet, challenge looming. Leaders in traditional,
Microsoft, Amazon and \Facebook. These non-digital companies have not demonstrated
companies have leveraged digital adequate courage to venture beyond their
technologies to disrupt numerous industries comfort zone. They have also not unlearnt, and
and displace many companies from their relearnt the new business realities, fast
pedestals. According to Accenture CEO Pierre enough. With more and more organizations
Nanterme, “Digital is the main reason just over becoming boundary-less, inside as well as
half of the companies on the Fortune 500 have outside, the fast-changing business
disappeared since the year 2000.” landscape calls for highly agile, deeply
specialized skill sets in leaders.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #1. Published: Wed, Jul 04 2018. 4

Businesses are increasingly facing a huge Using dashboards and open software
challenge in finding and deploying the right interfaces, organizations are introducing
talent at the right time. To deal with this radical transparency in the way they work.
challenge, progressive businesses are now Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had issued an internal
moving away from rigid, hierarchical memo in the early days, instructing teams to
structures to boundary-less, flexible interact with one another through
structures that enable collaboration and programmable interfaces. The move helped
co-creation with subject matter experts inside Amazon in many ways. It helped break down
and outside the organization. Accenture, the internal silos and the open design encouraged
global professional services firm, calls this transparency across the organization and
organizational model the “liquid workforce”. enabled diverse teams to collaborate.
Collaboration, after all, sits at the heart of how
To adapt to this new business reality, and to a digital organization innovates. Leaders,
truly convert this trend into a competitive therefore, need to build a strong culture of
advantage, leaders must make some peering inside and outside the organization. In
fundamental changes in the way they operate. the industrial age, whilst one would hoard
First, they need to start thinking of their valuable information, in the digital age, the
business as a dynamic ecosystem with many natural instinct is to share it. Sharing allows
moving parts, some internal and others individuals and teams to build on each other’s
external. Second, as orchestrators of this work and accelerate the pace of innovation.
boundary-less business ecosystem, leaders
need to move from a command-and-control Ultimately, a boundary-less leader helps his
style to a collaborative style. Furthermore, organization stay relevant, and, more
they need to embrace the idea of distributed importantly, thrive in the digital age, by
authority and create a fluid network of talent questioning the notion of organizational
that operates more like a talent marketplace. boundaries, revisiting the principles of
organizational design, redesigning how work
In the digital world, leaders can no longer gets done, and reimagining the values that
simply get things done by leveraging the power modern organizations.
position they occupy in the organization chart.
Leaders now need to get things done by
building trust with diverse stakeholders. From
a cultural perspective, leaders need to start
promoting the values of trust, openness,
collaboration and sharing. Salesforce CEO
Marc Benioff aptly said, “The fourth industrial
revolution starts with one important
point: Trust.”

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #2. Published: Wed, Jul 11 2018. 5

HiPPO IS OUT. DATA ANALYTICS

CAN NOW HELP YOU COME UP
WITH GAME-CHANGING RESULTS
In an era of limitless digitization, leaders must become
adept at sense-making

Analysing the director’s track record, the

popularity of the lead actor, Kevin Spacey (pre
#metoo) and the audience reaction to the
British version of the show, Netflix made the
decision to purchase the rights for the show.
After reportedly spending $100 million (around
₹687 crore) to produce two 13-episode
seasons of House Of Cards, it needed
half-a-million people to sign up for a $7.99
subscription for two years to break even. It
brought in more than 17 million new members.
This is an outstanding case study to show how
Netflix used Big Data analysis before launching ‘House leaders can produce game-changing results
Of Cards’. by unlocking the power of data and analytics.

Before we delve into the capabilities leaders

Data is increasingly being likened to oil. While must acquire to turbocharge their
the industrial economy was powered by oil, the organizations by making sense of data, it
digital economy is powered by data. There is, would be useful to understand the two main
however, a fundamental difference. While factors that are driving the exponential growth
natural oil reserves can deplete over time, data of data: internet of humans and Internet of
seems to grow exponentially with each Things (IoT).
passing year. It is becoming quite evident that
leaders need to build capabilities in their According to the International
organizations to make sense of the data and Telecommunication Union, 51% of the world’s
harness its power to stay ahead in the population was on the internet as of June 2017.
digital world. That’s roughly 3.7 billion people connected to
each other and the digital world around us.
Take, for instance, media production. This is Owing to the widespread availability of
an industry where producing a winning broadband and smartphones, each person
product can be just a matter of sheer luck. connected to the internet has now become a
Great directors, A-list actors and big producer of content. Every minute of the day
promotion budgets are no guarantee for on the internet, connected humans are
success. In such an industry, the iconic producing a staggering 2.5 quintillion bytes of
success of House Of Cards, produced by data. Furthermore, every year, the amount of
Netflix, comes as a revelation. The producers content generated by internet users
used Big Data analytics to foretell the success is doubling.
of the programme.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #2. Published: Wed, Jul 11 2018. 6

While there are about seven billion people on As organizations struggle with the 4 Vs of
the planet today, the number of connected data—volume, velocity, variety and
devices is estimated to be about 21 billion, veracity—sense-making leaders must usher in
outnumbering humans by a factor of 3. some crucial changes to unlock the elusive
Consequently, IoT—which refers to the vast fifth V: value. It is common knowledge that
network of devices connected to the internet, many traditional organizations blindly follow
such as smartphones, tablets and almost the decisions of senior leaders, which often
anything with a sensor on it, such as cars, jet turn out to be biased or inaccurate. This
engines, wearable devices, and more—is method of decision making is humorously
turning out to be an even bigger driver in the referred to as HiPPO—Highly Paid Person’s
explosion of data. Opinion. Leaders have a big role to play in
establishing a culture that uses data instead,
In an era of limitless digitization, leaders must combined with the intuition and wisdom of
become adept at “sense-making”. Simply put, humans, to arrive at meaningful decisions.
it is the art and science of making sense of
complexity, deriving insights and having the Leaders not only have to make sense of the
ability to take decisions in the face of complex environment, they also need to help
ambiguity. Sense-making allows leaders to their teams develop a shared understanding of
place data-driven stimuli into frameworks that business realities and inspire action in the face
enable them to understand complex of uncertainty. There has, consequently, been
situations, derive patterns in these situations, an increasing focus on storytelling as a key
and predict outcomes. competency for leaders in the digital age.

Constant bombardment of data can disorient To quote leadership authors Joseph Jaworski
and distract individuals and teams. and Claus Otto Scharmer, “What distinguishes
Sense-making leaders must constantly great leaders from average leaders is their
provide clarity on the mission, purpose and ability to perceive the nature of the game and
strategy of the organization. By focusing on the rules by which it is played, as they are
what’s important, leaders can help the playing it.” Sense-making leaders not only help
organization to separate the signal from organizations perceive and understand the
the noise. rules of the new game, but also create
new ones.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #3. Published: Wed, Jul 18 2018. 7

SUCCESSFUL LEADERS IN THE DIGITAL

AGE WILL BE THOSE WHO CARE ABOUT
DESIGNING STELLAR EXPERIENCES
A healthy obsession with customer experience makes
complete economic sense

Niraj Dawar, professor of marketing at the Ivey

School of Business in Ontario, Canad,a and
author of Tilt, asserts that companies
reorienting strategies to focus on customer
interactions will enjoy significant advantages
in the post-industrial age.

In this emerging experience economy,

companies are focusing increasingly on
designing exceptional customer experience to
acquire, nurture and retain customers. They
do so by using human-centred design
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes empathy towards principles to understand the stated and
customers is essential for companies. Photo: Pradeep unstated needs of the customer. Human
Gaur/Mint values such as empathy are now being
embraced by senior leaders to drive home the
importance of customer-centric innovation.
For decades, leaders from the industrial era So much so that in his best-selling book Hit
have been using product superiority, Refresh, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says
economies of scale and operational empathy is not just nice to have, it is an
efficiencies as the route to market leadership. existential priority for companies.
Their playbook involves building competitive
advantage through new product creation, Developing a healthy obsession with customer
finding cheaper labour, building bigger experience makes complete economic sense
factories and investing in operational too. According to a 2014 assessment by the
efficiencies. Design Management Institute, US, design-led
companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola and Nike
In the globalized digital world, however, these have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past
advantages can no longer ensure success. 10 years by an extraordinary 219%.
Competitors are able to decode and develop
“me too” products in no time. While these
“upstream” production-related advantages are
still relevant, businesses across industries are
experiencing a tilt towards the “downstream”,
where companies interact with customers in
the marketplace.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #3. Published: Wed, Jul 18 2018. 8

What’s unique about customer-centric Innovations such as the DBS Home 360 app are
companies is that they make an effort to be often the result of a structured, human-
available when the desire is born in the minds centred, prototype-driven innovation process
of customers, much before the desire called design thinking. Given the tilt towards
becomes a well-articulated need. The DBS customer experience and design, it is
Home 360 app from DBS Bank is a case in becoming imperative for leaders in the digital
point. Buying a home is one of the most age to build design thinking as a core
important decisions people make. It is also capability.
one of the most harrowing experiences. We
visit many properties with a realtor, pick To build a design-centred culture in the
something we like and then knock on the doors workplace, leaders must first build an inclusive
of banks to get a valuation and submit a culture that celebrates diversity in ideas. They
mortgage application, hoping the home loan must build a healthy balance between
will be approved. The whole process is right-brain and left-brain thinking within their
laborious, stressful and often overwhelming. teams. Leaders should promote the use of
empathy to discover the needs of the
Recognizing this pain point, DBS Bank customer. At the same time, they should
announced the launch of DBS Home 360 in encourage teams to use feedback and data
September. It is the first banking mortgage analytics to sharpen the solution development
app in Hong Kong to leverage the power of process. They must encourage rapid
virtual reality (VR) in a mobile format to prototyping to quickly test the viability and
revolutionize the way people buy homes. Users feasibility of ideas. They must also develop the
can point their phone cameras to homes that ethos of continuous learning to help teams
they like and find out if these are listed in the learn from the impact of their designs
app’s “properties for me” feature. The virtual on customers.
tour feature lets users tour properties from
the comfort of their home. The app provides It is clear that leaders who are successful in
the indicative market value of the home and an the digital age will be those who care deeply
estimate of how much they can expect to pay, about designing stellar experiences. They will
including stamp duty, commissions and embrace the idea that ultimately, great design
related fees. Users can find out instantly if produces great desire—and that makes all
they qualify for a mortgage and have a bank the difference.
representative follow up and assist with the
formal application.

What this shows us is that a horrible customer

experience can become both hassle-free and
fun when the company makes an effort to
thoughtfully design the experience.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #4. Published: Wed, Jul 25 2018. 9

IN THE DIGITAL WORLD, STAY OBSESSED

WITH CHANGING CUSTOMER WANTS
AND EMBRACE AGILE WAYS OF WORKING
Leaders must constantly re-focus the attention of the team to
look at non-customers

Ericsson, the 140-year-old Swedish firm,

manages networks for the world’s telecom
companies. Before 2011, the company used to
build systems in long five-year iterations. Now,
the company has embraced agile methodology
and has organized itself into 100-member
teams that deliver to client needs in
three- week cycles. This has led to rapid
development of systems leading to faster
realization of revenue.
Photo: iStock
Why have relentless iteration and agility
become so important? In the physical world, a
There’s a quip doing the rounds in business product or a service can be labelled as “done”
conference circuits these days. “In today’s once the production is complete and the
context, it is not the big fish that eats the small consumer has consumed the offering. In the
fish. It is the fast fish that eats the slow fish.” digital world, however, products and services
Agility, in other words, is the name of the game have become real-time and are constantly
in the digital age. From project management improved in short bursts. As Kevin Kelly, the
and new product development to creating new founding executive editor of Wired magazine,
business models, companies are constantly puts it: “In the digital world, everything is in a
tweaking the status quo to up their game. constant state of becoming.” Consequently, in
the digital world, there is no concrete state of
Spotify is a classic example of an “agile-born” “doneness”. Products and services are
company. The 2,500 plus employee constantly living and breathing data and are
organization, that streams music to more than continuously creating new opportunities for
100 million people globally, has organized itself improvement. Companies, as a result, must
into 100-member teams that continuously embrace agility to make the most of these
deliver innovations that customers love. It’d be opportunities that emerge on a
fair to say that companies like Spotify are not continuous basis.
just innovative, they are iterative.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #4. Published: Wed, Jul 25 2018. 10

What can leaders do to help their Driving strategic agility, on the other hand, is a
organizations become agile? There are broadly completely different game. This is not about
two types of agility that leaders need to think doing something faster, cheaper and better.
about: operational and strategic. Operational Strategic agility is all about game-changing
agility is all about building and delivering the adaption, wherein a company seamlessly
right products and services faster, cheaper pivots to new business models, new strategic
and better. Strategic agility, on the other hand, positions and radical innovations. Such an
refers to the ability of a company to produce adaptation is more likely to come from
breakthrough innovation in a flexible, focusing not on the existing customer base,
seamless manner. but the non-customer base. Obsessive
customer centricity alone cannot do the trick.
Leaders can drive operational agility in their Leaders must constantly re-focus the
teams and projects by doing three things well. attention of the team to look at non-
customers to pursue radical innovation.
First, leaders must encourage their teams to
stay obsessed over customer needs. In the Strategic agility requires an organizational
highly successful book, The Lean Startup, the clarity and the will of the leadership to deal
author Eric Ries brings principles from lean with the conflicts between the “now and the
manufacturing and agile development to the next”. Uber, for instance, is talking about
process of innovation. He presents the driverless cabs by 2030 while, at the same
build-measure-learn cycle for companies to time, trying to expand its network of drivers
build minimum viable products that test their across countries. This is a great illustration of
hypotheses about customer demand without a company that simultaneously focuses on the
wasting much resources, measure key metrics “now” and the “next”.
and learn continuously from the users and
eventually scale the product. Game-changing adaptation is a risky
endeavour as it has the potential to
Second, leaders must eliminate bureaucracy cannibalize the existing business model. It
by operating in small teams. At Amazon, Jeff requires commitment and courage from the
Bezos famously instituted the “two pizza rule” senior leadership to place a big bet on the
as a guideline for limiting the number of unknown and enable their teams to operate
attendees at a meeting. Agile teams typically well in the face of uncertainty.
have 7-10 members, just enough that can be
fed with two pizzas. To achieve agility, operational or strategic,
leaders must focus on building a culture that
Third, leaders must leverage a fluid network of embraces continuous learning,
people and resources, both inside and outside experimentation and openness to change.
the organization, to get things done at a Without these cultural pillars, organizations
rapid pace. run the risk of becoming the slow fish and
getting eaten up by the fast fish.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #5. Published: Wed, Aug 01 2018. 11

IN THE DIGITAL AGE, TEAMING IS

THE NEW WAY OF WORKING, BY
COLLABORATING BEYOND BOUNDARIES
Leaders must foster a culture of sharing ideas, products,
methods and best practices

Traditionally, corporate teams, sports teams,

music bands, etc., have all operated as a static
collection of individuals inside stable
boundaries. These individuals develop trust
over time, collaborate on well-designed tasks
and understand each other’s roles well. But
today, teams are becoming increasingly
boundary-less and dynamic. The new reality in
the digital age is that businesses operate in an
environment where the problems are new, big,
urgent or unprecedented. Unilever CEO Paul
Polman says: “The issues we face are so big
The Thai cave rescue was an example of teaming. and the targets are so challenging that we
Photo: AP cannot do it alone so there is a certain humility
and a recognition that we need to invite other
people in.” This calls for people, from inside
Imagine that you are the head of research at a and outside the organization, to come
detergent company and are tasked with together quickly without any formal
finding a formula that will remove the toughest supporting structures, coordinate across
red wine stain from clothing. How would you go boundaries such as expertise, time zones and
about solving this challenge? Chances are that languages, take decisions and achieve results.
you might give the problem statement to a
select group of scientists in your organization The extraordinary rescue of the 12 Thai
and give them a budget and a timeline to come football players and their coach who were
up with a solution. As it turns out, that’s the trapped inside the Tham Luang cave for 17
industrial way of doing it, wherein the days in June and July is a case in point. The
organization tries to solve challenges through rescue team had Thai Navy SEALs, Australian
thoughtfully composed in-house teams. In the and British divers, and doctors from various
digital age, however, problem-solving is countries. They teamed up on the fly, learned
everyone’s job and the approach is to to collaborate seamlessly without any formal
collaborate with anyone who has the answer, structures, found innovative solutions, and
through a process called “teaming”. ultimately emerged victorious in their mission.

Amy Edmondson, the author of Teaming: How

Organizations Learn, Innovate And Compete In
The Knowledge Economy, defines “teaming” as
teamwork on the fly.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #5. Published: Wed, Jul 25 2018. 12

To be sure, teaming doesn’t just happen during When A.G. Lafley first became the CEO of
accidents and matters of life and death. It can Proctor & Gamble in 2000, he quickly
happen in a corporate setting too. With the gig understood that the “do-it-yourself” model of
economy on the rise in the digital age, innovation had run its course for the large
organizations have to embrace teaming. multinational. To turbocharge the innovation
Teaming can also happen internally in an process, he embraced the open innovation
organization. Publicis, the French model. He renamed the research and
multinational advertising and public relations development (R&D) function as connect and
company, recently unveiled Marcel, an develop (C&D). The idea was to connect with
Artificial Intelligence-driven platform that anyone outside the organization who had
promises to bring all its 80,000 employees on a answers to the tough problems that the
common platform to break all silos. On Marcel, company was trying to solve. The goal of the
employees can bid to take part in client re-christened team was that 50% of the
projects, team up, get work done and disband innovation must come from them and the rest
themselves. This enables the organization to should come through them. Today, the
tap into their wide network of talent that exists company leverages 7,500 of its internal
across boundaries and serve the unique needs researchers and 1.5 million people outside to
of its customers in innovative ways. create innovative products.

Daniel Coyle in his book, The Culture Code, To sum up, teaming is the new way of working
says leaders need to instil the power of in the digital age. Leaders must enable their
vulnerability in their teams. Everyone in the teams to focus on openness, sharing and
organization should feel psychologically safe collaborating beyond boundaries. This could
to be able to say: “I don’t know the answer, let hold the key for meeting challenges, ranging
me seek help.” Furthermore, leaders must from saving lives in crucial situations and
remove barriers to effective collaboration getting out new ad campaigns in rapid fashion
inside and outside the organization. Most to maybe even removing red wine stains from
importantly, the “not invented here” mindset our favourite clothing.
has to give way to “awesomely created
elsewhere” mindset. Employees must be
empowered to seek the best possible
solutions, irrespective of where it was
created. Finally, while in the industrial age we
hoarded valuable resources to gain influence,
in the digital age, the natural instinct is to
share the resource widely to achieve the same
result. Leaders must foster a culture of
sharing ideas, products, methods and best
practices to build a thriving community of
problem-solvers that support the company.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #6. Published: Wed, Aug 08 2018. 13

A LEADER MUST DISTINGUISH

BETWEEN DIGITALIZATION AND
DIGITIZATION TO ACCELERATE CHANGE
There are, however, many myths about digital that
come in the way of change

Many successful organizations from the

industrial age and early parts of the
information age, such as Blockbuster,
Research In Motion (BlackBerry) and Borders
have failed to leverage the power of digital in
their businesses and have fallen by the
wayside. Many more companies are becoming
increasingly irrelevant in the digital age.

These are the same companies that

dominated their industries till just a few years
or decades ago. It’s important to bear in mind
Organizations must enable a digital culture. Photo: iStock that this is not the first time they are facing a
transformational business situation. The same
companies have transformed themselves over
According to the World Economic Forum, the time by tackling challenges such as industrial
time taken by the average unicorn—a start-up automation, globalization, mergers and
that reaches a billion-dollar valuation—to acquisitions. Furthermore, these companies
reach that status is roughly 4.4 years. A typical have some of the best leaders in the corporate
Fortune 500 company took 20 years to achieve world; titans who have weathered many a
similar results. Uber and Airbnb, for instance, daunting storm. So, what’s going wrong in the
have profoundly transformed the digital age?
transportation and hospitality industries in
less than two years of their inception. There Incumbents are simply unable to cope with the
are also examples of large companies that pace of change introduced by digital
have transformed industries in half a decade. disruption. While disruption is measured in
It took less than five years for Apple to months, organizations take years to respond
transform the music industry and a similar to changes in meaningful ways. While the first
amount of time for Apple to displace Nokia response of companies tends to be to upgrade
from the smartphone industry. their technologies, people and process
transformation don’t get adequate attention.
Companies fail to realize that fundamental
changes in leadership mindsets, culture and
processes are far more important to succeed
in the digital journey.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #6. Published: Wed, Aug 08 2018. 14

Leaders have a big role to play in accelerating Some define it as an automaton process,
the response to digital change. There are, others associate it with a technology trend;
however, many myths about digital that come some speak about on-demand availability of
in the way of change. Leaders must bust these services, others speak about disruption and
myths to turbocharge the change process. the opportunity to revisit the way they do
business. The fact is, digital has become an
all-encompassing phenomenon.
Myth #1:
Digital has become so interwoven into our lives
Digitalization is the same
today that it has become a natural way of
as digitization working and living. In the context of business,
it is an overarching transformation in the way
Digitization is the process of converting businesses create, deliver and capture value.
something that is physical and analogue into Digital has a lot more to do with mindsets and
something that’s virtual and digital. Think the culture of the organization than fleeting
about how, in the last decade, everything from technology trends.
movies, books and music to business
processes and even money has been made
available in the digital format. That’s
Myth #3:
digitization.
Digital is only a worry for senior
Digitalization, on the other hand, represents a leadership or the IT department
perfect convergence of human values such as
empathy, newer business models and Digital has become all-pervading and all-
unprecedented technology prowess. Many encompassing in an organization. Going
banks today are not just in the business of beyond business and IT, everyone in the
earning income through interest rates on organization needs to know the rules of the
loans. They are creating a thriving economy of new game. Digital brings a fundamental shift in
apps that provide seamless lifestyle solutions the mindsets, skill sets and tool sets of all
to customers. Digitalization can therefore be employees. Digital, in other words, must
defined as a new way of doing things by become part of the core processes and the
leveraging technology to create exceptional very DNA of an organization. To that extent,
customer experience, become agile and the capabilities of people must be built, and,
unlock new value. more importantly, a digital culture must be
enabled across levels in an organization.

To sum up, digital transformation is a massive

Myth #2:
change management process where
Digitalization is just another companies must not only think about a
technology trend technology response but also put people and
processes right in the centre. It is the leader’s
Digital is one of the most tossed around words responsibility to constantly challenge myths
in the alleys of the corporate world today. and mindset issues to accelerate
Depending on whom you ask, digital will be digital change.
defined very differently.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #7. Published: Wed, Aug 22 2018. 15

OPINION | BUSINESSES MUST LEARN

TO USE THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA
TO ACHIEVE EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS
Leaders also need to encourage critical thinking
and thoughtful action

Social media can also lead to intense

polarization. Wael Ghonim helped spark the
Egyptian revolution by setting up a Facebook
page that galvanized people to raise their
voice against the government. Once the
revolution spilled on to the streets, however, it
started becoming unmanageable, with people
pulling in different directions. The effect was
immediately visible on social media. The very
platform that had enabled the organizers of
the movement to engage people, crowdsource
ideas and build a strong community quickly
Bill Gates taking the ALS ice bucket challenge became an intensely polarized battleground.
Hate speech and negative sentiment quickly
spiralled out of control. In a TED talk, “Let’s
Social media can be a great force for uniting Design Social Media That Drives Real Change”,
people to achieve extraordinary results. In Ghonim makes a plea to design social systems
2014, the ALS ice bucket challenge was that promote civility and reasoned argument.
launched with the goal of raising money for
research on ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s In the digital age, leaders play an active role in
disease. The challenge encouraged building communities, promoting action and
participants to share a video clip where they ensuring sustenance of the community. To do
pour a bucket of ice water on their heads and this successfully, leaders need to understand
then nominate others to do the same. The how social media amplifies the biases we all
nominated participants had 24 hours to carry. This understanding is important for
comply or forfeit by way of a charitable leaders to design sustainable social systems
financial donation to the cause. The challenge inside and outside the organization.
took the internet by storm. More than 2.4
million participants shared video clips and the First, fake news is dished out to us daily
ALS association received $115 million (around through messaging apps, social media
₹800 crore now) in donations. platforms and even mainstream media. We are
constantly consuming conspiracy theories,
The initiative succeeded because of a partisan content and questionable science
combination of social proofing, altruism, fun, packaged as fact. In December 2016, a
competitiveness and social media pressure. WhatsApp message claiming that the Reserve
The creator of the challenge clearly had a Bank of India had cancelled Axis Bank’s licence
great sense of how to raise awareness and went viral, leading people to withdrawing
promote positive action. money from their Axis Bank accounts.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #7. Published: Wed, Aug 22 2018. 16

In the absence of fact-checking on the part of Outside the organization, leaders need to build
readers, we witness knee-jerk reactions en a community based on the higher purpose of
masse. Fake news stokes our confirmation the organization and inspire positive action.
bias, the cognitive blind spot that makes us Social media interactions need to be
seek out evidence that matches our belief and human-centred and empathetic. While
disregard evidence that doesn’t fit. algorithms are great for driving efficiency in
interactions, they are still some time away
Second, technology serves us news feeds from effectiveness and empathy. The recent
based on our preferences, captured through Facebook faux pas in Indonesia is a case in
online activity. We inadvertently create a filter point. After the recent earthquake in Lombok,
bubble for ourselves and end up cutting Facebook users wrote: “I hope people will
ourselves off from diverse information survive.” They used the word selamat in the
sources. Information coming from similar sentence, a word in Bahasa Indonesia that
sources tends to reinforce our existing beliefs. means both congratulations and survival.
It also makes us believe that certain events are Facebook’s algorithms interpreted selamat in
happening more frequently than the norm. the positive context and started showing
This leads to availability bias, a mental short some balloons and confetti on users’ pages,
cut that relies on recent examples while we earning it much ire.
evaluate situations.
To sum up, social media is a powerful platform
Finally, content producers are incentivised for achieving extraordinary things that are
today to maximize clicks and views. Hence usually not possible with small groups of
there is an implicit push towards creating individuals. At the same time, there are
click-bait headlines and sensational news dangers of manipulation, misinformation and
stories. Sensationalism leads to greater polarization that leaders and organizations
collective attention, which then leads to social need to watch out for. Leaders must strive to
proof. Critical thinking and civilized set up social systems that leverage the power
conversations are lost in the bargain. of conversations and mindfulness to create
positive impact.
Within the organization, leaders need to
promote a culture that encourages diversity
and urges people to stay open and reconcile
with conflicting ideas. Chances are employees
will use the same values outside the
organization. Leaders also need to
recommend seeking disconfirming evidence
for beliefs. To do this, they must establish a
hypothesis-driven culture, where team
members are encouraged to build prototypes
and prove or disprove their hypothesis before
decisions can be made. Leaders also need to
encourage critical thinking and thoughtful
action.

KNOLSKAPE
 Article #8. Published: Wed, Aug 29 2018. 17

THE 5 SYSTEMIC CHALLENGES

FIRMS MUST OVERCOME TO
DERIVE VALUE FROM DATA
Ultimately the challenge lies in the capabilities,
culture and mindsets of the employees

There are five systematic challenges, called

the 5As of data, that these organizations must
overcome to derive value from data. The 5As
are Availability, Access, Accuracy, Analytics
and Agility.

Availability: “Forty million shoppers buy our

products in a year, but we do not know who
these shoppers are.” This is one of the classic
woes you might hear at an organization that
faces the availability challenge. The crux of the
challenge is that the organization has
Data is at the heart of digital-born organizations. incomplete internal and external data sources.
Photo: iStock An example of internal data that may not be
easily available is the health record of
employees. An example of external data could
It would be safe to say that organizations today be the biometric data of all customers in a
have more data than ever before. But deriving retail bank. Decisions in these organizations
actionable insights from the data and tend to be made based on limited data or the
converting the insights into value can prove to personal experiences of decisionmakers.
be a daunting task for most companies. Often,
it is not the lack of technology that causes the Access: You know that you are witnessing the
problem, it’s the culture and inertia carried access challenge if you hear something like
over from the industrial age that does the this from an organization: “We have
damage. identifiable data of all our 10 million
customers, but the commercial bank division
Uber uses real-time demand and supply data cannot access the data from the retail bank
to arrive at surge pricing to optimize its database.” The access challenge happens
revenue. With many million active users, when not everyone in the organization has
Twitter has made a business model out of access to the data. This could be part of a
breaking news and live trends. Spotify offers design to control access to sensitive data. In
music on-demand to more than 75 million many cases, however, the sheer complexity of
users using real-time personalized data. data systems prevents employees of one
These digital-born organizations are built with business unit from accessing the data from
data right at the centre of their model. another.
Industrial organizations, on the other hand,
struggle with data.

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 Article #8. Published: Wed, Aug 22 2018. 18

These organizations experience frustration Without a single view of the customer,

because duplicate systems emerge over time, organizations cannot really do justice to
costs escalate, and a lot of time is wasted on customer experience in the omnichannel-
just tossing data around from one system to driven digital age. Leaders may want to design
the other. their businesses in a way that data flow
between different units is seamless. They will
Accuracy: When an organization faces the benefit from investing in building data
accuracy challenge, you might hear something capabilities in their teams. It is important that
like this from it: “We have 10 different data in addition to creating new value from data,
systems within our organization that capture leaders must also be mindful of safeguarding
customer data, each speaking its own version existing value through strong data protection
of the truth. It takes 15 days to produce a and ethical practices around data usage.
comprehensive business dashboard.” Leaders can enable their businesses to
Accuracy challenge happens when the data is maximize opportunities and reduce risks by
available and accessible, but is of poor quality. embracing agility in their decision-making
This could happen because of a variety of process. Leaders will amplify impact by
reasons: improper training of data entry staff, leading the charge when it comes to shaking
incoherent data coming in from different off the inertia of using heuristics instead of an
channels, inaccurate machine data making its evidence-based decision-making process
way into the organization without any data inside organizations.
processing. Without accurate data, it is
pointless to talk about the next challenge, While there are many technology tools to help
analytics. Essentially, bad data will result in with the 5As of data, ultimately the challenge
bad decisions, no matter how sophisticated lies in the capabilities, culture and mindsets of
the analytics process is. the people of the organization. These will hold
the key to determining whether organizations
Analytics: When an organization faces the can derive value from data and stay ahead in
analytics challenge, you might hear this from a the digital race.
leader: “We have invested in acquiring the
latest technologies for data analytics, but we
don’t have the right data analytics capabilities
to leverage them for achieving results.”
Organizations are spending a lot of money in
acquiring software tools for data analytics but
the capability of employees in converting data
to insight is still falling short.

Agility: At the highest level, data-savvy

organizations perform analytics on-demand,
in a real-time fashion. You might hear this from
an organization that faces the agility
challenge: “We have the right data systems,
but we are unable to make use of the data on a
real-time basis to maximize outcomes.” The
root cause of the agility challenge lies in the
way work gets done in the organization.

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 19

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A Thought Leader and a TEDx speaker, Rajiv is
a visiting faculty at SP Jain Center of
Management, Singapore and Dubai, and has
delivered guest lectures at INSEAD, IIM-
Bangalore, IIT-Madras, IIFTDelhi, NMIMS and
MICA. He is frequently invited for corporates
and industry events to speak about building
digital mindsets, managing innovation, and
modern workplace learning. He has been
featured in The Economic Times, Business
Standard, CNBC Young Turks, ET Now, Digital
Learning magazine, Entrepreneur magazine
and Yourstory.in.
Rajiv Jayaraman is the CEO & Founder of
KNOLSKAPE Prior to founding KNOLSKAPE, Rajiv worked at
Oracle USA in the server technologies division.
Rajiv provides overall leadership and direction Rajiv earned his bachelor’s degree in
in strategic areas such as customer success, Computer Science from BITS Pilani, Master’s
product roadmap, talent acquisition and in Computer Science from University of
growth strategy. After experiencing the power Alabama, Huntsville, followed by an MBA from
of a differentiated learning intervention during INSEAD. He enjoys playing musical
his MBA days at INSEAD, he founded instruments and has keen interest in theater
KNOLSKAPE in 2008 with the vision of helping and film making.
corporates maximize the potential of their
people talent, using technology as an enabler.

Under Rajiv’s leadership, KNOLSKAPE has

grown into a leading player in the talent
transformation space, with 200+ clients
across 17 countries. He brings focus on
meeting the needs of the company’s global
customers, and constantly strives to achieve
ever higher levels of organizational excellence
and customer satisfaction by encouraging
responsibility and accountability at all levels.

KNOLSKAPE
YOU GO DIGITAL,
WHEN YOUR PEOPLE
LEARN TO CLEAR THE

to know more visit www.knolskape.com/digitalblur/