Starting digitalization. 3. What to pay attention to during digitalization.

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We have gathered all interested parties together and named everything they believe needs to be worked on to advance the digitalization project in the company. The analyst has already collected and properly organized information for making further decisions on the project.

And now, it is time to create a solid foundation for choosing IT technologies and to determine the directions in which digitalization brings the most valuable effects. Such an understanding will allow further confidently and reasonably defining the specific goals and mechanisms to obtain all advantages.

Now we have a map on our table with the names of processes in the company, and all interested parties can easily supplement further business information.

And now it is easy for all of us to imagine which tasks and at which points can be delegated to machines. It is time to bring out our boldest fantasies about new and time-tested IT technologies:
- "I knew we need blockchain!"
- "No, the most important thing is to develop a database."
- "It that also possible? Wow."

Finally, after the difficulties of the initial steps, the opportunity for creativity has emerged.

But at this moment, it is also useful to familiarize oneself with the directions of digitalization that typically have the maximum beneficial effect.

Then, we can leverage the collective experience of digitalization to make more informed decisions.

So, here is what to pay attention to during digitalization.

1. Process optimization and standardization. We've already described one area of effort in the digitalization project: to focus closely on the information flows accompanying real processes in the company. For businesses, this means the ability to increase efficiency in the market through process optimization and standardization.

2. A user-friendly interface for each process. Typically, the first and natural desire of staff is to equip workstations with user-friendly interfaces where all necessary information is available in real time for operational decision-making.

This staff aspiration has led to a number of quite funny stories in our work.

And it is important for chiefs and managers to understand that this is not just whims of the staff, but is almost the most valuable feedback they can provide about their work.

We will write about this soon in a separate article.

3. Operational analytics. Once we have described and planned access to operational information at workstations, we can already create algorithms and design interfaces for analytical data processing.

The machine already does not just simplify work and free up hours of qualified staff for routine data collection / work.

The machine can already perform tasks that a person either cannot do or for which the costs of such work are too high.

We will return to such advantages later in a separate article. But you can also find such tasks in your own organization: identifying excessive working hours and materials, deviations from norms and standards, material losses and attributions, strange transactions - every company has its pain points that are difficult to control.

4. Summary analytics. Collecting and processing large volumes of information from various sources is another area of applying digitalization. Monthly reports, weekly reports, HR department reports, marketing department reports, summary reports, search and reconciliation of numbers, hypotheses, and so on.

And then there is the warehouse. Oh, the warehouse. Those who have a warehouse now are screaming while reading these lines. But even those who do not have a warehouse regularly complain to us about difficulties controlling project results and invoicing.

Analytics for strategic decisions of senior management of the organization is the pulse and brain of the organization in numbers, providing the ability to ask questions and receive answers.

5. Automated management. Another interesting area for digitalization is operational process management. It is no secret that on-site managers, whether in production or projects, are buried in operational reactivity to 50% and cannot devote enough time to optimizations, pivots, and innovations.

At the same time, management functions are easily algorithmized, especially for well-standardized processes.

You can already imagine the benefits this brings for your organization. We will collect frequently encountered effects in a separate article. Spoiler: There is no point in being upset with an automatic / digital manager, bias cannot be attributed to him, staff gains the ability to self-check in dialogue with the machine, everyone sees who contributed what to the task of quality, team mechanisms are activated, etc.

It would be wrong and wasteful not to use the solid informational backbone from everything we have already advanced / conceptualized / planned in the digitalization project and not to identify areas for implementing the most advanced technologies.

In what cases is applying AI helpful?

Robotics and automation can replace people in physical actions. Did you know that it is even easier to replace people in cognitive / thinking activities than in physical ones? That is because the computer was created precisely for this purpose. New technological breakthroughs and the fiercest competition between companies are expected in this trend.

How to create innovation within digitalization?

For solving cognitive tasks, there is no need to wait for the emergence of real AI (fully reproducing human mentality), you can already use individual scientific principles of real AI and apply them to tasks of limited complexity already now.

We will talk about the directions of digitalization in which innovative solutions can be applied in one of the next articles.