What is Digital Operations?

Speaker 1: Thanks Lance for joining us today. Today we're going to talk about digital operations. I guess let's start with a definition. What is digital operations?

Lance: It's a ... it's definitely sounds like a broad term. Really I think it comes down to having the ability for companies to rapidly innovate and create very meaningful kinds of solutions when it comes to the connections between their employees, the technologies and systems that support those, the processes around that and then the customer journey that surrounds basically everything that a company is actually in business for, right? All of this really, really matters when we talk about connecting with that customer experience. Experience is an outcome of the journey itself. The more proximity you have there, the more efficacy there is in that experience for a customer.

Speaker 1: I love that. Empowering the employee.

Lance: Absolutely.

Speaker 1: Give me a so what statement. Why is this so important? Why should people be focused on digital operations? I see a lot of iPhone apps coming out-

Lance: Sure.

Speaker 1: Along with customer journey mapping. Why should people be focused on their digital operations?

Lance: Yeah. It's one of those things that when we talk about disruption, you have the term digital disruption and digital negatives and all of that. Disruption's always been there. Now PC manufacturing, tires, penicillin, you name it. The difference today is since we have such a proliferation of data, with 25 billion or so devices throwing off data, everyone's handheld device, IoT, you name it, what has happened is we see now disruption happening faster and with more depth than it's ever done before. And so on a company, an in coming company that's been in business for quite some time, very good at what they do. What's happening with this notion of the disruption of the industry is they have to look much more carefully and thoughtfully and in very innovative ways about how they're going to compete in this market. What do they need to do to be that much more efficient, to gain that customers experience and to have a right to exist going forward.

Speaker 1: So really, digital operations is connecting all the pieces of your business through that customer experience?

Lance: Absolutely. It's connecting the pieces of your business and the ecosystem that surrounds your business. Every company has partners and suppliers of some form or another. What does need to happen, is those connections need to be much more intimate. Again, the reason being, you want to avoid those kinds of disconnection for not only the customer experience but also the employee experience. You know, humans are humans, right. If there is a system out there that they've been told, hey this is how you do the work, just follow the bouncing ball, in today's world, they're gonna find the white space. And that could be a very frustrating thing, and obviously a lot of the cost associated with that have become hidden. So companies have to look at this and take it very, very seriously around those kind of connections.

Speaker 1: Well thanks for joining us today and we'll see more on what is digital operations coming up soon.

Lance: Thanks.