Digital Transformation has been the buzzword for the past few years now. Many companies have realized that technology can help to grow the business exponentially without increasing the costs accordingly. And thus IT is not perceived as a support function but it is perceived as a key business enabler.

A lot of companies have already embarked on the digital transformation journey. A vast majority of the organizations have moved on from exploration phase to implementation phase in the digital maturity scale. The year 2020 might be the first step to move from implementation to optimization/consolidation phase.

While technology is the key part of digital transformation, success of transformation requires a lot more than implementing right technology. And these factors are even more important to move ahead to optimization phase.

I have tried to identify some areas where digital heads are going to focus in 2020. This is in addition to deploying more technology solutions like AI, chat bots, cloud etc.

Better Customer Experiences: As many people think, digital transformation is not just about technology or using some latest and cool tools. One of the key aspects about any successful digital transformation is to create remarkable customer experiences. Technology and tools are only enablers in creating these experiences.

“In 2020, a stronger partnership between IT and business is a possibility. The initiatives will be identified jointly at the very beginning. And business is going to participate more in the transformation journey”

Imagine calling the customer care of any of your service providers, and you go through a host of options, menus and sub menus before you get to talk to the representative. And you have to explain the whole history of why you are calling. And now again imagine calling the customer care, and within seconds you get to talk to a representative on the other side and he/she exactly knows why you are calling for.

These kinds of experiences are possible with the right technology and tools. Technology and tools can help with customer profiling and which will in turn help in delivering the right customer experiences.

A lot has already been done in data collection and user profiling. In 2020, there is a high possibility of consolidation of this data and a lot of focus moving to creating the right customer experiences.

Stronger Data Protection and User Privacy: We already see a lot of personalization. And sometimes this is scary. It is not uncommon these days that all apps and products track the user activity. For example, when I browse any app for planning my next holiday, a bunch of other apps get to know my plan. And I keep seeing the similar ads on my social network pages. Another example is food delivery or any ecommerce apps. Once you browse something and don’t complete the transaction (of buying), you are flooded with notifications and deals.

And many already have concerns about personal data protection and privacy. Many countries are coming up with new regulations about data protection and privacy. GDPR was one of the first steps towards this direction. In 2020, this might be one of the biggest focus areas for CDOs and CIOs on how to protect the data and handle user privacy.

Stronger business and IT partnership – Another key aspect for a successful digital transformation journey is about how business and technology partner to achieve the objectives and goals of the organization.

In 2020, a stronger partnership between IT and business is a possibility. The initiatives will be identified jointly at the very beginning. And business is going to participate more in the transformation journey. They are going to contribute in ideation, validation and adoption. The budgets for running the transformation might also be from business organization than IT organization. And CDOs are going to come up with more formal processes and methodologies to partner with business.

Stronger partnership between business and technology enables organizations to reach their transformation goals faster. This also helps in adoption of new platforms that are built as part of digital transformation.

Ecosystem: One more focus area for 2020 can be on creating a digital partner ecosystem. Enterprises might focus on co creating platforms/products by partnering with external stakeholders. As the maturity of digital transformation evolves, more co created products are likely to be built.

Domain expertise from business and technology expertise from service providers might come together to create a new value in the ecosystem. For example a bank can partner with a Technology Company to create new credit score system which can leverage social footprint of the user along with the traditional parameters. There is a possibility that many such new platforms are in the making and might see the light in 2020.

Apart from these aspects, a lot more innovation is on the cards with latest technologies and tools becoming available. 5G is just around the corner which will pave way for much more technological advancements. Blockchain is one space to watch out for whether it will move beyond the hype and present with new use cases apart from crypto or it will die down. Cloud is not going to be an option anymore.

All in all, year 2020 is going to be exciting with all these advancements and innovation. Let’s watch out.