Digital Transformation have an unexpected push in the face of COVID-19 pandemic. Like all innovation, IT faces disruptions from these changes. These unexpected trends creates gaps in our approach of current IT strategy roadmap. This is a quick simple guide on the steps to digital transformation.
Digital transformation is not just digital changes. Transform your mindset as well.
Encourage organic growth of your resources with digital transformation knowledge instead of inorganic hiring.
Digital transformation will lead to changes and the need for constant Business IT Alignment. Anticipate and be prepared for them.
You cannot transform everything. Focus on your core strength and apply the digital transformation for them.
Look for Digital Transformation Champions. They are passionate and will be the seed for your successful digital transformation.
These are simple steps but do expect to face challenges and resistance. However, it is always never too late to start the transformation from within you.
Customer Experience (CX) teams and careers are sprouting here and there. One wonder on what exactly does CX really do? How do you really embark on a career that is dependent on Experience? Although CX aims to bridge all touchpoints for customer, we are still lacking in knowledge of what CX really encompasses. This is a brief understanding of the key points on CX.
CX Lifecycle
CX Lifecycle is a simple method to model an end to end relationship with the organisation. It is widely studied in CRM (Customer Relationship Management). CX system are touted to be an upgrade of CRM. However, it suffers from similar issue for CRM because many backend and vendor system are not integrated or networked to form a complete lifecycle. Without networked information, the lifecycle cannot be view in completeness.
CX Indicators
Like my study on overall consumer satisfaction, the satisfaction indicators seek to measure the entire CX lifecycle. The creation of these indicators often involve many puzzles to be addressed. CX team must take ownership to plug the gaps or get these measurements. Often, CX team only support the engagement and monitoring process of these indicators. The ownership of the indicators still remains with individual application owners. This reduce the CX effectiveness when the driver and ownership is not from CX team.
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.
Sustainability is the key objective of Green Logistics. With TMS, it is easier to obtain visibility to your transportation needs and move towards Green Logistics. However, this is complicated by the newness of sustainability and lack of resources in this area. So, how do you incorporate sustainability into your TMS?
SustainabilityStrategy
Always start your sustainability step with a strategy.
Communicate a clear sustainability objective for TMS. If you aim for all, you may end up with none.
Sustainability is a team effort and cultural change. Conduct sustainability workshop and awareness for all levels involved with TMS.
Have a realistic checkpoint for each sustainability implementation in TMS. Get clear indicators and data for monitoring and improvement.
Green TMS
The switch from traditional TMS to a Green TMS will come with a significant investment. Do not be afraid to throw and reinvent new processes that encompasses sustainability. There could be old features that work well in the past and will be detrimental to Green efforts. Usually, it will take years to fully transformed into Green Logistics. However, you can never be late if you start your baby steps to Green TMS now.
There are an increasing trend of data analytics as Cloud technologies have enabled cheaper access to obtain data. Many organisations are scrambling to create and hire data analytics resources. As many are aware, data is always a two edge sword. How should you be managing data correctly? I will show you a simple checklist to evaluate your data awareness.
Favourable Data Checklist
Do you have data quality best practices in place?
Do you have data sensitive resources?
Do you conduct data historical review consistently to review trends and business performance?
Unfavourable Data Checklist
Data is as good as what you can record.
Dirty data is as good as no data.
Data have no meaning when the blind is leading the analysis.
In short, do not jump into the data bandwagon blindly. If you are misleaded by data, you are worst than having no data. Always implement good processes and quality practices to ensure good data quality. Data analytics can only be amplified and fully utilised with good business and IT alignment.
There is a sudden surge in coding where anyone can claim to know coding especially with Python and Machine Learning. Driven by demand, many attempt the switch to coding just by taking a course. However, for those whose are familiar in this industry, coding is not as easy as ABC. Picking up is easy but to sustain your interest in coding is even harder. Do you know there is a wide variety of coding? Which coding style brings you joy? Here is a way to apply Marie Kondo approach to coding to learn about your coding interest.
How to Marie Kondo your Coding.
Why do you learn coding?
Which coding spark joy?
What is your place in coding?
Where do you code best?
This is my Way of Coding
I learn coding because I enjoy creating things and making them work. I find joy in interpreter and scripting languages like PHP and JavaScript. Needless to say, my lazy self sway towards non-strict languages instead of language like Java. I usually function as SME (Subject Matter Expert) coding where a bridge is required between business and IT. For that area, exploratory and innovation area intrigue me the most.
Business IT Alignment is a necessity in today economy. With the speed of technology deployment and Agile approach, features can now be deployed daily. Often, business are frustrated by IT over lack of innovation. On the other hand, IT are annoyed over the changing requirements. This is a quick summary of these challenges I encountered over the years.
Timing is key. Consistent alignment is recommended.
Manage stakeholders expectation, not user expectations.
What you want is not what you need. Wants and needs is a constant battle for alignment.
Business or IT Sign off is not alignment. You will need communication more than a sign off.
Remember to build for unarticulated needs. What you cannot see is could be the key to alignment. Dig further.
Speak a common language. Carrier, trucker and vendor may mean the same thing.
Giving in to business or IT does not mean you are aligned. Alignment means a common understanding.
Learn to design your solution for alignment and adapt for change.
Always include political factor as part of alignment process.
If you cannot be aligned, it means that neither Business or IT is ready. Do not come to alignment for the sake of alignment. It is common not to be aligned.
Over the years, IT roles have evolved accordingly to technological trends playing catch up at many junctions. As times passed, I have tried different types of roles in various forms of organisations. However, we have kindly seek to divide domain into project manager, business analyst, developer and tester. With emergence of Cloud technologies and Agile, these roles are gradually merging again into a role called Full Stack.
What is Full Stack role?
Full Stack role is nothing new but a rebranding of an old role I used to call Software Engineer! In fact, I would say that Software Engineer can do much more. That will be a debate in another article. To understand Full Stack, we need to delve into a bit of history. Back in Open Source days, a Stack is refers as a set of systems that is required to run the application. The most famous stack will be LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) in the Dot Com age. Basically, full stack role will involve a mastery of the solution stack e.g. LAMP stack.
3 Myths to Full Stack Role
For those who are in the Dot Com era, we will be de facto Full Stack! This also applies to techies who have worked in Startup. After all, you are expected to setup everything from end to end from Servers to Applications.
Myth 1: Full Stack is a specialised role.
As opposed, Full Stack role involves knowledge to set up end to end solution. This is actually a generalist role to configure the system architecture which is getting common in Cloud Technologies. Only then, the deployed application can be transferred to the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for engagement with users.
Myth 2: Full Stack role is difficult to find.
Once you understand the fundamental of Full Stack Role, you will realise Full Stack has existed in many parts of existing IT roles. This role can be easily found in Agile team or Startups as they are expected to handle a variety of solutions stacks. In many cases, SME or Solution Architect can often act as Full Stack developer.
Myth 3: Full Stack is a competitive advantage.
Sadly, coming from the world of Open Source, it is quite depressing to see the misunderstanding of Full Stack role. One may feel that having Full Stack is a competitive advantage. In fact, this is the opposite. Full Stack knowledge will become a commodity because most of Cloud Technologies offer templates with quick deployment methods that can be setup within hours. We shall see a decrease in this role as Cloud technologies mature. On the contrary, there will be a continued focus on SME and specialisation of domain knowledge. Let us not be sidetrack and go back to being a generalist just because it has a nice ring in “Full Stack”.
Transport Management System (TMS) is a system that is part of logistics with a focus on transportation. It is exciting that TMS will be going through a new phase of evolution. Like many legacy systems, the impact comes from the changes in consumer behavior and cloud technologies. For those new to TMS, this will help you provide a crash course to TMS.
Whatis TMS?
TMS is the system that automate the process to manage the transportation operations. This can come from the goods handover from warehouse to port port to port, or port to customers. TMS will handle the orders from customers, delivery shipments by truckers or carriers, transport tracking and payment process for the transportation move. In simple layman terms, it is the view to move goods from point A to Point B.
Benefits of TMS
The key competitor for TMS is Excel. It is surprising to see many organisations relying on Excel, phone calls and even chat applications to handle transportation needs. Often, there is no dedicated TMS team handling this domain. Everything will be recorded ultimately in Excel. Moving to the current technology landscape, you can see a major benefit of TMS will be data visibility. Customer can now see their goods moving from warehouse to delivery. Truckers can also pick and accept jobs timely leading to better truck or equipment utilisation.
Futureof TMS
Soon, more organizations will be embracing TMS with Cloud technologies. Data visibility is a major push factor as customers want to know the value they are getting from transportation. The lower cost of iOT and GPS tracking has provided TMS with near real time tracking of goods movement. Green Logistics and Sustainability is another factor to get information using TMS regarding costs vs carbon footprint.
I recently took an Enterprise Architecture (EA) course and find Architectural Thinking very refreshing. It is worth to provide my two cents worths and an introductory view because many of us are caught up in the details of system development.
What isArchitectural Thinking?
The first thing that Architectural Thinking that comes into my mind is the Building Architecture. Like a building, architect plans and design the construction and utilisation of the space within a site. There are also considerations of human elements, environment and aesthetics. Similarly, Architectural Thinking is the mindset to consider the design of business and IT domains. It also align the business goals and strategic drivers so that IT landscapes can adapt and respond to changes.
Challenges
Theoretically, Architectural Thinking is a perfect approach to transform your organisation into a architectural centric fit between business and technology. In reality, the transformation is complex due to disparate data, stakeholders, system and environments. The course outlines a systematic blueprint to addresses these challenges and implement Architecture Thinking with Architecture Development Method (ADM). Another way is to adopt Cloud technologies to manage your architectural framework (see Helping Enterprise Architecture (EA) be Agile with Cloud).
Checklist
Overall, a simple checklist is sufficient to check if your organisation is ready for Architectural Thinking.
Do you have an Enterprise Centric strategy?
Do you have blueprint Architectural Diagram for business and IT?
Do you have stakeholder maps?
Is there guidelines in developing your Architecture?
For many cases, your organisation could be in stage of discovery in this digital transformation era. It may be worth to be systematic and consider investing your resources with Architectural Thinking. You could also check the reference source – Combining Design Thinking with Architectural Thinking.
Green is the new fab now. Singapore has just announced its Green Plan 2030. Green Technologies, Green Fuel and Green Logistics are some of the futuristic areas that will be gaining popularity as sustainability become a concern for Earth survival.
Green Logistics refers to the flow of logistics that are conducted in a sustainable way with the purpose of reducing the carbon footprint. The other key objective of Green Logistics is to focus on the transportations of goods in order to minimize the impact on environment.
How Cloud helps Green Logistics
Green Logistics is not new. It is an ideal way to save the world but languish for many years as conceptual ideas because of higher consumer costs to be Green. The arrival of Cloud technologies have revived the interest of Green Logistics with the sole purpose of Greater Good i.e to commoditize carbon cost using Cloud computing.
Commoditizationc of Carbon
Carbon are being commoditised and implemented as Carbon Tax in many countries. The aim is twofold, to reduce carbon gas emissions and passed this carbon cost to consumers through taxes. For the first time, Carbon can be measured and be quantified like commodity. Higher carbon will translate higher cost for the consumers. Carbon heavy industries like energy sector is the first to be impacted. Similar for logistics, majority of carbon tax will derive from fuels.
Future of Green Logistics
The measurement on the consumptions of carbon will spur customers and supply chain providers to offer carbon services or Green Logistics. Cloud technologies will be adopted to capture these carbon usages. The first adoption will be the iOT of fuel in vehicles. Next, massive digitisation of data such as weather and traffic conditions will be captured for route and load optimization. With these information, Machine Learning (ML) can provide detailed analytics on how reduce Carbon Tax without increasing consumer costs. It will be exciting to see Green roles or Green Technologist in Logistics sectors. Green is the new Change, let us embrace it!
Danny Kwok 