Sanjib Sahoo, Chief Digital Officer of Ingram Micro Inc.
Digital transformation’s impact goes well beyond technology and infrastructure, often altering the DNA of an organization, both its people and culture. When done correctly, it not only improves one's business model but also positively impacts one's brand — allowing the business to become both more client-centric and culture-rich.
Too many business leaders fail to capture the full value from their digital strategy because they are not integrated with the brand and people strategy. Without this integration, leaders struggle to capture the value across the organization both internally with team members and externally with customers.
This month I sat down with digital innovator Sanjib Sahoo, the Chief Digital Officer of $54 billion-dollar tech giant Ingram Micro Inc. to understand his approach to creating a more holistic approach to digital transformation.
Soon Yu: What are businesses getting wrong with Digital Transformation?
Sanjib Sahoo: In today’s world, companies need to distinguish themselves less and less by their products and more and more by their people and platforms. Digital transformation done right requires an organization to be both aggressively digital and amazingly human.
So what do I mean by this and how can it be done?
Digital transformation is not about technology alone. It’s about mindset and embracing a spirit of innovation. That is the first step.
Most think technology first. This is backward. Innovation before adoption is no good. Digital transformation is not about shiny new tech. When you embrace a spirit of digitization, the experience your company and your people deliver becomes the product, the reason why the customers buy again and again.
For example, before we introduced Ingram Micro Xvantage, our digital experience platform, I spent hundreds of hours – literally on screen and in person – educating our teams on the importance of having a growth mindset and the impact digitizing our operations would have on our brand and the experience we bring to the entire ecosystem. We had to make this about them, not about the technology.
It’s critical for your team to understand and be able to act out the vision you set forth as a leader. You must go on the journey together so that together you perform while you transform as an organization.
Now more than ever, the experience is everything and everything is the experience. There is no room for separating employee experience and customer experience. They are forever connected in a digital ecosystem and must deliver agility and a clear line of sight into our interactions – from the simplest of sales to the most complex of escalations and opportunities. There should be no grey area. The experience should be free of friction and deliver smiles to everyone.
The impact of digital transformation on your employees, your customers, and your company’s brand is profound. It’s differentiating and defining. It brings evidence to the everyday experience of everyone who is engaging with your company and works to make the “why” people work for and with you easy to spot.
Yu: So how should businesses approach digital transformation differently?
Sahoo: Digital transformation is not a checklist to complete. It has less to do with technology and everything to do with people and the brand promise you deliver. It’s an iterative process that follows three guiding principles:
First is responsibility for value creation. You must ensure every team member has the knowledge and mindset to embrace the transformation and deliver continuous value to the employee and the customer. This means always listening to your employees and your customers and incorporating their feedback, and ideas into your workflows and innovations.
Second is clear and thoughtful decision-making. Everyone in the organization needs to perform while the business transforms. The only way this happens is by keeping communications constant and clear. Everyone must be informed and accountable. Feedback loops must be open and decision-making must be shared.
The third is the idea that calculated risk is where innovation happens. Don’t shy away from taking risks. Small and calculated risks are critical to optimizing your outcomes. If failure happens, that’s ok. Fail fast. Learn. Keep moving forward.
To successfully transform, you must focus on your team and work together to build a brand you love, and a digital culture driven by continuous agility, flexibility, and openness to reinvent the digital architecture and the value the business drives. The team must be a huge fan of the company’s brand and an even bigger fan of their customers’ brands.
Yu: How does digital transformation create and capture more value for the brand?
Sahoo: A guiding goal for any digital transformation effort is to create and capture more value at scale for all stakeholders. Do not focus first on the cost, and the calendar of how long the effort will take. Digital transformation has no stop sign. It’s an iterative process and a never-ending journey that is tied to the experience everyone including your employees, customers, and partners has with your brand.
So how do business leaders work to create and capture more value? First, by listening more to your teams. Second, by meeting your customers with what they need, where they are, online for example, and in a way that satisfies them—seamlessly, effortlessly, and touchless in many cases.
What’s more, businesses must create and maintain a clear and continuous path toward value creation that includes feedback loops, measurements, and simultaneous efforts between the digitized business on both the technical and operational levels.
Yu: You mention the need for thoughtful decision-making as a requirement. What makes this challenging for most organizations?
Sahoo: Without a doubt, communications, followed by the impact digital transformation has on the company’s brand both internally and externally.
Constant communication and collaboration are increasingly important when it comes to building your technological interface. Another is always looking at what’s ahead through the lens of the Chief Value Officer and asking the question: “How and where can we add more value?” The more value you create and capture, the more memorable your brand becomes.
In my experience, the best way to create and keep open lines of communication and encourage collaboration is to establish two teams. The first team is focused on ‘the art of the feasible.’ This team pulls from your customers’ insights to explore the operational aspects of the interface. The second team is all about the ‘art of the possible.’ This team is all about the technical components and building out what the customer needs—taking cues from the first team and putting them into play.
Together these teams have what it takes to make the magic happen including a mindset for growth and a familiarity with the ideal customer scenario, what is technically possible, and what makes sense to automate in terms of cost efficiency.
Yu: You speak of creating a digital culture, what do you mean by this?
Sahoo: Digital transformation starts with transforming people and ends with transforming brands. Digitally fit organizations are more than brands people work for or buy from. They are brands people believe in and want more from.
When you look back at the best brands, you see employees and customers at the forefront, promoting the brand. In the case of Harley Davidson, you see them wearing the brand on their bodies. With Salesforce, you see inventive tennis shoes and a well-defined culture of “ohana.”
Looking forward you’ll see this contagious energy more within and around Ingram Micro as we redefine the distribution industry with our Xvantage platform and make our name known as the business behind today’s emerging and established technology brands.
Remember, digital transformation does not have a stop sign. It is grounded in a continuous spirit – a DNA – that brings teams together to innovate at the speed of need and create and capture more value at scale. The DNA of tomorrow’s most successful brands will be aggressively digital and amazingly human.
