Abstract
Even before the COVID-19, the mining industry was under tremendous pressure to reduce operating costs, reverse the declining productivity growth rate, and achieve an acceptable level of sustainability. The pandemic has only accelerated the pace required for a successful Digital Transformation journey. In this presentation, Ash Agarwal shares his playbook called "Five Principles" for designing and implementing successful Digital Transformation initiatives that sustain.
The principles cover the entire life cycle of the Digital Transformation journey from conceptualization to execution and finally to growth. It’s no longer enough to have just a business case for a technology project. The most valuable resource in this journey isn’t the money. It’s time. Any minute spent on doing something that isn’t viable enough or is something that can’t be solved is the minute your competition is building something that provides an advantage to them. The Five Principles share a scientific way to uncover the most valuable opportunities and business problems that are the most likely to be solved. The business problems uncovered so scientifically will also ensure sustained leadership support.
Secondly, the Five Principles provide a solid partnership approach. Successful transformations can’t happen alone and require the maximization of the core competency of each stakeholder. A well thought of partnership strategy is essential to build things faster and to stay updated with the rapid pace of technology and innovation.
The paper also emphasizes the importance of building a belief system across the organization. It’s no longer enough, and is actually dangerous, to let the IT/Innovation/ Digital/Reliability or any one function run a transformation initiative by themselves.
Finally, the paper highlights that if there is any plan of implementing “Change management” at the end of a Digital Transformation initiative, the initiative has already failed. Change management is planned before the start of a successful transformation and not at the end of it.