How to make your moonshot work

From Google shuttering internet-delivering balloons to Meta giving up on the Metaverse, several “moonshot” projects in Silicon Valley were shut down, raising the question: how can we make ambitious projects actually work? True digital transformation is such ambitious project, and equally suffers with the organizational, democratization and cultural changes that come along with going after ‘the shiny new thing’ (which now appears to be conversational AI :-)).

Newsflash: Digital transformation is NOT easy. 

Chapter 1 of Break the Wall: Why and How to Democratize Digital in Your Business outlines the seven main aspects of digital transformation, which are crucial for a successful implementation:

1. Define your Vision and integrative Framework for Digital Transformation: understand both the agent of transformation, in this case digital technologies, as well as the aspects of your organization that are being transformed.
2. Smart goal-setting: don’t get distracted by “shiny objects”, a.k.a. really interesting projects that aren’t very impactful, and focus on changes that help your business succeed in the long term. This seems especially relevant for large tech companies. What should tech companies focus on, and how broad should their new endeavors be?
3. Mind the gap(s): look out for gaps between business-client interactions and between top-management and IT specialists. Carefully filter and select data that are relevant and reliable. Be careful of the volume and time span covered by the data – more is not always better!
4. Hire the right new talent and upgrade current talent: be open to incurring the costs of a successful digital transformation, which include competitive compensation for new hires, and quality training for existing talent. This area has certainly been in the radar of top management in big tech, as they strive to find a balance between retaining talented employees and cutting down costs.
5. Align moving parts of management, IT and business in your culture: understand your company culture and identify what areas need work in order to allow for digital cultural values to be the oil of your organization’s engine. Consider the ethical implications of digital transformation, and how it affects different parts of your organization. Considering the moonshot projects example, does the ethos of “move fast and break things” work nowadays? What cultural attitudes of tech companies should change in order to adapt to their current business environment and process of maturing?
6. Implement the transformation by democratizing digital tools and manage for expectations: Rahul Bhargava gives a great metaphor to illustrate this point – imagine there is a big screen in a room where everybody is working together. Rather than this being a window for outsiders to look down on your team’s work, view it as a mirror that reflects what’s succeeding and what needs to be improved. Democratization increases the feeling of shared ownership, which builds trust among members of the organization, improves communication, and allows for a successful implementation of digital technologies. Plus, 7 common pitfalls and how to avoid them.
7. Learn from others’ experiences! See Chapter 8 of Break the Wall for accounts of digitalization from different executives across industries and job titles.

It seems to me that a key takeaway from the current push for more digital transformation within tech companies is that these seven aspects can’t help an organization on their own. The combination of all seven insights is necessary to ensure a successful digital transformation. Even for tech giants.

If you’d like to learn more, come to our March 31st workshop on The Future of Marketing technology. We will cover

1)   key considerations for brands looking to enter the metaverse, including the importance of creating immersive experiences and building authentic relationships with consumers (by Kerry Elsdon, VP of Web3 Marketing and Creative Technology, Mastercard)

2)   Leveraging marketing technology to deliver a connect guest experience (by Deena McKinley, Chief Experience Officer at Papa Gino’s)

3)   Personalization at Scale (by Sneha Narahalli, VP Head of Product, Sephora)

4)   Cleaning up with a Data Clean Room (by Imteaz Ahamed, Director of Performance Marketing, Reckitt)