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Digital is a new way of working. It simplifies. It accelerates. It clarifies. It humanizes. Technology is only a small part of the digital way of working.
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License terms
If you participated in the survey or have purchased the report, you have permission to share the document with other employees in your organization. You and they may print and distribute this document, but only within your organiza-tion.
If you wish to share it outside your organization such as with your agency or consultant partners, or if you represent a group, club or association and would like to share it with your members, contact Jane McConnell.
Important
The utmost care has been taken in compiling and analyzing the information contained in this document. The inter-pretation, views and opinions expressed on the basis of the results are those of the author. They do not necessarily represent those of the individual organizations who participated in the survey.
Jane McConnell, [email protected]
Copyright © 2015 Jane McConnell
All rights reserved.
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THE ORGANIZATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Jane McConnell
CHAPTERS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
HIGHLIGHTS
THE DIGITAL WORKPLACE FRAMEWORK
FOUR BUSINESS SCENARIOS
A CULTURE OF TRUST
ALIVE AND VIBRANT ORGANIZATION
OPEN AND INFORMED
LEADERSHIP AND DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
DIGITAL WORKPLACE, STRATEGIC ASSET
APPENDICES
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Alive and Vibrant Organization 59Collaborative and Social 60Finding People or Information 62Mobile 64Video 68Socialized Performance Management 70Design of the Physical Workplace 72Case: Gemalto 73Case: Bosch 74
Open and Informed 77Extended Beyond the Organization 78Informed People, Informed Organization 79Open and Responsive 81Customer Relations 83Case: Société Générale 85Case: Médecins Sans Frontières
Leadership and Transformation 89Senior Management 90Chief Digital Officer 93Community Manager 95Change Agents and Activists 97Impact of Leaders on Change 100Case: Sanofi Pasteur 102Case: The Guardian 104
Digital Workplace, Strategic Asset 107Business Goals and Strategy Drivers 108Ownership and Reporting 110Decision-Making 113Information Management 115Measuring and Evaluating 116Investments 117A Coordinated Ecosystem 118
APPENDICES 121
About the Author viiiPreface ixAcknowledgements xHow to Read and Use This Report xi
Executive summary 1The Organization in the Digital Age: Key Points 1Three Stages of Maturity 3Guidelines for Digital Leaders 4
Highlights 7
The Digital Workplace Framework 152014 Scorecard Results 16Capabilities: Individual 18Capabilities: Business 19Capabilities: Enterprise 21Enablers: Process 22Enablers: Structure 23Enablers: Reach 25Mindset: Leadership 27Mindset: Culture 29Mindset: Asset 31
Four Business Scenarios 35The Learning Scenario 36The Customer Scenario 38The Agility Scenario 40The Knowledge Scenario 42Business Scenario Summary 44Case: Tata Steel Europe 45Case: Ten Brinke Group 46Case: Imerys 47
A Culture of Trust 49Sense of Purpose 50Distributed Decision-making 51Freedom to Experiment 53Work Cultures and Digital Transformation 54Case: Mercy Corps 57
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Strategic Advisor and ResearcherJane McConnell, American and French, is based in Provence, France. She has advised organizations in Europe and North America on their internal digital strategies for 17 years. She has conducted over 120 intranet/digital workplace projects for over 60 global organizations.
Jane has been at the forefront of digital inside organizations for years, and was one of the first thought leaders to give meaning to the term digital workplace in 2010.
She is well known for her research and annual reports on the digital workplace and how it sup-ports digital transformation from the inside out. This report is the 9th edition.
Facilitator for Self-Assessment and StrategyAn effective digital workplace strategy emerges from the organization itself. It is not something an external consultant can provide. Jane’s Digital Workplace Framework, based on people, organiza-tion and technology, serves as a reference, self-assessment and diagnostics tool for many global organizations.
Jane helps organizations conduct self-assessments, combining online and live events, according to con-text and global spread: self-assessment input from the online platform, webinars, telephone confer-ences, facilitated live events in world café or live jam style.
The output is a strategy document, written and owned by the organization, produced through close collaboration with Jane. It includes a high-level strategy, an action plan, key success requirements and an executive presentation for senior manage-ment.
Management BrieferJane gives talks and runs workshops for senior managers. These briefings, supported by data and examples, enable management teams to grasp the issues and understand what leadership means in the digital age.
Custom-designed, creative activities help manage-ment define their own digital vision and build action plans that correspond to their current degree of digital maturity and their ambitions.
Speaker Jane inspires and motivates groups seeking insights into issues and strategies associated with the digital workplace and the organization in the digital age. Her discourse is rooted in research data and years of high-level experience as a strategy advisor. Her keynotes and conference talks are always highly rated.
Jane can be contacted by email at [email protected], on Twitter at @netjmc or by calling or texting +33 (0)612036634 (France-based cellphone).
More information can be found on www.netjmc.com, www.digital-workplace-trends.com and www.linkedin.com/in/netjmc.
About the Author
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This 9th annual report is called “The Organization in the Digital Age”. The title reflects the deep changes taking place in organizations today and the intrinsic link between organizational transformation and the digital workplace.
People sometimes misunderstand what the digital workplace is. They consider it to be technology — a platform where people publish content and col-laborate. Others see it as the natural evolution of the intranet — a sort of supra intranet that brings together different digital services for employees.
In reality, every organization has a digital workplace today. Every organization has digital platforms, tools and services, that are more or less well organ-ized and coordinated. Every organization has work and management practices, different cultures and leadership styles. In all organizations, people work together — sharing information, taking part in pro-jects and collaborating. All these elements combine to form the digital workplace: the intersection of people, organization and technology.
The digital workplace is appearing on the radar of senior leaders who are becoming aware that it is a strategic asset and must be governed as such. Much of this report is intended for senior leaders. Data confirm that when senior leaders go beyond vocal support and actually participate directly in the digi-tal workplace, most barriers vanish and the organi-zation is well advanced on its digital journey.
“The Organization in the Digital Age” is composed of an Executive Summary and seven chapters:
- The Executive Summary includes key findings summarized in two pages and a description of Three Stages of Maturity that will help you position your organization. It also proposes Guidelines for Digital Leaders suggesting ways to start or continue your own digital transformation.
- The Digital Workplace Framework describes pro-gress over the past year based on the 2014 digital workplace scorecards.
- Four Business Scenarios looks at how digital ma-turity correlates with the high-performing organiza-tions in each scenario.
- The following three chapters analyze three or-ganizational work cultures and how they relate to digital workplace maturity and the business sce-narios: A Culture of Trust, Alive and Vibrant, Open and Informed.
- Leadership and Digital Transformation discusses new roles in the digital age.
-Digital Workplace, Strategic Asset looks at govern-ance issues including decision-making for the digital workplace.
Digital transformation must begin inside the or-ganization. The digital workplace can and should facilitate the journey.
Jane McConnell
Preface
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This report would not have been possible without the help and support of many people. I would like to express appreciation to the following people and organizations. I apologize in advance for those I may have forgotten here.
● Richard Martin, who provided extensive editing support in this 2015 edition (indalogenesis.com)
● Ernst Décsey for his continued editing support this year and over past years
● Martin Fenge, who provided superb design ser-vices the two preceding years as well (fenge.com)
Members of the 2014-2015 Digital Workplace Ad-visory Board who provided strategic and pragmatic advice along the process:
● Ana Bulgar, OMV Petrom S.A. (Romania)
● Bjoern Negelmann, N:Sight Research (Germany)
● Brian Holness, Knowledge Management Pro-gramme Manager, GDF SUEZ Energy Interna-tional (UK)
● Claude Monnier, HR Director Sony Music France
● Dan Pontefract, Chief Envisioner, TELUS (Cana-da)
● Daniel Pankatz, Deutsche Post DHL, (Germany)
● Dany DeGrave, Sr. Director Strategic Alignment, Expertise & Innovation, Sanofi (US)
● Darren Whitelaw, Department of Premier and Cabinet (Australia)
● Emanuele Quintarelli, Social Enterprise Leader, EMEIA Center of Excellence at EY (Italy)
● Ernst Décsey, Communication Specialist, Digital Workplace, UNICEF Private Fundraising and Partnerships (Switzerland)
● Jean-Paul Chapon, Head of Digital Communica-tions & e-Reputation, Société Générale (France)
● Luke Mepham aviva (UK)
● Matt Varney, Intranet Manager, KCTCS (US)
● Rawn Shah, Rising Edge, Forbes (US)
● Rebecca Jackson, Digital Communicator and Graphic Artist (Australia)
● Richard Martin, Writer, Editor and Consultant IndaloGenesis Ltd. (UK)
● Rick Cantor, Vice President, Commercial Strate-gic Marketing, Knowledge Management Practice Leader, Chubb & Son (US)
● Stefan Kruijer, Employee Portal Manager, Corpo-rate Communications, Airbus (Germany)
More information here: digital-workplace-trends.com/advisory-board-2014/
I appreciate very much the time invested by the 373 people from 26 countries representing 280 or-ganizations that collectively spent from 600 to 700 hours providing input to the survey. Many of the re-spondents are longtime, repeat survey participants.
A special thanks goes to the organizations that provided In Practice case studies: Tata Steel Europe, Ten Brinke Group, Imerys, Mercy Corps, Gemalto, Bosch, Société Générale, Médecins Sans Frontières, Sanofi Pasteur and The Guardian.
I want to extend my appreciation to the members of IntraNetwork, a work group of digital practitioners from some of the largest organizations in the world. Our monthly work sessions in Paris are opportuni-ties for me to get firsthand, frank and invaluable feedback to my work. (www.intranetwork.fr)
I also wish to thank my many clients who, over the past 17 years, have constantly forced me to face the reality of life in the trenches. I have learned more from them than they have from me!
The last person I have to thank, more than anyone else, is my husband, without whom The Organiza-tion in the Digital Age would not have happened.
Acknowledgements
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Read in 15 Minutes
The essential minimum is to read the Executive Summary of four pages which presents the follow-ing:
● Key Points from the research
● Three Stages of Maturity
● Practices in Organizations with Maturing Digital Workplaces
● Guidelines for Digital Leaders
Read in 45 Minutes
The additional key chapters to read if you have lim-ited time are as follows:
● Highlights p 7
● Four Business Scenarios p 35
● A Culture of Trust p 49
● A selection of sub-chapters:
- Senior Management p 90
- Chief Digital Officer p 93
- Impact of Leaders on Change p 100
- Ownership and Reporting p 110
- Decision-Making p 113
- Measuring and Evaluating p 115
Use As an Awareness and Reference Tool
After the 45-minute read, you’ll know which topics are important for you. Use the detailed table of contents at the front of the report to locate them, and dig into the topics that are the most relevant for you.
How to Read and Use This Report
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Organization in the Digital Age: Key PointsKey findings from the 9th annual survey about the digital work environment in organizations.
Method
This 9th annual global survey included 373 people from 26 countries representing 280 organizations. Participants responded to an in-depth online survey of 140 questions. The data was collected between October 2014 and early January 2015.
The Workplace in the Digital Age
The workplace lives at the intersection of people, organization and technology. The digital workplace is often described as an ecosystem of platforms, technologies and services. True as this is, the fun-damental changes happening in organizations and workplaces today go deeper. They involve funda-mental changes in work practices, mindset, leader-ship and behavior.
The Digital Workplace Framework takes these com-plementary dimensions into account and provides a basis for organizations to assess their digital maturity.
Two Primary Angles of Analysis
Data is analyzed primarily from two perspectives:
1. Early Adopter organizations compared to the Majority. The top 20 percent of organizations are compared to the remaining 80 percent based on scores, calculated by mapping survey input to the Digital Workplace Framework.
2. High-performing organizations on four business scenarios. Respondents answered questions, self-assessing their organization’s performance in each scenario and indicating their key success factors.
● Learning scenario: ease for people to learn in the flow of work
● Customer scenario: ease and efficiency for the customer-facing workforce
● Agility scenario: agility when confronted with sudden unexpected events
● Knowledge scenario: confidence of preserving knowledge and know-how
Digital Humanizes and Energizes Organizations by Making Work Personal
Data over the past seven annual surveys show a slow but steady increase in individual capabilities to co-create content with others, communicate in real time and share information and knowledge directly without going through official publishers.
The availability of enterprise social networks made a big jump between 2013 and 2014. They are now available in well over half the organizations sur-veyed.
Many Early Adopters expect senior managers to show some degree of social participation and some say they are evaluated in part on this social vis-ibility.
Excellence in Customer Satisfaction Correlates to Strong Digital Workplaces
26 percent of organizations with maturing digital workplaces say the quality of their customer service is excellent. Few in the Majority, those with less effective digital workplaces, make the same state-ment.
Top performers in the customer scenario say their key success factor is information management.
These organizations also show a high level of man-agement involvement, from CEO to operational, in decision-making about the digital workplace. 50 percent say their digital workplace is reported at the Executive level.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY –
Digital Workplace Maturity Significantly Higher in Organizations With Culture of Trust
Specific work culture characteristics were explored. Each correlates individually with high performance in the four business scenarios:
● A strong, shared sense of purpose
● Distributed decision-making and control
● Freedom to experiment and take initiatives
Finding People “Who Know” Winning Over Finding “The Information I Need”
Enterprise search is stuck at a low level of satisfac-tion with results. Organizations are prioritizing their efforts between finding information or finding people and the latter is the more frequent choice.
Lack of good information management practices is a concern because the high performers in the learn-ing, customer and knowledge scenarios cite infor-mation management as a key success factor.
Mobile Services in 2014 Did Not Achieve Predictions Based on 2013 Data
The predictions were that 40 percent of organiza-tions would have mobile services for everyday needs and 30 percent for business-related needs. The actual results are 30 percent and 25 percent, respectively, for the highest services in each cat-egory.
Few Organizations Have Chief Digital Officers in Fullest Sense: C-Level and Broad Internal-External Scope
However, reporting about digital workplace progress takes place at the executive level in 23 percent of Early Adopter organizations compared to 2 percent in the Majority. A few organizations are creating digital programs, intended to run for specified peri-ods of time, led by CDOs who report directly to the CEO or equivalent.
Community Management Becoming Embedded in Other Roles
Early Adopters are moving away from a full-time dedicated role to considering community manage-ment a skill set included in other job roles.
Top Change Driver: Sense of “Why”
All organizations, Early Adopters and the Majority, agree that having a sense of why is the most effec-tive change driver when undergoing digital trans-formation. It is followed very closely by behavior of senior leaders and behavior of colleagues. The lowest ranked change drivers are classroom train-ing, putting digital in job objectives, recognition and rewards and events – formal and informal.
Overall Results from Digital Workplace Scorecard Show Good Progress Between 2013 and 2014
In spite of persistent challenges, overall digital workplace maturity has increased between 2013 and 2014. The Majority jumped 34 percent from 192 points in 2013 to 258 in 2014, thereby nearing the end of the starting stage (from 0 to 299 points). Early Adopter organizations evolved from 432 points to 508 points reaching the upper part of the developing stage (from 300 to 599 points). Out of the nearly 300 organizations that participated at the end of 2014, only eight scored fully in the maturing level (from 600 to 900 points). See details in the Appendices.
Most Challenges Linked to Mindset of People and Organizations
Most of the challenges rated as serious and holding us back involve decision-making and value. These top challenges have changed little over the past 12 months. Data collected at the end of 2013 is practi-cally the same as that collected at the end of 2014.
● Too many competing priorities
● Slow decision-making, often consensus-based
● Too much focus on the tool, not enough on peo-ple and change
● Politics, inside the organization
● No strong business case, ROI or proven value
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – THREE STAGES OF MATURITY
Three Stages of MaturityStarting with the why, developing critical mass and then sustaining momentum.
● HR people are active in the digital workplace and involved in decision-making.
● Community management exists as a distinct role or as a formalized part of other roles.
● The digital workplace is promoted regularly through communication campaigns based on internal success stories.
● Priorities are clarified at the CEO or equivalent level, minimizing the negative impact of organi-zational politics and slow decision-making.
Practices in Organizations with Maturing Digital Workplaces
● The digital workplace is a strategic asset for the organization and is managed as such. Digital workplace strategy drivers are aligned to the business goals of the organization.
● The highest level responsibility for the digital workplace is placed either at the C-level or with a person who reports directly to the CEO or equivalent.
● Senior managers go beyond vocal support and also provide resources, participate in digital workplace initiatives and show sustained com-mitment over months and years.
● The customer-facing workforce - sales, market-ing and customer service people - are involved in decision-making about the digital workplace.
STARTING DEVELOPING MATURING
Establishing the why Reaching critical mass Sustaining momentum
There is awareness of the digital workplace in some areas of the or-ganization. Ad hoc and infrequent initiatives exist. Senior leaders are minimally involved if at all. Teams work together in virtual team spac-es but there are few self-organizing communities or networks across the organization.
Multiple initiatives are taking place in the organization around collaboration, mobile and social. There is some coordination, prob-ably by a manager. Some digital services have been rolled out on an organization-wide basis but it is early days for widespread adop-tion. Senior managers are begin-ning to get involved.
Digital is embedded in the work practices. The digital workplace reaches the full workforce. Most or all senior leaders participate and are directly involved. Customers and external partners are part of digital workplace initiatives. The digital workplace is considered to be a strategic asset for the organi-zation.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – GUIDELINES FOR DIGITAL LEADERS
Guidelines for Digital LeadersHow to lead digital transformation in a way that makes sense for your organization.
Who Should You Involve in Defining Your Digital Workplace Strategy?
Most organizations think first of Communication and IT, traditional leaders of enterprise-wide initiatives.
However, it is essential to involve other people to achieve sustainable digital transformation:
● Customer-facing people. People on the edges of the organization who deal with customers and partners in their daily work.
● Operational managers. People in charge of run-ning a call center, managing logistics, organizing quality control, running maintenance centers and so on.
● People outside of headquarters as well as people outside headquarters country.
Data show that organizations with a maturing digital workplace have a higher proportion of customer-facing functions such as sales, marketing and cus-tomer service and operational managers involved in decision-making about the digital workplace.
Where Should You Start?
Start with what already exists. Today, every organi-zation has a few or many digital initiatives taking place.
If you are at the starting stage, the initiatives are probably uncoordinated and happening ad hoc in different parts of your organization.
If you are already at a developing stage, there will already be some coordination either from global headquarters or from different directors and func-tions in the organization. Find those initiatives and build on them when defining your overall digital vision.
How Can You Create a Digital Mindset?
Run internal communication campaigns and share internal success stories. Data show that both are top change drivers for most organizations.
Emphasize senior management participation in the digital workplace. Data show that behavior of senior managers is the third highest change driver according to organizations in the starting and devel-oping stages.
Find inspiration from both inside and outside.
● If you are in the starting stage, find external ex-amples of organizations that have started down the digital road and invite them to visit your organization and talk to leaders and managers.
● If you are in the developing stage, you will already have internal examples. Bring visibility and recognition to these people and initiatives.
● If your senior management or heads of func-tions are reticent, arrange contacts with their peers in other organizations. An HR to HR or C-level to C-level conversation may have more impact than internal discussions.
Data show that organizations just starting the digi-tal journey tend to use external benchmarking as a means of increasing awareness whereas organiza-tions that are more advanced are already in the process of identifying internal champions.
ENABLE
RSCAPABILITIES
PEOPLE
TECHNOLOGY
ORGANIZATION
MINDSET
INDIVIDUAL
BUSINESS
ENTERPRISE REACH
STRUCTURE
PROCESS
CULTUREASSET
LEADERSHIPManaging the digital workplaceas a strategic asset
Enabling people to shareand learn
New processes and alteringtraditional processes
Conducting the businessof the organization
Virtual “operational units”complementing hierarchy
Cooperation and collaborationacross the organization
Extending reach to everyone,anywhere, anytime, any device
Influence that brings change
Attitudes, behavior, stylesand expectations
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HIGHLIGHTS
Digital Workplace Scorecard Results for 2014All the points in this section are developed in detail with facts and figures in the main body of the report.
Method
This 9th annual global survey included 373 people from 26 countries representing 280 organizations. Participants responded to an in-depth online survey of 140 questions. The data was collected between October 2014 and early January 2015.
Data is mapped to the Digital Workplace Framework letting us distinguish between Early Adopters, the top 20 percent of organizations based on their digi-tal workplace scores, and the Majority.
The Digital Workplace Framework is defined from three fundamental perspectives: People, Organiza-tion and Technology and is then subdivided into nine dimensions.
The comments here relate to the full group of organizations. Segmentation by Early Adopters and the Majority show a different view and is developed in the following pages of this chapter.
Capabilities: Individual, Business, Enterprise
Individual made a huge jump, nearly doubling in points. Enterprise also increased. The loser here is business, where the scores were the same in the 2013 and 2014 data sets.
Enablers: Reach, Structure, Process
Process increased significantly. It is beginning to close the gap with structure, indicating that work practices are starting to take place in more social and collaborative ways benefiting from communities and social networking. Reach evolved the least, held back by slow progress in mobile services.
Mindset: Culture, Asset, Leadership
These three dimensions showed the least progress between 2013 and 2014. Of the three, asset in-creased the most indicating that the digital work-place is starting to be considered a strategic asset.
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HIGHLIGHTS – HIGH PERFORMERS IN BUSINESS SCENARIOS, COMMON SUCCESS FACTORS
High Performers in Business Scenarios, Common Success FactorsHigh performing organizations in four business scenarios have key factors in common.
The learning scenario — How easy is it for people to learn and develop their skills and knowledge in the natural flow of work?
The customer scenario — How easy is it for customer-facing people to find the information they need, provide rapid service, collaborate with their customers and colleagues and in general have a smooth and efficient work experience?
The agility scenario — How flexible is your or-ganization when you need to react rapidly to major events: market changes, new competition, econom-ic downturns, environmental or disaster events?
The knowledge scenario — How confident are you that your organization can retain the knowledge and know-how of experts and specialists when they leave the organization?
Key Common Factors in High Performing Organizations ● Organizational intelligence is a strategy driver
for their digital workplaces.
● Operational efficiency and customer satisfaction are their top enterprise goals.
● Information management is a key factor that has positive impact in all four scenarios.
● HR is considerably more active in the digital workplace in these organizations than in most.
● Virtual structures such as communities and enterprise social networks are strong.
● The high performers have the ability to reach much of their workforce by connecting them to the digital workplace through mobile or other means.
● The digital workplace is seen as a strategic asset requiring executive-level attention and involve-ment.
Excellence in Customer Satisfaction Correlates to Effective Digital Workplaces
People at the edges of the organization are often those who are the closest to customers. Ironically, they are the least connected to the digital work-place.
Only ten organizations out of nearly 300 responded it was very easy for their customer-facing workforce to do their jobs seamlessly. This figure is nearly identical to the 2013 survey showing that little pro-gress has been made in connecting the customer-facing workforce among themselves and to the rest of the organization.
Those who responded very easy attribute their success to effective information management and individual digital capabilities.
26 percent of Early Adopters say the quality of their customer service is excellent. Few in the Majority make the same statement.
When we look at the quality of customer service according to different customer touch-point models, the single touch point gives an excellent rating of twice the level for the multiple touch points and any touch-point models.
The single touch-point model is dependent on an effective digital workplace so that front line ser-vice people have real-time access to specialists throughout the organization as they work to resolve customer issues.
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HIGHLIGHTS – CULTURE OF TRUST CORRELATES TO DIGITAL WORKPLACE MATURITY
Culture of Trust Correlates to Digital Workplace MaturityDigital workplace maturity is significantly higher in organizations with a culture of trust: there is a strong sense of purpose, decision-making is distributed and people are free to experiment and take initiatives.
A strong sense of purpose correlates with high performance in the learning, customer and agility scenarios. Freedom to experiment correlates to very high performance on all business scenarios.
Data for the agility scenario show fewer common patterns making it difficult to identify strong influ-encing factors. Organizations appear to achieve agil-ity in many different ways.
Data for the knowledge scenario reveal that very few organizations feel they are successful on this front. Only four responded very confident.
The road to an effective digital workplace is full of challenges and the most difficult ones are linked to the mindset of people and organizations.
Most of the challenges rated as serious and holding us back involve decision-making and value. These top challenges have changed little over the past 12 months. Data collected at the end of 2013 is practi-cally the same as that collected at the end of 2014.
● Too many competing priorities
● Slow decision-making, often consensus-based
● Too much focus on the tool, not enough on peo-ple and change
● Politics, inside the organization
● No strong business case, ROI or proven value
Work Cultures with Specific Behaviors Accentuate or Alleviate Challenges
Centralized decision-making correlates with hesita-tion to rethink work, lack of understanding opera-tional reality and fear of losing control.
Extreme centralization implies fear of losing control and lack of trust.
A shared sense of purpose means priorities are clear, politics have little impact on decision-making and senior managers are on board.
10
HIGHLIGHTS – MAKING WORK PERSONAL
Making Work PersonalDigital humanizes and energizes the organization by making work personal.
Digital lets people share information and knowledge directly, avoiding intermediaries. Data over the past seven years show a slow but steady increase in these capabilities. Availability of both enterprise social networks and commenting made a big jump between 2013 and 2014. Social and collaborative capabilities, including social networking, are now available in well over half the organizations.
Communities, Powerful Force for Change
Early Adopters have significantly more communities than in the Majority of organizations. Communities is cited as one of the top change drivers in organi-zations. Organizations in Professional Services, one of the top sectors in digital maturity, say communi-ties are their number one change driver.
Top performing organizations in the learning sce-nario and knowledge scenario say communities and social networking are key factors in their success. Interestingly, this is not the case for the customer nor the agility scenarios where the top perform-ing organizations cite involvement and behavior of senior leaders as a major factor.
Finding People “Who Know” Is Winning Over Finding the Information Itself
Enterprise search is stuck and organizations are making a choice whether to give priority to finding information or finding people.
Enterprise search has been a problem area for many years. Survey data since 2007 have illustrated the fact that most organizations have not managed to make it easy for people to find information inside the organization. Between 2013 and 2014 satisfac-tion with enterprise search actually decreased.
Organizations tend to focus on either finding exper-tise and people or finding information. Data from the 8th survey at the end of 2013, and again in this 9th from the end of 2014, revealed two specific seg-ments, each with 10 to 12 organizations.
Not a single organization was in both segments:
● High satisfaction with enterprise search
● Transformational impact from the capability of finding people and expertise
Mobile – Reach Me Where I Am
Mobile services in 2014 did not achieve the figure predicted last year based on 2013 data.
The predictions were 40 percent for everyday needs and 30 percent for business-related services. The results were 30 percent and 25 percent, respective-ly, for the highest services in each category.
BYO has increased slightly for BYOD (devices such as smartphones) and BYOPC (computers). However there has been a significant drop in organizations allowing BYOA (bring your own application).
Sync and share, a capability letting people store and share files in the cloud using different devices, has had significant impact for Early Adopters and, although less common for the Majority in 2014, will probably continue to grow.
Performance Management Socialized
Performance management conducted socially is a new approach based on continuous dialogue and feedback where managers and employees establish and share goals with each other and track progress in real time, rather than the traditional one-shot annual exercise. Social performance management is new and not yet common, even in Early Adopters. This practice may develop further because well over a third of Early Adopter organizations said it is prac-ticed sometimes or to some degree.
Social Expectations for Management
Many Early Adopters expect senior managers to show some degree of social participation and some say they are evaluated in part on this social vis-ibility.
11
HIGHLIGHTS – REDUCING BARRIERS BETWEEN INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL
Early Adopters are leading the way in strategies that involve internal and external groups. They give more importance than do the Majority to external sources of information including customers, partners and industry sources.
Open By Default
Half say their systems are open by default com-pared to many fewer in the Majority.
Fewer Obstacles
Organizations that are very open have a stronger focus on their own priorities. Many obstacles block-ing others are minimal for them. This especially applies to obstacles around decision-making, value and control.
Communities with External People
Open organizations have more communities that include external people even though this is not yet common. When communities do include external members such as customers or partners, or when external people have access to a company’s re-sources, there is a concern for information security and IP protection. The concern includes behaviour of internal people as well. Information security is not covered in detail in this report.
Social Inside, Social Outside
Early Adopters understand that participation on public social platforms should not be limited to des-ignated employees. The proportion of Early Adop-ters encouraging employees to participate on public social platforms has increased by over 110 percent and the Majority by 65 percent since the year 2011.
Reducing Barriers Between Internal and ExternalOpen, responsive organizations show greater digital maturity and a clear focus on their own priorities.
12
HIGHLIGHTS – NEW FORMS OF LEADERSHIP
New Forms of LeadershipLeadership in the digital age originates from two equally important sources: traditional hierarchy and the edges of the organization.
Communities, and thus community leaders, have more impact on the learning and knowledge scenar-ios than does involvement of senior management. They latter have more impact in the customer and agility scenarios, thus demonstrating the comple-mentary of these two forces.
The definition of leadership in the digital work-place framework is based on a blend of traditional, hierarchical-based leadership and new forms of leadership that are not derived from hierarchy. Both are important for the organization in the digital age.
These new types of leadership may be fulfilling a momentary need or they may prove necessary over a long period of time. Three roles looked at in the report are Chief Digital Officer, Community Manager and internal Change Agent.
Chief Digital Officer (CDO)
This is a role that overlaps with other existing roles in organizations and whose objective is to accelerate digital transformation. The focus of the role must be as much internal as external. Otherwise the trans-formation will be superficial.
Community Manager
Sometimes referred to as CMs, the community manager facilitates the work of communities. Early Adopters are moving away from a full-time dedi-cated role to considering community management a skill set included in other job roles.
Internal Change Agent
This is the activist in the organization usually un-recognized, who sees that something needs to be changed and is doing something about it. Highly centralized organizations need change agents to make things happen. In closed organizations, with little awareness of the external world, internal change agents are the number one impetus for change.
The more digitally mature a sector is, the less likely the change agent will be cited as a key change driver. Where communities exist extensively, the role of the change agent is less important.
The digital workplace tipping point comes when well over half of senior management under-stand the value of the digital workplace, participate and dem-onstrate sustained commitment.
Nine years of annual research confirm that most senior managers do not understand the potential of the digital workplace. Data show that maturity of the digital workplace correlates directly with the degree of involvement of Senior Management:
● Vocal support
● Vocal support and provision of resources
● The above, plus visible participation in the digi-tal workplace
● The above, plus sustained commitment and conviction the digital workplace is essential to the way the organization works
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HIGHLIGHTS – GOVERNING THE DIGITAL WORKPLACE AS A STRATEGIC ASSET
Governing the Digital Workplace as a Strategic AssetEarly Adopters and the Majority have different enterprise goals and different priorities in their digital workplace strategies. In both cases, strategy drivers are aligned to the business goals.
The Majority of survey respondents expressed im-prove existing processes more often as a business goal than did the Early Adopters. They also had a greater emphasis on operational efficiency. Early Adopters emphasized new customers and markets, new products and services, collaboration with cus-tomers and employee engagement.
Early Adopters place organiza-tional intelligence as their num-ber one driver for their digital workplace initiatives whereas the Majority place efficiency and cost savings in the top position.
All Levels of Management Involved in Decision-Making
In general, business is not sufficiently involved in decision-making although customer-facing func-tions are more involved in Early Adopters than in the Majority. In most Early Adopters, both senior management and operational management are very involved in decision-making about the digital workplace.
The Highest-Level Person with Final Responsibility for the Digital Workplace
Over half the Early Adopters place the highest level responsibility for the digital workplace at the C-level or with people that report directly to the CEO or equivalent. The Majority shows an even split be-tween C-level and the department head level.
The Long-Term Vision: Ecosystem
The long-term vision for over 60 percent of Early Adopters is a coordinated ecosystem made up of different digital platforms and services. They do not envisage providing all services from a single platform.
Lack of Information Management
Data show there is a lack of good information man-agement, which is one of the key factors influencing success in the four business scenarios. It is there-fore important, even urgent, for organizations to clarify their digital landscapes starting by estab-lishing appropriate guidelines for different types of content and purposes.
No Decrease in Investment
2014 was a year for spending. Practically none of the survey participants indicated that their budgets had decreased. Items explored were strategy and business analysis, technologies and development, and finally change facilitation and communication.
Evaluation and Anecdotal Evidence
A digital workplace that is an integral part of work can only be evaluated in so much as it supports and facilitates people’s jobs. That type of evaluation is not yet happening in a quantitative way. Examining the four business scenarios one by one, data show that anecdotal is the primary means of evaluation in all four cases.
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ORGANIZATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE
