Three reasons to adopt a digital transformation

The world is chang­ing fast – but there’s a risk of being left behind for com­pa­nies that don’t adapt to the dig­i­tal future. Since 2000, more than 50% of For­tune 500 com­pa­nies have been acquired, merged or declared bank­rupt­cy, being out­com­pet­ed by more inno­v­a­tive firms. The causal fac­tor is dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, accord­ing to Tom Siebel of McK­in­sey Quar­ter­ly.

“Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion offers an oppor­tu­ni­ty for busi­ness­es to tack­le three pri­ma­ry busi­ness pri­or­i­ties that exist across the globe,” says Dave McDer­maid, direc­tor of busi­ness con­sult­ing at aPri­ori. Through his work with aPri­ori, McDer­maid talks to scores of cus­tomers at dif­fer­ent steps in their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney, under­stand­ing their prob­lems. His analy­sis in this arti­cle cov­ers dif­fer­ent indus­tries, dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers, and the issues they face.

What­ev­er stage a com­pa­ny is at in their dig­i­tal jour­ney, aPri­ori can help. The com­pa­ny auto­mat­i­cal­ly gen­er­ates man­u­fac­tur­ing intel­li­gence that helps man­u­fac­tur­ers col­lab­o­rate across the prod­uct devel­op­ment process to make bet­ter design, sourc­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing deci­sions – yield­ing low­er cost and more sus­tain­able prod­ucts deliv­ered in less time.

“The jour­ney of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion cre­ates a frame­work of valu­able dig­i­tal data we can analyse” he says. “We run sim­u­la­tions of future design, man­u­fac­tur­ing and pro­cure­ment sce­nar­ios that sup­port crit­i­cal deci­sion-mak­ing much ear­li­er than before.”
By doing that, aPri­ori helps man­u­fac­tur­ers and sup­pli­ers tack­le what McDer­maid calls the “three enor­mous chal­lenges” they face today and in the very near future.

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty
“Com­pa­nies have to think today about how they are going to address sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the very near term,” says McDer­maid. That tran­si­tion can be eased by cre­at­ing a dig­i­tal mod­el of the future, which will help prof­fer solu­tions and a path to fol­low, head­ing off issues that will soon come down the line. “As far as prod­uct sus­tain­abil­i­ty is con­cerned, two of the key ele­ments to con­sid­er are one: what is the prod­uct made of? and two: how does it get made?’” says McDer­maid. Com­pa­nies can and should start roadmap­ping strate­gies for sus­tain­abil­i­ty today.

Volatil­i­ty and resilience
Resilience is the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty for busi­ness­es post-pan­dem­ic, accord­ing to Deloitte’s 2021 Insights Sur­vey. McDer­maid points to the pandemic’s but­ter­fly effect, using the fol­low­ing exam­ple to illus­trate this pri­or­i­ty. “Shift­ing sup­ply chains over the past two years result­ed in the inabil­i­ty for a hand­ful of nuts and bolts to be shipped to the pro­duc­tion line of an engine plant. Because of this, the auto­mo­tive OEM could not build their vehi­cle. Fleets of cars can’t be built if we can’t get enough bolts, wire har­ness­es, sil­i­cone,” he says. “The prob­lem is huge, and sup­ply chain volatil­i­ty and resilience is now a guar­an­teed con­cern for the future.”

Adopt­ing a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion with­in your com­pa­ny allows you to utilise data to strate­gise around dif­fer­ent future sce­nar­ios – and plan for how you will over­come them when they hap­pen. Could I design to reduce sup­ply chain risk and com­plex­i­ty? What hap­pens if mate­r­i­al prices rise? At what price point do com­pa­ny prof­its dis­ap­pear? “Exploit­ing dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion today allows us not just to pre­dict the future impact, but to find indi­ca­tors that allow us to plan bet­ter now,” says McDer­maid.

Labour short­ages
Whether it’s los­ing your best tal­ent or not get­ting the right peo­ple into the work­force in the first place, a lack of brain pow­er can hin­der a company’s devel­op­ment – specif­i­cal­ly in engi­neer­ing. That said, it’s an issue for every com­pa­ny in every sec­tor, and one that will become more preva­lent as more work is auto­mat­ed, and col­lec­tive knowl­edge becomes more lim­it­ed. Accord­ing to that same Deloitte sur­vey, 50% of busi­ness­es antic­i­pate more than half their cur­rent process­es will be auto­mat­ed by 2025. Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion ensures your com­pa­ny will nev­er lose that insti­tu­tion­al mem­o­ry, cap­tur­ing years of intel­li­gence in man­u­fac­tur­ing while also mak­ing the process more effi­cient. “To pre­pare for this, aPri­ori can help com­pa­nies to main­tain a dig­i­tal thread of man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es and design knowl­edge,” says McDer­maid.

Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion pro­vides organ­i­sa­tions with the added speed and agili­ty they need to remain com­pet­i­tive. By tying prod­uct design and man­u­fac­tur­ing oper­a­tions togeth­er, key phas­es of the prod­uct devel­op­ment life­cy­cle are pro­pelling new prod­ucts to mar­ket 20% to 40% faster.

To start your dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion today, vis­it aPriori.com/contact or call +44 (0)78517 91322 to arrange a demo

Pro­mot­ed by aPri­ori