Dell’s digital boss on being a change agent for transformation

What’s the secret to achiev­ing as smooth a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney as pos­si­ble? Tak­ing your peo­ple every small step of the way with clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion and, more specif­i­cal­ly, let­ting them help plot the route. This insight is shared by an expert per­fect­ly placed to offer an opin­ion on the sub­ject: Jen Felch, Dell Tech­nolo­gies’ chief dig­i­tal and infor­ma­tion offi­cer.

In Sep­tem­ber 2019, she took on the dual roles for the first time in the com­put­er tech­nol­o­gy company’s 37-year his­to­ry. Back then, like every­one else, Felch had no inkling of the coro­n­avirus-induced dis­rup­tion that lay ahead. 

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, from her home in Austin, Texas, she has been at the helm to nav­i­gate the organisation’s road to recov­ery, dri­ving the strat­e­gy, direc­tion and deliv­ery for Dell Dig­i­tal, Dell’s IT arm. 

As if that wasn’t enough, Felch com­bines her respon­si­bil­i­ties as CDO and CIO along­side “the emerg­ing role of change agent for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion”. No won­der the 53-year-old has tak­en up hot yoga to help increase her phys­i­cal and men­tal flex­i­bil­i­ty.

Aside from an eight-month stint with Boe­ing in 2010, she has been employed by Dell since April 2003. Her deep knowl­edge of the com­pa­ny is huge­ly ben­e­fi­cial to steer­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a peri­od of epochal change. Felch has access to all areas, is a trust­ed ally and under­stands var­i­ous stake­hold­ers’ pain points.

“I start­ed my career as a soft­ware devel­op­er and spent two years work­ing in the Dell fac­to­ries as part of a devel­op­ment rota­tion, and it was a fab­u­lous expe­ri­ence,” says Felch. “That hands-on oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence is invalu­able and I still lever­age it today. I don’t have to imag­ine what it is like in a fac­to­ry because I have first-hand knowl­edge.”

Digital transformation: a never-ending continuum

Felch boasts a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing from the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy and is an alum­nus of the Lead­ers for Glob­al Oper­a­tions Pro­gram at MIT, where she earned her MBA and a Master’s in com­put­er sci­ence. She con­tin­ues: “Thanks to my 17 years with Dell, I can make use of a net­work of peo­ple across the com­pa­ny. 

“I can pick up the phone to find out what is real­ly hap­pen­ing in a cer­tain area and what peo­ple are tru­ly think­ing. By under­stand­ing what they are try­ing to achieve and how we can make them more effec­tive, employ­ees are less resis­tant towards tech­nol­o­gy adop­tion and change.”

Indeed, when asked about the biggest chal­lenge to suc­cess­ful dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, Felch is quick to answer: change man­age­ment. “You need the right mech­a­nisms – peo­ple, tools and process­es – for man­ag­ing and lead­ing change. You need peo­ple with­in your organ­i­sa­tion who will cham­pi­on change, inter­act with the busi­ness and with the tech­ni­cal teams, and dri­ve under­stand­ing and solu­tions to oppor­tu­ni­ties.” 

She posits it is “human nature” to find change daunt­ing, hence why there is resis­tance, at least ini­tial­ly. How­ev­er, Felch acknowl­edges the irony of IT pro­fes­sion­als need­ing to be more com­mu­nica­tive, col­lab­o­ra­tive and, well, human in 2021. Man and machine must com­pre­hend one anoth­er and stride ahead togeth­er to enable an opti­mal dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­ney.

“Today, IT all depends on devel­op­ing the right engi­neer­ing cul­ture with­in an organ­i­sa­tion,” Felch says. “At Dell, we are high­ly depen­dent on how we engage with oth­ers and we have to draw out those latent needs, so we under­stand where we are going and inno­vate accord­ing­ly. 

“We might have great tech­nol­o­gy, but it is hav­ing high­ly skilled peo­ple who are avail­able and have the envi­ron­ment in which to inno­vate that makes the dif­fer­ence.”

Lit­tle sur­prise, then, that Felch views dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, both for her com­pa­ny and its clients, as a “con­tin­u­um that doesn’t end”. She explains: “For us, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is much more than upgrad­ing a serv­er rack; it is about a mind­set to keep the whole busi­ness per­form­ing and mov­ing for­ward. As we look ahead, we’re find­ing the bal­ance between secu­ri­ty, pri­va­cy and ease-of use, which I believe can be accom­plished with good design.”

Fur­ther, she is a “firm believ­er” in Dell’s lean and agile method­ol­o­gy con­cern­ing devel­op­ment that dri­ves trans­for­ma­tion. “Our iter­a­tive approach is deliv­er­ing great results,” Felch says, laud­ing a more open, col­lab­o­ra­tive mind­set across the busi­ness and also with trust­ed part­ners.

“It’s incred­i­bly pow­er­ful when you pair strong tech­nol­o­gists with strong busi­ness part­ners and mod­ern IT, like a devel­op­er expe­ri­ence root­ed in self-ser­vice, to dri­ve trans­for­ma­tion. That’s where you see mul­ti­ple wins of cre­at­ing bet­ter expe­ri­ences, improv­ing employ­ee sat­is­fac­tion and dri­ving out cost.”

Lean and agile development: delivering results

The out­comes are impres­sive. She claims that by elim­i­nat­ing redun­dant work and reduc­ing man­u­al tasks or test­ing, Dell Tech­nolo­gies has shift­ed around 10 per cent of its work­force into the devel­op­ment team to “be able to engage with our busi­ness part­ners direct­ly to devel­op new solu­tions”.

The com­pa­ny has also reduced its cycle time to deploy new capa­bil­i­ties by 30% and the num­ber of inci­dents — when a user calls for help — by 31%. It has done this, Felch says, through a focus on user expe­ri­ence, fix­ing the root cause of exist­ing prob­lems and dri­ving qual­i­ty in new capa­bil­i­ties.

“The net of it all is that we’re get­ting faster and more respon­sive, qual­i­ty is improv­ing and we have bet­ter engage­ment with our busi­ness part­ners. That’s what dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is all about,” she says.

Final­ly, Felch stress­es how busi­ness-crit­i­cal it is for organ­i­sa­tions to “embrace dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion”. Those that do not, and are closed to change and con­stant evo­lu­tion, will fail – and soon­er, rather than lat­er.

“Dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion can dri­ve growth oppor­tu­ni­ties, enhance cus­tomer expe­ri­ences, bet­ter con­nect employ­ees and con­tin­ue to accel­er­ate pos­i­tive change with­in a busi­ness,” she explains.

Giv­en Felch’s wealth of knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence, it’s worth heed­ing her words of wis­dom.