Rajesh Sinha is the Chairman and Founder of Fulcrum Digital. The company was founded in 1999 and currently serves over 100 global customers with a workforce of more than 1000 employees across the US, Europe, LATAM, and India. Rajesh Sinha is a recognized authority and global thought leader in the digital transformation space. He was awarded the Great Indian Entrepreneur award and CEO Tech United award in 2020. He was also nominated for the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year and has been ranked amongst the top 50 CEOs of 2013 in the Greater New York area by SmartCEO.
There are all sizes of companies out there, with market leaders typically earning $5 billion or more in revenue and smaller companies ranging to $500 million. No matter which company is in question, one thing remains true – all are on journeys of digital maturity. In this journey, it’s important to note that what works for the $5 billion company won’t work for the $500 million company or the $1 million company. The recipe of digital success for companies is not one-size-fits-all. There are, however, three common denominators for all companies; to know your data, your process, and your customer’s experience. Regardless of size, every company will have to mature its denominators for exponential growth.
If you are a market leader, you have vast complexities of data, creating a larger difficulty than if you were a smaller company. How this data is consumed, which process works best, how to organize data, and more, all changes according to your business model. So, data plays a pivotal role when anyone company begins adopting digital strategies. In business, data is equivalent to money and should always be a principal consideration in your business planning. With this in mind, we can discuss the power of monetizing that data more efficiently. It comes from three key elements of the digital maturity model: explore, exploit and disrupt. To continue experiencing digital maturity and market size growth, you must continuously repeat this three-step process.
Explore
When companies want to become digitally native, they inherit the responsibility of exploring their systems to discover all of their hidden key assets – the pieces of information or processes that the company is dependent on to differentiate themselves and thrive.
Exploit
Upon exploring these assets, a strategy to exploit them comes next. This is the true step to monetization amongst the three components, as here is where one will be able to discover how to further earn from the data already being harnessed by the company.
Disrupt
The final step is to disrupt. We can measure disruption on two parameters – “speed” and “convenience.” The quicker you reach the disruption stage, the more your company will accelerate. It is the key to exponential growth. This stage is really more about introducing new business ideas and aligning with tech Innovation (automation, augmentation, mixed reality, voice, etc.). Optimizing operations with digital accelerators can minimize physical workflow from 10 to 2 steps – reducing the time to delivery and overhead costs based on the assets you’re seeking to exploit. Disruption is not a radical notion as often believed. To simply adjust the way your current business operates and accommodates new trends, consumer habits, automated processes, etc., can be disruptive.
You don’t want to wait to make changes to your business. Should a competitor adopt the new working model, you’re considering and accelerate their business before you. You will undoubtedly not be considered a leader or disruptor and reduce your earning or overall growth potential. To follow the first two steps and not the third can be effective, but you are stagnating your business’s full potential, your competitors will disrupt you, and you will experience only linear market size growth.
The three-step concept applies to all-size companies with small differences in each approach. As mentioned previously, the model is not one-size-fits-all and will require analysis of your individual company to understand where your company lies in the digital maturity model.
A $0 to $500 million company is starting relatively fresh, so their consideration for disruption lies in new ways of approaching business which the $5 billion companies have yet to assume. Suppose the smaller company comes up with an innovative way to challenge the larger companies in their business model and maintains this disruptive mindset. In that case, they will have the power to become market leaders in of themselves.
Companies ranging from $500 million to $5 billion in revenue have the biggest challenge. At this stage, companies tend to have many siloed assets. Due to this, the company will be tested to take on various integrations – an important step to achieve faster business acceleration than the larger companies. However, the company will have an advantage when it comes to agility, as this can now easily be integrated as part of the business model even as the company experiences exponential growth.
The $5 billion or larger companies must adopt a disruptive mindset or be in the business of acquiring smaller disruptive companies. The larger company has a unique opportunity, whether that be acquiring smaller disruptors or disrupting themselves with their expanded resources. Regardless, disruption must be a part of the growth strategy for the larger company if they want to remain a market leader.
Technology plays a pivotal role in disruption, but true innovation comes from knowing and aligning your data, process, and customer experience. This allows your company to mature, creating a digital culture of speed and delivery tailored to your customers – the true drivers of growth for any business. This is what the digital mindset and agility are made of – the ability to provide optimal experiences to your customers based on their ever-changing needs and preferences. Because of this, the work doesn’t end when it comes to disruption. Should you fail to adopt the mantra – your company will be the one who is disrupted when your customers receive their preferred experiences elsewhere.
Innovative businesses must deliver software platforms by reducing the time of development. Many commodity applications need not be developed from scratch but be consumed faster in an effort to launch a new product. This is where the FulcrumOne business platform by Fulcrum Digital excels. It’s a continuously innovated product with the agility to deliver business operations with modern tools, which delivers the optimal customer experience. The platform itself can create reusable digital assets and is built on the mantra required for disruption. When we say reusable, we mean every time it’s used, it provides powerful exponential growth as a cluster or community of digital assets. These assets allow for a dynamic digital transformation by providing you with a transparent knowledge of your data, process, and customer experience. The more clearly you know these, the better you can explore, exploit and disrupt.