Digital transformations aren’t games of chance, but they do require big and bold commitments in the midst of uncertainty to reinvent the business rather than just improve it incrementally. As defined by MIT in a recent report, “digital transformation — the use of technology to radically improve performance or reach of enterprises” — is an approach that CEOs are pursuing. The same report established three areas of an enterprise that are the focus of such transformations: business models, customer experience, and operational processes. Concentrating on one or more of these areas helps transformation leaders focus their skills, expertise, and resources in the best way possible and ensures that the correct leaders align to a specific effort.

Since technology is at the center of these transformations and because of technology’s impact on the enterprise’s ability to generate growth, the CIO as the technology strategist and the architects as technology transformation leaders can play vital roles in ensuring the successful migration toward a digitized enterprise in one or more of these focus areas of transformation.

According to Michael Gale of PulsePoint Group, the two main impediments on the road to digital trans­formation are: (1) whether enough people within the organization are aware of the challenges and (2) understanding the drivers of digital transformation so that organizations know where to focus their time and resources.

The statistics on digital transformation efforts that fail to produce the expected results vary depending on the institution measuring and researching, but it is safe to say that the range is within 60%-85% for large enterprises across the global economy. One example of the type of failure Gale points out is the BBC’s very public digital transformation effort, the Digital Media Initiative (DMI), which failed in 2008/2009. In a review of findings conducted by PwC and published in 2013, the BBC failed due to the organizational strain on a company already saddled with several other considerable business change projects. The findings further highlighted that there was a lack of the technology expertise, technical capabilities, and governance needed for the transformation effort to succeed. Decision makers charged with charting the strategic direction of the British media giant had set in motion a digital transformation without having a proper digital backbone in place that the transformation could leverage and that could support the effort in terms of technology expertise, capabilities, and governance.

While the concept of a digital backbone is still emerging among practitioners and researchers alike, some common thoughts are forming around the idea. As a working definition for the purposes here, a digital backbone is an assemblage of methodologies (e.g., Lean or Agile), skills and talent (e.g., data science and machine learning), and technology tool chain and infrastructure (e.g., data and application development toolchain) organized in a way that allows anyone engaged in digital transformation the ability to easily employ the digital backbone. The existence of a digital backbone in an organization means that anyone aspiring and planning to transform different parts of the enterprise will be able to leverage the digital backbone in a consistent and sustainable way, ensuring that each effort connects to and leverages a common platform. Digital transformation leaders are starting to realize that a powerful digital services backbone to facilitate rapid innovation and responsiveness is key to successfully executing on a digital strategy.

According to Ad de Beer from the European project (ITEA3 Project 15005 – Digital Backbone), “The heart of the digital backbone is a platform that facilitates connections between modules that can be owned by different companies and which each deal with a particular part of the product functionality.” Establishing standards for the digital backbone highlights the roles of different companies and the power of the connections among them makes the concept of the digital backbone enduring and important for any company looking to enter into digital transformation. The ability to create a sustainable transformation of one or multiple parts of your business is further ensured through the connections that your company has with other partners in your ecosystem. The European project is a collaboration among many European companies interested in developing a set of success stories, innovation reports, and exploitable reports that participants and other companies looking to develop a digital backbone can leverage.

As highlighted earlier, there are three core components of a digital backbone:

1. Methodologies (e.g., Lean or Agile)

2. Skills and talent (e.g., data science and machine learning)

3. Technology tool chain and infrastructure (e.g., data and application development tool chain)

[For more from the author on this topic, see “Want to Make Your Digital Transformations Successful? First Build Your Digital Backbone.”]