Digicel Business continued to inspire and educate last Thursday, November 12, with its third episode of the in-demand business mentorship Masterclass Series. The livestream event focused on digital transformation with globally-recognised expert and Chief Digital Officer for Digicel Group, Aileen Corrigan.
Corrigan broke down the much-discussed but often misunderstood, concept of ‘digital transformation’ into simple terms for hundreds of online viewers.
Conversing with host Terri-Karelle Reid, Corrigan noted, “Digital transformation should be driven by a need to meet your customers where they are. Customers now expect convenience and instant solutions. The idea of waiting forever on the phone or in line is no longer acceptable. At Digicel, we looked at what our customers were doing and what their biggest pain points were. From there, we worked towards getting our processes, technology, and people aligned so we could start meeting our customers where they are.”
Corrigan, who was recently recognised by Constellation Research as one of 150 global executives leading business transformation across the world, presented a realistic idea of the challenges companies face when going digital.
She explained “I don’t think any company has done a perfect digital transformation and that’s because consumers have such a range of needs that it makes it difficult to hit each one. The other big challenge is that as people’s lives become more complicated companies have to find ways to keep things simple. Therefore, your goal for any digital transformation should be figuring out how to bring simplicity to a sometimes very complex solution.”
The hour-long discussion touched on several other pertinent areas including how organisations like Digicel have been able to roll out large-scale digital transformations. She also touched on how to successfully incorporate social media into a digital transformation.
Responding to a question during the Instagram livestream on how to incorporate social media into a digital strategy, Corrigan advised, “One thing businesses need to keep in mind is drawing a clear line between personal social media and business social media. You must ensure that personal content does not start to feed into the business profile. The next thing to consider is how you communicate on different platforms because your audiences on Facebook will be different than your Instagram audience and targeting each differently based on that insight is important.”
Viewer, Janice Alexander, also had a burning query about what internal strategy Digicel had taken for their digital transformation.
Corrigan responded, “A big part of digital transformation is changing the culture which for us meant successfully communicating a unified message to over 7000 staff across 32 countries who speak four major languages and several dialects, depending on the territory. We believed it was essential to begin at the top, at the level of the Chairman, and drive that message and training down to the regional CEOs, then getting our senior management on board and trained. After implementing changes at the level of management, we moved on to staff training. That process has been ongoing for over two years. Our transformation was a journey because people need to understand and buy into the vision and then articulate that vision in their own words. Breaking it down into digestible pieces is the way to go.”
Before concluding, Corrigan dropped a few inspirational gems for those feeling overwhelmed. She noted, “At some point during your transformation, you are going to question if you have made a mistake, or if you’ve taken on too much, regardless of how much you plan. If you never leave your comfort zone, then you have not pushed far enough. Also, even your most perfectly laid out plans will always change so make sure you solicit perspectives from the key stakeholders early on. Lastly, ensure you identify those mentors who are going to help propel you forward, especially on those days you need additional support.”
Recordings of the live Masterclass sessions are available on Digicel Jamaica’s YouTube channel.
