Driving Digital Transformation – The Bosch Way

Much has been written and said about ‘Digital Transformation’. The term has been dissected and interpreted in all sorts of ways and while most industry experts understand what it means, very few know how to methodically implement it.

Going Digital is not just about introducing new tools and technologies in an organization. Rather, according to me, it is a medium and an opportunity to create improved products and services which are closely aligned with what customers actually want.

Imagine a future where every enterprise is connected and cognitive. At Bosch, we are trying to bring this imagination to reality. At first the task may seem daunting. However, when reduced to its fundamentals, Digital Transformation is all about:

• Change for Digital
• Connected Products
• Connected Industry

Change for Digital is a holistic approach towards becoming agile, innovative and an enterprise of the future.

You cannot simply fit digital into your existing ways of working. To become a truly digital enterprise, an organization would have to completely revamp its existing ways of working. A digitally transformed enterprise will hold an edge over its peers on the basis of:

• Speed: the differentiator which will determine customer experience success
• New-age skills: to be inculcated in the employees to minimize resistance and facilitate innovation
• Agility: the essential ingredient for enterprises to thrive and grow in changing environments and dynamic markets

All this supported by a seamless connection with the partner ecosystem is what makes the enterprise digital transformation complete.

Powered by Connected Products and/or Connected Industry, Change for Digital is a metamorphosis that businesses will have to go through to become future-ready.

Smart, connected products offer capabilities that transcend traditional product boundaries to create businesses of the future.

The changing nature of products is already disrupting value chains, and is pushing enterprises to rethink and retool their core offerings. The Bosch way defines the journey of connected products as an iterative lifecycle with the following stages:

• MVP (Minimum Viable Product): Before launching a product on full throttle, at Bosch, we recommend launching the skeletal product with key features. Introducing the basic version of the product allows you to gauge market response and make significant corrections as need be. Once you understand your early adopters, you now have the required insights for the next stage of product development and expansion.
• Digital Product Engineering: In a digital-first business model, the core design and engineering of every product needs to be future ready. Digital Product Engineering involves a user-centered design approach to build, launch, and scale cutting-edge solutions keeping in mind the needs of the fast-evolving digitally driven world.
• Digital Product Introduction: Once digital product engineering is done, new products based on data-driven insights can be introduced in the market, thus opening up new categories and untouched markets. More often than not, new business models are discovered which create additional revenue streams and help existing businesses expand or even transform completely to stay relevant in the current market.
• Real Time feedback: This is the real beauty of connected products. With every new product or feature introduction, ‘connected products’ allow companies to track real time feedback building the foundation for the next set of actions required for scalability and quality improvement.

Connected Products are raising the bar for companies by changing the way value is created and captured.

Smart processes will be the only modus operandi for factories of the future.

‘Connected Industry’ is all about making the processes at the heart of every industry smarter, faster and better with the objective of:

• Higher productivity gains resulting from automation of routine tasks and better scalability of operations
• Quality improvement due to better accuracy as a result of technological intervention
• Efficiency gains as administrative tasks take less time and more manpower can be made available for strategic decision making and innovation.
• Less TTM (time to market) as customer needs can be fulfilled faster

In any industry, one business often feeds into another to complete a full cycle of product development and distribution. And how operationally sound and efficient a factory is, often governs how successfully the product cycle can be completed. Digital Transformation at the factory-level aims to re-mould and re-invent operations for creating factories of the future.

No two digital transformation journeys are the same. No point in using a cookie-cutter approach. At Bosch, we understand this and work on all three aspects of Digital Transformation while tailoring the entire journey to suit the business story and culture of the organizations we work with.

The future of work is undeniably becoming mobile, agile and global. Smart, connected, digital enterprises bring with them a whole new set of technological possibilities. Is your enterprise up for it?