Business Transformation with Rasmus Almqvist
Today we have the huge privilege of having Rasmus Almqvist, global alliance lead for Salesforce at F-Secure, with us. In this interview, Rasmus expounds on the difference between “business transformation” and “digital transformation”, explores the impact of cloud technology on digital transformation, and tells us why 2020 is a year of transition where leaders can be bold.
Enjoy the interview!
Interview Summary by Timestamp
0:10 An overview of F-Secure Company. F-Secure is a leading player within the security space. Its mission is to help organisations extend the usage of sharing content on SalesForce and provide security to transform their business.
0:53 Quick background of Rasmus. Rasmus has worked with various well-known companies since the mid-90s, such as Nokia, Skype, and Cisco. Before officially joining F-Secure, he also worked for Microsoft by helping Japanese global organisations transform.
2:10 Differences among Digitalization, Digital Transformation, and Business Transformation. For most people, digitalization is just a process of making offline workloads digital through setting up servers. However, digitalization is not about transforming anything; it’s about making incremental changes to existing workflows.
Rasmus prefers using the term business transformation instead of digital transformation because the main objective of digitalization is to change the business via digitalised workflows rather than making fundamental changes within the organization. Using the term “business transformation” would minimise confusion between the concepts of “digitalization” and “digital transformation”.
3:48 Example of Digitalization. Traditional workflows, expense reports, and travel managements are easy to digitalize by moving them to an online platform. This online platform produces a lot of benefits for the company, including savings in capital expenditure and an increase in work efficiency.
4:36 Example of Business Transformation. Rasmus shared an example about Rolls-Royce, an airplane engine manufacturer, who was their customer when he was still in Microsoft.
A long time ago, this company decided to change its business model due to the financial crisis. They made their engines generate tons of data whenever they are using them. The sensors can collect terabytes of information during one flight. With this valuable data, airlines can operate to an entirely new level. Rolls-Royce changed its business model to provide engines as a service to potential customers like British Airways or American Airlines.
This excellent example of business transformation will help manufacturing organizations start looking at different ways of providing things as a service.
8:29 Relationship between Cloud Computing and Business Transformation. Cloud computing is a platform such as Google, Microsoft, SalesForce, and AWS, upon which one can innovate.
There is a direct connection between the resources coming from the cloud platform that will support the business transformation. The main challenge is to choose the right platforms which will happen after years of an ongoing effort in an organisation.
9:39 Things to keep in mind when choosing the right platform. First off, companies should have an objective. Secondly, they should have an understanding of their limitations in terms of internal capabilities. Once they are aware of what they want to achieve, they can start discussing things with the cloud service providers.
Rasmus highly recommends relying on a cloud platform that has a rich ecosystem built around it. This will support enterprises as their requirements change and expand where there is an opportunity. Relying on experts will help them move forward in achieving success.
11:33 Three main barriers in Business Transformation. Rasmus thinks that there are dozens of different challenges when it comes to business transformation, but chooses to point out the three most significant barriers:
- The challenge of being bold enough to set the objectives for the business transformation;
- The challenge of having the internal resources that will allow change; and
- The challenge of choosing the right cloud platform.
13:37 Business Transformation as a long-term process. It is a lifestyle change that needs to happen rather than a quick fix. As soon as an enterprise is getting to its end goal, a new end goal must emerge.
14:18 Misconception about Business Transformation. “Things will change just because you want things to change” and “Things will change quickly” are the biggest myths for Rasmus. Great organizations have spent decades to be where they are. They have been successful for a long time by doing what they are always doing, and the process of change will be a tough journey. Business transformation takes time.
16:14 Preparing enterprises for the new normal. Rasmus points out that the only way to be prepared is to acknowledge the fact that things are continuously changing. The financial market might melt one day due to Covid-19. To be ahead of the curve, companies should continually improve, and there should be no sort of leaning back. Rasmus also believes that decision making starting from middle management, going up to top management, is often ideal for change.
18:25 Tips on how enterprises can work towards internal capabilities. Enterprises should have open communication. Everyone should not expect that everybody in an organization knows everything. They should communicate with great minds outside their organization and listen to how they can help the company in achieving its goals.
19:25 A message for the organizations. Rasmus ended the interview by encouraging companies to look at the year 2020 as an excellent opportunity to start change and to achieve the impossible.
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