AIIM on Air explores the methods, technologies, processes, and people on the frontlines of digital transformation in action. During this episode, Mike shares his advice around how business owners, technology professionals, and executives can reframe their tech strategies, disrupt their business, bring efficiency to processes, keep a competitive advantage, and be prepared for the future.
Mike Mahon, CEO of Zia Consulting, joins Kevin Craine on the AIIM On Air podcast to discuss insights, experience, and best practices around digital transformation and innovation. To Mike, the most important thing is to take action and get digital quickly. While this may sound overwhelming, it is not useful to come from a fear-based approach. His advice is to learn quickly and get projects moving rapidly. It is common to have a three to five year strategy, but it may be more realistic to break it into six week to 90-day time frames. The point is to act. Doing nothing is not a prudent strategy.
Mike stressed the importance of disrupting business by taking a different approach with customers. “When COVID hit, we asked our customers to lean into the uncertainty, and look at five things they could do with existing applications or processes that would make a real difference for their business. We call these “The Five R’s”—replace, retire, rewrap, rehost, and redo. You can replace what you have, retire applications, or redo them completely. You can also rehost things, often called a Lift and Shift. Or you can rewrap, which means putting an API around old software and including it in your business workflow as an automated system.
He recommends that companies start with what they are comfortable with and recognize that projects move in parallel. Regardless of where companies are in their digital transformation journey, taking some kind of action typically results in companies having happier customers, leaner costs, and more sales.
Mike went on to explain how Artificial intelligence (AI) can play a big role in making processes more efficient. First and foremost, data needs to be clean for AI to work effectively. For some companies, this is a good place to start. There are two reasons to start now. First, data doesn’t age well. Second, companies can take 18 months to 3 years to get a business up-to-speed on AI initiatives.
For Zia, keeping a competitive advantage involves choosing to focus on growth, connectedness, and innovation. Mike developed interdisciplinary teams with sales people, analysts, and more junior staff working together to solve problems in areas like insurance claims processing and benefits forms change analysis. Together, they spent time thinking about how clients could use the 19 different best-in-class softwares to achieve desired results. They also explored things from a number of angles, including analyst reports, podcasts, and talking with experts in the field.
Moving into the future, Mike recommends you get digital and get there immediately. “You have to be a digital business with high quality data that is stored and governed automatically. It is the fundamental platform for how you will make decisions around things like AI, ML, strategic insights, hiring, acquiring, and being acquired. Without it, your risk will go through the roof. That is table stakes to be here.”
You can listen to the entire podcast at https://aiimonair.libsyn.com/digital-transformation-and-process-innovation or read our recap blog at https://www.ziaconsulting.com/podcasts/digital-transformation-process-innovation/
If you would like to have a conversation with someone at Zia Consulting about your digital transformation needs, we can be reached at https://www.ziaconsulting.com/contact-us
We would love to hear from you!
About Zia Consulting
Zia Consulting is an award-winning system integrator of enterprise content management (ECM), process management, document capture, and cloud sharing technologies. We address the needs of enterprises to better manage, process, and secure documents by automating business processes and enhancing information governance. Our vertical accelerators for insurance, mortgage, accounting, manufacturing, and more are utilized by some of the world’s largest enterprises to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and mitigate risk.