Over the past three years, in response to the pandemic, many companies faced dramatic changes in their operations and began stepping into "digital transformation." By now, companies have become increasingly familiar with the pain points of the process. Calls for remote workers to return to the office keep growing, and the remote positions created during the pandemic are shrinking fast. Elon Musk has been making move after move since acquiring Twitter, and as we enter 2023, everyone will eventually have to face new changes. With this in mind, 5xRuby suggests the following three basic indicators for reviewing the effectiveness of digital transformation.

Indicator 1: Companies should be flexible and adaptable in their operations

Sho Chang, Executive Director of 5xRuby, says the world has entered an era of rapid change, and companies that rigidly stick to their old plans and goals will easily be left behind. That is why 5xRuby has brought the "agile spirit" unique to software development into its product operations and team culture. When developing products, the team sees itself as a "practitioner of the agile spirit": it sets a goal without being bound by it, then adjusts specifications or schedules every week or two based on how development is going, making rolling adjustments to suit the product and staying agile and flexible at all times. The 5xRuby team itself firmly upholds this culture of constant review and adjustment, which is what allows it to keep pace with the speed its clients and team need.

In addition, Gartner predicted in a trends report for 2023 that whether companies can optimize flexibility in their market decisions and build trust with customers through adaptable operations will be a strategic key affecting businesses over the next three years. In the new year, therefore, companies must follow the mindset of "agile development" and manage their business more intelligently, leaving nothing to chance!

Indicator 2: Companies should value horizontal integration and avoid the "silo effect"

According to Deloitte Global, 70% of value creation worldwide is achieved through digital innovation; yet 73% of companies fail in their digital transformation efforts, putting them at risk of business disruption. Digital transformation is not just about adopting emerging technologies—it also has a major impact on a company's operating strategy and services. It must be planned and driven "across departments" from a holistic perspective, which makes horizontal integration more important than vertical integration.

Because most clients are unable to integrate resources across departments and job functions, multiple departments within large enterprises end up doing the same work repeatedly, creating waste—this is the "silo effect." Often, due to a lack of internal communication, departments operate independently with only a vertical chain of command and no horizontal collaboration mechanism. Like a row of grain silos, each has its own system for getting things in and out, but there is no communication or interaction between them. In this situation, departments fail to reach consensus and cannot work together smoothly, ultimately leading to products that nobody uses once they are finished.

Chang emphasizes that when thinking about digital transformation or developing products centered on digital thinking, companies should open up cross-department requirement-gathering interviews in order to create solutions that are "worth sustaining." When weighing digital development strategies, they should also fit the organization's business operations, consider both short- and long-term goals, and carefully assess risks on every front, so as to use digital technology effectively, increase efficiency, and position themselves ahead of the competition.

Indicator 3: Companies should reshape their partnerships and collaboration models with clients and vendors

In the past, the relationship between a company and its clients often ended the moment a project was over. Chang says companies can start thinking about whether both sides can maintain a long-term partnership after a project wraps up. In serving clients, beyond simply completing assigned tasks, companies can also help clients train talent, saving them operating and staff training costs, and switch roles as needed to create a mutually beneficial future and achieve optimal results.

In the future, relationships between companies, clients and vendors will be about "pursuing win-win outcomes" rather than simple contracting, maximizing each other's value as much as possible. More forms of collaboration, such as equity investment or role reversal, will become possible. Relationships that are not confined by the traditional "contractor" and "client" framework are also more likely to win in an infinite game.

Looking Back on 2022—Building the Right Mindset for Digital Transformation

The pandemic accelerated digital transformation, and many companies began to realize its importance and became more proactive in seeking professional advice. In practice, however, there is still a tendency to "ask a lot but do little," and some believe it is enough simply to use digital tools, rather than starting from their profit model or way of working and building a business model suited to the digital environment. This kind of transformation usually doesn't last, the money spent is often wasted, and the growing pains of adoption can trigger pushback from employees.

Today, digital transformation has become a crowded field, and well-known conglomerates around the world have set up digital transformation departments to embrace a hybrid and diverse future. Companies must take digital transformation seriously and recognize that even when the pandemic ends, a new normal is about to begin, and some changes will never go back to how they were.

Heading into 2023—Building a Sustainable Digital Deployment

In 2020, people were hit by an unprecedented pandemic and plunged into gloom. In 2022, people began to get used to living with the pandemic, and everyone's daily life kept changing. After two years of transformation, the world has found strategies to cope with the situation amid the change.

As we enter the brand-new year of 2023, digital deployment is a series of solutions; it cannot be completed by adopting a single strategy. Companies are advised to learn to combine, adapt and innovate: fill the framework with the "combination" they believe can be sustained. Since not every service will meet 100% of a company's needs, they need to "adapt" how they mix and match services, and finally "innovate" to discover new methods unique to their own business.

This year, many companies still chose to invest more budget in digital transformation, yet their products showed no improvement. In response, Chang urges companies not to throw themselves into disarray if they want to maintain their position in the market. The first and most important thing is "agile feedback": they must have a keen sense of the business market, respond quickly at all times, and maintain a "mindset" of flexible planning, gathering feedback as early as possible to adjust their next steps. Next, they must learn to develop the ability to integrate multiple services, or build digital workflows that fundamentally change how work is done. When necessary, they can set themselves a "stop-loss point," regroup, and then take action again.

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About the Company

5xRuby is the largest  Ruby / Rails  system development company in Taiwan, providing product development and technical consulting services to clients ranging from listed companies to startups. We have long been deeply involved in the tech community, working to help engineers grow in their careers. Our corporate value is "Use the tools that make engineers happy to create services the world loves."

5xRuby (五倍紅寶石軟體開發) is not affiliated with any educational institution of the same name, and our business and operations are entirely independent. We make this statement to avoid confusion. Our company website is: https://5xruby.com/

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