It takes time to demonstrate the case for digital change, but will result in better adoption and positive value creation, say David Philp and Charlene Burkmar from CIOB’s innovation advisory panel.
The CIOB Construction Technology and Data Conference, on 12 November, will offer a unique opportunity to explore the revolutionary impact of cutting-edge technologies and innovative use of data across our industry.
These advancements, from digital twinning to GenAI, are transforming established methods and helping elevate safety standards across the sector.
However, digital journeys necessitate that we consider how to achieve a business case for change that demonstrates the positive return, realising successful outcomes from an investment both for an organisation but also its customers and wider stakeholders.
Many organisations fail to achieve their goals in digital investment; Boston Consulting Group says that only 30% of digital transformations are classed as a success. This is partly due to the earliness of technology deployment and therefore limited understanding of the companywide and behavioural change required to achieve the outcomes.
Also perhaps, the term ‘digital transformation’ is itself an issue; instead, we advocate an agile and gradual, iterative approach to adoption where benefits and learnings are continuously realised along the way.
Getting started
First and foremost, it is important to be very specific on the purpose and benefit. This should be aligned with business needs and include a supporting impact pathway. Questions to ask include: why is this investment important to you, what are the outcomes required, and how does this support your wider business strategy or solve a problem? The digital enabler should be clearly articulated – and how it supports the intermediate and longer end benefit.
Every investment in digital should have tangible, value-led measures of success. It is critical to engage with stakeholders across the organisation to be clear on the outcomes desired and challenges to be mitigated. This includes understanding the current level of digital maturity to define the appropriate and proportionate level of investment, change and schedule required. You will need to set clear milestones and key performance indicators.
Before you proceed to the investment case, it is important to test, test, test the actions that will lead to value creation. Create a ‘sandbox’ to experiment in, potentially using historic data, to learn and improve with limited risk. This should be done on a specific use and benefit case.
Now, it is time to create a reliable business case – with a tested benefit calculation model – that is very clear on the organisational change, data and digital investment, return on investment and milestones to achieve the outcomes and support successful delivery. This all takes time – but it will result in better adoption and positive value creation.
David Philp FCIOB is chief value officer at Cohesive and chair of CIOB’s innovation advisory panel, and Charlene Burkmar is CEO of Vision to Reality and a member of CIOB’s innovation advisory panel.
Register for the CIOB Construction Technology and Data Conference at www.ciob.org/events.
