Isabel Bienert

5/5 (2)

Chatbots date back to the 1960s but back then they were rather used for fun. Nowadays chatbots are much more useful, even though they might be a bit hyped. (Carson, 2016)
What is a chatbot acutally? In simple terms it is a software that one can chat with for getting things done or for just being entertained. Instead of opening the weather app to see the temperature, you can ask a bot and it will tell you the weather instead. It can act as a personal assistant doing your shopping, setting up meetings for you or informing you about flights and flight delays.

However, they can change the way we use phones and computers as we do not have to click through an app and use the search function to navigate but could simply ask a question, the app can automatically find our location and answer conversationally. Nowadays chatbots are smart, they can store, synthesize and recall lots of information. They can actually anticipate before you ask and make your life easier. Your chatbot assistant would tell you the weather in Palo Alto in the morning but keeping track of your schedule would advise you to bring an umbrella for your evening event. (Carson, 2016)

Several tech companies test new smart chatbots that serve as personal assistants handling any kind of requests. Cortana acts like a personal assistant integrated in the entire device stitching tasks together and anticipating what you need. Facebook has been developing ‘M’, which is an all in one virtual assistant. The ultimate goal is to turn Messanger in a conversation platform through which you can all kinds of ordering and shopping tasks across providers. When looking for new shoes you do not have to message different store bots but M recommends some to you and helps you with the purchase. At the moment M is still in its infancy and needs humans to answer difficult questions.

Most bots are built as messenger-style bots that have the opportunity to assist or even replace customer service. Amazon Echoˋs Alexa is powerful in the sense that one can build their own sub-bots and integrations to work with Alexa. Thus, this kind of interface has the potential to be the sole interaction point with companies instead of customers talking to companies via apps. At the moment there are still various messenger style bots (such as Facebook) that let build on top of them. Over time the personal assistants will get smarter and disrupt industries and businesses. (Carson, 2016)

Did you know that some chatbots are evolved to the state that they actually as an actual person. A software developer used saved text messages and chats to build a chatbot which is able to communicate in natural language. It basically is like talking to a friend. She even took it further and programmed the chatbot to generate new content which the person never said using the vocabulary and tone of voice. It is a digital avatar that connects to family and friends and can act as oneself by generating new content which you actually never said but the chatbot uses your vocabulary and tone of voice. This way the chatbot is intended to capture your personality. (YouTube, 2016)

Microsofts Xiaoice, a chatbot of an AI project, is able to remember parts of conversations and asks you about your feelings about a situation. Xiaoice cheers millions of teenagers who text with it every day for hours up. Hundreds of Chinese people are even telling the bot that they love it. (YouTube, 2017)

One can argue that chatbots are useful for companies when it comes to answering questions and performing customer support, thus making businesses more efficient. More evolved personal assistants have the potential to disrupt the way people interact with their digital devices and with companies. However, isn’t it sad how bots and AI threaten to replace human relationships and interaction and even imitate or steal an individual’s personality? What is your opinion on the topic – do you think the advantages and benefits outweigh the pitfalls?

References
Carson, B. (2016). CHATBOTS EXPLAINED: Why the world’s most powerful tech companies think they’re the biggest thing since the iPhone. [online] Business Insider. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-are-chatbots-and-who-is-building-them-2016-4?international=true&r=US&IR=T [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
YouTube. (2016). My Dead Best Friend Is Now a Chatbot. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGcKu3SYx9A [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].
YouTube. (2017). XiaoIce AI: millions fall in love with Microsoft chatbot in China – TomoNews. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cGOJ_Fcg7E [Accessed 8 Oct. 2017].

No ratings yet.

The MIT Sloan Management Review ‘Strategy, not technology, drives digital transformation’ (Kane et al. 2015) surveyed 5,000 business executives, managers, analysts globally on what it takes to become a digital mature company. It found that digital transformation is not solely about technologies. The power of digital technologies stems from the way how companies integrate technologies to transform the business.

The biggest differentiator between maturing and less maturing companies is not as one could assume in technology but in business aspects. Digital leaders stand out from the rest with a clear digital strategy combined with a culture that is risk embracing as well as collaborative and leadership that is conceptualizing transformation. Only 15% of early stage respondents have a clear and coherent digital strategy whereas this number is 80% for digital mature companies. Digital strategy goes beyond implementing technologies but rather reimages business and transforms how the business works. (Kane et al. 2015).

Maturing digital organizations focus on building employee’s skills. Part of this is fostering cultural change is enabling employees to be more comfortable with taking risks, being agile, bolder as well as driving collaboration and cross-functional teams instead of siloed business units. According to the report, Technology cannot be driven on its own. “Culture leads the adoption of technology” (Dr. John Halamka in Kane et al. 2015). The digital agenda has to be lead from the top. In line with this 75% of digitally maturing companies state that their leadership has enough skills to lead digital strategy.

What is surprising is that according to Kane et al. (2015) not only young digital natives want to work for digital leading companies but employees of all age groups. This might indicate that companies in the early stage of digital maturity are faced with an increased pressure in the war for talents.

The quote “Digital maturity is the product of strategy, culture and leadership” (Kane et al. 2015) summarizes what companies should focus on during their transformation.

The report is strong in the sense that it points out the success factors of digital transformation at companies: clear, coherent digital strategy; cultural change (collaborative, risk-taking, reducing silos) and leadership, anchoring the responsibility at the top management.

However, it deals with the topic digital transformation on a generic level. The survey was conducted with various sizes, from various industries and from different companies. It does not specify on industries, company sizes or countries. Nor does it accurately define the scope of a digital strategy. It could be just a functional digital strategy e.g. digital marketing strategy or on the other hand a corporate strategy in times of digitalization. Other interesting questions that stay unanswered are how a company can put the success factors into practice with specific and aligned initiatives.

In order to get a more comprehensive grasp of how to tackle digital transformation it is worthwhile reading ‘Leading Digital‘ (Westerman et al. 2014). They examine the principles and procedures for succeeding with digital transformation for various industries and how to become a Digital Master. The framework focuses on investing in digital capabilities and in how to lead the digital transformation.

Some takeaways that complement the MIT’s report are:
• Engaging employees, collaborating and connecting are enabling the cultural change.
• Top management team has to be aligned, thus everyone has to be aware of the urgency of transformation and
knows how to articulate it.
• The company needs a shared digital vision that is actively talked about. According to Westermann the focus of the
vision should be to improve the customer experience and streamlining operations – once again the focus is on the
business instead of technology. Digital Masters are distinguished with a “compelling vision of the future”.
• In order to implement change successfully there has to be a person in charge who drives change. New evolving
digital leadership roles are emerging one of them being the Chief Digital Officer. One of the recommendations is that
whether you appoint a new C-level executive, call him CDO or differently or not; the responsibilities of the CDO are
required to manage digital transformation. (Westerman et al. 2014)

Leading Digital as well as the MIT paper point out that digital transformation is very much about digital strategy, cultural change and leadership. Technology can be seen as a strategic enabler to achieve strategic ends – like pointed out in the report. The prerequisite for this is that the company has to evaluate its existing business and state of digital maturity, and map out a strategy with initiatives based on where it sees itself. A digital strategy always has to be adapted to the given company. Digital mature companies can serve as a best practice but there is no blueprint of how to approach digital transformation since businesses vary greatly when it comes to business model and industry.

References:
Kane, G. C., Palmer, D., Phillips, A. N., Kiron, D., & Buckley, N. (2015). Strategy, not technology, drives digital transformation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 14.

Westerman, George; Bonnet, Didier; McAfee, Andrew (2014): Leading digital. Turning technology into business transformation. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Review Press.

Does Strategy, not Technology, Drive Digital Transformation?

17

Please rate this