"Digital Value Observation Room" is an in-depth video interview column about enterprise digitalization jointly launched by Titanium Media and ITValue. It was derived from the global digital value summit that has been held for more than ten consecutive times. The content of the column will focus on the digital issues that industry personnel are most concerned about, and invite industry experts, entrepreneurs, etc. to discuss on the spot as "observers" to explore the real questions and answers of digital economy .
Quarter 2022, Titanium Media and ACCA invited CXO from various corporate industries as digital observers to focus on the digital transformation of enterprises, discuss how to seek common ground while reserving differences and relative unity in the digitalization process of enterprises, and form the digital culture of enterprises. The theme of the first issue: "opposition" and "unification" of digitalization within the enterprise
[attached with the live broadcast timeline of this issue to help you quickly jump to the interested parts]
0:00 Program leader, digital transformation Xinshui survey analysis
32:05 How does CFO view and evaluate the progress and results of digital transformation
38:19 ACCA analyzes the unification and differences in digital transformation within the enterprise based on the observation of the industry and management roles
42:50 What aspects does the enterprise have opposition actually help the development of the enterprise
44:37 Special observer Wan Ning summarized the topic and conclusions of discussion
This episode invited Li Peng - CFO, ACCA senior member, Zhou Chang - Deputy General Manager of China Travel Hotel Information Management Department, Qian Yuyi - Director of ACCA China Policy Insights and Senior Member of ACCA. From the perspective of managers, we jointly explored the cognitive differences and practical cases in the digitalization process of enterprises, and jointly explored effective methodologies for reference in enterprise digitalization.
[The following is the transcript of the program, edited and deleted by Titanium Media APP]
0 Ning: is deep in practice and explores the truth about the industry. This is the Titanium Media Digital Value Observation Room, and I am the host Wan Ning.
We all know that in enterprises, due to the different management roles of each enterprise, they actually have different attitudes towards the digital transformation of enterprises. The theme of this issue of our Digital Value Observation Room is to explore the opposition and unity of digital transformation within the enterprise. How did the topic of
come about?
is actually very unified in the consensus of enterprises toward digitalization. Managers at different levels of each enterprise will believe that digital transformation is a must, but because everyone’s job responsibilities are different, there will be differences in specific digital transformation paths and methods.
is very happy to invite three guests today to take a look at the problems behind the digital transformation of the industry and some phenomena that need to be considered.
In this issue, we invited Mr. Li Peng from China Travel Group , Mr. Li Peng from Ocean Oil , and Ms. Qian Yuyi, research director of ACCA. I hope that through such a time-space connection, everyone can discuss the opposition and unity of enterprises within digitalization.
Before this discussion, in order to organize this topic, we and Director Qian conducted a small survey on the digitalization of enterprises among people in different management positions. We investigated CFOs, CIOs, and some companies' presidents and general managers. First, please share with us a little bit, what are the findings in the survey?
Qian Yuyi: In the
survey, we mainly focused on four aspects of issues.
The first problem is related to the vision of digital transformation. In this question, we can see that different interviewees, whether they are CIOs or CFOs, have very strong desires and confidence in the vision of digital transformation.We can see that most respondents choose to help companies strategically distinguish themselves from their competitors through digital transformation.
and some companies even have a bigger vision, hoping that they can become a technology and data-driven company in the future. We understand that the strategy at this level may be digital . Of course, some companies are relatively passive, and a small number of companies choose to keep up with the pace of industry competitors through digital transformation. Then there are some mentions that hopes to maintain the current level of commercial infrastructure.
The second problem is related to the business model. We hope that the respondents will tell you what predictions a company will make about changes in its business model in the next three years. In fact, following the first question before, the result we expected was that CIO and CFO should be able to maintain a relatively unified situation, but we found a very interesting phenomenon in this question.
Although most respondents still believe that digital transformation can bring continuous optimization to the business model of enterprises in the next three years, and even a disruptive fundamental change, we see that there is still a certain gap between CFO and CIO in this issue.
has more CFOs that believe that digital transformation can bring optimization and improvement to the business model of enterprises, whether it is continuous or disruptive; on this issue, the proportion of CIO selection is relatively low, and more CIOs actually choose other factors that may bring some changes to the enterprise.
So on this issue, I think it may also be a focus topic that we can discuss today. What are the expectations of enterprises for the establishment of various departments during the digital transformation process? Or do you actually have very different definitions of the results you will achieve in the future in the process of realizing digital transformation?
The third problem is actually everyone knows. Many researches tell us that although the company's digital transformation is very determined, the proportion of success is not very high. So we really want to know what are the factors that affect the implementation of the company's digital strategy and technology that they have seen.
We have found some commonalities in this issue. For example, both CIO and CFO believe that the company's lack of talent and ability and the measurement and definition of the value that digital transformation can bring in the future are not very clear. However, there are some of them that CFOs think are relatively large hindrance factors, such as involving future results and whether there is a clear process. These two are considered relatively large hindrance factors by CFOs.
In turn, among the CIO group, more people choose one of the organizational culture of the enterprise. They think that the resistance of the organizational culture to change actually affects digital transformation, and the other is that the enterprise may face more competitive priorities and cannot make choices.
The last question is actually asking CIOs and CFOs that think the different CXOs of the enterprise are playing a role in digital transformation. In this question, we see several interesting phenomena.
is the CEO group. We all know that digital transformation is a top leader project, but we see that in the CIO group, some of their CIOs actually believe that the CEO of the company is not playing the role of a leader.
The second is how they look at each other, how do CIOs look at CFOs, and how do CFOs look at CIOs. In this question, we found that more CFOs think they are the role of leaders in promoting the digital transformation of enterprises; while the answer given by CIOs is that CFOs are more of supporters, and some CIOs even believe that CFOs are the role of obstacles.
is also another CXO group, such as the business leaders in the business area, including some functional departments such as CHRO. We see that among the respondents of CIO or CFO, everyone will feel that there are still certain obstacles in some other functional departments.
0 Ning: Thank you Mr. Qian. We introduced our research background very concisely and gave a good background to our next discussion. Indeed, through this survey, we found that there is actually a subtle opposition and unity between CIOs and CFOs within the enterprise. So since we have already developed the consciousness of unification, let’s take a look at how to understand this unification.
Mr. Li Peng, combined with some of the work you are doing now, how do you view the digital transformation of your company?
Li Peng:
When talking about the topic of digital transformation, according to my personal thinking logic, I am used to trying to figure out what its basic concept is, which is what I think is its basic concept, and how to use it to guide my own work. My understanding of digital transformation should actually be such a process. With the help of this data-based data assets and information-based means, it will serve the improvement of operational performance, governance improvement, and scientific decision-making of an enterprise or an organization, and ultimately support the realization of the goal of healthy and sustainable value creation of an enterprise or a company. This is the basic concept I recognize for a company or from the perspective of my role as a value management as a CFO.
So based on this basic concept, I set three dimensions of the digital transformation path I set for the companies I serve. The first is business digitalization, because without the digitalization of business, digital transformation has no foundation; the second dimension is management informatization, that is, how to transform business flow into data flow information flow, use data flow and information flow to support all aspects of production, operation and management, and ultimately achieve modeling of decisions. Because the scientific decision-making must be quantitative and pursue the best or better results, then this digital decision-making must be more scientific or more reasonable.
0 Ning: President Li Peng first positioned himself as the value manager of the enterprise, and then gave the definition of digital transformation from this perspective. As the head of enterprise IT, Mr. Zhou Chang has been in charge of informatization to digitalization in enterprises for nearly 20 years. So what do you think of digital transformation?
Weekly:
Just now, Mr. Li Peng looked at this matter from a very high perspective. He has explained the basic principles of digital transformation very thoroughly, including data assets and information means. In fact, if a technical department has achieved this now, in the past few years, our process can be managed by this information system. In fact, data is part of it. Data is considered a means of production, so it is called a data asset. This requires informatization as the basis, and informatization as the basic data can be deposited.
If you want to undergo digital transformation, only data assets are not enough. How can data support the business of the entire enterprise change? Business changes can be small or large changes. If there are small changes, how can the efficiency of the business be improved? Then, in the big way, how can the business be able to change its business model?
0 Ning: Qian, Mr. Qian, you have been doing a lot of related research in the ACCA member group. How do you view the role of CFO, and the relevant companies we just saw in the process of digital transformation.
Qian Yuyi:
After listening to the sharing of the two guests, I think the two people are actually highly unified in their understanding of digital transformation. I strongly agree with the digital transformation of information infrastructure that everyone mentioned. This may be the first stage, or the information stage; the second is the transformation at the business level and the transformation of business models. This is not just as simple as the product being launched or a digital sales channel is added; the third is probably the digital transformation in the thinking of talents.
Both guests mentioned data just now. In fact, ACCA proposed a concept called data literacy many years ago. We have been saying that you should make good use of this data literacy, that is, you can see the essence of the business through data and parse some insights from complex and chaotic data to help companies make better decisions.
In a major context of digital transformation, in all departments of the enterprise, they have obtained certain data analysis capabilities through digital means. Maybe they don’t need to do a lot of data analysis by themselves. Maybe the company has a lot of data cockpits, but what the company’s executives need to change is that they use data to make decisions more. So I think it may be that at these three levels, the CFO group and other business executives are all highly unified.
0 Ning: Weekly, have you felt the needs of your business or the pressure of your business that makes this digital transformation in our company a must-have, and it has also become the key to our CIO responsibilities?
Circumference:
This is a certain situation, and the pressure and demand are basically overwhelmed. Digital transformation or enterprise reform has come to this point, but it is no longer a question of whether to do it or not. Now it is about how to do it, what method to do it, and which one should be used as the entry point. For us, from my own perspective, it must be a necessity. The closer
is to the business layer, the stronger its uniqueness is. For example, in the hotel service industry where I work, at least half of the market is an offline market. For example, signing service agreements with large companies like Mr. Li Peng and making reservations between companies can obtain a lot of B to B businesses. But now more people on the market have turned their direction to C. It turns out that the process of B to B to C has become B to C.
In the past, everyone often traveled on business trips to stay in hotels. The first thing they need to determine is where to go and when to go, so that they will have a need to make reservations. But now it has been put forward, and when the demand has not yet been set, it has been marketed and purchased when it is known that it will definitely be on a business trip in the future, which is now e-commerce. When the demand is truly determined, we can just pay with the purchased rights, so we must be biased towards business and will inevitably turn customer operation services into digitalization.
Another angle is closer to the strategic level. From a higher level, I think digital transformation must be inevitable, but high-level leaders are still thinking about whether digitalization is inevitable, how to serve customers, how to generate more revenue or the second growth curve. During this period, digitalization as a means or tool to enter and put it in to promote the rapid or effective generation of change, so at this time they did not consider it as the only path, but as a means and tool.
0 Ning: Zhou Chang first combines the characteristics of his current hotel industry. He has begun to talk about a kind of business traction, which means that digital means must be used to achieve business service support. This is a very typical example.
Mr. Li Peng also has such demands in your traditional business? As the value manager you just talked about, why do you view such driving forces again?
Li Peng:
Just said that this kind of transformation is active or passive, so I want to give each one an example of active and passiveness.
passive example. Let me first talk about our company is a professional company engaged in marine engineering construction and marine installation. Large-scale engineering facilities for marine engineering are usually built on land, transported to the sea by ships, and assembled and put into production at sea. Usually, large cranes on ships lift large and super-large structures of marine engineering. In the case of wind and waves at sea, thousands or even tens of thousands of tons of structures are accurately assembled with other structures at sea. The assembly accuracy is required to be millimeter level, and the accuracy is very high.Technical engineers who operate offshore lifting operations need to have very deep experience, and in addition, they need to do countless drills in advance.
So how to do this kind of drill? Digital simulation. We have developed various combinations of super-large structures that simulate the lifting of equipment and facilities under various sea conditions at sea. Perform multiple digital simulation operations before sea operations, similar to pilots doing flight simulations. In fact, I have had many simulation experiences before starting the operation on the spot, which can ensure that I deal with typical situations in all aspects on the spot. This is our attempt to make digitalization smoothly in order to ensure that our business can be successfully completed.
Passively, we are the ETC general contractor of marine engineering. The traditional business model is to deliver the structures built by the project to the owners on time and in quality. However, when we go out and face these first-class energy companies in the globalization, the owners have put forward higher requirements. While traditional physical delivery, they also need to achieve digital delivery, which is digital twins digital twins. In other words, when a physical engineering structure is delivered to an operational state, a digital three-dimensional model must be delivered to the owner, which is exactly the same as the physical object, which is a digital twin.
We did not have the ability and needs in this area before, but in order to serve the owners to receive large orders from large owners, we must establish the ability to digital twins, which means that we can digitalize the entire process from design to land construction to offshore installation in order to transfer the entire process of physical delivery and the results of delivery to the owners in the form of digital assets. So this is passive. We must cater to the needs of the owners in order to have orders, markets and space for survival.
0 Ning: is particularly good. We have begun to gradually intervene in your work scenarios and specific corporate practices. So please look at it from the perspective of your company. Will there be digital opposition and unity within your company? Where is the unity and where is the opposition you have observed?
Li Peng:
I think it is better to talk about unity first. Unity is easier to talk about. Because the previous few questions just now, including Mr. Zhou, you and our colleagues at ACCA, have all mentioned that everyone should say that this demand is certain, so I think there may not be too many doubts about this unification, and the focus may be on opposition.
may now have various expressions or understandings about digitalization, and it is the same within an enterprise. The CEO's understanding may be different from the department general manager at the functional department level, and there may be some subtle differences from the leadership team of the business unit below. The main reason is that their focus may indeed be on some focus.
For an organization, whether it can form a consensus on digital transformation is the prerequisite for realizing high-quality top-level design internally. Regarding this opposition, I think in addition to understanding the path, methods, speed, means, and means of implementation, including the rhythm of input and output, it may be a direction of greater opposition, but it is actually a different idea. Just like I just mentioned that the field I am in is different from the management level of , I will have my own ideas about the implementation path of digital transformation. Therefore, if you want to promote effective digital transformation within the company, you really need high-quality top-level design to play a carrier and a leading role.
10Ning: Well, Zhou Chang, asked you the same question, in the process of leading the entire informatization construction and implementing some specific tasks of the enterprise in digital transformation, what kind of opposition and unity do you observe within the company?
Circumference:
OK, I will also talk about it from the perspective of unity. Everyone needs to do digital construction or digital transformation, and everyone has a very unified understanding of the direction, which does not require discussion or questioning. The so-called opposition of
is actually not necessarily so profound. For example, as the head of the technical department, I will see different phenomena. For example, when it comes to digital transformation, whether it is a phased work goal, some projects or project groups, or whether it is used as a long-term enterprise capacity building that requires long-term persistence.There are many colleagues or roles who think that this is a short-term, medium- and short-term project with very clear boundaries. Then, the information technology or technical departments will be required to clearly stipulate how much input-output ratio is during the project establishment process and what effect can be achieved.
But in fact, as a technical department, digital transformation must not only be a job of information construction, nor is it just a job of technology. It is especially impossible to turn a traditional service-oriented enterprise, or production-oriented industrial enterprise into a technology company. Therefore, we also need to transform based on the existing business entities and turn them little by little. For us, it is a long-term capacity building process, and it is difficult to consider the input-output ratio or obvious boundaries during a period.
0 Ning: I have also observed many companies. There are often some signals or noises in the digitalization process. All business departments hope that they will have immediate results after you do it. However, we all know that digitalization is not achieved overnight. In this process, it will definitely be superimposed with the completion of goals and projects one by one. In this process, as CFOs and CEOs, how do you view the technical department in this process to conduct this assessment? I am actually very concerned about what your CFOs think?
Li Peng:
From the perspective of this CFO, we look at the efficiency and effect of resource input and output. This is the starting point for our evaluation or acceptance of the strategies and implementation of digital transformation. We need to look at the strategies and implementation of this digital transformation strategy and implementation path, whether it can be seen directly or indirectly related and contributions for the operational control and governance capabilities of enterprises in lean , including the implementation of the strategy and the final financial performance . The evaluation of
may have both short-term indicators and long-term continuous contribution or accumulation, and will not be too short-term. Just like what President Zhou Chang said just now, our investment in informatization or digital transformation can be made, some of which can make some substantial changes in the current lean operational control or financial performance performance, but may focus more on the medium and long term because it is a strategic behavior. We still need to design the efficiency and effect of resource input and output through scientific evaluation models in order to achieve a particularly objective evaluation.
We usually talk about the structure of 5 W and H to express the digital transformation plan.
is why, first of all, why do you need to do such a digital transformation? We just talked about whether it will contribute and contribute to our company's resource input-output efficiency, such as the performance of the performance indicators of two-benefit and four-rate performance of state-owned enterprises, or the minimum profit-making ability.
second what is turned on. We just discussed what digital transformation is. This is just a way to continue to upgrade information technology or to accumulate digital assets and upgrade business models. There must be a definition of what to do when transferring, and it cannot follow the crowd. It must be suitable for the company itself.
The third WHO who will lead and who will collaborate. Because some large enterprises have strong internal IT departments, they often talk about IT leadership and I have to do these things for the sake of doing. However, the digital transformation is often different from the information stage. I think the information stage can still be led by IT to a certain extent, but in the digital transformation stage, I think IT and business must be coordinated, so I think it may still be driven from the business aspect. The fourth time of
is how long it takes to achieve it, just like what Zhou Chang said just now is short-term goals or medium- and long-term sustainability. What is the design of phased milestones? I think it is impossible to quickly and fully understand. In this case, haste will often fail to achieve.
also has a Where, which is where to start the entry point, which is the regional functional condition of regionalization? It is still necessary for the entire company to launch it in all aspects simultaneously. The last How in
is how to set the plan and implement the path.
If these issues are discussed and scientifically objectively in the entire company's digital transformation plan, you may be able to see more clearly at the starting point stage that the company has invested a lot of resources and sometimes it is sometimes sky-high investment. For example, some large enterprise-level investments are all in units of billions. You must have the expected value of expectation management . If leaders have high expectations for transformation, they hope that they will be effective soon, but in fact, my plan design is a gradual step, and there may be a big contradiction with the expectations during the implementation process, and leaders may soon feel unconfidence.
As a value manager, we must look at the company's ability to bear. If the annual investment in IT or digital transformation makes my company's performance indicator unbearable, then we may have to jump up and oppose it.
0 Ning: Through their statements, we actually see that there are unified and slight business differences in digital transformation from the role of CIO and CFO. There is no need to talk about the unified part, for example, we highly unified the definition of digital consciousness. However, there are some differences in the specific implementation process. Have you also seen some differences in your research on some companies?
Qian Yuyi:
First of all, from the perspective of CFO, it must be put on numbers, because CFO has always been a digital expert, and we must see the project's ROI, but at the same time, we must also understand that many digital transformation projects may not necessarily fall on financial performance indicators or be reflected in the short term. Of course we have a long-term vision, but we must split it into many short-term goals. I believe we can all agree on this.
But in the design of short-term goals, there are actually many benefits that digital transformation can bring, such as accelerating the development cycle of new products, automating many processes, or improving employee satisfaction , or improving customer satisfaction. In fact, these are all very important indicators. Therefore, in terms of observation, it should actually be more tied to the business, not just a reflection of financial data.
Our ACCA is actually also doing transformation. Many transformations may also be digital transformations. There is a goal in our strategic plan for 2025, but at the same time, we also need some small projects like light houses, which can achieve better returns in the short term when risks are relatively controllable and investments are relatively controllable. In fact, some such successful examples are needed to appear in the early stages, which can help build stronger confidence within and across departments of the company and continuously promote digital transformation in the future.
Go back to the role of CFO, I think CFO has a global perspective. Because finance has an understanding of the end-to-end processes of the entire business of each business unit of the enterprise, what it needs to do in the role of finance is resource allocation, and what it needs to do is make choices. Perhaps every project leader will tell the CFO that his project is very important and urgent, and the CFO also needs a scientific way to evaluate it. In fact, there will naturally be a balance between departments in the enterprise, which is determined from the global perspective of the finance department.
The other one is multi-dimensional. In fact, before 2020, ACCA had made a lot of investment and preparations in online examinations and supervision, but for risk considerations, it has never introduced online solutions. Because exams are not only successful but not failure, we cannot allow any global exams to have compliance and risk problems, but when the epidemic comes, we need to make adjustments in time.
actually needs to balance the risks of the enterprise, the governance of the enterprise, the reputation of the enterprise and many innovative projects from the financial perspective.So from this perspective, I can see that among our CFOs, they sometimes say that they face some challenges, which may be due to the pressure given by other departments, but in fact, everyone is highly unified from the perspective of strategy. So it is more about how to break the boundaries of the department, break the original cognitive bias, and then communicate better. We believe that under the premise of mutual understanding, we can actually achieve final unity.
0 Ning: In this case, such opposition in the process of internal digital transformation is actually beneficial, because the differences in responsibilities from different management angles will just effectively ensure the balance of the enterprise in the process of digital development. So I would like to ask Mr. Qian, from your observation, which oppositions in the company are actually conducive to the development of the company.
Qian Yuyi:
On the one hand, each department is like a container and has its own boundaries. But from the perspective of the business leaders of the company, the CFOs, CIOs or other CXOs of each department are also playing the role of adhesives and lubricants.
Just now, I heard Mr. Li Peng’s sharing that has been emphasizing the cooperation between finance, business and IT. Just now, President Zhou Chang said that for example, he would spend more time influencing the CEO and helping him make some decisions, which is more well informed. In fact, he saw some internal challenges and obstacles, but he would rather play the role of a lubricant.
Maybe Mr. Li Peng also knows SBL strategic business leaders. This is a course that every student of us needs to take with membership certificate . I often joke with our members that this course is not just about finance, but people in every department must learn, especially CXOs, because when they are at the decision-making level, they are essentially a business strategy leader. CFOs are strategic business leaders with financial expertise, and CIOs are strategic business leaders with information technology expertise. At this point, everyone will never leave the same principles. In fact, they will eventually return to unity.
0 Ning: Our discussion of this issue is basically the end of this discussion. Thank you very much to Mr. Li Peng and Mr. Zhou Chang.
In fact, in the entire process of digital transformation of enterprises, we find that the difference in cognitive differences in digital transformation is the first difficulty faced by every enterprise, because the difference in cognition causes the company to be unable to achieve a high degree of strategic and decision-making unity, and it is impossible to include projects of the top leader and subsequent strategies for the formulation and implementation of strategies.
Therefore, in the process of digital transformation, every enterprise must first complete such a process of unification of opposition. Every CIO and CFO or CEO will be the translator, communicator, adviser and builder who should play in the enterprise. Under such a harmonious unification, the enterprise will be highly unified in its cognition, and finally form a consensus on digitalization, ultimately converge the competitiveness of digitalization, and finally complete the capacity building of each enterprise for the future of digitalization.
In this process, whether it is about strategy, organization, resources and capabilities, companies actually need to do a lot of homework. Just like the roles of CFO and CIO we just mentioned, we will also see that each person will gradually become a versatile player who understands both business and technology. This has actually made us see a very obvious future, that is, in the process of digital future enterprises, the required abilities have begun to put forward higher requirements.
This is also a core reason why the two of you were invited to our digital observation room today. During your conversation, you have shown to be more or less familiar with the business and have a deep understanding and understanding of digitalization. Through this, you have truly completed the driving force for the digital transformation of your own company. We also hope that through the sharing and output of some of your views, more colleagues who are confused in the digital construction of our company can truly help everyone to successfully complete the difficult digital transformation.
OK, thank you again for your participation, our program ends here.
