Bionics – What the six million dollar man can teach us about the art of digital transformation

The very words “Steve Austin...a man barely alive; we can rebuild him...we have the technology” is enough to send a warm wave of nostalgia surging through me.  For those of you who, like me, were young/old enough to spend your early Saturday evenings during the late 1970s glued to the exploits of the six-million-dollar man you’ll already be hearing the theme tune and replaying in your mind that faux mechanical sound that was generated when Steve used his bionics – a sound that Michael Bay seemed to appropriate ad nauseam for the Transformer movies (but I digress).

For those of you who need reminding – Steve was an astronaut who was badly injured on his return to earth from space.  His right arm, both legs and left eye are replaced by "bionic” technology implants that enhance his strength, speed and vision far above human norms: he can run at speeds of 60 mph (97 km/h), his eye has a 20:1 zoom lens and infrared capabilities while his limbs all have the equivalent power of a bulldozer. He’s also very cool.

For me, the six-million-dollar man (over $30M in today’s money), is a great metaphor that exemplifies what effective digital transformation is actually all about.   It’s a great example of using the latest technologies to upgrade your current capabilities in a way that appears seemless, sexy and magical.   The latest Capgemini/MIT research shows that those who are digitally “bionic” (the Digirati) are 26% more profitable than their non-bionic peers.

What is fascinating is that the Capgemini/MIT research goes on to outline the key elements that the Digirati have in place – effectively describing the Digirati’s digital central nervous system (CNS).  The first element is the ability to use digital capabilities (social, mobile, web) to develop a much deeper and richer awareness of whom your customers are, what they value and why they would buy from you.  The second is the ability to process and interpret this welter of data and turn it into meaningful and actionable insights (data, analytics).  The third is the ability to respond (service, fulfillment, or sales) in real time (or very close) to the customers’ needs with the requisite empathy.  All whilst maintaining an ostensibly human face (just like Steve Austin).

Ostensibly the Digirati have finely tuned “digital senses” deeply attuned to customer needs, sizeable and smart “digital brains” capable of analysing and making sense of large amounts of data and strong and aligned “digital spines” enabling rapid “reflex-like” responses.  All three  elements of the digital CNS are essential for firms looking to generate competitive edge but the good news is that building any of them up independently will also drive benefits.  

So the message from the research for business leaders in relation to digital transformation seems to be as follows – Which digital capabilities you choose to develop first seems to be less important than the fact that you have started developing some capabilities.  Whether its digital senses, a digital brain or a digital spine matters not – you will need all three but having one or two of the capabilities is better than having none.