2 min read
The life of a company is challenging with various cycles and forces. Evolving successfully through it all requires adaptation. Adaptation, then, requires critical activities such as innovation and transformation.
But, what do they actually mean? What is the difference between them, and how do they relate?
Innovation or Transformation?
The main difference between innovation and transformation is in the impact they create.
Innovation is an investigation and a feasibility study. Transformation redefines the process to implement radical change in the business.
To elaborate further:
Innovation is the practice of investigating solutions that could improve business. Transformation is the practice of questioning current business procedures to identify weaknesses and implement solutions to solve them.
The ultimate goal of transformation is to enhance revenue and save costs through a new and performant business process.
Forbes sums it up perfectly:
“Transformations take time—moving from one state to another is a process. Innovation, on the other hand, usually refers to a sudden spark of creativity, and the incipient actions that lead to implementing that spark into a company’s strategy.”
Implications in the Conversational Process Automation (CPA)
CPA is part of the artificial intelligence (AI) domain. This technology focuses on delivering expert customer service immediately, consistently and around the clock. By automating conversations and executing end-to-end automation, the use cases resonate in most digital innovation and transformation forums. Why? Because CPA brings fantastic user experience and has excellent potential for intelligent process automation.
However, there is a slight oversight here, which can result in prominent, undesirable, and unsatisfactory results. It is the view that AI is just another innovative technological asset.
However, when AI is intended as another technological asset, the chances of failure increase.
This is because, ultimately, AI is not just about technology. It is about people, processes, culture, strategy, and redefining the relationship between humans and machines.
Jeff McMillan, Chief Analytics & Data Officer at Morgan Stanley, says this about the common oversight:
“The second thing I'll say, the second most powerful thing you have in your organisation is actually not a piece of technology, it's leadership and it’s culture. [...] The reason you (companies) will fail is because you could not align your business objectives and your organisational structure to embrace these new technologies in a way that actually grow your business and move the needle forward.”
The lesson? An honest internal review of our business processes is needed to assess their strengths and weaknesses. The next step is to carry that reflection outward and search for solutions in the market that can solve the identified problem.
Final thoughts
The choices for the financial services industry are clear: to stop at the innovation base camp or to ascend to the peak of transformative business change.
Explore how the Spixii platform can help execute your high-value processes and make your business expertise available 24/7. Since 2016, we accompanied large organisations to build business cases, run proof of concepts and support them in implementing their transformative conversational process into business as usual.