The way to digital transformation

In part five of our Co-Creating the Future series, we put the spotlight on GE Digital’s playbook for digital industrial transformation and examine its five key pillars

In part four of our Co-Creating the Future series with GE Digital, we looked at the final stage in future-proofing a plant’s production with predictive analysis and maintenance. However, it’s one thing knowing the advantages of digital transformation. It’s another knowing how, when and where to get started. SIG’s new digital partner GE Digital has created a digital industrial transformation playbook to help customers and partners embark on their own journey. It boils this journey down to five key stages based on several years’ experience, including GE’s own digital transformation.

1. Capabilities and operating model

The first step for any transformation is to re-think the organisational capabilities needed to start, scale and sustain a transformation. This requires developing an end-to-end view of all the competencies, tools, processes and governance needed to succeed as a world-class digital industrial. Companies can then determine where and how these capabilities are organised and executed within their own organisation – particularly vertical and horizontal business lines.

2. Platform and industrial applications

Build or buy? It’s a common dilemma when implementing an IoT platform as a huge amount of resources are needed to even begin developing the foundation for such a platform. In GE’s own experience, its Predix platform was purpose-built to meet the scale, complexity, speed and security requirements of industrial companies and assets. The result is a world-class application development platform for the Industrial Internet that lays the foundation for GE’s industrial applications, solving customer challenges, driving outcomes and creating new business opportunities for customer that accelerate their digital journey.

3. Partner ecosystem

GE also realised digital transformation could be significantly scaled with partner companies, increasing the number of opportunities in the pipeline and the ability to win in global markets. It therefore created an open-innovation partner ecosystem spanning industrial markets and outcomes. This ecosystem now includes a vast range of partnerships serving everyone from global corporations to early-stage startups. And, crucially, its open-innovation model means that partner solutions built on Predix can be certified and made available to GE Digital’s global user base.

4. Digital talent and culture

Digital transformation requires people to think and lead differently. This means rebuilding a company’s culture around rapid decision-making, learning from failure and driving innovation. To support this, GE Digital changed the way it recruited, developed and incentivised talent – attracting the right people needed to become a digital industrial leader.

5. Business model innovation

For GE Digital, business model innovation relies on operations agility and productivity improvements. Internal improvements, for example, can self-fund the next stage in the digital journey, while enlisting early champions can be crucial in creating momentum and awareness amongst employees. Once more operational agility has been established, companies can then begin to experiment with new business models. What does a successful digital transformation look like? Don’t miss part six of our Co-Creating the Future series where we’ll investigate GE Digital’s Predix portfolio in action. Want to know more about SIG’s partnership with GE Digital? Contact us now or learn more about SIG’s Smart Factory solutions.