The Podcast Deep-dive takes a deep-dive on the Digital Transformation Simulator Series. Actually the whole post is generated by Google Notebook LM. Enjoy.

The Podcast Deep-dive is completely (script, show notes and audio) generated by Google Notebook LM.

Here’s a breakdown of the key themes and observations in the Podcast Episode on Digital Transformation Simulator:

1. Substance vs. Appearance:

The sources heavily criticize the focus on appearances and buzzwords over actual results. “The Official Bliss” simulator emphasizes this, stating: “It’s not about whether it works; it’s about how good it looks when you tell your stakeholders it does.” This points towards a culture where demonstrating progress, even illusory, is prioritized over genuine, impactful transformation.

2. Superficial Adoption of Trends:

The simulators sarcastically advertise features like “AI-Driven Automation,” “Composable Everything,” and “Headless Everything.” These terms, while representing legitimate technological concepts, are often haphazardly implemented without a clear understanding of their purpose or benefit. The “Vivacious” simulator describes this practice as “lame, boring and behind tech companies… camouflaging their old technology stack in shiny gift wrap.“

3. Paralysis by Analysis and Endless Pivoting:

The sources satirize the endless cycles of planning, strategizing, and pivoting that often characterize digital transformation projects. “The Official Bliss” simulator highlights this with its “Paralysis by Analysis Mode” where “project timelines stretch endlessly, your teams argue over whether to adopt ‘Composable’ or ‘Modular’ solutions, and every single vendor promises that their solution is the one you’ve been waiting for.” This reflects the reality of decision fatigue and vendor pressure experienced by many organizations.

4. Exploitation by Consultants:

The “Vivacious” source cynically notes the financial incentive for consultants to prolong problems rather than solve them: “We all knew: If you’re not a part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.” This underscores the perception that digital transformation is often driven by external forces seeking to capitalize on the uncertainty and pressure faced by companies.

5. Genuine Need for Transformation:

Despite the satirical tone, the sources indirectly acknowledge the genuine need for companies to adapt to the evolving digital landscape. The “Vivacious” source asks pertinent questions about business models, technology, and the shifting nature of solutions in a rapidly changing world. This implies that while the execution may be flawed, the underlying need for transformation is real.

Conclusion:

The “Digital Transformation Simulator” sources, through their humorous and cynical approach, offer a critical commentary on the state of digital transformation. They highlight the prevalence of superficiality, hype, and profiteering in the industry while subtly acknowledging the legitimate pressure companies face to adapt and evolve. While exaggerated for comedic effect, these satirical observations raise important questions about the effectiveness and authenticity of many digital transformation initiatives.

But honestly, Arena4Commerce was just another moment of insignificance, a collection of superficial conversations, and a cry for attention in this difficult times, when typical sales approaches are not applicable, and audiences got tired of marketing webinars.

Setting the Arena4Commerce

The background of Arena4Commerce is obviously based on true events. The briefing provided to the contestants is what real companies provide as RFP to make important decisions for their digital future. Sure, digital has something to do with software, doesn’t it?

In a nutshell, a fictional manufacturer of metrology and opto-electronics technology and solutions with solely focus on traditional sales channels bought an e-commerce technology and is now looking for an implementation partner to bring an online-shop live within a two month. The rest of the briefing is rather generic and obvious, but at least some motivations and ambitions are provided.

But let us take a step back and analyze this initial situation and consider what is wrong after just five minutes in:

• Instead of taking the opportunity to educate and improve how companies should tackle digital challenges, Adobe and IFH KÖLN are reinforcing the core problem of digital transformation with Arena4Commerce: Buy software and then make an implementation partner RFP to solve your problems.
• Why the budget of 200k and the two-month timeline? Do we really think, all the invited contenders can or ever did deliver such a project in this time or money constraints? Some definitely can’t and won’t, because of their own definition of a target customer.

But never judge a book by its cover, maybe one of them will surprise us …

Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant

I will not go into the details of the individual contestants and presentations of Arena4Commerce. It is a difficult task for all of them to pitch openly and trying to make a good impression, while not disclosing too much of their secret sauce.

As said, I am not convinced that all four contenders comwrap, diconium, diva-e and T-Systems MMS really can deliver such project a product in these constraints, but let us validate whether they can show:

• at least a comprehensible a compelling story,
• how they would lead a customer through this journey,
• how they provide measurable value to customer and project,
• how they structure the time given, and
• what the customer must provide to realize the project.

T-Systems MMS

They do not deliver an emotional or optical firework but a solid pitch story, the construction site of a prefabricated house. “Shop Now” for B2B scenarios with Magento, as a preconfigured kickstart package with defined interfaces and some possibilities for individualization is a realistic scope and a more or less convincing project approach: convincing for the technical delivery and operation part, less convincing for the organizational and enablement part. T-Systems earns an extra point and proper street cred, since they really offer Shop Now since 2020. It’s normally based on Shopware, but at least it’s real.

diva-e

Starting with the typical “about us” slide diva-e quickly switches to creating a bridge between requirements and solution just to continue with a logo wall to then continue with the solution approach – so a more Hollywood-Blockbuster-like quick cut scene approach.

The approach is a condensed sequence of kick-off, concept phase, implementation, integration, testing, and go-live in an MVP-approach as the intersection of strategy, processes, requirements, UX, design, operation, and team. The following slides with a user story map are interesting, but due to the time restrictions of the pitch very text-heavy, confusing, and in no optimal position. The real interesting insights were not delivered during the presentation but in the subsequent discussion. On the company’s website you just find a landing page of the event, no comparable real-life offering.

diconium

diconium is starting with a clear story into the pitch – I like! During the presentation they manage to provide “proof” that the approach is feasible as well as recommended additions to create a desirable result. The project approach and team structure are comprehensible and appropriate for the timeframe and they do not create unrealistic expectations, but instead provide an objective forecast of the actual work that is ahead of the company. And as it should be, they put the “about us” section where it belongs: at the end of the pitch as the “why we”.

On the diconium website one won’t find a reference to an according offer nor a mention of the event. But this is one TRVE KVLT point for me …

comwrap

An unusual but appropriate start is to set the context for the project as a starting point for the company’s journey. Proof of a valid approach is delivered by comwrap’s B2B E-Commerce Blueprint as a bundle of project methodology, technology artefacts, best-practice documentation, and automation. And if more proof is required – fixed price option. I understand the idea of the following slides, but it is probably too much information, to provide additional proof of the solution approach’s feasibility – at least it looks like comwrap really delivered projects successfully with this methodology – less inspiration and clear definition.

Also no real mention of the event or a corresponding offer, but B2B commerce with Magento seems to be daily business, as the pitch showed.

Summary

Based on the pitches I’m not able to decide who is the champion of the arena. comwrap probably pitched most convincing how they can deliver a project with the given constraints but missed the why with them, diconium had the most compelling story and T-Systems MMS a real offer. Adobe could have spent at least a minute or two in advance to check that all custom fonts are installed – the fallback font decreased the appeal of all presentations. But sure, why should Adobe have an eye for design …

But should there really be a champion? This is probably literally meaning of “It’s the taking part that counts!” Let’s be honest, it was a marketing show for Adobe and IFH KÖLN as it was a marketing opportunity for the four agencies, but no one took the chance to do what would have been right to really stand out. The most interesting part of Arena4Commerce was the discussion afterwards when one could put everything in perspective.

Mittelstand not found – did you mean Acrobat Reader?

One question still remains: why such a setting and format for Arena4Commerce? Agreed, B2B E-Commerce for German Mittelstand (medium-sized enterprises) is a hot topic. E-Commerce was a major puzzle piece missing in Adobe’s sales and marketing solution portfolio and Magento a good fit and acquirable. But for years Adobe fails to address this specific and highly lucrative clientele. Quarter after quarter they launch a new offer, that most of the prospects simply resist.

Take a look at Adobes website, the search and the navigation reveals everything you need to know. There is Commerce and there is Commerce for SMEs.

So is Adobe just taking advantage of its partners to create an own story for the German Mittelstand and B2B, will they have a better story or offer after Arena4Commerce? I don’t think so …

Why do the agencies attend this format? Are they that desperate to spend time and effort to pitch non-existing projects with chance of make a bad impression?

And no, none of the contenders made a bad impression at Arena4Commerce, but none of the contenders made a real difference!

Do not get me wrong, there is still a huge market for boxed solutions, but depending on the actual situation of the organization, its goals, and challenges, it might be a wrong choice. If you are at the very beginning of your journey towards digital business models, it might be helpful to have a basically complete solution with consistent tooling and processes.

But what happens if you do not just want to provide the basics to your customers? And in my world basic is almost everything that vendors like Salesforce, SAP, Intershop, Spryker, Adobe/Magento, Shopware & Co have to offer. Sorry to burst this bubble, but an online shop is not really a competitive advantage in 2021. And it was no impressive differentiator in 2010 either. Fortunately, there are hard-working creative product marketing departments exploiting the latest trends and tweaking the sales pitches to the flavor of the month.

With terms like Cloud, Microservices, API, headless, serverless, PWA, JAM and MACH, software manufacturers and service providers try to bridge the gap between reality, technical feasibility, and anticipated user experience. Almost every solution is provided as-a-Service and headless today and without almost no exception all software providers are trying to address these new paradigms with their offerings. In reality, most software vendors and implementation partners are continuing to pursue stuff they know – big software and big implementation projects.

But standard is no differentiator by literal means and project usually means high efforts for adapting commodity to actual needs. It is becoming more and more imperative to break radically with old thought patterns, there is no all-in-one-device-suitable-for-every-purpose and it will remain an illusion. Unless you are looking for standard.

Let us assume the next statements are generic enough to fit every digital customer experience project: What are consequential approaches to digital customer experience architecture and technology selection?

Time-to-market, business value, and customer satisfaction

• Proven and business-ready building blocks for business and development with focus on value creation, customer experience, and optimization of processes instead of maintenance of expandable commodity
• Flexibility and scalability with focus on reusability and interoperability based on existing capabilities
• Adaptability to changing conditions and new requirements instead of functions and features in stock

Prevention of dependencies and technological dead ends

• Simple interaction of the various components through robust and scalable architecture with proper separation of data, processes, and presentation
• Modern technologies for “Developer Happiness” and implementation speed

Architecture Blueprint as the foundation of a digital customer experience

As with building a house, important decisions regarding architecture and requirements come before selecting the picture frames or decorative objects. In fact, you will change these anyways in a few weeks. And very likely you are going to change wall papers and even the room layout a few years from now. In the same way you are planning a house, technology is supposed to support, not dictate, or even limit the goals to be achieved.

Even though it is totally human to get lost in feature comparisons very quickly when making decisions, it if often not the crucial part. First and foremost you need to define the basics. What is supporting your business in achieving goals? So, let us start with a look at a proper target architecture blueprint first. It will get more complex quickly enough.

Beginning with an analysis of internal and external stakeholders, we see that an excellent digital customer experience is more than just an online shop, multiple services and systems need to be involved and connected.

What customers ultimately experience – its touchpoints – is not what you have to work with daily. Certain information come from existing backend systems, some processes are orchestrated in another one and you will work with even other tools. Depending on the complexity of the business and the use cases to be covered it can undoubtedly be an overwhelming number of individual solutions and services that are involved.

But again, if you are aiming for excellent customer experience, the resulting tasks for you are much more comprehensive today than in the pioneering years of e-commerce. That is why there are so many service providers, solutions, technologies, and systems in the customer experience game. SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and Adobe might cover all or most of the building blocks with their Experience Suites, but not with one singular product.

In fact, it is usually a sales bundle of different, often acquired solutions with different technologies and roadmaps and comparable integration challenges as a result. Again, this is not wrong by definition and probably a necessary step for the providers, but maybe not what you are looking for and need. It might be even the perfect choice for you, but you must dig deeper in the evaluation process.

Technology decision to define the development plan

Assuming you defined which building blocks of the architecture blueprint are required for your digital customer experience, ‘you’re gonna make some big decisions in your little world (Bob Ross)’. Crucial questions for selecting specific technologies and systems are:

1. Where do you need standards (real commodity capabilities) and where do you have to differentiate yourself to achieve defined goals?
2. Which systems and technologies support these specific requirements?
3. Which building blocks fit to existing systems and your capabilities?
4. Do you need to “own” these building blocks or can they be consumed as needed?

The illustration above is an example result of this decision-making process, of course results will vary. But they provide essential barriers to fill the architecture blueprint to objectify technology decisions. Everyone loves a good sales pitch with a compelling product demonstration, but the question remains:

Is this relevant, viable, and feasible for your organization?

And now you can too!

tl;dr

Digital Transformation is on your personal or your company’s agenda? Don’t look any further, the Digital Transformation Simulator 18 is here to make everything perfectly easy.

You heard right, there’s an app for that. Vaguely describe a pain and the Digital Transformation Simulator 18 provides all required details, plans, project charters and questionnaires to tackle the pain and solve this issue once and for all. Guaranteed or money back! What money you ask? This is the best part, it’s completely free.
Forever!

What’s the problem anyways?

Lame, boring and behind tech companies are jumping the bandwagon and camouflage their old technology stack in shiny gift wrap. Deploying crap architecture as VM in a cloud infrastructure, providing a crude API, a wildcat Angular app and done. And then there is the great consulting business around it. We all knew: If you’re not a part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

Behind the curtain of vanity fair? Fear, uncertainty, panicking and the attempt to cope with problems ignored too long. What are proper business and pricing models for an ever-changing world. Please explain what a CPU is in the cloud or a transaction in distributed micro service environments? Tell me, is it sufficient to sell products as solutions from now on? Maybe just replace the wording in the standard offer templates and add a paragraph with the words agile, SCRUM, product owner and MVP … Never mind!

So many starting points, so many decisions to make, so much uncertainty and too less support, resources and time. And who are the originators? In many cases: old-school businesses with faulty processes and yesterday’s mindsets. The victims? All businesses that are now left insecure what is right and what is wrong. There is no easy way to solve the riddle? Behold! Now there is: the Digital Transformation Simulator 18. You’re welcome.

Digital Transformation Simulator 18 🆕

Highlights

• Simple game mechanics. Just start bullshitting and impress everyone around you.
• Plain waterfall and antiquated technology renamed agile and cutting edge. FTW.
• It’s actually last years bullshit but with a new name and cover. Nobody will notice!
• All trends and hypes are included, no in-game purchases required.
• Perfectly fits every industry and business model.
• No wrong decisions, every turn is a triumphant epiphany.
• Import savegames from failed projects and make them a success instantly.
• Export all documents and vague specifications for a mind-boggling RFP process.
• Game-changing single player and multiplayer mode. Now also runs in the cloud.
• Unlock achievements for XBOX, Steam, NEOCOM and basically every webshop award.

Testimonials

The target group is astounded and feedback is overwhelmingly positive:

“The best I ever got for money I never spent.”
10/10

“I would actually pay for it. Even just to get an empty box to impress my colleagues.”
95/100

“I don’t get it, but I like the design.”
★★★★☆

“I hope you didn’t do this during working hours?!”
7/10

“This is a joke, right?! But we should build it. It can’t be that complicated.”
★★★★

So what are the alternatives?

I also wrote a proper book on the topic. In German, but also free of charge. You can order the E-Commerce Blueprint Vol. 5 on Digital Transformation online and get a hard-copy straight to your desk.

And for all the money saved by either game or book, do something good and relevant.

Merry Christmas and a splendid 2018!