Quiz night topic: Digital Transformation

I love a pub quiz, who doesn’t it’s a great way to show off your general knowledge and a good excuse to pop down to the pub and catch up with friends. There is nothing better than sitting down midweek or the occasional Sunday with a pint, a packet of pork scratchings and a pen in hand, ready for the quizmaster (or Dave as he is known in the local) to take the mic and announce the categories and topic or theme of the evenings questions. Before I begin let me set the scene, the pub in question is a proper local not a generic chain pub, there is a swear jar on the bar counter, a few brass horseshoes and commemorative plates that decorate the walls and not a fruit machine in sight. A proper local!
So as I sat there waiting for the rest of the team I was a little surprised as to hear upon my request for more paper (I like to take notes) that I wouldn’t need a pen or paper tonight. Great the quiz has been cancelled I thought. No, no, no Dave the quizmaster assured me they were trialling something new and revolutionary. This turned out to be a quiz app that you downloaded to your mobile phone and once a pin was entered bought up the questions for the quiz.
This was in fact a digital revolution by my local doing what no pub had done before (at least not that I know off) taking their first steps towards Digital Transformation. The key message that I want this blog to deliver is that Digital transformation can take many forms, in any business and organisation. But what is digital transformation? It can mean different things however the premise remains the same using my local as the example making the next steps to transform the same premise applies at all levels of industry change through the country.

Digital Transformation is to reimagine your organisational processes, culture and strategy as if today’s technology existed before the organisation did.
My local has been there for hundreds of years it’s always been a pub, but they did just that and changed the process of the way they have always done things in the form of a pub quiz app.
Everyone loved it, minus a few members of the older generation who were not keen, that’s until they realised there was an offer code for a free pint to be redeemed by downloading the app and they soon came around! They didn’t throw tradition out the window as they still called out the questions as they came up on the app. Dave kept his job and wasn’t replaced by the app which was good news.

Digital transformation is picking up pace people, many non-IT based industries are beginning to experiment in hope of unlocking new huge revenue streams from innovative digital services, often these new services are entirely different to the established business model and can transform a company’s fortunes, small to medium businesses alike.
This is the main reason many organisations are beginning or are starting to innovate and apply tragedy to their approach based around the tech available today. To namedrop a few of recognisable businesses like Uber, Netflix, Airbnb who have already pathed the way and gave birth to the digital revolution in their own fields. My local is certainly up there on that list as they are a first in their own industry and this is again part of the key message.
Businesses who have longer history cannot afford to remain the same, they need to adopt the same agile, innovative approach to remain competitive with the “born digital” players and stand out in the way they do things.

This blog won’t help you win the next pub quiz, but it may offer some insight in how to get ahead of the game in your respective industry, something to mull over when you next call in to your local. Cheers

 

Jason Gardner

Marketing Assistant at risual

About the author