---
title: "Digital \"Transformation\": A False Proposition!"
description: "Digitalization must be concrete. The author argues that while digitalization is important and a trend, calling it \"transformation\" is unnecessary and even a false proposition, because digitalization is scenario-specific and problem-oriented, not an abstract, holistic shift. Successful digitalization starts with specific problems, uses tools to solve them, and is driven by incremental gains."
author: "任文青Andy"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2023-03-03"
language: "en"
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---

# Digital "Transformation": A False Proposition!

> Digitalization must be concrete. The author argues that while digitalization is important and a trend, calling it "transformation" is unnecessary and even a false proposition, because digitalization is scenario-specific and problem-oriented, not an abstract, holistic shift. Successful digitalization starts with specific problems, uses tools to solve them, and is driven by incremental gains.

#### **Digitalization: It Must Be Concrete**
Over the past year, I have written many cases about digitalization. Recently, a friend added me on WeChat and said we should discuss the topic of digital transformation sometime. I said that digitalization can be discussed, but I don't know what digital "transformation" specifically means. Currently, digitalization is very hot, and many people are talking about digital transformation. But in my view, digitalization is important and is a trend, but at least for now, talking about transformation may be unnecessary; it might even be a false proposition. Why do I say this? **First, digitalization must be concrete.** Talking about digital transformation makes us imagine that there is an abstract, holistic problem of enterprise digitalization. But in reality, **digitalization is always scenario-based, always combined with specific problems; there is no abstract digitalization problem.** **Second, digitalization is about using tools to genuinely solve enterprise problems.** Talking about transformation implies an overall directional shift. But an enterprise is like a ship: how to turn? Where to turn? What if we turn wrong? We don't know! But we feel we have to turn, so we adopt various digital systems and plan various digital projects. As a result, leaders talk about digital transformation every day, while employees complain: What digitalization? It increases workload, wastes time, and is useless. **Your business hasn't changed, your battlefield hasn't changed, so where does transformation come from? Even if there are changes, they are based on technology, industry changes, and business logic, not so-called digital transformation.** So I say, digitalization can be discussed, but I don't know what digital "transformation" is. Digitalization is important, and every enterprise talks about it, but how to do it? The question is too big to answer. However, after studying many enterprise digitalization cases, I have summarized three sentences to share: **First, entry point: problem-oriented. Second, productization: experience-centered. Third, driving force: increment-driven.** Now, let me explain each one.
#### **Entry Point: Problem-Oriented**
Once, I chatted with a person in charge of enterprise digitalization, and he mentioned various obstacles in promoting digitalization in his company. I found that many companies now have digitalization departments, but the effect of promoting digitalization is not satisfactory. Why? An independent digitalization department is a bit far from actual scenarios. Its task is to promote digital "transformation," but it has no handle, or it promotes projects it thinks are important, but the actual business departments don't agree. So, obstacles abound. Digitalization is not abstract but concrete. How to be concrete? **Problem-oriented is the entry point for digitalization.** The successful digitalization practices I have seen are all problem-oriented. For example, Liby. Based on the "Li Gou Ying" mini-program, it realized online B2B business, improving transaction efficiency while maximizing supply chain transparency. It turned mini-program live streaming into a channel operation tool, improving communication efficiency among channel nodes while connecting the F2B2b2C chain.
Image source: Internet Why can it do this? Because there are problems in actual business: distributors have long capital cycles, and due to the pandemic, traditional offline ordering meetings cannot be held normally. What to do? The distributor channel is an opaque "black box." Every year, 400 million yuan is invested, but ROI cannot be calculated. How to solve it? **Using digital tools to solve specific problems allows digitalization to take root and grow.** Another example is Telunsu. It has accumulated 16 million+ fans, 4 million+ core members, and 600,000+ purchasing users. The problems it faces are: audience differentiation and media fragmentation. How to communicate precisely with consumers through digital means? How to identify core brand users, increase stickiness, gain insights into new consumption demands and marketing communication points, and feed back into brand building? Some companies now integrate digitalization colleagues and business colleagues into one team, which is based on this consideration. This is the first sentence I share: **Oriented by specific business problems, this is the entry point for digitalization.**
#### **Productization: Experience-Centered**
#### **Driving Force: Increment-Driven**
#### **Final Words**
The concept of digitalization is broad. When everyone says this word, often they are not talking about the same thing. So, this article summarizes a few thoughts, which are incomplete and for reference only. Finally, why am I reluctant to talk about digital "transformation"? Besides the reasons mentioned earlier, there is another: **Digitalization has only a starting point, no end; it is a process, always in progress. Don't even expect to reach a so-called "transformed" state in the foreseeable future.**
Currently, our cognition and understanding of digitalization should mainly come from practice.
Because of this, peer exchange and discussion are very important. **From April 6 to 8, 2023, the 2023 China FMCG Innovation Conference will be grandly held in [Chengdu].**
On April 7, two digitalization special forums will be held: **["Digital Intelligence · New FMCG -- New World of Digital Intelligence in China's FMCG Industry"]** and **["Whole Industry Chain Digital Innovation"]**. If you are engaged in digitalization-related work or are about to enter the digitalization field, don't miss this professional-level event!**


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