This document outlines a digital strategy for executing faster, better, and cheaper through digital transformation. It discusses aligning strategies at the business, operations, and IT levels as the "holy trinity" and setting a target operating model with KPIs to measure success. The strategy involves creating business cases, analyzing gaps in processes and infrastructure, and aligning operations and IT to business needs through agile development and a clear architecture. Aligning these three levels ensures end-to-end visibility and the ability to course correct throughout execution of the digital strategy.

1. Digital Strategy 2015 - Execute faster, better
and cheaper
Digital Transformations are enabling Organizations to Differentiate at the
front ( sells, marketing services) & standardization at the back (increase
efficiency and profitability through operational efficiency and process
simplification).
Digital Strategies are executed at 3 levels, i.e. Business, Operations and IT. I
call them the Holy Trinity.
While digital Transformation initiatives vary in shape, size and complexities, it
is important to align all 3 layers to execute Digital Strategy:-
1. Business strategy- CEO, CMO, CSO driven - For example RBS
wants to be the number 1 bank based on NPS by 2020; Delivering a
world class Omni-channel customer experience through Self-service,
mobile banking, social customer service etc .
2. Operations & Infrastructure strategy- COO driven - For example
Barclays want to reduce Total Operating cost in Billions through
TRANSFORM Program, A Large Bank implementing Global standards
for customer on-boarding, A large credit card issuer - adopting Agile
Infrastructure strategy using CLOUD to reduce time to market .
3. IT & architecture and technology strategy - CIO driven -For
example large Global Bank wants to reduce IT footprint by 50%, a Large
South African Bank wants to standardize Channel and Integration
Architecture to delivery better and cheaper .
The success of digital strategy lies in putting together a TOM (Target
Operating Model) to set up the right environment and KPI's and measure
them at all levels. Unable to do that results in Initiatives getting lost in
translation. Hence, while executing Digital strategy one should consider
following aspects to deliver faster, better and cheaper:-
1. Business case Creation and prioritize initiatives

2. 1.1. Deep Market research - External stakeholder interview, customer &
marketing analytics, CRM analytics, multi-channel analysis, market trends,
surveys, competition analysis
1.2. Idea generation based on persona driven framework for different
customer segments and products
1.3. Start small - POC, Lab services for rapid innovation
1.4. Portfolio assessment, prioritization, ownerships and sponsors
1.5. Business value streams defined with Success criteria, KPI, milestones,
budgets
2. Operation & infrastructure alignment
2.1. Gap analysis to understand Business process and Operations change -
Optimize business process, reduce manual interventions, improve automation
and STPs
2.2. Measurement & analyze operation KPI - Monitoring, alerts, reporting,
continuous improvements etc
2.3. Agile infrastructure strategy - Private, Hybrid or Public CLOUD
infrastructure. On-demand infrastructure provisioning, charge back and
administration policies
2.4. DevOps strategy - IT and Operations alignment - set up an
Infrastructure for an agile development process
2.5. Operation work stream defined with success criteria, KPI, milestones,
budgets and Service Owners
3. IT alignment
3.1. Gap analysis of technical architecture to meet the needs of the business
plan and roadmap across IT platforms - Online portal, mobile, social media,
customer service, collaboration, web analytics, marketing optimization,
content & campaign management, Integration & API strategy, Business
process simplification and Payments (Cash & Liquidity management,

3. Sanctions Screening, alternate payments etc.), real time customer & marketing
analytics and offer generation (Big data)
3.2. SDLC Process alignment - set up a Agile development process
3.3. Clear Rent-Buy-Build strategy - RENT - SaaS, BPaaS platforms; BUY -
Lending, payments, cards, savings, trade, derivatives etc; Build Strategy -
Architecture for channels, Integration, BPM, Information, Big data design
standards
3.4. Set a Design and Architecture Governance model
3.5. IT work streams defined with success criteria, KPI, milestones,
budgets and Program owner
Achieving a synergy among Business, Operations and IT ensures there is an
end to end visibility and transparency, it also increases the ability to course
correct when things go wrong, ensure equilibrium among Holy trinity to
execute faster, better and cheaper.