Why ‘Digital’ is So Hard to understand?

For the past years (particularly after 2009–10), the chorus of people saying ‘Digital’ with almost any other word seems to be growing louder and louder.

Though I was a CS Major at Engineering and then have been working in the Tech industry (both in services and products) for a long time, I was not sure what the heck they all meant by ‘Digital’.

Not really the ‘literal’ or ‘technical’ meaning of it. I of course knew those (thanks for asking). But when someone says ‘Digital Transformation’, ‘Indian IT Cos missed the Digital wave’ etc., it was thoroughly confusing.

After all, if you go by the meaning of ‘Digital’, isn’t the raison d’être of Indian IT cos ‘Digital’? I mean, what else do they do? Even if you take their customers (say banks!), what is special about ‘Digital’ now? They have been computerizing their systems for a few decades now and that is how they became Indian IT Cos’ customers, no?

Now, what is the difference between ‘Computerization’ and ‘Digitization’?

On this lazy afternoon, with a bit of googling, I realized what ‘Digital’ means:

• Computerization meant Enterprise Apps — That is, all the computers that the companies bought and installed ERP systems for their employees to use.
• Digital transformation means — Whatever you did with computerization PLUS all B2C/B2B stuff as well. That is, you build information tech enabled systems (websites, apps etc.) that your customers also use.

So, for a bank, computerization in the 80s or 90s meant installing computers in the branches, networking them and so on. But digital transformation means setting up online transactions, mobile apps, marketing through social media and the like. Enterprise (used within a company) versus Customer (not just B2C, even B2B). Get it?

It is fairly obvious when you consider traditional marketing and digital marketing. Traditional marketers too had computers, designed stuff over photoshop etc. But they reached their customers only through offline channels. While a digital marketer does all things a traditional marketer does with respect to creating the creatives but reaches out to the users through a different channel (with its own nuances of course).

It does feel a bit silly after seeing the Digital marketing example to have even gotten confused but believe me, it is not obvious till you think through. Don’t fool yourself ;-)

Every time you encounter ‘Digital’ from now, put this distinction of Enterprise versus Customer and you will feel better.

PS:: With respect to Indian IT cos not getting digital, with this definition, it is clear why they did not succeed. They lack B2C skills — particularly in ‘user experience design’. This, coupled with the ‘Cloud’ technologies (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) have essentially caused major hurdles for them.