Why digital transformation is not all about the tech?

Nowadays Digital Transformation is associated with innovation, technology and new production processes such as IoT, learning and AI. No doubt these phenomenas are the enablers of the digital transformation, however, while many management consultants would advice to invest in new technologies for business growth and development, I would say that it's people that businesses need to invest.

In my opinion, people are the main drivers of digital transformation. First, in many ways people can connect with other people better than machines currently can as well as people are still an important part of machines work meaning that it hard to find technology that functions purely without needing human's interaction. Secondly, people posses critical thinking. Even though computers are able to process way more data than humans, a person is still needed to maximise the benefit of AI and Machine Learning. And thirdly, people have talents, which means that they are unique and can benefit to businesses way more than standardised machines.

What I would like to emphasise with my thoughts is that most changes and transformations are hard, especially digitalisation, because it's bringing new innovative ideas, to which people are adapting slowly, it brings a lot unknowns, especially for the older generation workers and it changes peoples lives and ways of working. That's why it is important to drive digital transformation through people. That is why in my opinion first and foremost it is important to transform companies' culture and processes, allowing space for the future thinking mindset to set in before deciding what digital tools to use. In other words, allowing people to be the change, drive technology, and create organisations towards the future that they envision and not the other way around.