Digital Transformation is NOT about technology or the product that you buy or the software that you install. It is about changing the way you think about your business. It is about reinvention. It is a corporate culture revolution. It is about the art of the possible. This is our Star Trek moment – “To boldly go …” Hein Pretorius
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Digital transformation is THE opportunity for organisations to truly understand the patterns that drive their business and to use this information for reinvention and enhanced competitiveness and customer centricity. Hein Pretorius
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A rethink and indeed reinvention is required in how companies are audited. True automation and true automated auditing must be better than what we have now. Truly embracing Digital Transformation will allow humans to focus on human interaction with clients and suppliers, automation will look after the transactional side of things. Hein Pretorius
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In the near future, smart factories will be commonplace. Inside, intelligent industrial equipment, robots and people will be managed by AI to achieve efficiencies beyond those humanly possible. Outside, they’ll connect to other smart factories and logistics services to collaboratively align production levels across the supply chain with market demand. This is not science fiction. It’s happening right now. And companies that continue to depend on traditional production strategies will soon find themselves falling behind their automated competitors. Even so, a sudden leap from a legacy factory model to total maturity is both impractical and impossible. So how can you transition smoothly with minimal disruption to your finances and business? Hein Pretorius
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Data Science is no magic bullet. If you do not spend sufficient time understanding which question you want answered and then ensure that you have the relevant, clean data – Data Science WILL produce nonsensical results. Business context knowledge is critically important AND having a business solution driven approach will ensure sustainable value. Hein Pretorius
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A corporate culture of caring about data quality throughout the data value chain is probably the keystone to being prepared for the digital transformation journey. No amount of technology is going to fix bad data culture. Hein Pretorius
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I believe the days of large software companies, and integrators for that matter, focusing on selling software and services at all cost are numbered. Or it should be. Companies and countries that focus on enhancing business agility and on improving competitiveness are the ones that will thrive going forward. Technology is merely a tool to achieve a business goal. Too much emphasis is currently placed on software selection and implementation and too little on serving the business purpose. Hein Pretorius
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I think the most important topic in project kick off meetings is the project purpose and how that serves the business purpose. Not half enough time is spent on aligning the project team and stakeholders behind the project vision. Hein Pretorius
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It is important for organisations to understand that a 4IR or digital transformation project are just another enterprise transformation project. All the same rules apply.
- It must be grounded in business strategy and not a gadget fest.
- Change management is even more important than with other enterprise transformation projects. The perceived threat to jobs is as real as it is unfounded. Continuous learning, training and embracing the opportunity that digital transformation presents are critical to success. Jobs will change, they will only be threatened if you do not adapt.
- You have to think big but act incrementally in an agile fashion.
- You must place emphasis on benefits realization follow through to guard against “gadget” projects.
- You must focus on enhancing customer centricity and business agility as core strategies.
- Garbage in – garbage out still applies.
Hein Pretorius
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Data is the new oil, it has been said. But, data is only valuable if you have the correct data at the right time and of sufficient quality. Hein Pretorius
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Onpro Consulting is a business and technology strategy firm with deep roots in International ERP and Integrated Enterprise software projects. We bring this deep experience in the delivery of business transformation projects to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). We specialise in taking our clients on a digital transformation journey that aims to reinvent the way you do business. Hein Pretorius
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The challenge faced by most businesses in the new digital era will be to not only transform their customer experience, but importantly, their core business processes. A fundamentally new and innovative way is needed, using artificial intelligence to analyse business data to determine the most efficient ways to automate critical business outcomes. Most organisations need a viable alternative to their current expensive, yet ineffective ERP solutions, in addition traditional robotic process automation (RPA) has not delivered on its promises. We see two key failures of operational processes and process automation – the inefficiency of business processes shaped around outdated human designed roles and the procedural automation of the very same inefficient processes. Our approach is to solve business problems, we use machine intelligence to do this in the most efficient way possible. It’s all about business outcomes and managing business risk. Hein Pretorius
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The opportunity presented by Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) thinking, technologies and concepts, is to challenge the paradigm of traditional business processes and the need for human-designed roles in how businesses are managed. The role of ERP and of admin and compliance overhead in a business needs to be rightsized. 4IR will deliver real automation and business agility and will empower employees to focus on the delivery of high-quality service or product to customers. This is the business purpose, the reason the company exists, after all. Hein Pretorius
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