“Digital” gets used a lot. Usually by people who aren’t quite sure what they mean, in conversations with people who also aren’t quite sure what they mean. The result is a lot of nodding, a few buzzwords, and not much clarity.
Here’s a definition I’ve been using since 2020. It’s ten words:
Customer-led and data-driven automation to create new value.
It sounds simple. That’s intentional. Let me break it down.
Customer-Led
Not customer-facing. Not customer-friendly. Customer-led.
This means the customer’s actual problem drives what you build. Not the internal processes you want to automate, not the system you already have that needs a new front end, not the channel your organisation finds convenient. The customer’s problem. Solved properly, end to end.
Data-Driven
“Data-driven” is another phrase that gets abused, but here it means something specific: you use validated evidence — analytics, feedback, experimentation — to guide what you build and how you build it.
It’s not about which technologies you use. It’s about making decisions with data rather than instinct, assumption, or HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion).
Automation
This is where technology does the work. Routine processes run themselves. Human involvement is reserved for exceptions, judgement calls, and the things that genuinely require a person.
Getting automation right frees people to do the things technology can’t — and it scales in a way that human effort doesn’t.
Create New Value
This is the bit most “digital” initiatives miss. Replacing an existing process with a digital version of the same process isn’t transformation — it’s digitisation. The goal here is something new: a product, service, or experience that couldn’t have existed before, and that genuinely changes what’s possible for your customers.
What It’s Not
A few clarifications on adjacent terms:
- Digitisation — converting something physical into a digital format. Scanning documents. Photographing records. Useful, not transformative.
- Digitalisation — improving existing processes using digital technology. Better, but still working within the existing model.
- Digital Transformation — reimagining the business entirely. Closer, but easy to say without meaning anything specific.
- Digital (as defined above) — all four elements together, pointed at a customer problem, with the intent to create something genuinely new.
Is it a perfect definition? No. Does it help cut through the fog in a room full of people who’ve been using “digital” as a synonym for “good”? Consistently, yes.