5 ACEs Framework of Digital- #3 of Year In Review

In the second part of the Year in Review series, we spoke about the acceleration of digital transformation. However, not everyone has a similar understanding of what we mean by digital adoption. Hence, it is a good idea to develop a shared understanding before we close the year and step into the next one. I have created the ‘5 ACEs Framework of Digital’ and let us see how the events in the previous year stack up against this framework.

5 ACEs Framework – the Five A’s

This framework creates a 5 step maturity model, consisting of the following five stages. Let us look at each of the stages and the forces at play. You can quickly check out this overview of the 5 ACEs framework to provide you a context before we dive into the details.

Stage 1 – Availability

The first stage of Availability is the basic layer of technology adoption. It is defined by the ability to access information. One would imagine that most people in the world would have already solved this problem by now. However, the pandemic exposed the glaring chinks in our armor, even at the first stage of the 5 ACEs framework.

Since everyone was forced to work remotely, availability took a whole new meaning. New challenges included poor internet bandwidth, lack of home infrastructure and sharing computing devices with family members, including children for online classes.

The Business Continuity Plans (BCP) were typically designed to support an abnormal situation for a few days. They were not geared to handle situations such as these. As a result, a wide range of solutions followed suit. Some organizations shipped desktops and laptops to their employee’s homes. People upgraded their internet connections. Applications moved to the cloud for better user accessibility and experience.

Applications – Stage 2 of the Five ACEs Framework

The year will always be remembered as a watershed year in the history of cloud based applications. The comfort, psychological and physiological, that people had with on-prem (hosted on premises) systems gave way to large scale adoption of cloud based technologies. While this transition had already happened for younger organizations, it was a monumental shift for traditional organizations.

A wide range of cloud based models shot into prominence, with organizations implementing SaaS (software as a service), PaaS (platform as a service), IaaS (infrastructure as a service) and indeed, all kinds of XaaS models (anything as a service).

The above trend is not reversible and will keep gaining momentum over time. Gartner has identified the ‘Composable Enterprise’ as a meta trend in it’s Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies for 2020. Modular cloud-based applications will exchange information using micro-services to create highly flexible systems. It was nice to have a one on one call with their leading analysts, and validate that our thinking on the systems architecture resonated with their vision.

Stage 3 – Automation

The third stage of maturity is Automation. We saw divergent trends in the past year with respect to automation.

On one hand, there was a beeline for automation technologies that reduced the physical risk for the workforce. Robots appeared across all spheres of our lives and the images of robots serving food in a Chinese quarantine facility remain etched in my memory.

On the other hand, there is a growing concern around the consequences of automation. A World Without Work has become a cause of concern. Daniel Susskind’s book by this name was shortlisted for the FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year. We certainly need to re-examine how we respond to technology and automation.

Augmentation – Stage 4 of the Five ACEs Framework

The next stage of maturity requires us to take the leap from automation to intelligent augmentation. Here, we see technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (AI, ML and NLP) augmenting the workforce.

In the previous part of this Year in Review series, we examined the Google Search trends for Digital. We noticed that the search volumes skyrocketed in the month of March. Let us now take a look at the worldwide Google Search trends for ‘Artificial Intelligence’. Contrary to the earlier trend, the search volumes nosedived in exactly the same period. This has been the story of the year!

Stage 5 – Alliances

The fifth ace of the digital maturity framework requires one to step beyond organizational boundaries. The last stage involves alliances of organizations coming together to create hitherto unseen business models and system architectures.

The pandemic has had a universal impact on the entire world in 2020. Consequently, most of us have realized that we are all in it together. We can apply this realization while devising our digital strategy. Since we can’t win the battle alone, it is wiser to join complementary forces and emerge stronger.

Future Outlook Along The 5 ACEs Framework

We saw the world stepping back to the initial stages of the 5 ACEs framework during the previous year. This reminds me of one of Nouriel Roubini aka Professor Doom’s sessions that I attended this year. He warned of a K-shaped economic recovery, highlighting the increasing inequality. Similarly, the digital landscape is heading for increasing inequalities. Hence, we need to get our digital landscape in shape for the future.

The stakes are higher than ever!

Year in Review

Check out the master article for the Year in Review that contains links to all the other posts in the series. Bookmark the page on the browser to read more about each of the 20 thoughts from the past year and lessons for the future.

Comment below to let me know which aces you pulled out this year!

About The Author

Rajiv Maheshwari is a business and start-up advisor, and the co-founder of From The Experts Mouth. He is a management professional with over 25 years of experience, and worked as CEO for a decade, and in leadership roles with NYSE listed companies such as Accenture and WNS.

He is a Chartered Accountant and MBA (Director’s Merit List from IIM Bangalore) and an autodidact, who is on the path of self-directed life long learning and sharing. He is a thought leader, author and keynote speaker and has developed several frameworks to bridge the gap between academia and industry.