#539 Why 70% of Digital Transformations Fail — And How to Fix Them with Tory Bjorklund

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Mehmet: Hello and welcome back to the presence of the CTO Show in Mehmet today. I'm very pleased joining me, Tory Bjorklund. He is a veteran I would call like technology expert, that he's joining me today to talk about a lot of [00:01:00] topics which are important, but I don't like to steal much from my guests, uh, when, when I introduced them, so Tory.

You know, the floor is yours. Please tell us more about, you know, yourself, your background, your journey at what you're currently up to, and then we can start the discussion from there. So the floor is yours. 

Tory: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you very much, Miette. I appreciate being on your podcast. Um, so yeah, I guess, uh, as you mentioned, I'm a veteran of, uh.

Both manufacturing, software development and con consulting industries. Um, I've been kind of on both sides of the table, so to speak, with consulting, um, as well as, uh, co-founding, um, other companies. Um, kind of been a serial entrepreneur throughout my life. Um, this, uh, currently working on my seventh company and, uh, what the company is called, Victoria Fide which is Latin for Success Assurance.

And. The intent is really to help companies to prepare to succeed with digital [00:02:00] transformation. And, uh, we can talk about the terrible statistics of failure with digital transformation and things like that. Um, but that's, that's the genesis of the book. Uh, as you, as I say, I've been on both sides of that, both, um, a CTO of a manufacturing company, uh, a FinTech company, CTO of a data company.

So, uh, uh, and then, you know, utilizing consultants in those, uh, positions, um, was quite a frustrating experience. Then being on the other side of the table as a consultant, um, and looking, working alongside other companies like IBM for example, over the years. Um, and watching these colossal failures happen, um, I decided that, uh, we really needed to change, change the way consulting is done, and, and that's the genesis for this company, Victoria Fide.

Mehmet: Great, and thank you again, Tory, for being here with me today. Um, kind [00:03:00] of, you know, because you mentioned about digital transformation and you've been in in the industry for a long time. Tory, I would like to. With you to walk people maybe through a history, let's say. Right. Um, but I, I'm a big believer that technology is a way to enhance business all the time.

Tory: Yes. 

Mehmet: Now, from your perspective and being in the field for a long time, like, do you see, let's start from this historically, have you seen that? Really technology was a push for business to go forward, or was it like it's, you know, the business was searching for certain solution and the tech happened to be that solution?

I'm trying to see which one pushed more. The other one. 

Tory: Right. '

Mehmet: cause I think this will lead us later to, to the digital transformation and, you know, all what happened, uh, later. 

Tory: Yeah, [00:04:00] so really I believe that it's been, uh, it, it depends on history. So, uh, there were times, for example, in the early nineties, um, well, and actually the late eighties there was, uh, uh, and I was consulting and I started my consulting company in 1987.

So I've been doing this for a long time. And in the late eighties there was a big push for just in time inventory and things like that. And, um, and so companies were really trying to. Improve in different ways. And then the massive, uh, push for process improvement and quality came in the nineties. And in both of those cases, it took technology to drive that, but there were really business decisions behind that, business objectives behind that.

And the technology was just a tool to get there. It switched in the late nineties with the.com bubble. It was basically, Hey, all I gotta do is. Get this technology, uh, you know, get a website up and whatever. There was just so much [00:05:00] focus on technology rather than the business benefit of that technology.

And so then the technology became the tail wagging the dog as it were. Uh, it that kind of came back the other direction in the two thousands. But right now. With, uh, ai, for example, uh, we're back in that cycle where businesses are saying, oh, what's our AI strategy? We need ai, ai, ai, you know, and before that there was blockchain and, uh, and before that it was cloud.

Computing, we've gotta get in the cloud. Uh, you know, so the last really probably 10 years, there's been, uh, a ba basically a push to have technology driving things rather than business need using technology. 

Mehmet: I would like Tory to, you know, deep dive into this. Right. Yeah. And, um, because you, you, you, you work in the manufacturing also as well.

Yeah. So, [00:06:00] and I think, you know, it was one of the first industries where, you know, people started to say, Hey, I need to digitize, you know, my business and enterprises. So planning solutions, ERPs started to. To come to the picture as the first one. And you know, when I prepared I, I've seen like you, you, you said like se 70% of these implementations fail.

Um, what are like some. What are some of the traps I would say that you, you've seen like organizations they fall into when they start this journey? What goes wrong usually, Tory? 

Tory: Yeah. Well there's a few different things, but we already mentioned one, and that's what I call a technology first mentality.

That's a trap. You need to have a business first technology. You have to have a business case. You have to focus on that business case and stay focused on that business case. Uh, let the technology come. As a, as a purpose or as a tool [00:07:00] to accomplish business purposes. The second thing that I see is people think of it as a technology implementation, uh, or a technology project, so they have it.

Driving it, uh, which, you know, we're, we're, we're on the CTO show, right? Um, yeah. The, the technology, the chief technology officers really do wanna drive the technology projects, but, uh, good CTOs and CIOs will really be aligning technology to the business objectives. Um, but it really is not a technology project.

So even if they're. Trying to accomplish a business objective. If you treat it as a technical initiative, it's gonna fail. And, and then the third thing is really not preparing the organization for the change that is coming and why it needs to happen and, uh, uh, what it's gonna look like and the impact it's gonna have on the, you [00:08:00] know, on the jobs of the people and those sorts of things.

So, so they really. Uh, end up dealing with a lot of fear, uncertainty, and dread. And, uh, so that's, that's really kind of the third thing is the lack of preparation. And then if they actually successfully get live, then there's a whole set of steps that they need to take to sustain the change to keep from people, from just going back to what they've always done.

But, you know, try to make the technology do what they've always done in the past rather than allowing it to transform the company. Um, and, and so sustaining the change, uh, is another area of focus that needs to happen. Um, so those are the four main. Mistakes that I see, and it really all kind of comes under the area of leadership.

It's, it's, it's leaders not taking the role that they should be taking in, in the business leaders, the CEOs and COOs, and then CIOs and [00:09:00] CTOs, you know, really taking that leadership role, um, in the transformation. 

Mehmet: Cool. Now. Tory, like if, if they started from, from a wrong start, let's call it this way, would there be still a way to fix things?

Tory: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 

Mehmet: Yeah. Or, or, or if I want to ask the question different way, like what are like some of the preparations that you advise, you know, leaders to do? Now I'm not talking about only about digital transformation, just also mention they are transformation. So, so if I'm a business owner today and I want to, to take my company to the next level by, you know.

Adopting the latest and greatest. There must be like some homework that I have to do with my team. So, so if and if I started wrong, how I can, you know, shift back and, and, and go back to the right track. 

Tory: So that's really kind of two questions, right? How do you start, right? Yes. And [00:10:00] then what do you do if you've started wrong?

And I'll start with how do you start, right? And really the answer to that is to define what you're trying to accomplish from a business perspective and really business vision. And so it's a matter of what do you want your business to look like? What are you trying to accomplish? So for example, if you're trying to scale.

That's gonna be a different kind of a, of an approach than if you're trying to add a new, uh, sales channel, for example, or add a new set of products or merge with another company. Uh, you know, uh, mergers and acquisitions are a whole different approach than, than trying to scale through added sales. So. You first need to say, what is our strategy?

What's our business strategy? And those business objectives? And make sure that your technology then is gonna align with that. So that's how you start, right? Um, and, and then basically, [00:11:00] uh, you need to put together a roadmap, a technology roadmap, to align with that business roadmap and that technology roadmap does take some technical expertise that you bring in or that you have in house.

To address what technologies are we gonna need to implement? How do we break those down into projects and some form of a project portfolio. Or hopefully if you're more of an agile, uh, scaled, agile company, for example, you're looking at this as products, uh, and capabilities within the company. Once you build that, that, uh, technology roadmap to match your business roadmap, that's when you start getting into the execution.

So don't start execution until you have a clear vision and a clear roadmap and the right people to execute on that roadmap. And that's really what all the preparation is about. Now if you are in the middle and we come in very often into the middle of some kind of a, [00:12:00] let's say, an ERP implementation and, um, you know, the original estimate was it's gonna be, uh, uh, say 24 months and a million and a half in revenue for.

For a small company, let's say 200 million in top line revenue. And, and so they're doing this ERP implementation and pretty soon before you know it, they're $3 million into it. They're, they're three years into it, and they're being told they're only halfway to the finish line at that point. You know, something's come off the rails.

You're, you need to do something differently. You can't keep doing what you're doing. And really the first thing to do is to stop what you're doing and assess where the, you know, what's the root cause of these overruns and, and really do a, uh. Clear assessment and an honest assessment of where the problems lie and start again.

Um, and companies are really reluctant [00:13:00] to do that. But, but that is, it's really imperative, um, to, to stop what you're doing and decide what you're gonna do differently before you continue spending money.

Mehmet: Sorry, I would ask a little bit theoretical question. I would say, is there a point of no return? Like, have you seen any point where really things drifted so much that actually it can be fixed? And if, if, if we reach that phase, like really we are stuck, we can't do anything. Or someone should take the responsibility as executive and say, Hey guys, like we did something wrong.

We need to revamp the whole thing. 

Tory: Yeah. Okay. So. My experience is that what I see is that it's not a drifting to a point of no return. In other words, it was always on the wrong track. Um, it, their, their process and systems were perfectly aligned to get 'em [00:14:00] where they are, which is, uh, squarely in the ditch.

Um, and in those cases, yes, that, that there is a point where you just, you have to pull the plug. Um, but that's probably. Less than 30% of the time, I would say the majority of the time, um, you, you haven't reached that point of no return. And, and really what it comes down to is you have to look at what you're trying to accomplish and what the benefit to the company is.

And then you have to look at what's the ROI on, what you're tr what you're going to do. So if you actually accomplish that and you've already invested, let's say in our scenario, you've already invested $3 million, um. Is there any ROI left to to be gained? And if there isn't, frankly, if what you're trying to do is an incremental change to your company that's not gonna have a significant change a, a transformation of your company and you've spent $3 million on it, it's not gonna be worth spending another [00:15:00] $3 million if you're not gonna get a, a return on it, right?

So at that point, you, you, you have reached the point of no return, but. Having honest numbers is the biggest difficulty that I see. Um, 'cause really what, what happens is in that scenario I was laying out, for example, and you say, uh, we've already spent more than we originally anticipated, you know, by 50% more.

Um, and now we're thinking we're gonna spend another. You know, the same amount again, there's a good chance that you're really only 20% complete, not 50% complete. And more often than not, what happens is people say, oh, we're almost there. We're 80% done. You know, well, okay, if I, you know, if I just spend a little bit more and get us over the hump, then that's fine, and you end up finding out that you're, you're being told you're 80% done.

For another year, you know, you're, you've been a year over and now you spend another year trying to get that [00:16:00] last 20%, and you're still only 80% done according to the numbers that, that your team and the consultants are telling you. So that's the problem is it's like that, that, that proverbial frog in the water, right?

It, it's, it's getting hotter and hotter and you don't realize you, you aren't getting any closer to being done. Um, and you know, that's why you, you really have to stop what you're doing and decide to do something differently or, or you'll, you will get to that point financially where there is no return.

You just need to pull the plug in. Stop spending money 

Mehmet: right now. Of course, you know, and the reason I, you know, deep dive with you, with, with all these problems and, you know, their, their, uh, effect on the business is to try to see. How we can avoid or maybe solve this. And I know like you have developed what you call the process for transformational change.[00:17:00] 

Tory: Yes. 

Mehmet: I want you, Tory, to, to walk us through this little bit. 

Tory: Sure. 

Mehmet: And you know, like maybe there are some key pillars for that. Maybe some, some of, you know, the, the, the, the, the key things that you focus on in, in this uh, uh, framework. 

Tory: Sure. Absolutely. So basically you take the framework, it's broken into three different, uh, uh, stages, we call them.

And those three stages is to prepare. Then execute and then sustain. And I've mentioned the preparation and the sustain. Um, and, but in the prepare, uh, basically what you, you need to do is make sure you've clearly defined what your objectives are, as we talked about, and that you've put together a clear roadmap of how you're gonna get there, both from a business perspective as well as from a technology perspective.

Um. You do really, uh, clear planning on your ROI, defining what your expectations [00:18:00] actually are and get a really solid budget around your spend, as well as projections around what the return is gonna be on that. And what you have to do is clearly define what success looks like. So for example. I've come into, uh, an ERP re-implementation, and their objective, um, was simply, uh, to get accuracy in their inventory.

Their inventory was just, it was never accurate. And, um, they had, they had 28,000 inventory adjustments in a 12 month period of time, and, and they're, they wanted to fix that, so, so then every question we asked. As we were going through the, the re-implementation was what impact is this gonna have on inventory accuracy and anything else that people tried to put in?

We just said, no, that's not part of the objective, what we're trying to accomplish. So, so you have to have really clear objectives. Not often [00:19:00] by the way, is it that targeted, but um, in some cases that is, and then. Then part of the prepare is build. So you wanna build the, your team. Um, you wanna, uh, particularly building your team, which means clearly defining roles and responsibilities for the initiative.

And the initiative may be multiple projects that may be multiple years with multiple phases. Um. But you wanna, you wanna clearly define what the, what the project and, and, uh, portfolio looks like, what the phases are, and build the team and the responsibilities clearly define those. And then finally, the enablement you assess the team needs is there training and things that you need to do ahead of time to make sure that your team is gonna be able to a adequately exercise, uh, e execute.

So that's the, that's the. Prepare kind of the four steps of prepare and then the execute. I don't need to talk a [00:20:00] lot about that because really the execution is pretty mature in the industry and it's seldom the place where things fail. Um, but we all know that, uh, an iterative, uh. You know, and slash agile, I'm, I'm a little cautious of using the Agile terminology because implementation sometimes are a little bit difficult to adhere to the, to the Agile principles.

Um, uh, but the values they can adhere to and use an iterative, uh, process. Um, that, you know, basically breaks down into four areas, assessing, design, creating, and then implementing. And you do that over and over again throughout the, throughout that project. But then the finally, or the initiative, which might be multiple projects, and then finally in the sustain, there's three areas of that, which is monitor.

Measure and maintain you, you wanna make sure that, did we hit our objectives? Um, for example, when you set up what success looks like, [00:21:00] you need to have metrics for that, that you measure that. And then after the implementation you say, have we hit those metrics? And if we haven't, what do we need to do to.

Hit those metrics. And the other thing you wanna monitor is make sure that people are adhering to the new processes. So process conformance is an important aspect of it. So those are things that you wanna be, you know, measuring, monitoring, and then you wanna do maintenance to, to continually update your, uh, your processes as you improve on them.

Uh, continually train people on the new processes and, and so forth. So, and then obviously maintaining the health of your system. 

Mehmet: Tory, who owns this? I mean, who, who, who is in charge of this? Like there must be someone 

Tory: Yeah. 

Mehmet: Who, who take at least, you know, ownership of. Making sure that everything is placed.

Tory: That's a great question. And, and oftentimes what'll happen is somebody that in the C-suite, CEO or COO will say will, will turn to their, [00:22:00] uh, you know, if they don't, if they have a CIO or A CTO, they'll turn to them and say, Hey. You know, take this on. Um, but oftentimes, uh, particularly we're, we're dealing with companies that are, say less than 500 million in top line revenue.

Oftentimes they don't even have, uh, an, uh, somebody in the C-suite, and so they're talking to their director of it or something like that and saying, Hey, take this on and let us know when it's done. That's not the right approach. What needs to really happen is you need to have a project sponsor that is at the C level that understands the business strategy and can align everything to that business strategy.

So my, my recommendation generally speaking is that you not have it related people, uh, owning it, but that the project bouncer be operational. Either the CEO or the COO If you have a, a chief operating officer, I prefer to have them manage it and not the financial [00:23:00] people by the way. Um, that's also, uh.

Oftentimes a, a recipe for failure. So not the CFO generally, CEO or COO would be my preference. Um, but really good CIOs can can handle that. It just depends whether they're technology first or business first, CIO or CTO. 

Mehmet: Cool. Now, another uh, thing we hear a lot Tory, is about, you know, like digital transformation or any transformation, and I think the world transformation by itself is, is problematic if you ask me, because people, they think transformation is a one time task.

It's our one time project. From your experience, like how much, you know this from lexicon perspective? Yeah. You know, it, it gave people this impression that, yeah, okay, let's say. I didn't have a CRM and ERP, and now I have, I'm done. Or for example, I move to the cloud. I'm done. Right. So you agree with me? So, [00:24:00] so for how we can, how we can change this.

Yeah. And why it should be a continuous, you call it end-to-end transformation. And it's not like a, a one time task or project or whatever. 

Tory: Right, so that's one of the reasons why our process is not called the process for Digital Transformation. It's called the Process for Transformational Change, and really it's focusing on changing the organization and actually fostering a culture of change and a and a culture of improvement.

Um, uh, you know, in a culture of excellence. And so really what we try to, uh, focus on is helping a company. Uh, and we, we, we say that we're preparing a company to succeed, and really what that looks like is building a culture that embraces. Change as a part of the DNA within the company. And the change, though not for the sake of change, but change for the [00:25:00] sake of becoming faster, better, smarter, or however you wanna look at that.

Um. That right now, that's an imperative for success in, in business, right? The, the disruption index, if you look at that, it's, it's on a logarithmic curve. I mean, it, it looks like the, the traditional hockey stick curve. I mean, it's just going soaring right now. And, and the disruption is amazing. So in order to survive in this environment, a company has to embrace the ability to be agile and change, uh, regularly.

Um, and so that's really, you have to look at it as a continuous process, not as a. An event. And what we tell companies is go live is really only the beginning of your journey. That is not the end of your journey. And um, it's really go, go live is just simply, okay, now we have the tools to be able to execute the transformation.

Now [00:26:00] the hard work begins of actually transforming the company. 

Mehmet: Tory, you mentioned AI at the beginning. From your perspective, how much this lack. Facilitated, made it easy or made things more complex and more headache now for transformation in general. 

Tory: Yeah. Um, 

Mehmet: is is like in any other sense, the people are thinking like AI is the solution for everything.

And this is, you know, it started to, you mentioned like, you know, at the beginning also, but how it's affecting the real transformation. Is it making it really easy? It's, it's like more headache 'cause I need to do something else now. What are you seeing? 

Tory: Yeah, so what I'm seeing is that it's making personal, individual transformation easier.

Um, but, uh, enterprise transformation, more difficult. Um, so in other words, you know, I use, I use ai. [00:27:00] Every day, pretty much all day long in all sorts of tasks. And it makes me a lot more efficient, um, in that, but it's not industrialized that, that's really not even tribal knowledge, it's personal knowledge that nobody else, uh, you know, has access to.

Um, and, and I might, you know, maybe I'll, I'll silo it and help a few other people understand how I'm using the tools and so forth, but that. That, uh, is not gonna help the company overall, um, in, in, but what's ended up happening is that, uh, because companies are looking at this as a technology first approach, you know, what's our AI strategy?

Uh, rather than saying, uh, how can AI help our business strategy, um, they. They, uh, it tends to actually be more difficult and more complex. And in fact, this, the, the statistics are bearing that out. Um, IEE magazine recently came out with a article that, [00:28:00] that claimed that 95% of digital transformation, uh, initiatives fail.

And, I mean, it's just right. It's just getting crazy. And, and the, the reason is because people are focused on the technology rather than on the business.

Mehmet: I think I've seen something similar from McKinsey, if I'm not mistaken, also like 80% or something of AI initiative. They're not seeing any ROI and. You know? 

Tory: Yeah, yeah. I, I, I just, I just, I just, uh, came across, I'm trying to remember. Oh, it's M-I-T-M-I-T, uh, just came out with a study that was, uh, you know, the, again, um, basically 5% of the projects reach the, uh, their ROI, um, their intended ROI, and you know, so that's, I mean.

That's not even a good batting average. You know, you wanna get at least 30% if you're, if, if you're looking at a batting average. But, um, yeah, so, you know, we. [00:29:00] We really have to change the way we're doing this. And that's what I really believe that consultants aren't, aren't helping in the industry. They, what needs to happen is, is consultants and, and companies.

I mean, consultants aren't gonna change as long as companies are willing to pay 'em big dollars per hour to put butts in seats and and whatnot. Uh, they're not gonna change. But really what needs to happen is companies need to say, Hey, I'm gonna pay you based on the value that you bring to my company. And, and get, you know, either, and, and like for us with our company, what, what we do is we have a lot of, uh, uh, fixed cost services that we provide.

And we say, we come in and we look at it and we say, well, we think that this can bring this value to you and we'll give you a guarantee that you'll see this value. Uh, and otherwise we'll keep working. Um, until you do see that value. And I think, you know, on a fixed cost. 

Mehmet: Yeah, I think I'm seeing like many people talking about this, especially, you know, with the move of, um.[00:30:00] 

You know, even from licensing perspective, so people will think, okay, we've paid like for cloud services, SaaS and all this, we're not seeing, so there are a lot of talk now about how even, you know, the whole technology industry might shift to this value-based pricing. Mm-hmm. Um, like I save you this, you pay me, let's say 10%, 20%, whatever.

And you know, because otherwise I'm not seeing. Real ROI quote of course, as we used to explain to before. Um, 

Tory: that's difficult. It's a difficult model to execute. Um, yeah, but I, I used to see a lot of consultants do it in the nineties, particularly process improvement consultants, because what they would do is come in and do an assessment of the K efficiencies and, and then get an agreement of the company that that truly is their efficiencies and what their costs are involved with that.

And then they say, okay. I'll help you execute. And then for, for every, you know, all the efficiencies that you gain, I [00:31:00] get a percentage of that. Um, and so, you know, over a year or something like that, and. You know, that's, that's a, that's a fair way to go. If the, I mean, for example, if you, if you could increase your efficiency by 30%, you would gladly give, uh, you know, 5% of that or 10% of that, uh, a way to get, you know, instead of 30% of 20% in increase, you know, it's still a significant increase.

Mehmet: Absolutely. Now, in these times, from your perspective, Tory. What kind of alignment should happen between C-T-O-C-I-O, whoever is in charge and the rest of the executive team? Mainly the CEO may also, maybe the COO, the chief operating officer. 

Tory: Yeah. 

Mehmet: What kind of alignment, like what kind of communication should, should be happening?

Tory: Yeah, I think that, um, first of all, the, the, uh, CIO or [00:32:00] CTO really needs to be in on the business strategy. They have to be fully aligned with the business strategy and, and then simply every conversation with the rest of the C-suite should be on here is how I believe the use of technology will help us accomplish the strategy.

But all measurement. Every measurement then goes back to the accomplishing of the strategy. Now, sometimes one of the things that happens is you find out that your strategy. This not act is not actually a good business strategy. Sometimes that happens, right? Um, but uh, that way it's not a failure if you actually implement on it from a technology perspective.

If you put in technology that helps accomplish the strategy, but that doesn't bring the added revenues or whatever the case is that was intended, it's not on the technology at that point. Um, but if it is a good strategy, then you know, the important part is that you're always [00:33:00] measuring against the business strategy.

And 

Mehmet: Right, 

Tory: you know, basically C-I-O-C-T-O. They need to be able to speak that strategy. They need to be able to, uh, uh, hold their team accountable to that strategy and, and hold, and then also hold the, the other C-suite to, to that strategy. Whoever is the, is the, uh, sponsor of the initiative needs to hold everybody accountable to the actual, uh, execution of Thera, the business strategy itself.

Mehmet: Right. It, it's like, 'cause at the end of the day, it's a partnership between all parties actually and everyone. 

Tory: Yeah. 

Mehmet: Uh, on the board. So, so that makes a lot of sense. Um, beside ai, uh, Tory, like. Any other technology you are bullish on these days, like, uh, and you're seeing like, really it might be kind of relief, at least, you know, for, for organizations or maybe it's gonna take businesses to the next level that you are excited [00:34:00] about now.

Uh. 

Tory: Well, this is gonna kind sound a little bit old school. Um, but I'll tell you what, what we see is not that many companies, surprisingly, few companies are taking advantage of the tools that are available. Um. From, uh, business planning perspective, uh, forecasting, uh, supply chain management, uh, MRP, you know, and actually every company, uh, of a decent size has implemented an ERP system, and yet they are not, you know, ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning.

They're not actually using the planning tools. In a way that, uh, that brings the advantage that they should have. It's, it's surprising to me. Um, and so frankly, instead of focusing on the next level of technology, uh, which is probably existing already in their ERP system, they should focus on how [00:35:00] can we take advantage of the tools that we already have.

To leverage those tools in a way that make us more efficient and more effective. You know, particularly if you're in, in, uh, uh, manufacturing, distribution, logistics, uh, you don't need the the next best thing. You, you really need to take advantage of everything you had. 

Mehmet: Um, you know, sometime people, they get surprised when, you know, they ask me for example about what, what, what's exciting in ai.

Yeah. And I, I, I answer them and, and I consider myself maybe old school as well, because I tell them guys back to basics. Right. You know, technology is always a tool that we use to solve business problems. 

Tory: Yeah. 

Mehmet: And I'm only excited about anything that Cut costs. 

Tory: Yeah. 

Mehmet: Increase revenue, enhance user experience, or reduce risks, right?

In general. Right. So it doesn't matter what is [00:36:00] it, right. 

Tory: And, and, and, uh, you know, integrated business planning is a really great way to, to cut costs and increase, uh, efficiencies. Um, but, you know, and, but let's not get this wrong. AI does have a capability to be a game changer. The thing is, it's not easy to make that happen.

Um. And if you aren't already using the tools, well that, that already exist, like I mentioned, forecasting and, and material requirements, um, capacity planning, those kinds of things. If you're not using those already, AI is not gonna be as helpful to you. On the other hand, if you are using those. And you've been, uh, gathering data because, because you've been using them, you'll have decent data that you can utilize.

AI can really be a game changer then in, in those cases for you. Um, and particularly if you're [00:37:00] manufacturer industrial ai, which, you know, everybody's focused on, on kind of the general gen generative ai, um, which is. Already a game changer, you know, particularly for marketing and, and some of these other ad administrative areas.

But, um, but as far as industrial AI and genic. You know, the, the use of multiple agents with, uh, within a workflow across the factory floor, for example. Um, man, that can really, really be game changing, but most companies aren't in a position to actually be able to utilize that because they haven't utilized the technology that they already have.

Mehmet: I can't agree more. I've seen it many times in different verticals also as well. So the things are there, but no one is using it to the maximum capacity. Ab, right. Absolutely. Um, Tory, like, uh, you know, you, I know you're preparing for, um, a book. Tell me a [00:38:00] little bit more about it. 

Tory: Sure. The book is called The Digital Transformation Guidebook, and the idea of that is, uh, it is targeted to non-technical leadership that will be.

Uh, really the ideal candidate for being, uh, a, a digital transformation, uh, champion within the company and, you know, generally targeting the C-suite. And in essence, I break down that process that we have, uh, of prepare, execute, and sustain. Um, but I do it in, in a, a metaphor of a journey. And, uh, and, you know, basically how do you prepare for the trip?

How, how do you prepare? Um, uh, you know, the, the route, um, how do you navigate, you know, hurricanes that you encounter and things like that. Um, so using that analogy of a journey, I walk the, the, the, uh, executive through the process [00:39:00] of how to lead a transformation, a digital transformation for, for your company, um, you know, where to get involved, um, how to get involved, where to leave it to the.

To the technical experts and so forth. Um, I've turned in the first draft to my publisher, um, but there's a lot of editing at that point. Um, you know, I'm, I'm not getting, this is my first book, so I'm not good enough to, to write it without a need for a lot of editing. Um, so we're working on the editing right now.

Um, and, uh, but, but my, uh, we do have a, a presale going on right now as well. And, um. Uh, so people could sign up for the book and join me Then for the launch, when it does get released, sure. We're gonna have a, a launch party, um, two of them, actually a virtual one, and then one, I'm in Minneapolis area, so in Minneapolis, Minnesota as well.

Um, and then people that sign up now can get a, a signed copy of the book. 

Mehmet: Cool. Of course, I will make sure to put [00:40:00] all these details in the show notes if people are tuning, using, uh, their favorite podcasting app. Uh, great. And of course, if they are watching on YouTube, they will listen to it. Uh, final thing, Tory, which I ask all my, my, uh, my guests where people can get in touch and, you know, follow maybe your work also as well.

Tory: Yeah. So the. The easiest way to reach me is with my business website, which is victoria fide.com. So that's Victoria, like the name, FID e.com. And, uh, you can reach me through there. Uh, there's also tory borland.com. Uh, that's a little harder because nobody knows how to spell it. Uh, but, uh, yeah, and then I'm, I'm at Tory Bjork and, uh, LinkedIn and, and in all, basically all of the social media.

Mehmet: Cool. Uh, Tory, like really, I enjoyed the discussion. It's very important, uh, because, you know, people like any other topic that [00:41:00] comes with, uh, a lot of hype people who claims they know what they're doing, things goes south, as we say, goes wrong. Yeah. And you know. I felt like when you, we, you, when we talked of course before and you reached out to me, is that we need this voice of wisdom, which you convey today, that we, we need to be.

Again to sanity. When it comes to transformation, whether it's digital transformation, AI transformation. I'm sure like in, you know, if, if, if we talk in couple of years, we're gonna talk about maybe quantum transformation. I dunno. Probably. Yeah. But again, back to basics and again, I want to highlight something you mentioned, it's not like about being old school or new school.

It's about, you know, following common sense and following what. We always have that, whether with technology or without technology to grow businesses and take it to the next level. So thank you very much for this, uh, you know, great insight that [00:42:00] you shared today. And as I said, like the, the links that Tory mentioned will be available in the show notes.

And this is for the audience. If you just discovered our podcast, thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, so, give me a favor, subscribe and share it with your friends and colleagues. And if you are one of the people who keeps coming again and again, I can't thank you enough for all the sub.

Port all what you do for the podcast. Really, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, humbled, honored by, uh, what's happening, especially the whole year. We're almost now, you know, we recorded late October probably, I'm, I'm hearing this in November, beginning of November. But since Feb this year, the podcast is doing fantastically well in multiple countries on the top 200 chart.

Uh, podcast charts on Apple podcast charts. Can't it happen without you? You the people who tune in and follow and listen. So thank you very, very much and thank you again for the support on the book launch from Nowhere to Next, which is available also on Amazon. And as I [00:43:00] say, always stay tuned for a new episode very soon.

Thank you. Bye-bye.