The new skill all businesses now need

Businesses have a lot going on. Customer demands are in constant flux, and employees are now navigating new platforms and tools in a remote-working world. In this rapidly shifting landscape, organisations will have to be quick to innovate experiences for both customers and employees, boost their operational agility, and build a resilient foundation for growth. All at the same time as tackling growing risks such as cyber security threats. 

Many businesses are struggling to adapt while responding to each of these challenges at pace. To be able to do this successfully, they need to prepare their workforces for change, and that means they need a critical new skill in their skillset. 

Digital dexterity: the ultimate skill

“You can’t be a leader today unless you have a workforce which is, at scale, enabled with the necessary skills and competencies to be digitally literate,” says Brad Mallard, vice president and chief technology officer for digital services at Fujitsu Global. This digital literacy means employees can understand and use existing and new technology effectively.

But digital dexterity goes further. A digitally dexterous workforce possesses a level of confidence in technology that makes deploying new platforms and processes seamless and effortless, says Rafael Sweary, president and co-founder of digital adoption company WalkMe. “For me, digitally dexterous people find it very easy to use technology,” he says. “They don't even need to think about what they are doing, because it is second nature to them. It’s almost as if the tools people are using are an extension of their abilities.”

To reach this level of confidence, employees need more than an understanding of how technology works. They need to embrace an approach that is open to learning and adapting. And it’s on organisations to establish that approach. “To build a digitally dexterous workforce, organisations need to ensure people have the mindset and time to learn,” says Mallard.

Become an aware organisation

For the workers who adopt this mindset, the benefits are considerable. Mallard says they develop soft skills that are increasingly important in the modern workplace and marketplace, including greater empathy, better communication and resilience – both for individuals and the organisation. 

Digital dexterity can also create a stronger common purpose and greater understanding of what organisations represent and what its goals are. That’s because it can break down walls between departments and encourage a re-examination of how the organisation serves customers.

“Digital dexterity can help bridge the gap between business and IT by facilitating understanding of technology’s purpose and the outcomes it can deliver to customers,” says Mallard. “It enables both functions to work towards a common goal, because it gives them the opportunity to understand customers’ needs and put that at the forefront of what you're trying to achieve.”

Ultimately, this approach creates “an aware organisation, which is able to respond to change and make better decisions by working in a much more agile way,” according to Sweary. “And you’re able to improve the employee experience and reduce the burden on the workforce.”

What digital dexterity means in practice 

Organisations should focus on the outcomes, rather than the tools that help them achieve them, Sweary observes. “Organisations need to be driven by outcomes. They need to think about the job to be done, and not the technology,” he says. He compares this to using a GPS navigation system. “You put the address where you want to go, and you forget about it. You can focus on driving the car, and you don't need to worry about directions.”

This means putting the customer experience first. Unfortunately, the user is often an afterthought for organisations, Sweary says. To be able to serve the customer well, organisations must first upskill their employees to be digitally dexterous. 

“As a technology and transformation delivery partner for many organisations across sectors and across the world, we have to have to level up our employees’ skill quotients and digital quotients ahead of our customers’”, Mallard says. “This puts us in a position to then help our customers with their transformation journeys in the future.”

Mallard says that Fujitsu’s approach has been to develop design thinking, which seeks to challenge assumptions, redefine problems and innovate solutions, into “design doing” – the hard implementation. It is doing this through a company-wide digital transformation program called Fujitra (Fujitsu + Transformation), which aims to re-evaluate business processes and corporate culture, as well as products, services, and business models. 

To be effective, this push should be collaborative, led by IT and HR. At Fujitsu, IT specialists sit alongside colleagues from other business functions to demonstrate what tech can bring to their role, and the latter can show IT experts exactly what their function involves and the problems they face. Mallard calls this “bidirectional learning”: “they have to speak one another’s language,” he says.

What’s it all for?

To become digitally dexterous, organisations need to commit investment and time, and ensure there is clear leadership from the top. 

But the benefits are huge. Mallard lists better data management, greater speed to market, superior product launches, better planning, increased customer retention and greater revenue. 

Sweary agrees. “You can access information more quickly when meeting a client, you can measure everything, you’re faster, you’re managing better,” he says. “You can’t compare an organisation that has digital dexterity and has these tools to one that doesn’t.”