The need to build digital culture in a cost-conscious world

Today brands that are global but also go local to meet the business needs of Consumers often get questions about how their employees resonate with the company’s value system and culture globally despite working across various time zones and geographies.

Embracing Zero emission Goals, building a roadmap for resilience and sustainability while living up to shareholding value commitment, managing challenges of cuttings costs, and meeting revenue numbers goals are more challenging battles in today’s time, with the world looming toward an Economic downturn.

Hence significant organizations are looking to cut workforce or move skills to an offshore location in developing economies in Asia and South America to manage costs. However, when it comes to building Global In-house Centres, Global Offshore Centres building Digital Culture plays a vital role in mapping onshore and offshore coordination.

Digital culture refers to the values, behaviours, and practices that shape how individuals and organizations interact with digital technologies and the internet. It encompasses how people use technology to communicate, collaborate, create, and consume information and entertainment and how technology is integrated into different aspects of daily life.

Digital culture encompasses the norms, values, and customs governing digital technologies' use in different settings, including social media, online gaming, and e-commerce. It also includes the way people communicate, the way they interact, and the way they share information. It also includes how businesses use technology in their operations, marketing, and customer engagement strategies. It encompasses how companies use technology to improve their products and services and gain a competitive edge. It also includes how digital technologies shape how we think, feel, behave, and interact with each other and the world around us.  This journey is constantly evolving as new technologies and applications are developed and adopted and how people use technology continues to change and remain competitive.

How can you embed Digital Culture in a global organization?

Embedding digital culture in a global organization working across continents can be challenging. Still, organizations need to stay competitive and adapt to the rapidly changing digital landscape. Here are a few strategies that organizations can use to embed digital culture in a global organization:

Building a digital culture in global in-house captives can be challenging, but organizations need to stay competitive in the digital age.

Employees are the backbone of any organization. Engaging employees and involving them in the digital transformation journey is essential to build a digital culture. This can be done by creating digital teams, providing training, and offering opportunities for experimentation and innovation.

A digital culture can only be built with the support of leadership. The management team must be committed to the digital transformation journey and willing to invest in the necessary resources.

Organizations must be willing to embrace new technologies to build a digital culture. This requires a mindset shift and a willingness to experiment with new tools, platforms, and processes: A digital culture is built on collaboration. Encourage teams to work together and share knowledge and expertise. This can be done by creating cross-functional teams, fostering open communication, and promoting a culture of experimentation.

 To build a digital culture, measuring and evaluating progress is essential. This can be done by setting digital transformation goals and regularly monitoring progress against these goals.

Organizations must also be customer-centric, encouraging teams to understand customers’ needs and develop solutions that meet those needs. Digital culture is built on continuous learning. Encourage employees to pursue professional development and stay up to date with the latest technologies and trends.

Embracing digital culture in global in-house captives

Building a digital culture in global in-house captives requires a combination of leadership buy-in, employee engagement, embracing new technologies, collaboration, measurement and evaluation, a customer-centric approach, and continuous learning.

Organizations should lead by example and ensure that senior leaders are role models for digital culture by showing how to use technology effectively and efficiently. The leadership demonstration of using Tech to enable growth must be visible to offshore teams, hence should be included in Townhalls, Team regrouping, or offsites.

Organizations should communicate the importance of digital culture to all employees, including the benefits it brings to the organization and how it can help them work more effectively and efficiently.

Hence building a digital culture in a global organization is a continuous process that requires the involvement of employees, leadership support, embracing new technologies, fostering collaboration, measuring progress, being customer-centric, and promoting continuous learning. Organizations must understand that digital culture constantly evolves, requiring constant effort to adapt and stay competitive in the digital age, including opportunities for experimentation and innovation.

- Kanishk Gaur is a renowned Cyber Security, Public Policy, Government Affairs Specialist, and Digital Technology Expert based out of New Delhi.