‘Digital transformation’ is a buzzword for individuals, organisations and nations alike. According to the Chairman of LOLC Fi­nance and Founder of iPay Conrad Dias, it can mean “many things to many people” but is essentially a journey undertaken to digitally transform oneself.

“In Sri Lanka, everyone is talking about digital transformation,” he said in a recent LMDtv interview, adding that there’s the acceleration of adoption “in almost all sectors – particularly in banking and financial services, telecommunications and retail.”

He noted: “We have seen a big trend of adoption with e-commerce and banking apps, where companies digitally enable products and services for their customers.”

Sri Lanka has taken great strides in pursuing digital transformation even on the public services front with national payment platforms at the forefront. Nevertheless, he sees much room for improvement at the SME end.

Dias also highlighted the importance of talent and human resources in driving digital transformation: “With the entire global economy opening up for talent, especially with the pandemic paving the way to people working from home or anywhere, talent becomes globally accessible – and this brings positives as well as negatives.”

“Sri Lanka has been cultivating a very robust pool of talent – to this end, software engineers, developers and IT professionals have been in the market for quite a long time. With the digital sector competing globally, it’s always a challenge in terms of retaining these individuals,” he observed.

Dias asserted: “And now with the brain drain we experienced in the last couple of years due to economic environment and various other challenges, safeguarding this talent is key.”

“Sri Lankan businesses need to focus not only on the local economy but beyond as well because digital means that you can be a global company. Your products and services can be global as long as they are digitally deliverable,” he said.

Becoming a global company will enable an organisation to retain its ta­lent. However, Dias pointed out how digital talent is hard to find across the world “because they demand global salaries and perks,” noting that many local professionals work for overseas companies while they’re based in Sri Lanka.

On the other hand, much like how employees can switch from a local business to a global company without having to migrate, corporates too have access to a broader talent pool of digital talent.

Regardless of the double-edged sword of digital talent, he underlined the importance of improvements “in terms of advanced digital skills especially related to AI, data science and cyber security.”

“We need to reskill and upskill the existing workforce to adapt to digital, as well as be with digital,” he said, adding: “Today, technology is democratised to a greater extent so it’s a matter of willingness to upskill and reskill.”

To complement this, organisations have to work towards fostering a culture that enables employees to adapt to the disruptive nature of digital technology.

Dias explained: “The first step involves leadership. If any organisation wants to transform digitally, its leadership must embrace digital transformation first… because without that, it’s very difficult to look at a transformational journey of any form.”

“Secondly, an organisation needs to focus on agility because change is inevitable. So whether you’re big or small, you need to have that agility in the organisation,” he stressed.

Agility, he explained, revolves around two things: adopting a culture of innovation and cross-functional collaboration.

Dias elaborated: “A culture of innovation is needed whereby people can innovate without fear of failing; because failure is something that you need to adapt to when you’re innovating. Cross-functional collaboration is also key because digital [transformation] can be done in a siloed manner.”

“That’s the culture we need to build,” he summed up.