By M. Isi Eromosele

Digital Convergence is creating opportunities in several industries, resulting in organizational convergence, merging and formation of external partnerships to develop integrated products for the global market.

Most companies have not been effective in realizing the full potential of convergence largely due to misalignment of people (leadership, talent), and organization (strategy, design and culture).

Even when companies attempt to affect strategic organizational changes to compete in a converging market, they often stall.

In order for companies to successfully compete in the digital convergence world, they must become strategically adaptable as they are operationally efficient. They must out-innovate, out-invent and out-think their competition. They must learn how to inspire their personnel to perform at their very best level.

Digital convergence requires companies to change their organizational and people practices to support their quest for increased market share and sustained profits. With effective implementation, organization design will lead them to a more efficient process of designing and implementing a comprehensive organizational and people strategy that complements the company’s business approach to convergence.

The bi-products of digital convergence are new products and services, new market platforms, excited customers as well as new sales channels and opportunities. Digital convergence has led companies from industry segments to engage in organizational convergence, or consolidation of companies, which results in a new paradigm of people and systems to deliver new products or services to market.

Companies that seem well positioned for convergence through strategic acquisitions or alliances are struggling, often due to the use of traditional structures that each industry is reluctant to part with.

Gaining market advantage through convergent products and services requires a new organizational and people approach. Unfortunately, many companies circumvent this step in their rush to market. Instead, they rely on legacy organizational structures that constrict their ability to adapt to the converging market.

The right talent, enabled by non-conforming leadership and an effective organizational structure can result in innovative, market changing breakthroughs. The reasons why companies fail to realize convergence opportunities are multiple: people (leadership, talent) and organization (strategy, design, culture).

People

Company leaders usually do not want to dismantle an organizational structure in response to a threat they cannot see. Even when they grasp the importance of convergence and in the event that they develop plans to affect change, they often delegate them to inexperience subordinates who do not understand the strategic objectives being pursued.

Only very few leaders understand the significance of the complete alignment of staff behavior to organizational strategic objectives.

Attracting and leveraging the right talent is imperative for companies that want to compete in a world of convergence. The absence of a strong Human Resources perspective in organization design can result in a serious disconnect between talent supply and demand, performance management systems and development programs.

Organization

Traditional organizations are not structured to enable and empower interactive cross-functionally and to foster the levels of innovation needed to respond to market convergence consistently.

Most importantly, convergence creates the need to establish a structure that enables effective and expedient cross-functional coordination, in addition to building channels that get products to market from these cross-functional groups.

In mergers and acquisitions, a single channel approach slows functional and cultural integration as well as the return on investment.

Convergence winners align people and organizational strategies with their go-to-market approach. An effective convergence strategy requires more than innovative products and services; it also requires a company structure and culture that has been designed specifically to support it.

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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