Ford

Ford has embraced several digital transformation initiatives—including using technology to transform and improve the manufacturing process at one of its biggest factories. Not having the correct parts available holds up workers and slows down the production process. Ford introduced a material flow wireless parts system so they could track the quantities of different parts and make sure there were enough available.

Material Flow Wireless Parts System: https://predictableprofits.com/how-ford-embraced-digital-transformation/

In 2016, Ford also introduced a digital product for their customers—the FordPass app. It allows Ford owners to remotely control their vehicles. For example, drivers can check their battery or fuel levels and lock or unlock their car from their phone.

FordPass App: https://www.ford.com/support/category/fordpass/

To capitalize on these new digital touchpoints with the customer, Ford leveraged data to improve the experience of the FordPass app. First, the product team grouped customers based on the in-app behaviors they demonstrated. Then, based on each group’s activity, Ford personalized the app experience to provide more value. Jian Wei Hoh, head of business design at Ford, said, “

Ford’s success is grounded in the same process as Walmart and AB InBev. They used their digital transformation to gather detailed information about how their consumers interact with their products. Then, they made data-led decisions to provide more value to their customers.

Questions:

1.       Following the digital transformation modelling methodology given in class, prepare a scorecard like the one seen in session 4 of our class, using 3 metaphors of your choice and their corresponding drivers of change. Provide a narrative explanation of your analysis, which can be based on the data found in the case above. You can complement the case sutdy information above searching in the internet, or using your own assumptions.

a.       The scorecard should represent colors for the drivers of change according to the following logic:

                                                               i.      Green. You should color a driver green if it does impact your business, but you are already engaged in positive action in this domain. It doesn’t mean that you are necessarily already best of class, but at least you are working on it. You have running projects and a clear plan for the future. If you are not already actively working in that specific domain, you should better consider using orange.

                                                             ii.      Orange (or yellow). Color a driver orange when it does impact your business and when you theoretically have nothing that stops you from dealing with it in a positive way and within a reasonable timeframe. There is a vision for the future, you have the (senior) buy-in to act, there are budgets to start (change) projects and people are willing to respond and engage. There is nothing substantially in place yet, so the bulk of the work still needs to be done, but the possibilities are evident. When considering the timeframe, we often indicate anything between 12 and 36 months. If you need more time to pull it off, you should probably score that driver red. 

                                                           iii.      Red. This is a problem. You only score a driver red when it does impact your business and you have no defense against it in a reasonably short period of time (again let’s say 12 to 36 months). If that driver starts to change your business, you are in deep trouble; you can simply not win that battle. The only thing you can do is hope that this driver is not one of your key business differentiators.

2.       Use John Kotter 8 steps to draft a plan to support the company in the transformation process to implement the digitalization. Provide details of the specific actions you would propose in each of the steps of the methodology.