Kansai Event report • Conference & Seminar • Meeting & Exchange
Digital Transformation: Time Saving
For this 2nd edition of the Sectoral Meetings, Marion Baillat gives us a practical case to study the Digital Transformation, applied to time saving.
Here we are, inaugurating the second episode of our Kansai Sectoral Gatherings, 2023. Our guest speaker this time is Marion Baillat, head of production at 42 Interactive, and her specialty is time saving through digital transformation.
As she brilliantly demonstrated through a practical case (to manage a complex real estate), digital transformation is a long and complex but crucial and worthy process, which helps businesses make the transition from an heterogeneous analog system to an organized and efficient digital system.
Efficiency is the key, but because the digital transformation fundamentally changes the way a business operates to deliver a higher value of service, one of the key issues that was debated during the speech was onboarding: if you want the change to take roots, there is a necessity that everybody in the company (and its partners) feels involved in the change and takes it up willingly.
Thus, there is not only a technical issue, but there is also a really deep people issue.
In fact, the process of digital transformation requires a deep understanding of the structure’s functioning, which is a challenge in itself. For the digital transformation to be relevant and involve the people it will benefit on the ground, there is a critical need to put yourself in their shoes and deeply understand what is at stake in what they do to make their life easier and simpler. If the solution is just forced from above, failure is nearly certain. The bottom line is, digital transformation is a patient and painstaking work that requires a lot of consideration. Wherever it takes place, it will not happen overnight, let alone be dropped brutally on a given organization.
But if it is such a delicate process, how to make the need for digital transformation be felt, when it is so easy to leave things be and stay in your comfort zone? Efficiency is the key. The amount of money and time saved through a streamlined digital workflow, as opposed to paper processing, can save 4 times the time, and the cost of it in money can amount to millions of dollars for big structures. Teamwork and the employee’s quality of life are also strongly impacted, as well as security and internal access to information/documentation, while the quality of the service delivered to customers is increased.
Obviously, Japan is THE country where the question of getting everybody on board for change, transitions and innovation is a tough challenge, and there is a growing concern, not only among foreigners in Japan but also among Japanese players themselves, that the Japanese economy and society is slowly falling behind due to an increasingly worrying lack of innovation, or motivation thereof (see the N°172 December 2022 issue of France Japon Eco on that subject).
In that regard, Marion’s input and expertise are very welcome assets to the Japanese market, and we do hope that her presentation will help our participants to solve issues they might have in their respective departments and companies.
We are actually very happy that Marion, although being French, speaks flawless English, which allowed both French and Japanese participants to attend the event and follow her presentation.
The next session of our Kansai Sectoral Meetings will be hosted by Damien Vitry at Arkema’s KTC (Kyoto Technical Center) on Tuesday, March 28. Damien will not only deliver an insight on Bio-based performance materials, he will also offer us an exclusive guided tour of the R&D lab, so put on your goggles and join us for an exceptional immersion in the world of sustainable polymers!
