Then. Growth at all costs.

Now. Profitable growth.

Yesterday evening, I attended an in-person event. It was a strange feeling. I haven't been to many in-person events in the past 2 1/2 years. I imagine many people haven't.

Sitting in the back of the room, I listened to three C-levels—Andreas Wixler, CTO and co-founder of FINN; Dr. Sabine Häussermann, CEO and founder of VisionHealth; Ingmar Krusch, CIO of Solarisbank—discuss digital acceleration.

👉 What is digital acceleration?

Digital acceleration is a business strategy that guides the company's future. It shifts the focus from digitising a process to adopting the latest technologies, such as automating business processes, data visualization, ML, and AI.

👉 Who cares?

Businesses do. Technologies play a leading role in digital transformations allowing businesses to gain a competitive edge. Digital transformations increase operational resilience and enable flexibility. That's important in today's uncertain and rapidly changing market. Manjuri Sinha, Global Director of Talent Acquisition at OLX, remarked on a different panel discussion about how much change we've experienced—a global pandemic, a war, and now a possible global recession.

👉 What does this look like?

"At Solarisbank, it's all about automation. You digitise the things you used to do manually," Ingmar said. Andreas Wixler described how they're finding ways to incorporate automation at the corporate level. This means using low code or no code development platforms which speed up the development and delivery of applications.

👉 Why would you do this?

The answer seems to be tied to what all three panelists are pursuing, profitable growth. Andreas went on to say, "You cannot demand speed. If you don't have it, you build up to it. But, it comes with risk. Accept the risk because it's worth it." Achieving speed can effectively improve profitability.

Gone are the days when companies, especially startups, were urged to grow at any cost. Everyone is sane again. These leaders seem to agree that companies need to be built for steady, efficient growth.

Do you agree?

#digitaltransformation