Digital transformation is a marathon, not a sprint. Martec’s Law explains the reasons for this, and what you can do to stay relevant.
Have you come across Martec’s Law? It describes that technology changes exponentially, but organizations change logarithmically.
Look at the image above, and you will see the problem immediately.
What does this mean for an organization? Eventually, you will have to reset your operating model to keep up with technological change. That’s not just the case for companies, but also for public organizations, private individuals, and society.
Are you thinking of AI now? Good. The spread of AI since the release of ChatGPT in 2022 has been so fast, yet not all organizations and people have understood what profound implications AI will have on everything.
Is AI the only example? Behold, no. Let’s look at my favorite topic: Digital transformation. Digital transformation can be quick for individuals, but glacial for public organizations — the adoption of the cloud and the iPad are excellent examples to illustrate this.
What Implications Does Martec’s Law Have?
Irrespective of the type of organization, the gap created by Martec’s Law leads to operational inefficiencies. Organizations fail to integrate new tools effectively, leading to fragmented systems and slow adaptation to new technology.
As the Founder & CEO of Yonder, a B2B SaaS company bringing digital documentation to the next level, I could cite examples that would fill an entire book. In the context of this article, let’s stay high-level: The stepping stones in digitizing documents are PDFs and folders. Yes, you read right: People still want to stuff PDF files into folders on a SharePoint site, and call this thing digital documentation.
Even if digital documentation is only a small part of an organization, it is very important in certain industries — think of all industries that are regulated, such as aviation, pharma, or public entities. If you are active in one of those industries and still work with PDFs in folders, you will lose your competitive edge sooner or later.
Irony has it that regulated industries lose their competitiveness more slowly than non-regulated industries, just because they are regulated. Maybe that’s true, but maybe it’s also true that regulated industries have tremendous potential to leverage technology to become more efficient — despite being regulated.
What Can You Do?
As always, there is no silver bullet that can miraculously bring together those two curves in the Martec’s diagram.
Start with an open mindset and a culture of learning. Is your team curious? Do they research new technologies only when you tell them to do it, or out of intrinsic motivation? A culture of curiosity is needed to succeed in an ever-changing world. If you hold your team back by rigid workplace rules, don’t be surprised if they don’t go beyond the call of duty. And not going beyond the call of duty is the first step in losing the Martec’s Law battle.
On a management level, you will need to adopt agile methodologies to become more flexible and responsive to change. Agility is a buzzword that is used too often, but its omnipresence is justified in a Martec’s Law world. You can always adapt the agile philosophy to the needs of your specific organization.
And last but not least, on a strategic level, think carefully if you really need to adopt every new technology. You won’t be able to keep up with all the technologies there are, so you learn to say no.
