The day 2 keynotes at PegaWORLD 2014 wrapped up with Vik Sohoni of McKinsey, who talked about becoming a digital enterprise, and the seven habits that they observe in successful digital enterprises:
- Be unreasonably aspirational
- Acquire new capabilities
- Ring fence and cultivate talent
- Challenge everything
- Be quick & data driven
- Follow the money
- Be obsessed with the customer
Some good points, but what is also interesting is the presence of McKinsey on the stage at all: Pega is increasingly attempting to align themselves with management consulting firms further up the customer food chain rather than just technical implementation. Pega’s role is becoming more of a consultant than an implementation partner to customers, leaving implementation to the partner network so as to not limit their growth. However, my sense from what I’ve seen and conversations that I’ve had with partners and customers here is that Pega implementations are still non-trivial technical efforts, and the partner channel has a wide variability in capabilities, meaning that Pega is unlikely to step completely out of implementation consulting if they want to guarantee success.
It’s actually the other way around….
McKinsey is investing significantly in getting closer to the execution side. We’ve realized that in order to deliver distinctive impact and value to our clients we need to go beyond strategy and design and into implementation.
This is especially true in a digital world where the bar for successful implementation is much higher. We are building capabilities in that space and getting closer to the world’s leading technology companies.
I’m glad you liked Vik’s presentation, if you are interested there’s a lot more on our website (e.g., more details on the 7 habits)
http://www.mckinsey.com/features/digital_edge
Shahar Markovitch
Shahar, thanks for the link to the 7 habits page.
On the first issue, maybe McKinsey and Pega should get their stories straight: I heard this from Pega execs.
Sandy, Pega’s strategy is to shift over 95% of both consulting and implementation to our partners & clients. This is shown by the dramatic increase in both partner and client attendance at PegaWORLD — even as we have been holding the size of the PegaConsulting organization flat…
Think of us as a Software & Solutions company… We’ll keep a level of capacity to train and help (as you say) “guarantee success” — but are thrilled to see McKinsey be able to add skilled implementation resources to complement their strategic capabilities.
Glad you liked the conference!
-Alan Trefler, Founder and CEO Pegasystems
Doesn’t have to be one or the other. It’s mutual on behalf of the client! As the Pega lead for Communications/Media I can tell you that one impact of digital transformation is that the classic lines within consulting/software are blurring substantially. To be successful in transforming, our mutual customers are asking management consultants, SIs, and software vendors to work more closely together.