Mental Transformation: A Prerequisite for Digital Transformation

Dr. Majid Ghasemi, the president of Khatam University, in the second national conference on digital transformation, which was held on Wednesday and Thursday (July 12th and 13th) by the Iranian Management Association, mentioned that the important issue in the field of digital transformation is the transformation of people’s minds.

According to the website of Khatam University, the second national conference on digital transformation with the approach of "Leadership and Management of the Digital Ecosystem" was held on July 12th and 13^th, 2023 by the Iranian Management Association with the cooperation and hosting of Khatam University and with the participation of many experts in this field.

Dr. Majid Ghasemi, the president of Khatam University and CEO of Pasargad Bank, as the speaker at the opening ceremony of this conference on Wednesday, July 12th, in a presentation entitled "The role of leaders in the governance of digital transformation," said: "The issue of digital transformation is an example of one of Saadi's poems on moving forward and not looking back. In other words, one should always move forward and look into the future while having a critical view.”

Referring to very large investments in some countries of the world in the field of digital developments, he added: “The Chinese invested about 55 billion dollars in this field in 1994 and the Americans have admitted that they are 10 years behind the Chinese in this field.”

Dr. Ghasemi discussed various dimensions of digital transformation, including clouding, modernization of information technology and digital optimization and added: “The framework of digital transformation is a road map for a digital transformation, digital governance, the vision of digital transformation and engaging the organizations with digital issues and topics.”

Further to that, the president of Khatam University described the important issue in this field as mental transformation and investment capabilities and reminded: “Digital transformation governance includes the application of digital governance in determining responsibilities and the power to change managers in line with digitalization.”

The CEO of Pasargad Bank listed the key mechanisms of digital governance and mentioned the essential principles. He also emphasized that being innovative and trying to find new solutions are among the characteristics of digital leaders.”

Majidi: Digital Transformation based on Artificial Intelligence seems inevitable

Dr. Babak Majidi, a faculty member of Khatam University, in his speech entitled "Effective human capital training for the future of an organization based on artificial intelligence and digital reality", pointed out the pace of progress in the field of artificial intelligence in the last 2 years and said: “Data analysis , translation of texts, specialization of texts, summarization of providing efficient and intelligent decisions to the managers and employees of the organizations have been among the cases that have been influenced by artificial intelligence.”

“Digital transformation based on artificial intelligence has become inevitable for the competition of new businesses. Although these experiences are also possible to fail, the ways to prevent these failures can be investigated in the heart of artificial intelligence. ChatGPTs perform much better than human in some of the jobs that mainly focus on data processing and programming and have affected about 300 million jobs”, he added.

Dr. Majidi further explained: “Education in the era of artificial intelligence should be fast, complex and at the same time simple. In fact, we are facing a kind of multimodal and interactive education.

Javanmardi: Digital Transformation is not a fad, and to make it happen, the entire organization must reach a collective belief

Shahab Javanmardi, the CEO of Fanap Group of Companies, also addressed the necessity of digital transformation in organizations in a speech entitled "Operational Guide for Digital Transformation" and said: “It is frequently seen that people are looking for a ready-made version for digital transformation in their organization which is definitely not suitable and practical.”

Emphasizing that a common understanding and belief should be reached for change in an organization, the CEO of Fanap said: “The issue of concern is that digital transformation in different industries must be followed in different ways and a single solution cannot be prescribed for all organizations.”

Javanmardi interpreted digital transformation as the rewiring of an organization to achieve a specific goal and continued: “Digital transformation is not a fad, and an organization must reach a collective belief to realize it.”

He mentioned the six pillars of digital transformation, including experience, change, people, innovation, leadership, and culture-building, and added: “Many organizations are facing a crisis of technological maturity and reduce their contribution from the issue of digitalization to the issue of technology. This happens while the entire business process and all its components play a role in this digitalization and transformation.”

The CEO of Fanap emphasized: “Many organizations are not ready to step into the field of digital transformation and need to change their culture, and train their teams and human resources. In this field, universities can help in training the human resources of organizations.”

Rouhani: What has impressed people about ChatGPT is the visibility of its use

Dr. Saeed Rouhani, an associate professor in the Department of Information Technology Management at Tehran University, in a presentation entitled "Digital transformation with the help of data analysis", reminded the importance of data in creating a digital transformation in organizations and said: “A transformation requires decision-making, and decision-making is incomplete without having data.”

“In the field of software engineering and in the years when we were looking for development and automation, we first rushed to single-layer software, and unfortunately, no one would approach software automation with a viewpoint of data analysis. One of the reasons why we cannot be data-oriented today is that our former engineers did not design their systems based on data analysis and only sought to implement predefined and determined processes”, he added.

Dr. Rouhani explained: “The reality is that what has affected people today as ChatGPT is only the visibility of its use and all these features already existed in Google. Another point is that not all tasks become easier by technology and it is important to utilize technologies to improve the processes of our work.”

Hasanzadeh: Digital transformation must be replaced by virtual transformation

In a speech entitled "Virtual Transformation: Currentization and Its Stages", Dr. Mohammad Hasanzadeh, the head of Iran Information Science and Technology Research Institute (IranDoc) said: “At IranDoc, about a year ago, we came to the conclusion that digital transformation should be replaced by another concept. We need to look ahead and consider a new concept which is virtual transformation.”

“Digital transformation means making a digitized version of everything. Using technology to accelerate procedure is a requirement, but not sufficient. Today's world is creating another system for doing things, and digital transformation may not be enough in this regard”, he added.

The head of Iran's Information Science and Technology Research Institute (IranDoc) added: “Humanity needs something that can reproduce itself and work, and that is virtual space. Digital transformation has at least 6 steps of positioning, capability development, entry and settlement, identification, positioning and leadership. If these steps are not followed well, the problems will be more difficult than before.”

Abdollahi: By 2030, about 18% of the global GDP will be taken over by the digital economy.

Dr. Ali Abdollahi, the CEO of the National Informatics Company, in a speech entitled "Digital Leaders and Managers of the Future Generation", referred to an article published in 2019 in the Economist magazine entitled "New Gentlemen of Wall Street", about the emergence of the new economy in the global sphere. He explained: “According to the estimations, by 2030, about 18% of the world's GDP will be the digital economy, and this will be a warning for us as well.”

Pointing to the importance of the role of leaders in the digital age, he said: “While many of the main leadership skills remain the same in the digital age, in the face of the disruption of technology/transformational technology, leaders need to acquire other new skills as well. At the same time, they will face new challenges such as increasing the speed of doing businesses, changes in organizational culture and similar things.”

According to the CEO of the National Informatics Company, the focus is on digital value creation, digital literacy, a proper understanding of the general aspects of technology, including the skills of digital leaders, and if they find the necessary digital literacy for businesses, they will perform much better than technologists in this field.

The applications of the Living Lab of Khatam University for financial holding industries of Pasargad

On the second day of this scientific event (Thursday, July 13th), Dr. Mehdi Arabzadeh Yekta, the senior manager of intelligent industry businesses of Fanap Infrastructure Company, who led and managed the Living Lab project of Khatam University while referring to the historical course of creating living laboratories in the world, gave a report on the launch of this project and said: “The path to create a living laboratory has started from mining/metal companies. This path can also play a role for the industries and ideas in Pasargad Financial Group's holdings.”

“We tried to test various parts of the products that have been identified from the industry and turned into operational products in the past year in the lab. We hope to be able to continue this path with the continued support of Pasargad Bank”, he added.

Shamisa: Industrial automation requires a paradigm shift from isolated to integrated operation

Dr. Abdollah Shamisa, a member of the academic staff and director of the electrical engineering department of Khatam University, was one of the speakers on the second day of the National Conference on Digital Transformation. In a presentation entitled "Industrial Automation in the Digital Ecosystem", Dr. Abdollah Shamisa mentioned the topic of autonomous control in digital transformation and said: “Autonomous control means satisfactory performance under significant uncertainties in the environment and the ability to compensate for system failures without external interference.”

"Automation is a process that is done with the least human assistance or intervention. Industrial automation is a set of technologies that leads to the operation of machines and systems without significant human intervention and brings favorable performance compared to manual operations”, he added.

The director of the electrical engineering department of Khatam University went on to list the features of industrial automation, which include: automatic performance of most industrial operations with the aim of increasing productivity and reducing labor costs, changing the paradigm from isolated units to integrated operations and creating industrial networks as well as profit maximization with methods such as centralized and decentralized controlling.

Nazemi: All business models (BM) are changeable

Dr. Amir Nazemi, a member of the faculty of the Center for Scientific Policy Research and the director of the forward-thinking group of this center, in his speech entitled "The future of digital transformation in the industry", categorized what is considered as the digital economy into three models: 1- Information technology (such as Irancell, Cafe Bazar, etc.), 2- new business models (such as Snapp, Tapsi, Digikala, etc.) and 3- mining/automotive industries (such as Benz, Ford, etc.).

By stating that all business models (BM) undergo change, he emphasized: “Changes in business activities or models are not simply met and requires the existence of companions.”

According to the director of the forward-thinking group of the Scientific Policy Research Center, two groups of companies are being formed today: 1- consulting and implementation companies (design, engineering, empowerment) and 2- technical companies (technical and cloud infrastructure and sensors). The contribution that governments can make to the dynamics of these companies is to create rationality for these companies to move towards digital transformation.

Amini: We are witnessing the increasing role of artificial intelligence in the GDP of countries

In the continuation of the series of lectures of the second national conference on digital transformation, Dr. Mostafa Amini, a post-doctoral student in data-oriented digital transformation from Tarbiat Modarres University, in a speech entitled "Digital geo-economy in the digital Middle East", discussed the networks of value, business, power and computer as the strategic assets of the countries and said: “If the word ‘neighborhood’ was important among countries in the past, today, ‘access’ has gained more importance; That is, someone may not be your neighbor, but they have access to you more than your neighbors. That is why it is said that the borders between countries have disappeared.”

Referring to the huge investment made by the Persian Gulf countries in the field of artificial intelligence, he added: “A country like Saudi Arabia has invested 135 billion dollars and a country like the United Arab Emirates has invested 96 billion dollars in the field of artificial intelligence. The UAE has seen itself to be the most powerful country in the world by 2070. We are increasingly witnessing the role of artificial intelligence in the GDP of countries.

According to Amini, digital geoeconomic tools include cyberspace, digital monetary and financial policies, national energy and commodity policies, digital trade policies, economic aid, economic restrictions and sanctions, and digital investment policies. While referring to the digital transformation plans of the member countries of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council, Amini suggested that identity agreement platforms be formed in our country with the aim of exchanging digital financial data.

Experiences of utilizing the Internet of Things for intelligent digital monitoring in industrial environments

Dr. Javad Rezazadeh, a lecturer at the University of Sydney, Australia, in the field of artificial intelligence, in his speech at the second national conference on digital transformation, presented the experiences of using the Internet of Things for intelligent digital monitoring in industrial environments, while pointing to the evolution and trends of technology in the last 50 years. “The Internet of Things, which was first used in 2020 by Kevin Ashton, is an auto system in which anything (human, animal, object) can send data through communication networks”, he said.

While enumerating the experiences he had in the field of Internet of Things in Sydney, he added: “Any system that has smart sensors and uses the Internet and stores its data in a cloud environment and uses it on software is actually utilizing the Internet of Things. We have different environments for intelligent monitoring in which GPS and IPS are used.”

Beigi: Digital experience is the customer's understanding of their interactions with the digital ecosystem

Dr. Mahdi Beigi, the head of Pasargad Bank's Information Technology and Infrastructure Management Department and one of the speakers of this conference, in a presentation titled "Strategies to improve the digital experience of customers in the digital ecosystem", spoke about the concept of digital experience and identified it as the customer's understanding of their interactions with the digital ecosystem. “This understanding shows itself in different stages of the journey and different points of contact (originating from feelings and perceptions) and the difference that determines the final event is the feeling that a person gets from a digital experience”, he said.

He further emphasized: “Services should be easy to access for customers and processes should be agile and up-to-date. Only those organizations that can anticipate the needs of customers in advance can have a competitive advantage. Services must also be provided in a package format to the customers (a package including services with support, competence, quality, care, suggestions, etc.).” The head of Pasargad Bank's Information Technology and Infrastructure Management Department stated that today we are facing the paradigm of the attention economy, and he considered the competitive advantage of organizations in the coming era to choose a path that strengthens the attention economy.

Tehrani: Today and in the digital age, gaining trust is still the main challenge

Dr. Mahdi Tehrani, a member of the academic faculty of Khatam University, was another speaker of this conference who, in a presentation entitled "Internet of Value: Developing a Digital Ecosystem on a Decentralized Platform", referred to the importance of data in today's world and said: “All data is always subject to leakage and one’s privacy is always subject to violation. Today and in the digital age, gaining trust is still the main challenge.”

Referring to the main elements of the Internet of Value, which are: blockchain, Internet of Things, value exchange, tokenization and digital identity, he also paid attention to the differences between the Internet of Value and the Internet of Things and reminded: “The Internet facilitates the transfer of assets, the payment of funds, and asset tokenization."

The formation of the permanent secretariat of the National Digital Transformation Conference in the Iranian Management Association

In the final part of the second national conference on digital transformation, Dr. Azar Saemian, the Deputy Secretary-General of Iran Management Association and the scientific secretary of this conference, while pointing out some of the activities of this association and presenting a report on the implementation process of this scientific event, read the final statement of the conference.

According to the Deputy Secretary-General of Iran Management Association, since 2016, this association has organized 8 conferences in the field of organizational culture, 6 conferences in the field of knowledge management and 2 conferences in the field of digital transformation. In the second national conference on digital transformation, about 30 prominent professors from different universities of the country have presented the latest findings in this field.

Additionally, in the final statement of the second national conference on digital transformation, which was read by the scientific secretary of the conference, the demands of the conference were stated in 10 sections as follows:

1- Compilation of digital transformation roadmap 2- Strengthening of technical and communication infrastructures 3- Paying attention to research and development 4- Development of knowledge-based trainings 5- Development of digital markets 6- Creation of new opportunities 7- Creation of a network of experts 8- Creation of digital security 9- Maintaining Privacy 10- Development and promotion of digital culture.

Dr. Saemian also announced the formation of the permanent secretariat of the National Digital Transformation Conference in the Iranian Management Association with the aim of creating a single and integrated mechanism to benefit from the opinions of scientific and specialized experts in order to play the role of scientific authority in the development of the digital ecosystem in the country.

At the end of the conference, the best papers were presented and their authors were appreciated for their great jobs.

First place: Challenges of transformation and management of digital human resources in the VUCA era (Omidreza Mahmoudi Nilo). Second place: Investigating blockchain technology obstacles in the food supply chain (Seyedeh Khadijeh Hosseini, Mansour Momeni and Shahrzad Mostafavi). Third place: Conceptual model of digital transformation based on SWAT analysis in Midco company (Zahra Sadat Hasanpour Jesri and Hoda Heydari).

In the closing ceremony, Dr. Maryam Hosseini was praised for writing several book titles in the field of digital transformation as well.

The second national conference on digital transformation was organized by the Iranian Management Association and in collaboration with Khatam University with the aim of improving and promoting the performance of the digital realm, improving the knowledge and skills of digital leadership, and providing the best experiences of digital technologies in businesses. The topics included: digital ecosystem governance, development of digital culture capabilities, development of digital value creation network, drawing the future of the industry in digital transformation, digital leaders and managers of the next generation, approaches and models of the digital ecosystem, human capital competencies in digitalization, solutions to improve the digital experience of key stakeholders, digital investment management ( human, technical and equipment) and the role of facilitators and developers in digitalization.