FPT Chief Advisor in Digital Transformation: Think Big, Start Small

Around the world, business leaders have started to take digital transformation seriously. Global DX spending, according to the latest report by International Data Corporation (IDC), is estimated to reach $1.18 trillion in 2019, a whooping increase of 17.9 percent over last year. But what does the path to digital transformation look like? FPT Chief Advisor in Digital Transformation, Mr. Phuong Tram, shared some food for thought.

“In digital transformation, you need to think big, but start small and scale as fast as possible”, Tram addressed a group of Vietnamese top executives at a late February conference in Hanoi.

“From a big vision, break it down to smaller tasks so that you could fulfill them within a week, a month instead of a quarter or a year. The next step is to look for an agile DX services provider. Those are the very first steps to achieve success in digital transformation”, Tram explained.

According to Tram, the first digital transformation initiatives should be feasible and short-term, ranging from three to six months, based on an overall evaluation of all units, functions within the company, customer needs, as well as the latest technology.

At DuPont where Tram used to serve as global Chief Information Officer, he first implemented digital transformation at an Indian branch, the smallest but at the time experiencing more than 30 percent of turnover rate. Within three months, turnover rate plunged below 3 percent. Only when his approach succeeded in Indian, digital transformation initiatives were adopted in the U.S. and scaled up in other regions.

Regarding the structural changes when it comes to digital transformation, Tram also shared his own DuPont experience. “The first changes were made in the management board. There needed to be someone who understand technology because the entire journey was based on technologies. Then a DX working group was created to include a digital guru, a chief information officer, and a change agent”.

Phuong Tram joined DuPont in 1989 has the operation manager in Sydney, Australia and served various roles over the course of nearly 30 years. He led the company to be the first to introduce e-commerce in Brazil and Singapore in 1997 before rolling it out globally across 20 countries, helping to improve customer services and cut down the Order Fulfillment Cycle time by 80 percent. Tram also helped the science company make it to the Fortune 500 list and saved the company billions of dollars with an unique approach to digital transformation. Since 2019, he took on a new role as FPT Chief Advisor on Digital Transformation.

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