Digital Factories: 5 Ways They're Transforming Organizations

In today's highly competitive marketplace, providing customers with exceptional experiences is critical for success. To achieve this, organizations must not only create great experiences but also deliver them effectively and efficiently. This is where digital factories come in.

A digital factory is a powerful system of cross-functional teams that expertly integrates the necessary skills, processes, and resources to consistently develop and deliver top-notch results. These results are typically in the form of journeys, which consist of a series of carefully-planned actions designed to achieve a specific goal. 

To provide a clearer picture of digital factories, we can refer to the definition provided by McKinsey: “One element is the culture and the operating model of the digital factory. This is generally a place where teams will work in very different ways than they may work in the rest of the organization. You can think of a digital factory as a construct of ten to 50 teams, squads, pods, whatever the name is. Usually, each of these teams will be eight to 12 people, and they’ll be working on projects that build the digital capabilities of the organization.”

Dias, Joao and Bhapkar, Rohit (2017). How a digital factory can transform company culture.  Mckinsey Podcast, https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/how-a-digital-factory-can-transform-company-culture  

Modyo provides an approach that allows numerous teams to build digital products with agility and governance, consolidating web and mobile experiences in one place. Modyo's microfrontend architecture enables the development of digital experiences, coupled with microservices and various tools and integrations available on its platform. The platform provides maximum flexibility, open technology standards, and development frameworks, enabling teams to use preferred technology to easily recruit and make developers productive quickly.

Let’s explore how digital factories are transforming large organizations by highlighting their benefits and also exploring their challenges. We'll also take a look at why Modyo is a great choice for supporting digital factory innovation.

How Digital Factories are transforming large organizations

Here are 5 ways that digital factories are transforming and benefiting large organizations:

1. Accelerated innovation: Digital factories are designed to foster innovation and experimentation. By bringing together cross-functional teams of experts from various skills, they can rapidly prototype and test new ideas, products, and services.

2. Enhanced agility: Digital factories employ agile development methodologies that allow them to respond quickly to changing customer needs and market demands. They can also quickly pivot or adjust their strategies based on feedback and insights.

3. Culture adaptation:  By introducing new ways of working, such as agile development methodologies and design thinking principles, digital factories can help to shift the culture towards one that is more responsive, customer-centric, and innovative. This can be particularly important for traditional organizations that may be struggling to adapt to the demands of a digital-first world.

4. Reduced costs: Digital factories are often focused on developing digital solutions that can automate or streamline existing processes, reducing operational costs and improving efficiency.

5. Increased competitiveness: Digital factories can help organizations stay ahead of the competition by delivering innovative digital solutions that meet and exceed customer expectations.

Challenges to consider

1. Discrepancies in Knowledge: When working in digital factories, team members may have different levels of knowledge, skills, and paces of learning, which can affect their ability to achieve desired outcomes in a timely manner. In order to succeed, it is crucial to establish efficient methods for team members to acquire the necessary knowledge quickly, especially when dealing with complex solutions that require extensive training.

2. Team and Partner Dependencies: Launching digital products in large organizations often involves coordinating between multiple teams and partners. However, managing dependencies between them can be challenging and can lead to increased complexity and costs. Striking a balance between teams and partners is crucial for success.

3. Retaining and Rotating Team Members: Employee turnover is a common issue in many digital factories, making it important to implement digital solutions that are easy to understand, manage, and iterate. Simplifying the process of building and maintaining digital products can help to retain team members and streamline the rotation process.

4. Code Quality and Maintainability: The way code is created and the architecture of the solution can significantly impact the success or failure of a digital factory. Ensuring the quality and maintainability of code over time is crucial.

5. Agile Adaptation to Market Opportunities: Digital products must continuously evolve to meet changing market demands and customer expectations. Staying agile and being able to adapt to these changes within required time frames is a significant challenge for digital factories.

You can get more insights about these challenges in our white paper that explores digital factories in detail. 

At Modyo, we’re committed to helping large organizations navigate these challenges and make the most of the innovative opportunities that their digital factories have to offer.

The Modyo platform is a great foundation for digital factories 

At Modyo, we establish an approach that allows numerous teams to build digital products with agility and governance in order to consolidate web and mobile experiences in one place. We strive to deliver a composable frontend platform that leverages our microfrontend architecture to develop digital experiences, coupled with microservices and a variety of exceptional tools and integrations.

The driver behind how we’re building the platform comes down to how valuable it is for large organizations tasked with leveraging frontend technology to deliver great customer experiences. Our friend Jeff Patton puts it in great context:

“Your job isn’t to build more software faster. It’s to maximize the outcome and impact you get from what you choose to build.”

Patton, Jeff and  Economy, Peter. (2014) User Story Mapping. https://www.amazon.com/User-Story-Mapping-Discover-Product/dp/1491904909 

Here are ten keys in which Modyo helps digital factories achieve their goals and stay ahead of the curve. Getting better outcomes, not faster output.

1. Cloud Deployment Model:  Deploy Modyo in either our AWS Cloud or in your Cloud for maximum flexibility.

2. Open Technology Standards and Development Frameworks: Modyo’s Composable Frontend Platform lets your teams use preferred open technology and frameworks to easily recruit and make developers productive quickly.

3. Multi-Site/Multi-Org: With one instance of Modyo in the cloud you can build, manage and orchestrate all your frontend web applications & sites across domains.

4. Governance: Easily configure who can do what. Create publishing workflows and track everything easily with version control. 

5. CLI or build From your browser: Build web and mobile experiences using your own IDE and development pipelines integrated with Modyo. Alternatively, build from your browser using Modyo’s Widget Builder for simpler features and use cases.

6. Templates and Cloning: Create base templates, clone web pages, and clone widgets to accelerate development across teams.

7. Virtual Staging Environment: Create virtual staging environments for testing and validations to accelerate the time to value of your digital products to customers.

8. Multiple User Realms: Create and manage different customer, employee, partner or user realms (databases) for different web applications or sites managed in one place.

9. Content Management for Marketing & Product Teams: Within any page, widget, or external application (within or external to Modyo) let your marketing and business users create, edit and define publishing content workflows with complete auditing and governance. 

10. Modyo Community & Learning Paths: Every Modyo developer enjoys a free SaaS development account with direct access to our team and learning paths to perfect their skills in strategic frontend development.

Conclusion

Digital factories are transforming large organizations by accelerating innovation, enhancing agility, adapting cultures, reducing costs, and increasing competitiveness. However, there are challenges to consider, such as discrepancies in knowledge, team and partner dependencies, employee retention and rotation, code quality and maintainability, and agile adaptation to market opportunities. Modyo's composable frontend platform offers a solution for these challenges, enabling numerous teams to build digital products with agility and governance, consolidate web and mobile experiences, and leverage microservices and various tools and integrations. Modyo is committed to helping large organizations make the most of the innovative opportunities that digital factories have to offer.

If you're interested in learning more about how Modyo helps accelerate your digital factory to build great digital products, reach out and let’s talk.