Digital transformation: the soft option

While management is busy finding the correct way for companies to adapt to the digital era, other people are trying to merge energy and goodwill closer to the field at the same time, with the conviction that the two approaches will come together. At the end of 2014, Richard Berro created a ‘bottom up’ initiative which was accepted by EDF despite being more in phase with digital culture than EDF’s historical culture. He achieved this by starting out with the belief that digitalisation is ‘man before tools existed’. He brought together people who wanted to innovate, and introduced them to other work methods, tools and techniques, and convinced decision-makers to help to finance these projects in a collaborative way. Richard Berro is now in charge of promoting these new work methods in EDF. Is this ‘soft’ method an efficient way of helping to transform the digital culture in large companies?