031 | FILIP DŘÍMALKA | HOW TO DIGITALLY TRANSFORM YOUR COMPANY AND WHY TO DO IT

Filip Dřímalka is the owner of EF1 marketing & management s.r.o., the founder of Digiskills.cz and Digitask.cz, author of the book HOT: Jak uspět v digitálním světě and probably the best known and most visible promoter of digital transformation.

The description of individual companies far exceeds the space we have here. They all deal with automation and digitization, the creation of the digital workplace, training, and general education of digital retailers.

Philip has a real passion for each application. You can see from him and his speech that this is not just a pose, but that he can no longer imagine his life without apps. That's why we discuss the following questions:

🔸What is the state of digital transformation in SME companies?

🔸How to choose the right app for the job?

🔸How to push digital transformation despite your own IT?

🔸What are the digital transformation trends?

🔸How to maintain relationships in hybrid companies and is it needed?

Fingers crossed and best wishes for success

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION

Martin Hurych

Hello. I'm Martin Hurych and this is Ignition. This Ignition will be about digital transformation, and when it's about digital transformation, it's with Filip Dřímalka. Hi, Filip.

Filip Dřímalka

Hello, I greet all the listeners of Ignition.

Performance by Filip Dřímalka

Martin Hurych

Filip is the owner of EF1 agency, founder of Digiskills, author of the first book about digital transformation in the Czech Republic titled "HOT: How to succeed in the digital world" and probably the most famous consultant and face of digital transformation in the Czech Republic. Did I say that exactly?

Filip Dřímalka

I don't know if I'm the best known, but I'm trying to promote the benefits of digitalization and to motivate Czech companies to digitize more, faster and a little more urgently than before.

Martin Hurych

Great, until we get to that. How does it happen that you go from being a law graduate to being a figurehead of digitalization and transformation of Czech companies? What was the journey from law school to writing a book on digital transformation?

Filip Dřímalka

It was a thorny road, but as they say, "It takes seven years for overnight success", it takes seven years to be a little bit visible, but the journey was about the search. Often when you're studying, you don't know if you want to do what you're studying. In my case, I started working while I was studying and I found that I wanted to do something other than law, but I finished law. However, I worked my way through - customer service, sales and marketing. What was interesting about all the professions was that you could use technology in all of them. Whether to make customer service more efficient, sales more efficient or of course marketing, which is naturally the furthest thing from technology. I've used technology in all of my jobs and when I started consulting specifically for marketing, I found that I was much more interested in the ways that I could support the business by helping the company make better use of technology. The last change was that instead of creating technology where we were developing different websites, apps and augmented reality, I realised that it was more important for companies to be able to do these things themselves. We went from that implementation to teaching companies how to work better with technology. We're helping them to implement them, but ideally in a way that that competence, that ability is within the companies themselves and with specific people.

Martin Hurych

So could we say that you were, in the words of your book, a digital rebel?

Filip Dřímalka

Anyway, and I remember when I was working at an international company and I brought my Mac Book there. I hooked it up to the internet there on the sly and the IT guy at the time came running in and didn't know how to handle it. So yes, I was a digital rebel, I was constantly breaking some rules, but that's what I learned the most from.

The state of digital transformation in SMEs

Martin Hurych

So, now let's move on to today's main topic. What is the state of digital transformation in the Czech Republic? Maybe in general, and then given my target audience, which I do a lot of broadcasting for, what is the situation in, for example, small, medium-sized businesses, manufacturing businesses? We often see digital transformations of huge corporations like banks, Skoda etc., but it is not so visible in smaller enterprises.

Filip Dřímalka

I would say that the situation is different, it is probably not possible to generalize, but what I am realizing more and more is that it is not so much about digitized companies as it is about digitized teams. You can have a team in one company that uses very advanced technology, has automated processes, digitally capable staff, and then another team that is still working like it was in 1990. There are differences between teams, there are differences between people, and what I see in Czech companies is that digital talent or people who like technology and would like to digitalize the company are becoming more and more aware of when the company is holding them back. That is, when others don't see the importance of technology, when others are working in the same or old way. I feel there is a growing level of frustration from people who can't use all the opportunities that technology offers, which will be important in the future and it will divide companies that will be attractive to digital talent, technology enthusiasts and those that won't. The moment I can't use the best tools in a company, I won't want to work in that company. You asked about the big company, small company difference. I think it's the medium-sized and small companies that are digitizing far more because they have far more options. Honestly, if I work in a bank, I have some set of applications within which I can innovate that daily agenda, but those options are limited. We have a program called the Digital Leadership Masterclass and there are representatives from all types of companies and it's small and medium sized companies where if that owner decides now I'm going to use this app here, they start using it and often on the same day. Those opportunities are huge and the big advantage over the past is that often the apps we're talking about cost a few hundred bucks a month and are available to anybody. Today the technology is so accessible that you really just have to want to and develop and more importantly be proactive, you don't have to be the digital expert who knows everything.

Choosing the right application for the job

Martin Hurych

Sometimes I see such paralysis from analysis because, as you also rightly write, there is an app for everything nowadays. If there was one app for everything, that's great, but usually there are 50 apps. How do I make sense of this chaos, or how do I make sense of the set I'm going to start working with?

Filip Dřímalka

This is the most important question we are addressing today. We ourselves have moved from being an app for everything to advising clients on one specific app that will help them. I'm launching a new project right now called digitask.cz, which is focused on just that, if someone needs X, Y tool, we'll advise them on one or two tools, for example, and help them implement that tool. The paralysis is huge, there are tens of thousands of tools, so that's the biggest challenge and I would recommend maybe, one, talking to your neighborhood, talking to maybe your kids, what tools they use, talking to companies in my neighborhood and sharing. The other thing is that it may be the difference between tool 1 or tool 2, but the important thing is to start using something, sometimes it's far more important than the tool itself that I actually start using it, that I have the discipline and tell myself that I'm going to work hard in it for a month now. Whether it's a CRM in a small business that hasn't used it before, whether it's some sort of record keeping system, or the fact that I'm going to have a couple of dashboards, reports, charts done as an owner that track my finances and I don't have to contact my accountant to send me info about whether or not we're going to have money in the account next week. So, yes, there are a number of tools, but as people try, as they go more digital, the know-how is also among us. So really, have fun, connect with us, we're happy to advise, or simply Google it and then find someone as a partner to help me implement those tools in the company.

Where to start with digital transformation

Martin Hurych

According to your experience, if, maybe thanks to your programs or this Ignition, I decide to shake things up and start transforming my company into the 21st century. Is there a point that you would recommend, where to start from, so that it brings maybe the most benefit, for the least change, or is it basically the same?

Filip Dřímalka

You said it exactly, I would start where it will bring me the biggest savings in the long run. Whether it's energy time or activities that are done manually today. There are a few areas that every company should address as a priority. I mean, one thing in general is a digital workplace, whether we're dealing with email, calendar, files, notes, that kind of one place where I'm going to have all the information in the company, interact with people there, and use it really well. For example, we don't use internal email at all within Digiskills. We have everything set up in Microsoft 365 and we teach it to other companies, but it doesn't matter if you use Google or Microsoft. The important thing is to have one good workstation, ideally in the cloud, so I don't have to hunt for that data somewhere or if my computer accidentally burns down I don't lose it, so that foundation is to use office applications really well. Then the second thing is processes, how they are connected and set up. Today we have a number of tools that allow us to link all the different applications that we use so that we don't have to copy data, copy tables, so that kind of simple automation or at least that basic linking of applications. Then depending on what I'm doing, if I'm doing more of a business or if I'm managing production, then obviously talking to people as well, drawing out the process of how I do my job and thinking about what would help me in the long run. If I start with a technology, make it work for me. I always think of it as making the tools work for you as if you employed people. If I employ someone that saves me half an hour or an hour a day, well, I have half an hour or an hour a day to do other things. Finally, there are tools and technologies that many companies don't see as a priority. Typically, digital signing of contracts and things like that, which can more or less cover most of the business relationships, business engagements today, and there it's not so much that it saves time, but it changes the mentality as well. Once a person learns and realises that you can really just open it on your mobile, sign it and send it back, then they start to think differently and it starts to change how they approach technology in general because then they want to digitise and simplify more and more other processes.

How to push digital transformation despite your own IT

Martin Hurych

I'll sign this, Ondra Riha from DigiSign.cz was here a couple of episodes ago, so be sure to check it out, digital signature is a great thing. When I was reading your book, I had the most fun with the sentences that say that the IT department is paradoxically a brake on progress in many companies. How do you do what you've just listed that we should be doing to achieve that, through our own IT that says you can't do that, it's in the cloud, it's dangerous, what about it?

Filip Dřímalka

Find a better IT... No, I like IT people, of course, but I have to slip into the cliché that it's about people. I can have an IT department where there is someone who is my partner and helps me, but I can also have an IT department that is a hindrance to progress. In general, it's good to talk to IT before I start doing anything myself, treat them as a partner and discuss the problem with them from the beginning. That's step number 1. Step number 2, if I can't get something passed in the company, it's a good idea to invite someone from the company where it was passed to inspire other members of my team or the management. Everything's been worked out somewhere. So as soon as we're solving the 5 reasons why something didn't go well in the company and suddenly I invite someone to an inspirational half hour to describe how it went and that it went well, I'm opening up the heads of those people and helping that team push through those ideas and those visions that I have towards digital. In some cases, it's worth trying it out on the side, as an experiment, and then maybe showing completely, concretely, what it could look like. A typical example, I've been in a company that didn't use CRM and what we did there was we tried it with them, we uploaded test data and then we showed all the benefits and advantages and how it could work if CRM would. Instead of having these empty discussions about whether CRM is a yes or no, we showed them very specific things about how it can help people, how it can help the company, how we're going to have more insight into what's going on there and those people were far more convinced than if we showed some slide from a presentation. So this works and generally, the best innovators, the best digitizers, are the ones who don't get discouraged and try these things over and over again, you need to arm yourself a little bit.

Digital Transformation Trends

Martin Hurych

Two years ago, thanks to some pretty unpleasant circumstances known to all, we started going digital day by day because we were forced to, so we all know Teams, Zoom, Slack, etc. You certainly have your periscope pointed forward. What's ahead, what are the digital trends, what do we need to prepare for, how will work perhaps change in the next two or three years?

Filip Dřímalka

Interesting, I recently pulled up a presentation from 2013 and the apps I presented there are just now starting to be really heavily used. We're going to be trying to fine-tune the collaboration and communication for a while, but where I see the most potential is in automating application interfacing and automating workflows in general. What a human being does today, where they have to click, they have to repeatedly do an activity. Things that we often don't realize, but we do them 100 times a week, either ourselves or our colleagues. The second point, it's called no-code or low-code i.e. programming without coding. A tool where I am able to actually manage any project, build a system more or less by typing it in and I don't need any IT knowledge at all. I can build a website, I can even build a mobile app, and I see huge potential in that. Let's imagine I've got service people, I've got 8 people who go and service something, so I can have them build a mobile app and it takes me a couple of hours and I don't need a company to do it, I don't need an IT department to do it. If I can work with somebody who is proficient in the no-code apps here, the simpler tools here, they can help me digitize the company in an incredible way. The third trend is to think about how we want to operate, and now I don't just mean tools, but maybe suddenly I have the ability to do business online. Suddenly I have the opportunity to hire someone from Jeseník to do customer support. There are a lot of possibilities and I have to think not only about the tools but also about how I want to build the business and how I can use tools, people and new ways of organizing work. To give you an example, last year I read an article about a lady who has some physical limitations and they wrote in the newspaper that she had sent her CV to 92 companies and she had not been hired anywhere. I thought that was a challenge and we set up our systems so that she started working almost the second or third day and today we are working together. She's part of our team, we just have to organize the work a little bit differently and set up the systems to help her more because she can't make calls, for example, and so on. It's a huge opportunity, if we can hire almost anybody and set up a system that they can work, let's think about what other people can do if they can work really well with the tools and the applications. I think that's probably the basis of what's going to happen in the future, the realization that suddenly I have almost all the people in the world to help me in my business or in my work and I can invent new projects, new activities, use people to do that, whether it's part-time or one-off or have technology built for that. In general, the possibility of realization and the huge opportunities, that's the biggest trend that I see here.

How to maintain relationships in hybrid companies

Martin Hurych

Now, you brought me to a question and a situation that I see, especially in maybe smaller software houses or studios. I don't want to make it sound bad because what you're saying, that you can actually employ anyone, anywhere, on any projects is definitely great. On the other hand, I can see that maybe that base of people who originally sat in one office are very hard to get along with, or rather the other way around, those satellites that are hired externally for virtual work are very hard to get along with the collective that originally sat in an office together. Is there already any recommendation in the digital transformation on how to actually work with hybrid companies, how to keep these people in some kind of social contact or?

Filip Dřímalka

For me, the key question is whether I want to, because the idea that we go to work and build a collective and be a family is not for everyone. Honestly I, if I was employed, I have my friends, I have my fun and I don't even want to spend those 8 hours there, I might want to work 4 hours but do an 8 hour job and go to work for some self-realization and don't need to build a collective. I understand that for some people it's important, for some people it's not, but I see a big trend of companies looking at it a little bit, differently. That is, they say yes, work is important, but far more important is the life before, after and in between, so let's set it up so that you are happy at work, but don't need to build relationships, culture and a collective. There are companies that are built on the opposite of that and again, a tool is just a tool. If I have satellites, if I have people working remotely, what can I do? I can do regular calls where we just keep Teams on audio and we work as if we're sitting in an office together, everybody's doing their own thing, sometimes we have fun. I can do regular Monday breakfast meetings, I can do a lot of events where it's maybe a lot more efficient or accessible than if I'm just doing it purely in the office and it's just about creativity, proactivity of people to go the extra mile and try some formats to get that team together. For example, we can go to the regions, we can go to some offline meetings once a month. By the way, they say it's much further from Prague to Brno than from Brno to Prague. The people who talk the most about bonding are the ones who haven't left Prague and wouldn't go to the region themselves, but they are constantly enticing those people to come to Prague for some meeting. So I think it's about the fact that technology allows me to do something and if I have a hybrid company, I have to think about how I use technology, but also that sometimes I have to go out and spend that time with people like I used to spend in the office. The last thing is that there are already apps out there today, one is called Donut and it works. People who are interested, they log into it, it randomly connects them either for a phone call or an online coffee. Those relationships that are formed by meeting someone are kind of fading a little bit in that online world, but there are already tools that connect me. It's not like in person, but the point is that company culture and teamwork can be fostered, and the time we put in is far more important than whether we sit in a boardroom or talk online.

Digital office for freelancer

Martin Hurych

You said someone wants to spend 4 hours at a company because they enjoy spending time differently and don't see work as their everything. There's a lot of people who want to work relatively hard, don't associate their future with one company, and like to work on different projects at the same time for different companies. Personally, I see this more and more often, and I am a shining example. But it seems to me that all productivity or teamwork tools are built on a situation where you have a company, a team and a few satellites around. How are we, who are working in several teams at the same time, supposed to keep our brains clear and how are we supposed to build that digital office so that we don't have to change our work environment every 2 hours to suit our client?

Filip Dřímalka

Martin, I'm gonna let you down here. The digital world is getting more and more complex, there are a lot of tools out there, and it's probably not going to get any better in the future. Even in our private lives we see it, we have Whatsapp, Messenger, SMS, Viber, someone is texting us on Instagram and unfortunately we will not be able to avoid it in the future. I do believe that there will start to be apps that put that together for us, so there are already some tools out there today. I have one app and I communicate in multiple apps within that one app, so I believe technology will solve some of that for us. For me personally, it's more about some sort of personal system. Maybe the solution is that I set aside some moments of time to focus on one project or arrange a way to communicate, or, and I don't think many people like to hear this, adapt. I'm also in several companies, one company uses Microsoft 365, Teams, OneNote, everything else. The other company in turn uses Slack, Notion, and others. I take it that I'm learning in that as well, sometimes I have to adapt. What I've learned over the years is more to adapt to the people, they work in it, so that they're happy and comfortable managing projects in it. I, as either an owner or a project manager, so I try to adjust the system, and make it fit, rather than making it fit me, and making it easy for me to work in. I'll give you one example where it's far more important to set up those collaboration principles than it is to debug what specific tools. My colleagues in one project complained that I was slow to respond to chat messages so as not to hold up the team, so I created a simple 24/48 rule. That rule says that we try to respond within 24 hours in the team's chat tools that are used for quick communication, and if I don't respond within 48 hours, the thing is taken as approved. I mean, somebody asks me, "Hey Philip, I'm dealing with a situation like this, what do you say, to this and to that?" If I don't respond within two days, I take it as approved because speed is much more important to me than having to approve and check everything. So this has freed up space and it's a simple 24/48 principle and it doesn't really matter if I'm working in Microsoft 365 or some other tool. This is where those collaboration principles, and that setup is much more important. So think about that and set up the basic principles, the basic team agreements. If you're working in multiple tools, learn how to work with them, and then organize your world so that if it bothers you, it bothers you as little as possible. The key is to identify what bothers me about it and then try to adapt the tools and the organization of the work.

Filip Dřímalka's personal productivity system

Martin Hurych

What does your personal digital productivity system look like?

Filip Dřímalka

For me, the basic rule is the two-minute rule, i.e. what I can check in now, I check in now. By having everything that's on my computer on my phone, we have everything in the cloud, so I can check in a lot of things while I'm in the field. The other thing is that I try to put all the tasks in one place and tag tasks that come from other tools as well, so I don't have to think about them. The third thing is that I try to handle as many things as possible asynchronously, meaning that if someone wants to have a meeting and talk about collaboration, I almost never accept that now. Let him write a few points, record a video, and then we can talk. The same way I communicate, when I send something to a customer, I'll record a short video on it, explain it there, and that often limits the fact that we need another half hour or hour meeting there. That's where the asynchronous work is the No. 1 issue for me right now. I'm dealing with that and trying to tweak the processes in the company so that it works ideally without me. So I'm constantly trying to think about what I can do today to make my job easier tomorrow, and every task that I'm tackling, I'm thinking about it not just in terms of the task, but how I can do it so that the next time I'm here I don't have to tackle that task. Make it delegated, automated, or make it streamlined so that we don't have to deal with the little things and can focus on the important things.

Summary

Martin Hurych

I love how you are on fire for the digital office, transformation, whatever. Now, if you had people looking at us for 30 minutes wondering what those two clowns were saying, this is not for me. Let's fire them up in two or three sentences to change their business.

Filip Dřímalka

Everyone has to find that motivation on their own. I think there are 2 ways of looking at it. One perspective is that either I want to make something happen, I want to get great results, I want to build a great company and I have great tools that can help me do that, whatever I do. So, if you want to get better results, there's nothing better than using technology to do that, but even if you don't and you just want to simplify your job, you don't want to stress, you want to do less or you just want to get better results in the same amount of time, or you just want to simplify your job, then anyway, technology can be used to do that. You have to be fired up for your own work and the technology is just a tool to help you do it better, so if you're fired up for your work, then maybe open up. Try to explore the world of digital and you'll see that it will help you, whatever you're really doing.

Martin Hurych

When they are set on fire, where do they find you and how can we actually help these set on fire? What do you have for them?

Filip Dřímalka

So either drimalka.com, if you sign up for my newsletter, you'll get regular tips on different tools, my thoughts on business development and business transformation in general, but very practical, no talking around, really things you can use. If you want help with technology, just go to digitask.com and sign up there and whatever problem you have, whatever application you want to set up, you're looking for someone to help you implement a tool, just write there and we'll write you within 24 hours with specific advice, specific solutions or connecting you with a specific person to help you. So it's really about taking that first step and saying I'm so and so, I'm doing this and that and I need help with this and that and we'll take care of you.

Martin Hurych

I already have a list for you Philip that I've been writing while reading the book, so I'll be sure to post something there this afternoon. Thank you for your participation.

Filip Dřímalka

Thank you so much for inviting me.

Martin Hurych

Thank you.

Martin Hurych

That was Zážeh with Filip Dřímalka. I hope we've sparked you and that you're currently on a store looking for the first app to install and try out, to make your life easier. If that's happening, Filip and I did our job well today. Don't forget to check out my website www.martinhurych.com, where this episode will very likely have a bonus that Filip and I forgot about, but I'm sure you'll find something there from the two of us. If you liked us in any other way, be sure to subscribe in your podcast app or on YouTube so we'll see you next time. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed and wish you success. Thanks.

(automatically translated by www.deepL.com, shortened and edited)