Daniel Newman characterizes the difference well in his Forbes article, describing optimization as the low-hanging fruit: or as we would put it, climbing the IT Maturity ladder. Transformation on the other-hand is fundamentally disruptive. Disruptive to your company, to the industry and to the customers.
Oft-times transformation is associated with new technologies, like AI (artificial intelligence) IoT (internet of things), robotics and the like, but it is very possible, indeed likely that such technology is usually used in automation or streamlining processes (in other words optimization).
Transformation is more than this, it is re-imagining the business, the customer journey and ecosystem. Although enabled by technology, such transformation is rarely limited to it.
The easiest way to work through how best to optimize your company is to start with a benchmark and then assess yourself against it. Looking at the gaps will inform you on opportunities. Using a maturity model is one way of doing this. Although there are several maturity models available, the analytics maturity model (AMM) is one most used. A good insight into this is offered by Zencos.
AMM has its roots in the software capability maturity model (CMM). Both models describe the stages a company travels through to reach process maturity in analytics and software, respectively.
The model shows how businesses evolve from chaos to an optimized data-driven approach.
progressing through the 5 levels of maturity.
Kulu can help you work through this to take advantage of that low-hanging fruit and gain immediate business benefit.
The good news is that there is already a methodology to help businesses work through their business and transform their future. The Phoenix Encounter Method has been applied to over 1,600 companies with significant success. Backed by one of the most prestigious business schools in the world, the methodology is so called because it encourages businesses to rise up through the burning platform they create.
Kulu can help work you through this process and set you on the path to a true transformation.
You can get a good overview here