Parts Of A Profitable Digital Transformation
Discover the 6 components of a successful DX
Regardless of whether you are a small business or a corporate, surviving in the current business climate is challenging. To remedy this, you can optimize business processes by investing in new digital technologies. Thanks to the digital transformation, your employees can achieve excellent performance, management can make sensible decisions and, overall, achieve organizational goals.
According to McKinsey, 70% of digital transformation efforts fail because of poor strategy. This makes it clear that digital transformation, like technology and its adoption, involves a strategy. The success of the digital transformation depends to a large extent on the people who use the digital systems used.
6 key components of a successful digital transformation
1. Digitally savvy leaders
Companies looking to save money through digitization should take a top-down approach. It’s a proven transformation strategy. If you are at the top, you should set a good example.
If not, the organization should switch leadership or train them to fill the gap. A company run with a strong attitude towards transformation and a talent for technology tends to be successful and steer its way through the new process.
A digitally savvy market leader acts as an engine that can create an environment that is digitally activated, technologically empowered, and culturally viable. However, be aware that 35% of employees believe their CEO is hindering digital transformation efforts.
And as if that wasn’t shocking enough, over 55% of employees in emerging businesses say they need new leaders who can embrace change and make room for potential failure. This is why companies need digitally savvy leaders who can ensure cross-functional teams to create an atmosphere where people from different departments work together to achieve a common goal.
A digital first leader gives the team the opportunity to experiment, innovate and implement ideas. Such an environment promotes growth and success.
2. Frequent communication across the board
Communication is an important component in the success of your digital transformation efforts. During the planning and strategy phase, management often ignores communication. It is one of the important ingredients that will ensure that your endeavors are successful.
It is well known that in larger rollouts, despite having an appropriate strategy, people tend to confuse their roles. This only happens because every employee is different and their perceptions also vary, unless your communication leaves no room for misunderstanding.
Integrating an omnichannel communication strategy will dramatically improve the success rate of your DT initiatives. You can use channels such as one-on-one calls, video conferencing, email, messaging apps, and in-app announcements. This way you ensure that the information you want to share across the company is up to date. It is also important to know which communication channel is best for which type of message.
3. Activating the workforce for the future
The expression “workforce of the future” may sound fancy, but it is the order of the day. You need to train your employees in the latest processes and technologies if you want to be sustainable as an organization.
In this case, make sure that their roles are aligned with the organizational goals. Publish this, select the technical managers and internal champions who are familiar with the technology and understand the business needs. These internal champions ensure that most of your employees are keeping up with the latest organizational trends and processes.
Technology managers have many names in different organizations. In some they are recognized as innovators, in others as trendsetters. In both cases, your job is to activate the functions within the company where all employees adapt to the new approach by using the latest technology.
Identifying the digital managers is not enough. It is also important for a company to nurture digital talent by investing in resources that improve the skills of its employees. Hiring an employee is an expensive business. Your company can end up saving a significant amount of money if you invest in training your employees.
Don’t take our word for it. Here are the numbers to justify this statement: The company that spends on training its employees makes 24% more profit than companies that don’t.
Set new settings [1] and it takes time to enable them to meet company expectations. On the other hand, the training of the existing employees on the cutting edge of technology is better because they are future-proof. It also promotes employee loyalty.
Creating an appropriate training program can be more difficult than hiring staff. However, it pays off in the long run.
4. Invest in modern tools
In today’s business scenario, companies need to adopt the latest technology with open arms to achieve maximum impact in the shortest possible time. There is no way that technology in isolation can change the face of your business on its own. No matter how big or small your business is, you need a combination of technology and an idea to use it properly and get better results.
The latest technologies such as blockchain, 5G, AI, automation, platforms for rapid application development and platforms for digital adoption will help you drive your transformation initiatives forward. The main goal of using this technology is to get insightful data, create a better user experience, enable efficient training, automate everyday tasks, and speed up processes. For example more than 58% of B2B organizations [2] Use automated chatbots powered by AI to process generic requests. Here you can see the overlap of technologies to deliver a better user experience that ultimately helps a company reduce internal support tickets. It helps you get your people involved in more productive tasks and optimizes the existing processes that ultimately fuel the transformation efforts.
Platforms like RADs enable developers to accelerate the delivery of web applications, enable seamless integration and scalability on any platform, and enter new markets. While RADs simplify development-related processes, digital adoption platforms help improve existing business processes and accelerate application adoption. They help ensure that your employees or customers can easily adopt any newly developed application without prior training.
The bottom line is that companies need to know how to use technology and get the most out of their transformation efforts. By successfully implementing these technologies, you can make better business decisions and streamline processes in all departments.
5. Integration of tools and strategies for better results
The meeting of a digitally savvy market leader, modern technology and a prepared workforce forms the basis for your transformation initiatives. However, what ensures success is knowing how best to work together.
Unfortunately, many companies fail halfway by missing out on one of them: the workforce, the technology, or the digital mindset.
Ensuring an integrated strategy that aligns digital initiatives with overall business results is a must. To achieve this, organizations need to have a strong vision that can be translated into actionable steps that will ultimately help achieve organizational goals.
The most important questions to ask when developing a strategy are:
- What kind of value will be generated when the project is complete?
- Does it help you resolve existing and potential business problems?
- Is the current technology sufficient to produce the desired results, and if so, are they in line with the strategy?
6. Monitor, improve, and review
Often companies collect data without a defined end goal. The company needs to have a purpose in collecting data to get meaningful insights and take the desired action. The biggest challenge is that every department has different KPIs and that these KPIs are interpreted differently across the company.
Knowing how these KPIs are analyzed and what they mean for your business is a must. Once that part is established, you need to know how to monitor these KPIs and what kind of analytics platform can help you achieve it.
Monitoring the provisioning, adoption, and training phases can all contribute to success. Do not be surprised if the goals are not met in the early stages. All you need to do is analyze the gaps and take steps to fill them in with each iteration. Over time, you will see improvements and your initiatives will move in the right direction. Ultimately, you will be able to achieve your goals on all fronts.
Monitoring is a regular activity as you can get the most out of your transformation initiatives in the long run.
The digital transformation is not complex
By now, you might think that digital transformation is a complex process, but it isn’t. In reality, it is a long process that requires patience and perseverance. Initiating digital transformation is one thing and sustaining it is another. You need a variety of things going in your favor in order to be successful. To make this happen, you need to develop a strategy by considering the role of the employee, the technology, and the talent required.
Once all of these things work in your favor, you can use a training platform like a digital adoption platform to ensure success after the roll-out phase.
References:
[1] How Rose Serafini reinvented the Zendesk onboarding experience with Clipchamp videos
[2] 6 Ways Automation Can Power Your Business
