Building A Successful Digital Transformation Strategy
Jun 9, 2020
4 min read
Before thinking about what your digital strategy would be, or how do you start, ask if implementing a digital transformation is feasible for you.
Most of us are getting the wrong idea about what digital transformation means. It’s not just upgrading your technology but also restructuring your business process to easily adapt to changes.
Digital transformation is a way of integrating technology to create or modify an existing business model and generate new experiences for customers and team members. Understanding what digital means is essential in building a successful strategy.
A Roadmap To Digital Transformation Strategy
For your business to implement an effective digital transformation strategy, planning is vital. Once you determine what is you want to gain from developing your digital foothold, then you can get started on how to get there.
Step 1: Establishing your Goals and Direction
Answer these questions: What is your end goal? What are you trying to achieve?
Digital transformation goes beyond having an internal IT. Digital transformation can give you an opportunity to revise your overall business process and allows you to gain an advantage against the competitive market, instead of just updating one part of your business.
In this step, you need to establish your vision and the objective of your transformation. This will allow you to determine the next steps of your digital strategy and help you discern the results. Define your KPIs so you can measure the effectiveness of your strategy once implemented.
Increasing digital competency across the organization can be one of your short-term objectives or reducing turnaround time from delivery to order is your long-term. These are just examples and it doesn’t necessarily need to be specific to digital, but how technology can be applied to achieve it.
Step 2: Assess the Current Market
Your digital transformation strategy should be customer-centric. Keep in mind that customers always look for something different or something more personalized for them.
Technology development is becoming more aggressive and changes in different industries are more noticeable, analyzing the current market trends will help you create a more relevant strategy. Be mindful of the gaps you can bridge to improve customer experience.
Step 3: Prepare for Culture Change
Get everyone in your company on board with the idea of digital transformation, one of the key contributors to a successful transformation is company culture.
Culture change is a roadblock that your business needs to overcome. Ensure that everyone understands the reasons behind the change and must be open to it. A company culture that can embrace these changes, inspire collaboration, and motivates employees about digital transformation is more built for success.
The concept of the new digital culture describes how technology influences the way we engage with others or the way we think and behave within society. The new digital culture is the result of a disruptive technological revolution that surrounds us today.
Step 4: Building your Execution Team
How will you execute your plan? Who will be responsible for it?
The person or team who will lead the implementation should help employees feel secure in times of change. This can be your Chief Digital Officer (CDO) or Chief Information Officer (CIO) or even an external team.
The chosen team should have the willingness to learn and adapt to new technologies as your business continues to evolve. Digital transformation is a continuous process that’s why your organization needs the expertise to keep everything on track.
Step 5: Investing in the right technology
In this step, you need to assess your current infrastructure and adjust it according to the imminent changes.
Various solutions can assist you with your digital transformation, but it requires a lot of decision making. You need to take time choosing the right technology that best suits your plan to avoid wasting time and money.
What are the tools or technologies that drive your digitalization efforts? It can be 5G powered smartphones, and collaborative applications (e.g. Microsoft 365) or artificial intelligence and augmented reality.
Before investing in new technology, ask if it aligns with your goals, and fills the gap in your organization.
Step 6: Measure and Adjust
Once you’ve implemented your plan, it’s time to look at the results. Remember that the digital transformation process doesn’t have an end. Take a step back, analyze the metrics, and monitor the impact before adjusting if it’s necessary.
Change is inevitable. It is necessary to update your strategy based on current market trends and conditions.
Effective Digital Strategy For Modern Businesses
As you plan your own digital strategy, keep in mind that it’s all about your customer experience. Ensure that your transformation strategy will center on how you will provide your services or product and not on what technology should you use.
Putting your focus on technology alone can be a recipe for disaster. Clients would still prefer human interaction than robots. Technology should be used as a tool for communication, collaboration, and engagement.
Your digital transformation plan can only be effective if everyone in your organization is open to the changes that come with it. The journey can be difficult as you go through different challenges and encounter failures, but success is never an easy task.
Ready to start with your Digital Transformation journey?
If you’re looking for a team of professionals to help your business with digital transformation, reach out to us! We have years of experience assisting various organizations in different industries execute a successful transformation plan.