7 Lessons From Successful Digital Business Transformation Processes

7 Lessons From Successful Digital Business Transformation Processes

Change is hard and disruptive, and digital business transformation change is harder. 89% of all organizations have either already adopted a digital-first strategy or plan to do so in the future. While many companies had started their transformation journey, the pandemic has succeeded in accelerating the process for others. 

If anything, the pandemic has thrust many organizations into the digital landscape. While some are struggling to adapt to the changes, the others are moving at a much faster digital pace.

Digital transformation doesn’t happen overnight – it is a constant value-adding process. In fact, in the year2018, more than 50% of companies’ digital transformation efforts have fizzled out.

Digital transformation can yield many benefits to companies, employees, their customers, and other stakeholders. That’s the reason why proper planning is necessary to ensure smooth transition and transformation.

7 Tips to Help you Achieve Digital Business Transformation Success

Even when the results of a successful transformation are encouraging, the success stories seem to be hard to come by. To ensure your business gets the best of the digital world, let’s look at these 7 tips to help you achieve digital business transformation success.

1. Identify What Digital Transformation Means for your Business

Before giving the go-ahead for the transformation process, make sure you know exactly what digital transformation means to your business. It is the very first step, and most companies falter in defining their transformation goals.  

Let’s get real here. Even though we are constantly talking about digital transformation best practices, we are still looking solely at the end picture, improving your sales figure. However, the more ‘wider outlook’ of the process is to leverage the potential of advanced technology to better engage with users and offer exceptional customer experience.

A good place to start your planning would be by taking a hard look at your business, data and technology, people and processes, and your customer’s needs. Once you are sure of where you are currently, you can better understand where you want to be and develop a roadmap on how to get there.  

2. Maintain a Customer-Centric Approach

Digital business transformation is not about tweaking a little change here and there. It involves all the stakeholders – including your customers. So, designing digital transformation solutions without involving your customers is the perfect recipe for failure.

It is advisable to discuss the transformation process with your customers, understand whether they are comfortable with the changes and explain the challenges they might encounter during the process.

Some companies give up their transformation ideas if their customers are not completely satisfied. However, customers are more likely to be convinced if you explain the numerous benefits of transformation – improved customer service and faster business processes.

3. Instill a Culture of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation doesn’t mean changing the technology behind the business, but it is also a form of cultural change.

One of the biggest roadblocks to successful transformation is the resistance to change by employees. 70% of digital transformation efforts fail, mainly due to employees’ lack of commitment to the process.

You need to make sure your employees are on the same page as you on digital transformation solutions. It is wise to discuss the cultural changes that a transformation process will bring about. A transformation can impact the manner in which the organization interacts within the ecosystem, with its customers and handles its internal operations. Without the support of stakeholders, it won’t be possible to bring a digital overhaul.

4. Take your IT Team into Confidence

An organization will have better chances at succeeding in its transformation endeavors if it takes its internal IT team into confidence on all matters related to changing its digital infrastructure. Remember, the IT department deals with the technical infrastructure of the business and interacts with the customers, employees, and other partners.

Also Read: How Digital Transformation is lacking in the Construction Industry?

As your IT team could lead the transformation process, you must communicate the plans, goals and strategies. Since they are already aware of your businesses’ technical infrastructure, they could help you in your digital efforts.

5. Plan your Transformation Strategy

Many companies fail mainly because they haven’t really put much thought into the transformation process. The transformation doesn’t involve just one department – it is an all-encompassing business solution. It involves cultural change, adopting advanced technologies & implementing best practices and transforming the business into a customer-centric entity.

It would help if you mapped out your digital business transformation story – from the initial need analysis to the final implementation process & It is vital for everyone involved in the business to know exactly what benefits they expect from the process.

The digital plan and approach are different from one company to another, and a plan that worked for others could spell disaster for you. Be very specific about your requirements, goals, budget, time frame, ROI and long-term vision. Only when you have every stakeholder on board can you maintain the momentum needed to change.

6. Lead the Team From the Front

When it comes to bringing in business-wide change, it has to always start at the top. Only when the top management and executives participate in the change process will it truly have a positive trickle-down effect on the rest of the employees.

According to reports, 37% of CEOs or board of directors were responsible for holding back their companies’ digital transformation processes.

Other reports indicate that when organizations have tech-savvy digital leaders at the helm, they are more likely to register success. According to a study by McKinsey and Company, businesses that had a CDO or a Chief Digital Officer at the top were 1.6 times more likely to enjoy the successful digital business transformation. A businesswise change will not sustain the momentum unless it is strongly pursued by the top management. 

7. Get Help from Digital Transformation Experts

Digital transformation is not a one-time solution to all business woes. It involves a lot of planning, tracking, budgeting and monitoring for a successful transformation – the entire process can get really overwhelming for even a large enterprise.

Getting help from a technology partner will help your business deal with the humongous pan-business process. Digital transformation solutions partners can help you plan the strategy, anticipate challenges, identify roadblocks and save time and money.

While there are a dime a dozen companies offering their services, it is vital to choose one specializing in providing digital solutions, has a proven success track record, strong technical expertise, and transparency in pricing and communication.

Wrapping Up

Digital technology is evolving, and businesses that don’t keep pace with the rapidly changing technologies will be left behind or become irrelevant in the future. The answer? Integrate digital transformation solutions into your business and embrace all changes (and challenges) that come with it.

If done properly, digital transformation can bring in multitude of benefits to both business and its customers. The world is technology is coming up with newer and more advanced techniques to improve business processes and meet changing market requirements. It is the prerogative of each business to define what transformation actually means for them, as transformation is not restricted to technological overhaul but also cultural change.

Comments are closed.