Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how one operates and delivers value to customers. With all the service options a customer has nowadays, the relationship a service-provider has with its customers has never been more critical. Businesses must be agile and flexible to meet their evolving demands, and the onus is on these businesses to support those needs and streamline efficiency.

Additionally, a digital transformation strategy helps employees being more engaged. With updated systems, applications, and solutions, it’s easier to communicate with customers, partners, and co-workers, and it leads to better collaboration as well, helping them succeed in driving important business initiatives.

There are many ways that a company can gain benefit by instituting a digital transformation plan, some of which are short-term wins, while others become more obvious down the line. Here are the 6 critical factors that lead to success in Digital Transformation.

1. Setting a strategy that covers what, why, and how and defines specific business outcomes

2. Winning leadership commitment from CEO through middle management

3. Finding the most capable people to drive the program

4. Developing an agile governance mindset that is flexible and adaptable.

5. Establishing clear metrics for processes and outcomes

6. Building modular tech and data platforms driven by business needs

The key to addressing all six factors is planning, preparation, and execution of digital transformation strategy. Once the plan is fixed, then one can determine what it is that one wants to gain from upgrading the digital foothold. Digital Leaders have accomplished an earnings growth 1.8 times* higher than companies that resist Digital Transformation. Organizations that get these 6 elements right have an 80%* chance of success.

Out of the six factors mentioned, two of them are the most critical:

Agility is the key – Organizations need to ensure that all operations adopt an agile approach to work. This means learning continuously, acting as one team, being outcome-oriented, and being committed to action. While making this shift, having an agile mindset is of utmost importance. This requires an authentic belief in the behavioural changes required, as well as supporting tools such as playbooks, processes, and support to work in a cross-functional, mission-oriented way.

Soft skills are as important as tech skills – Another key factor is spending enough time to get the right people in place and then supporting those people. Leaders need to find the best people with the highest potential to lead a successful transformation. A few things to assess when finding a transformation team are:

1. Have you taken extra care to fill pivotal roles such as program manager?

2. Are there enough digitally literate people to drive new thinking?

3. Have you sourced team members tactically from business units so that they can become champions in critical areas?

4. Do you have a detailed assessment of the skills required and gaps to be filled?

In addition to tracking progress toward goals, company leaders should track the momentum of the project. Digital Transformation leaders should ask these questions to measure momentum:

• How strong is the business pull for digital solutions versus the program push?

• How do the most talented people in the company feel about joining the program, wary or excited?

• Are executives diverting funding to other initiatives or defending the transformation project?

• Are people trying to lower expectations about the work or talking up the advancements?

These “threshold behaviours” are a good indicator of whether the work is headed in the right direction or stalled out. Success is measured by the percentage of targets met and value created, the percentage of goals met on time, success relative to other transformations, and success relative to management’s aspirations for sustainable change. 

InovarTech eliminates the complexity of end-to-end integration with a modern cloud integration platform that connects B2B Data flows, applications, and data across the entire ecosystem and drives complex digital transformation efforts.

References:

*6 ways to win at Digital Transformation from TechRepublic