Steps towards successful digital transformation journey of your business

October 30, 2020

Digital transformation or digitalization has been altering many businesses and their functioning in the last few years, but its significance started going up in the last year with the sudden onset of corona virus, due to which mostorganizations had to resort to working from home for several months.

And presently, around the world, digital transformation is permeating every industry. It is unavoidable, as digital technologies are enabling effective and streamlined work from home procedures and changing the way businesses and companies run – making them more efficient, and as a result; so,the remaining organisations around the world,that haven’t gone digital yet, too, are now beginning to embrace this transformation and evolve, in order tosurvive and thrive, in the unforeseeable future.

Despite this global drive towards digitalisation, reports suggest that a majority of businesses still have a long way to go on their digital transformation journey. Most companies and business owners realize the importance of digital transformation but are not completely sure where and how to start. For many organizations – whose processes have been manual for the most part, this will be a complete overhaul of procedures, and the idea sure can be daunting. In such cases, the transformation can be begun by simply finding one area to start with and making changes in that, after which the other areas can slowly come into picture.

In an enterprise’s digital transformation, digital technology is integrated into every area of the business, from sales to service and beyond. Each area or department in an organization may have their own data or technology that is isolated from the rest of the company – so the speed of transformation can be decided as is suited to the organization’s size and requirement. Even if this takes months to happen, the transformation will be well worth it, because once done, this allows companies to provide unprecedented value to their customers and continually evaluate their strategies and tactics, and also provide a more efficient working system for their employees.

The most crucial and trickiest bit though, is putting the first step forward towards this transformation because, while the future of technology may be uncertain and subject to abrupt changes, one thing is certain: doing nothing in terms of digital transformation can be the biggest risk for a business in the current scenario.

Some steps suggested by expertsfor a successful journey towards digital transformation include the following –

1. Identify the objectives:
The first step is to define your vision and objectives for your business – and the issues that digital transformation can significantly help with. So before going into search for the right platform, tools or services for digital transformation, try to get the answers for certain questions like -

Being clear on what the goals for your business or organization are in the initial stage will put you on the right path to a successful digital transformation strategy, and can also have an impact on your bottom line. 

2. Get everyone on board

Getting the important leaders in the organization on board is a necessary step and these people need to be involved in the transformation planning and execution, as it will be a big process that needs proper supervision.

But it doesn’t stop here. The next step is to make sure that every employee in your organization understands the vision and objectives, and know why these efforts are important.  

Company culture is one of the biggest hurdles for effective digital transformation. Hence It is important to create a culture that supports digital innovation, by getting everyone in the organization on board before beginning the process.

3. Do the research

It is also necessary to study the market to know what the best options are. Technology enablers can be utilized to assemble a highly-virtualized, highly-distributed platform ecosystem of on-demand services.

You can find out more aboutappropriate combinations of the available technologies in market to use in orderto achieve your target business outcomes such as improving the digital customer experience, enhancing the digital workplace, transforming business processes, optimizing infrastructure, simplifying management, and so on.

Even if you are planning on outsourcing the transformation to other people or organizations, it is good to have some knowledge on the process, as this will a help you and your organization adapt quickly to the changed set of processes.

4. Gather resources and expertise  

Managing the complete digital transformation process for an enterprise, of course, requires expertise and often a team of people to keep thebusiness on track, in the process.

Business ownersneed toput a strong team together in order to accomplish this. It needs to consist of experts in digital transformation (can be a digital transformation partner – like an agencyor individual) along with some talented people within the organization who can work with them in the process.

5. Estimate and adjust 

It is important to note that digital transformation doesn’t exactly have a “finish” line – it is an on-going process. And so, you need to determine what metrics you will be measuring and track the impact on these. As more and more changes are implemented in the organization according to therequirements of the digital transformation procedure, business owners need to evaluate the efforts and make adjustments as necessary.

And the progress beingmade and what isn’t working needs to be communicated regularly to the stakeholders and the digital transformation partners, for better

Building a successful digital transformation strategy doesn’t have to be a challenge. With the right guidance and expertise, you can adapt to change and be well-equipped to satisfy evolving demands. 

So, are you ready to begin the digital transformation journey for your business?