Technology in today’s business environment either reveals validations for success or threatens businesses that reject the transforming nature of the corporate landscape. Some claim that corporations are forced to make changes due to the digital equivalent of the fear of losing out and not the fear of digital disruption itself. In other words, some leaders are aware of the potential benefits of undergoing digital transformations and do not want to pass up the chances that may result from such implementations.
What Is Digital Transformation?
In a world of fast-growing technology, digital transformation is often used interchangeably with digitalization. Digitalization is the use of digital technologies to automate processes and activities while, on the other hand, transformation is a broader concept that includes digitalization and other changes.
Digital transformation can be applied to numerous businesses in any industry. For example, a company can use digital technologies to –
– Design new innovative products and services
– Improve customer experience
– Streamline operations
– Decrease revenue
It can be daunting, but it is essential to remember that it doesn’t have to happen all at once. Companies can start small from one to two products and gradually climb the ladder. The important thing is to get started and keep moving forward.
COVID-19’s Effects On Digital Transformation
The outbreak of COVID-19 brought about a significant shock in the global economy. As Mckinsey shares, respondents are now three times as likely to claim that at least 80% of their consumer interactions are digital compared to the pre-pandemic era. However, in the short term, there is no denying that businesses have had to deal with the immediate impacts of the pandemic.
As a result, many have been forced to close their doors, which has had a knock-on effect on supply chains and demands. This has forced businesses to rapidly adapt their operations to survive.
The profound effect on digital transformation has led to a change in consumer behavior which has driven a considerable increase in online shopping and the adoption of digital services. This has resulted in businesses rapidly investing in building digital infrastructures and the associated capabilities. There has also been a significant increase in digital technologies for remote working and collaboration, driving companies to invest in cloud-based solutions and digital tools to enable their employees to work remotely.
Digital transformation is no longer a nice to have but a necessity for businesses in the post-Covid world. Those already embarked on their digital transformation journey are in a much better position to survive and thrive in the new normal.
Challenges Faced In Digital Transformation
Many of the most significant barriers that businesses looking to grow digital solutions must overcome are not technological. The success of digital transformation depends on taking decisive action on these problems, which can include eliminating organizational silos, addressing digital skills gaps, and dealing with a lack of resources. Therefore, it’s essential to understand the most significant obstacles which have surfaced and should be tackled head-on.
1. Silos In Organizations
The respondents cited siloed tactics and decision-making as top challenges. Organizational silos are a perennial problem because they affect all facets of a successful digital transformation, including strategy, funding, and implementation. Governments, ministries, and corporate sectors all have these silos, each needing a unique solution.
2. Culture Of Caution
Frontline and service delivery workers frequently have resistant cultures because they are risk-averse and don’t see the need to change what they consider to be tried-and-true procedures.
A person leading a technology-led transformation faces a challenging job in this setting. For your digital transformation efforts to be successful, you must link them to corporate objectives and make organizational change their central focus.
3. Insufficient Resources
Budget shortages are frequently a sign of segregated strategies and decision-making, but they can also be brought on by the idea that technology expenditures are tactical rather than strategic.
Show the link between your investment in digital technology and the results it produces for your business to dispel this impression.
4. Gaps In Digital Skills
The fourth most frequent issue with digital transformation for government is a lack of depth or breadth of digital skills across the company.
For digital transformation programs to be successful, core specialized competencies in fields like enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, cloud, analytics, and digital experience design are essential. In addition, developing digital agility throughout the entire company is crucial to raising change preparedness.
5. Inadequate Business And IT Resources
The lack of IT skills was a severe issue for respondents, preventing the adoption of critical technological domains such as platform services, security, the digital workplace, and IT automation. In addition, the inability to promptly reach IT, business, and subject matter experts is frequently the result of misaligned goals, compartmentalized decision-making, and cultural issues.
While educating staff on self-service digital/low-code technologies is helpful, much more must be done to prepare them for challenging digital business contexts. Resources can benefit from improving IT resources’ digital dexterity and filling organizational gaps in digital skills.
However, companies will need to make a determined effort to ensure sufficient resources are committed to the relevant initiatives promptly, given the post-pandemic acceleration in digital investments across all industries.
Approaches To Digital Transformation
Digital imperatives are known to support cross-functional communication, prioritizing technology. The projects from this imperative produce a modular, adaptable technology that can effectively support the transformation and strategic value.
However, these business-techno notions might serve as barriers to preventing executives from entering a technology-dominated debate.
Additionally, they can aid in framing digital plans that consider workforce consequences and technical realities. In essence, they serve as a conduit for coordinated conversations between workforce and operations leaders and business and technology strategists.
1. Await Evidence Of Online Success
Organizations concentrating on empirical outcomes will benefit from using this first strategy. The challenge with this strategy is the enormous danger of being inactive until your digital transformation gains traction. If competitors’ digital success occurs before it does for your business, it gives them a clear edge.
Since most businesses use a combination of digital and non-digital solutions, this initial strategy is typically the preferred option for most companies.
2. Create A Comprehensive Digital Strategy
With this method, the goal is to develop a strategy that is as complete and feasible immediately. It calls for a solid long-term plan. The comprehensive digital transformation strategy’s primary goals are culture change and quick innovation adoption. It is frequently a costly strategy with numerous risks.
3. Supply Of Digital Skills Gradually
After choosing an initial aim and route, this strategy focuses on providing benefits as a business progresses toward a future shifting digital destination. But as the organization develops, new information and lessons come to light, modifying the digital aim and occasionally the route to the destination.
This plan, therefore, focuses on providing a solid yet adaptable strategy that may alter along with industry changes throughout its lifetime.
The 4 Main Areas Of Digital Transformation
Digital transformation can be called the process of using digital technologies to create new or modified business processes, business modules, and customer experiences. It is a broad term encompassing anything and everything.
There are four main areas of digital transformation, each presenting its own challenges and opportunities.
1. Process Transformation
When it comes to business process transformation, there is no one size fits all approach. Instead, the best way to determine how to transform your business process is to understand the goals you’re trying to achieve and tailor the transformation to fit your specific needs.
There are a few key factors to keep in mind when undergoing business process transformation:
– Define your goals:
Knowing what you’re trying to achieve with the transformation will help you determine the specific processes that need to be changed and how they need to be changed.
– Assess your current processes:
Before transforming your processes, you need to understand how they currently work. This will help you identify when improvements can be made.
– Find the right solution:
There are a variety of tools and techniques that can be used to transform business processes. Find the one that best fits your needs and objectives.
– Implement the changes:
Once you’ve selected the right solution, it’s time to implement it. Change can be difficult, so communicate the transformation plans to all stakeholders and provide necessary training and support.
– Monitor and adjust:
After the changes have been implemented, monitoring the results is essential. If the new process isn’t working as intended, don’t be afraid to make adjustments.
Business process transformation can be complex and daunting, but by keeping these tips in mind, you can ensure a successful change.
2. Business Model Transformation
Transformation is key to staying ahead of the competition in today’s business world. Transformation is the act of changing or being changed into another form or thing. In business, this means constantly innovating and evolving to stay relevant.
There are many different ways to transform your business model. For example, you can change your pricing strategy, go after new markets, or develop new products or services. Regardless of your route, the goal is always to stay ahead of the curve and keep your business growing.
The first step to transformation is understanding what your goals are. For example, what do you want to achieve by transforming your business model? Once you know your goals, you can start to develop a plan of action.
3. Domain Transformation
Organizations are increasingly looking to transform their businesses by moving to the cloud. But what does that mean?
Simply put, domain transformation is the process of moving your business operations and data to the cloud. This can be done for various reasons, including reducing costs, improving scalability, and increasing agility.
The first step in domain transformation is identifying which workloads and applications can function in the cloud. Once you’ve done that, you can begin migrating your data and workloads. However, there are a few things to remember when you’re undergoing domain transformation.
– First, you need to ensure that your data is safe and secure.
– Second, you must choose the right cloud provider to meet your needs.
– And last, you need to have a clear plan for how you will migrate your data and workloads.
If you keep these things in mind, you’ll be well on your way to a successful domain transformation.
4. Cultural Transformation
Organizations often face difficulty when trying to effect change within their culture. Often, leadership cannot create the necessary alignment between the company’s goals and the employees’ behaviors. As a result, any transformation effort is usually faces resistance and eventually fails.
There are a few key reasons why cultural transformation is so challenging to achieve.
Firstly, culture is an unspoken and unacknowledged set of shared values, beliefs, and norms. It is often only brought to attention when there is a problem.
Secondly, culture is resistant to change because it is entrenched and deeply rooted in the organization. As a result, getting employees to change how they have always done things can be very difficult.
Thirdly, leadership must be committed to effecting change in the culture. They need to be able to articulate the desired culture and be role models for the new behavior.
Lastly, transformation efforts need to be given time to take root and be given adequate resources.
Organizations must be aware of these challenges when trying to effect change in their culture. They must be patient, dedicate resources, and be clear about their goals. Only then can they hope to see any lasting change.
Results – Measuring Your Digital Transformation Strategy’s Success
How you lay out your digital transformation strategy will significantly impact the outcomes of your company’s digital transformation.
Results will always vary depending on the procedures and tools you pick. However, you must consider preliminary results when developing long-term strategies to scale the digital transformation and achieve new goals as your organization expands.
Your team must be adaptable enough to review the findings and make necessary changes. You may determine if all of your needs are being satisfied using the KPIs.
Your digital transformation strategy’s success depends on your ability to move quickly. First, of course, you must adhere to the plan you have created, but you must also be willing to make adjustments if it doesn’t turn out as you had hoped.
Conclusion
Businesses are continually changing and undergoing digital transformations thanks to contemporary technology, which improves their productivity and marketplace competitiveness. But the adoption of new technologies does not mark the end of digital transformation.
To achieve meaningful digital transformation, organizations should look beyond technology. Businesses can only reap the rewards of digitization—operational improvements, chances for cooperation, increased service offerings, and a revolutionary new approach to the customer experience—by completely overhauling their organizational structures.
