Create Value with Digital Transformation | Microsoft | Exigo Tech

Gone are the days when organisations thought they were ‘experimenting with technology’. We now see widespread adoption of technology and organisations across the world have made it their strategic priority to create better business outcomes and change the customer experience.

Digital transformation is on the minds of every C-level executive across all industries. And there is no one formula for success. Beginning with the end in mind is a good way to gear up the thoughts process in this direction. While embarking on the digital transformation journey, it is essential to have a clear vision of what it is meant to do for the business. With the right strategy and the vision in place, it just becomes that much easier to see success with digital transformation.

Via this article, I want to highlight some of the key factors that affect transformation success. While there are many more factors, asking yourself the 5 questions below will help you achieve success in your digital journey:

• Why does your business need to embark on the digital transformation journey?

Having a clear understanding of what you want to achieve via transformation is the first question to ask yourself. The best way to begin the process is to have a customer centric approach and know how your transformation efforts best align with their evolving needs. It is imperative that everyone within the organisation is aligned in the same direction – effort wise as well a resource wise. How you are going to measure the success of this journey also needs to be defined at this step.

• Who is going to be on the digital transformation team?

The right mix of people is key to transformation success. A dedicated team who understand the business, industry, your internal business processes and operations and who can help implement your vision for transformation is of utmost importance. Getting all stakeholders on board is also important so that there are no road blocks mid-way into the journey. While some of the talent may be found in-house, this is the right time to access if your team needs talent to be added from external sources. The right skills, knowledge and talent is the primary requirement for success on this journey.

• Is my organisation culture aligned to my transformation goals?

Your people are the main pillars of your business. And you cannot have any of your digital goals accomplished if you do not have them aligned with your vision. Digital transformation mandates cultural and behavioural changes which includes calculated risk taking, increased collaboration, and customer centricity and empowering your employees during this time just makes it easy for them to adopt and embrace the change. Work with your people in new ways and allow them to be deeply involved in the journey. Take their views on where and when digitisation could be adopted and encourage them to come up with innovative ideas to support the transformation. Challenge old ways of working, allow failures and promote collaboration to ensure success on your digital journey. This is the right time to reinforce a customer-centric culture that will minimise employee pushback and keep you on your path.

• How am I going to measure success? Is the data sufficient for decision-making?

On the path to digital transformation, an ongoing and consistent evaluation of key performance indicators is essential to help you make the right decisions and gauge team performance. When you collect, analyse, monitor and report as a team regularly, you will be able to stay nimble and adapt quickly to the changes required for achieving success. The metrics defined at the beginning of the journey may need to be tweaked at this stage. Measuring success will be purely based on the strategy and the goals that were set in the beginning of the journey. It is also imperative to track and communicate all the findings throughout the organisation at regular intervals so that you can stay focused and adapt to the challenges as and when required.

• Am I technically competent to carry out the transformation?

With a digital strategy in place, make sure you take a full inventory of your technical competencies as well as gaps that you may need to fill. Traditional environments may need to be disrupted. Look at your staff skills, tech stacks and tools that you use to communicate and collaborate as well as ways in which you manage your customer relations and take decisions. It makes sense to have less number of tools to work with to minimise pushback by your team. This is also a great time to consider third party technology providers who offer in-depth expertise and guidance and help build the right environments that will eventually enable you to build a customer-centric business.

Also Read: Our Business Transformation Success

The Wrap

Embarking on the digital transformation can be a daunting task. And to tie back digital transformation to financials can prove to be challenging. But to know that it is an evolutionary process involving every aspect of the business is key. The steps are simple: evaluate the need, chalk out the path, evaluate internal tech stack and processes, assess strength and weaknesses of your people and work with your data to achieve your goals. Your focus on your people and your processes will ensure that you will stay on the path to transformation and mature digitally with time.

Its calculated steps all the way to transformation success. The more time and energy you invest, the better are the results and slowly but surely you will see better business outcomes. Working with a technology integrator and managed services provider can help with the transition. Exigo Tech has been helping companies around Sydney navigate their digital transition. We have the expertise in managing IT estates, provide strategic inputs and create true savings for organisations which enable them to reinvest in technology and gear up for growth.