Don’t Make The Mistake! Digital Transformation is Not Just The Adoption of New Technologies
The competition in the global market has come to a head; the internet made the world a global village; businesses were no longer enjoying the monopoly of geographic location. Consumers can now access products and services from any part of the world; it’s the era of eCommerce.
While all these were going on, COVID-19 struck and brought on its shores dramatic changes to the way people live. Measures put in place to save lives completely altered business processes; it became necessary for organizations to quickly adapt ways of surviving and remaining relevant.
The digital transformation did not begin with the pandemic, however, the pandemic has given it an accelerated boost. Another development that has catalyzed the rate of growth we are witnessing in digital transformation is Big Data.
When 77.3% of 100 Fortune 500 CIOs decide to prioritize digital transformation in their 2021 budgets, it dawns on you that your CIO’s can’t afford to sit on the fence.
What is digital transformation?
Digital Transformation is the effort at giving a new image to a business through revamping legacy systems for better conduct and implementing new technologies. As a means to improve customers’ expectations, digital transformation involves the integration of technology, employees, and processes to create new values for both customers and the organization.
A successful digital transformation will usher in new business models and improve the revenue generation activities of your organization. The CEO initiates digital transformation, while the CIO, IT team, and other managers are expected to toe the line.
Digital transformation can never succeed without collaboration across departments. The essence of collaboration is to ensure everybody is on the same page about business goals and models.
Digital transformation strategy
Digital transformation works on a roadmap; it’s not something you can just dabble into because others are doing so. You must have a strategy that spells out explicitly what you want to achieve and how you want to do so.
Without a well-planned digital transformation strategy, employees will not have a guide. Your strategy must specify what training your employees have to go through; it must also spell out the technologies you believe are relevant to your project.
Three important things your digital transformation strategy must focus on are the definition of the nature of the challenge you want to counter, your guiding policy in tackling the challenge, and a clear path that specifies the necessary actions you must take.
Without defining all these procedures, your employees will end up in a state of confusion; when employees are not sure of what to do, they become frustrated and this will negatively impact customers and the digital transformation. If you just prepare an a-to-do list in place of the digital transformation strategy, you are at zero levels.
Digital-first employees
Every organization has a culture; usually, when employees are onboarded, the very first thing they learn is the culture of the organization. Organizational culture is the set way you carry out your daily tasks.
It embodies how your employees relate with your customers and how they relate with each other. The technologies you’ve adopted are part of the organizational culture, and it’s always difficult to make employees shift away from the “way we do things.”
A lot of digital transformation projects fail because of the reluctance of employees to shift away from the organizational culture they have previously acquired. To succeed with your digital transformation, there is the need to transform your employees first.
Most business transactions by customers are now done online, so you need the digital-first employees to handle the digital workplace you will use for the transformation. To convert employees into the digital-first model is often met with great resistance, the reason for this is the learning process employees have to go through.
There is always the fear of embarking into the world of the unknown, and employees who resist learning have been found to belong to one of mislearning, defense against learning, and resistance to learning. While all these may not be common among your particular employees, any of them can still take your digital transformation way back.
Employees are very instrumental to the success, the tools and apps you want to integrate into your processes will be used by them, you must bring them to understand the importance of what you want to do. When you improve customer experience, you are creating brand loyalty; this will augur well for both the organization and the employees.
Transforming your website
While this may sound odd to a lot of people, the fact is that your website has effectively become your shop. Customers shop more online, and the first point of call is your website.
Any digital transformation that does not consider the website may have problems in the long run. The branding of your website, which boils down to your logo and website design, has a lot to do with customer acquisition.
Your website is your main way of telling your customers what you are into, and how your digital transformation initiatives will improve their experience. Your website should also have a feedback section through which customers can interact freely with the organization.
If customers can send reviews through your website, it’s another opportunity for you to know their pain points and what aspects of your processes you should focus more on in your digital transformation bid.
Conclusion
The most important takeaway from this is that digital transformation requires an understanding of your technology’s potential. It’s not a way of doing the same things faster, and it’s not just about integrating new technologies.
You must focus more on a holistic organizational change; you only use technology to improve processes and performance.
This article has been published in accordance with Socialnomics’ disclosure policy.
