Digital transformation can often sound like jargon – a term bandied about with little meaning.
However, when new business processes and tools are embedded thoughtfully, sustainably and successfully, organisations truly can transform (and we don’t use that word lightly) the way they operate.
The way we work is evolving. Fast. Digital transformation strategy can help your organisation navigate these changes, keep pace with (or overtake) your competitors, and exceed (rather than simply meeting) your customers’ expectations.
But what exactly is digital transformation? It’s a broad term, and can encompass so many aspects of the way teams work together, produce business outcomes and respond to digital change.
In this post, we’re going to:
- Explore the concept of digital transformation and what this means for organisations like yours
- Share customer success stories of similar projects and their outcomes
What is digital transformation?
At a high level, an organisation’s digital transformation initiative is where digital technology is integrated or enhanced across an organisation. Ultimately, this should change (and hopefully improve) how you operate and deliver value to your customers, alongside gaining you a competitive advantage against other industry players.
In reality, however, it’s more than just adopting new tools and systems.
True digital transformation involves re-evaluating operating models, processes and customer interactions to align with a ‘digital-first’ approach. Crucially, it also requires a change in mindset across your teams, and may result in a significant cultural shift for your organisation.
Key areas of digital transformation strategy
Every digital transformation project is unique, as each one depends on an organisation’s business goals, industry, and requirements.
However, most have the following elements in common:
Process transformation
The right digital tools will improve an organisation’s overall processes. In some cases, a complete process redesign may be necessary. To maximise long-term business value, you should establish clear key performance indicators (KPIs) and success metrics to make sure that the new processes and technologies deliver measurable business impact.
Domain transformation
You may seek to enter new markets or change your existing offering in some way. Now, often this is a key driver for digital transformation projects, as organisations want to unlock new opportunities through enhanced processes or technology. It may not be as significant as entering an entirely new area of business, but could relate to diversification or expansion.
Cultural transformation
In our experience, shifting mindsets is one of the most crucial elements to get right. Very few people like change – particularly when they feel it has been mandated or forced upon them. Engaging hearts and minds is a key component of business transformation programmes.
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Key areas of digital transformation strategy
A framework is a structural approach to integrating digital technologies into various aspects of your business, such as internal operations, business models, and customer experiences.
The key digital transformation components include:
- Business Strategy and Vision
- Technology and Infrastructure
- Processes and Operations
- People and Culture
- Customer Experience
- Data and Analytics
- Governance and Compliance
What drives digital transformation?
In recent years, we’ve noted an increase in enquiries for digital transformation services – and we know we’re not alone in that. As technology continues to evolve rapidly and customer expectations continue to rise, many organisations are questioning whether there are better, faster and more secure ways of working.
From our perspective, we’ve recognised the following contributing factors in the rise of digital transformation projects:
The COVID-19 pandemic
It’s inescapable, even years later: The impact that COVID had on workplaces across the globe is still being felt.
For many organisations, the pandemic accelerated the need for digital transformation, forcing businesses to adapt rapidly to remote work, digital customer experience and supply chain disruptions.
Companies that embraced digital transformation were better positioned to navigate these challenges and maintain operational continuity. And it’s a lesson for organisations in the future: That the ability to pivot quickly is essential.
Agile working practices, cohesive techstacks and integrated processes can all contribute to an organisation being in a strong position to adapt and change course quickly – and a digital transformation project is likely to embed or facilitate many of these.
Increasing competition
Whether you’re in a service or product-led market, you’ll know all too well that competition is only growing stronger. We’ll talk about customer expectations in the next section, but it’s worth a mention here – as they’re continually increasing, and organisations need to find new and innovative ways to meet them.
With a global economy, 24/7 expectations and a race to adapt, evolve and thrive, organisations are increasingly seeking ways to differentiate themselves. Alongside this will be cost and operating pressures, as organisations try to find ways to become leaner and more efficient.
Digital transformation can enable this kind of innovation, whether that’s achieved through the adoption of new technology, new processes, new markets or new structures.
Evolving end-user expectations
Take a moment to think about your last interaction with a business. We imagine you expected (and hopefully received) a personalised, responsive and, ultimately, seamless experience.
This level of service is becoming the norm – so the pressure is on for organisations to find new ways to elevate their service offering. No matter which market, audience or sector, this is a non-negotiable.
Digital transformation services can equip businesses with the mindset, tools and processes to rise to this challenge more effectively. From analytics to automation, organisations can experiment, innovate and explore.
Advancements in technology
We’ve talked a great deal about change in this piece so far.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the obvious point to mention here, but organisations may also find themselves needing to respond to changes such as the growth of Cloud computing (a strong example of this is when tech vendors choose to prioritise or invest in Cloud over other hosting options – such as Atlassian’s decision to focus on a Cloud-first future, and inspire a wave of Cloud migrations).
Again, when faced with these kinds of challenges or drivers, organisations should explore digital transformation and the results it can achieve for them.
Benefits of digital transformation
We’ve already touched on some of the reasons why organisations use digital transformation – but what positive outcomes could you expect to achieve?
Operating processes, speed to market and product/service offering will be competitive
Getting new products to market as fast as possible without compromising on quality will give your company a significant competitive advantage. Digital innovations like automation, AI, and no-code/low-code platforms can streamline the supply chain and get your products or services to market faster.
You’re in a stronger position to respond to change swiftly
When you can change tack without losing step, your business will be much more resilient to change. The adaptability that digital transformation offers will allow you to make major operational pivots and take on new opportunities without devastating your business.
Improved efficiency and productivity
By adopting or updating your digital technologies, your operational processes can be sped up and streamlined to boost your company’s efficiency and productivity. For example, data analytics tools can collect and analyse data at a rate and with an accuracy that you may not get from manually processing it.
Increased customer satisfaction and subsequent retention
Technology like AI and predictive analytics can help your business anticipate your customer needs, and more swiftly offer bespoke solutions that increase customer satisfaction. By offering a smooth experience across all digital engagement points, you should be able to better guarantee a higher customer retention rate.
A culture designed to encourage and facilitate innovation
Digital process transformation clears out bottlenecks and paves the way for faster innovation, which can help your business meet market demands more efficiently. Considering the competition that surrounds you, it takes innovation to stand out. When you leverage technology AI, blockchain, and Internet of Things (IoT) you could be creating cutting-edge solutions that redefine customer experiences.
Greater agility
In order to keep up with the increasing demands of customers, ever-changing regulatory requirements, and the rapid evolution of technology and previous revenue streams, digital transformation is seen by many businesses as the only way to anticipate new challenges and create new digital solutions that will be suitable in the coming years.
How to manage change successfully
We’ll come back to the broader topic of digital transformation shortly, but it seems like a good time for a brief detour to successful change management.
Whilst the scope of a digital transformation project can be vast, with multiple tools, migrations, working practices and frameworks to consider, the people piece is often the most challenging.
Now, context is important here. The drivers behind a change will often determine how positively team members accept and adapt to new ways of working. But even when change is positive, it can be met with reticence.
The key is engaging team members, from senior stakeholders to engineers on the ground, as early as possible.
The importance of managing expectations
During a recent conversation with our in-house Atlassian trainer, Cedric Oglesby, we discussed how to navigate resistance to change. With most of his career spent delivering training within Fortune 500 companies, Cedric has helped organisations to navigate the period after a transformation project.
He shared some guidance based on his two decades of experience in this field.
You tend to see issues arise when people are not informed. You see them questioning, ‘What’s going on?’ And that uncertainty can lead to people not feeling safe at work, not secure in their roles and day-to-day processes.
When I was working at a major banking group, I supported a project where the client was introducing Agile to a large division of the business. When it came to training users on the new tooling, it was a hostile crowd! Some didn’t even know what Agile was. You could see some people totally shutting down. They hadn’t had their expectations managed.
In this particular example, I started at the very beginning. We were going to build this new tool together and it was going to belong to them. They were the experts - some of them had been at this bank for 20-30 years. I encouraged them to use that experience to influence how we built the system to suit their needs - whilst also configuring it to meet the new Agile processes that had been embedded, and wider organisational objectives.
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How to achieve success in digital transformation
As we mentioned at the top of this piece, digital transformation is a broad term, and may encompass process redesign, tooling optimisation and moving away from one way of working to another.
It sounds like a cliche, but each organisation really is unique. As such, business transformation consultancy services should be too – tailored to your own business needs.
From our perspective, we base our approach to digital transformation on the following core principles:
People are at the centre of everything
Regardless of how powerful your technology or how well-optimised your processes, without the buy-in of your people, a transformation project is unlikely to deliver transformation success.
After all, your people are going to be the ones using the new tools, or adopting the new ways of working you’ve embedded.
Now, it can take more than a few briefing sessions and training workshops to bring your teams on board. In our experience, it’s crucial to engage with people from day one. And this applies to stakeholders across all levels of your organisation – from the C-Suite to engineers on the ground.
We have tried and tested methods to work with your teams. Ahead of any business process redesign or tooling shift, it’s essential to understand that some people are going to have reservations about proposed changes – and that some may be downright resistant to change. Our job is to help you navigate the breadth of responses you may encounter throughout your project, and to guide you through the period of change for best results.
Identify pain points first
A successful digital transformation project hinges on making your tools and processes better. To solve your problems, you have to understand your challenges first. Once you truly understand your drivers for change, pain points and blockers, you can then focus on the solutions.
Processes before tools
Tooling should almost always be the final stage of your transformation.
Now, in most projects you’ll already know which technology you wish to embed. You might be migrating from one system to another, or perhaps making the leap from manual processes to a digital platform.
But the configuration and approach to that tooling should be informed by your people and processes. Rather than making you conform to a certain way of working within a tool, you should start by understanding your drivers for change, pain points and objectives.
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Looking for digital transformation consulting services?
A transformation project is no minor undertaking.
We’d always encourage organisations who are considering a complex project to expect real change to take time. To navigate this potentially thorny period of change, it can be invaluable to employ the support and guidance of a dedicated consultancy.
Here at Automation Consultants, we have worked with household names to redesign their business processes, embed new technology and to adopt different ways of working.
To benefit from our years of experience and sought-after skill, do talk to us today. With a free consultation, you can share your needs, objectives and challenges with us in a free, 30 minute session, to help us understand more about your digital transformation project. We can then share some initial advice for next steps and recommend the approach we’d take.
Contact us today and book your free consultation with Automation Consultants
Whether you’d benefit from a free 30-minute consultation, or would like to learn more about our services, do reach out to us today.
