Digital transformation requires investment in training, organisational change and technology. In our recent blog, we’ve identified metrics which will help you outline your ROI model. Now it’s time to define your top-level roadmap. This needs to incorporate everything that affects the customer experience – from purchasing and service to operational excellence.
These 6 tips give you a framework for defining a step-by-step approach to digital transformation.
1. Employ a Chief Data Officer
It’s all well and good defining your metrics, but you need the capacity and capability to collect and analyse data in order to measure them. Your data volumes will increase exponentially, so someone needs ownership if you’re truly going to make data and analytics a priority.
2. Design digital projects in the context of business
Goals before investing in new technologies, set clear business goals and plan around them. This will help you incorporate the processes and people you need to make those technology investments a success.
3. Facilitate collaboration
Instead of focusing solely on IT for digital transformation, empower IT staff to collaborate with other departments. This facilitates the employee engagement that’s crucial for organisational change – and ensures that actual processes and pain points are addressed during the transformation. It also shifts the perception of IT as focused on operations and infrastructure, so it can play a crucial consultative role moving forward.
4. Transform talent acquisition
You’ll need new skills to make your digital transformation a success, and talent acquisition is therefore an effective place to start your digital journey. Invest in tools that help make the process of finding and connecting with candidates easier.
5. Prioritise employee-friendly processes
Assess new technologies based on their user-friendliness, and make sure you plan the time you need to train and support employees when new technologies are implemented.
6. Incorporate scalability
Digital transformation is an ongoing process, so you need your technologies to grow and adapt with you. The easiest way to do this is to open your systems to collaboration with third parties and APIs. It’s then simpler to leverage proven innovations and forge partnerships that expand your capabilities cost effectively. The rise of services like Zapier show how important API exposition can be.
Digital transformation isn’t about innovating on the front end while preserving old ways of doing business behind the scenes. The key to success is to define measurable goals and work consistently to roll out the technologies, skills and processes needed to achieve them. And with the right professional service and operational excellence, you can achieve new levels of competitiveness and customer satisfaction that position you for future growth.
To find out more, download our latest whitepaper to discover how to leading brands are approaching digital transformation to dominate the competitive landscape.
