Digital Transformation – a concept which continuously stirs discussions and debates between technology experts and conquers businesses one by one. No matter the niche, manufacturing companies, medical & life sciences software, travel, transport, and many others, they all commit to making technology their most powerful tool. But is this digital transformation process easy? Are people prepared to face the changes that technology could bring in their workflow and company culture? Above all, digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation are still frequently blended in definitions and usage.
Defining the concept
This process of transformation requires integrating technologies in all the company’s structures, bottom-up, bringing a fundamental change from the production line to delivery and customer experience procedures. It’s a complex process that needs close conduct and strategy, but even so, often fails to be completed. To prevent that, companies should trust IT outsourcing firms, that function based on digital principles and can develop an implementation strategy.
Although business leaders are conscious of their competitive advantage of being a digitally mature organization, many just adopt the trend in their speech and talk more about it than implementing it in their business. Bringing change in a classic system can be hard, even when done through successive phases. Every step requires most of the time, alterations.
As for the principles that define a company that reached the digital status, here’s what a Deloitte survey indicates it should have:
· Adaptive infrastructure, nevertheless, protected
· Applying information for monetizing, raising efficiency, revenue, and customer satisfaction
· Being part of the digital network outside the business
· A 360-degree client experience supplied through tech
· Adaptive company model
Nonetheless, the introduction of new practices can undermine an organization’s operability and culture, if there’s no strategy to precede the implementation.
Transforming your business
We think it’s a fair statement to say that a business relies on the shoulders of its people. Though technology is significantly boosting efficiency, decreasing costs and time, the individual touch can’t be replaced. So, the wise way to make a change is to enable your employee’s contribution to the company’s growth through technology. You must consider though, the fact that replacing human roles with tech-driven procedures magnifies peoples’ anxiety about losing their jobs and financial equilibrium. That might make the process more difficult if they’re not collaborating.
To avoid that, it’s recommended that the transformation starts from the core of your business, by providing the employees the option to link their individual strengths and skills to the new digital process. And perhaps even take possession of the implementation from beginning to finish. This gives them a feeling of control over how the operation is developing.
In conclusion, focus first on aligning the mindset of your employees with the digital transformation procedure, and offer them a projection on how it will impact the organizational culture.
Because we must acknowledge that it was from the very beginning that humans created technology and gave it a higher purpose.
Three phases
The concept of digital transformation is often associated with projects that imply implementing technology in certain parts of a business. But as we mentioned, to call it a transformation it must infiltrate all levels and structures of the company.
To be more concise, there are three significant stages that lead to digital maturity. Digitization defines the procedure for converting analog data to digital format. Turning digital information into benefits for the organization, by changing it into useful insights and earnings, means digitalization.
Going through all these phases and reaching a stage at which it’s possible to make a new business model or product with the exclusive use of technologies, is known as digital transformation.
