More and more companies are adopting a modernisation strategy. 91% already have one in place or are in the process of working on one. If you’ve decided to update the way you work by moving into the digital world, you already know this is an extremely exciting step towards growing your business. You’re creating conditions that enable success for you, your team, and most importantly - your customers.
In saying that, being successful at digital transformation requires a lot of time and planning. To make this process a bit simpler, we’ve come up with 4 ways to help your business succeed.
In this article, we cover:
Let’s jump in!
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital Transformation is an evolving business journey where businesses that previously have legacy systems and manual processes update their ways of working through the use of digital tools and technologies. From here, they can improve their processes, culture, customer experiences, and more.
This is not to say the business is currently broken. It is likely working very well and has been producing results for many years. However, times change. Competitive forces change. What was previously working well is still producing the same result, but at a higher cost or slower rate than your competitors. It may also be lacking features your competitors have that are not readily available to you in your current approach. Modernisation has become a requirement for businesses to remain relevant and operational. It’s a survival tactic.
Digital modernisation has shown to positively impact the following areas:
- Communication and collaboration
- Business processes, workflows, and overall productivity
- Profit
- Agility
- Company culture
- Decision-making
- Customer experiences
- Businesses’ competitive edge
Now let’s dive into the ways in which your business can succeed during the transformative process!
Set Goals
The first tip is to outline your goals and objectives. Why are you making these changes? What are your expectations? Are there specific areas in which you want to improve?
You may want to first identify your organisation’s strengths across your ecosystem. From here, you’ll be able to prioritise the particular areas that you want to improve upon. Your organisation will then have an easier time focusing on the strategy’s desired outcome, even when things get a bit tricky.
Embrace Change, Don’t Fight It
Change can be scary for anyone, especially when your whole business is on the line. A key tip to successfully digitally transforming your business is to be bold and embrace the change. After all, innovation requires risk to view your unique challenges through a clearer lens.
Unfortunately, this is what many businesses struggle with the most when undergoing their transformation. Updating a business model and structural fluidity can cause some problems where many business leaders can be resistant to “letting go” and trusting the technology.
Our thoughts?
It’s understandable, however, remaining culturally resistant to change leads to missed opportunities. This is an opportunity to fast track your business’s learning, cultural mindset, and growth. Jump on the opportunity when you can.
Evaluate Your Team
Another tip for digital transformation is to consider your team’s digital savviness, which is a part of your change management strategy. Does your team already have the right tech skills required to perform their job? Or do they have the ability and willingness to learn?
Your digital transformation strategy will incorporate AI-powered tools, so it’s important to understand who will be able to learn and adapt quickly and who will require additional training.
This is when you need to create an employee upskilling and reskilling plan for them to successfully navigate and manage all of the upcoming changes. It’s important to remember that learning styles will vary from one employee to the next. You may create training such as coaching, on-the-job learning, group activities, video training, and more.
Similarly, modernising your business may require a shift in organisational leadership and decision making. Assessing your team’s digital capabilities now will allow them to successfully grow into their new role when the time comes.
Setting Expectations, Creating Solutions
We can’t stress this enough, but digital transformation is an iterative process that does take time. Your business is in the process of developing an innovative culture of experimentation and growing your digital maturity - practice makes perfect.
Like any huge change, digital transformation doesn’t come without challenges along the way. Setting realistic expectations from the beginning will allow you to face these challenges and solve them successfully, knowing it’s all a part of the process.
Some of these challenges may include fast-changing team structures, budget constraints, buying/implementing the right technology, and more. If you plan out as much as you can now, you’ll minimise the likelihood of these problems popping up later down the line.
Where to From Here?
Digitally transforming your business is an entire process that requires a lot of strategic planning. By now we hope you feel more comfortable with how to approach the process while minimising operational disruption.
With over 20+ years of IT experience, the team at TribeTech has seen the incredible benefits of digital transformation and we know the tips and tricks to do it right. Talk to us today about our Digital Transformation services and solutions. We have our own Digital Transformation Framework that can help.
Don’t chase the competitor, be the competitor.
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Scott Atkinson : 14/12/22