When the
world is moving toward all things digital, businesses cannot remain immune to
reality. In fact, the mature ones are looking at integrating SMAC (Social,
Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud) technologies in their quest for achieving
business transformation. Others are focusing on addressing discrete business
issues by integrating singular digital technologies. With digital
transformation, businesses are aiming at streamlining their
workflow/processes, enhancing productivity, reducing waste, responding quickly
to customer feedback, and increasing ROI, among others. However, about 70% of digital
business transformation initiatives do not succeed to meet their
objectives. So, before understanding why such staggering figures for failure,
let us learn about digital transformation.
What is
enterprise digital transformation?
It is about
transforming all aspects of your business by integrating digital technologies
to deliver value to the end-customers. Here, enterprises do not always follow
the well-trodden path but innovate and experiment to stay up the competition
curve. Digital business transformation may require the legacy systems to
be overhauled and migrate all resources to the cloud. It makes any enterprise
agile, responsive, and productive. For example, a middle or large enterprise
may go for digital transformation implementation by integrating its
processes with the ERP software. This way, the management of the enterprise can
track the movement of resources across the value chain and respond quickly to
any sudden requirement.
To a large
extent, digital transformation solutions can deliver the following
outcomes.
1. Better customer experiences: As processes get streamlined and bottlenecks are
removed, the inherent glitches present in the product are identified and
mitigated quickly. Thus, with a quality product that keeps on improving,
customers derive better experiences.
2. Operational agility: In a robust digital transformation strategy,
activities like shift-left testing are introduced in lieu of the traditional
waterfall model. As quality testing takes place alongside development, the
process agility increases.
3. Cultural change: Aspects like quality and security are often given
short shrift over more pressing issues like faster time to market. However,
with the adoption of Agile and DevOps - a result of digital business transformation,
the employees across sectors need to change the way they work, especially when
it comes to upholding aspects like QA and security in the value chain.
4. Enabling the workforce: The workforce could work even remotely by accessing
the cloud-based resources of the enterprise, anywhere and anytime. This can
address issues related to absenteeism, system latency & downtime, or
geography.
5. Integrating digital technology: Arguably the core requirement of any digital
transformation consulting, integrating advanced digital technologies can
make the IT architecture agile, secure, and seamless.
To drive a digital
transformation strategy successfully and achieve the desired outcomes, enterprises
can follow this process.
1.
As per business needs: Businesses
can implement transformation depending on a host of factors. These include
changing customer preferences, market trends, business forecasts, automation,
Capex, the advent of technologies, or rising operational costs, among others.
It is important to understand your specific business needs as the journey can
entail massive changes and disruptions. So, before opting for transformation,
businesses should be clear about their destination lest they end up getting
stuck.
2. Identify
the risks: Any digital transformation initiative can
involve risks, which if not factored into the scheme of things, can leave an
enterprise high and dry. These risks should be properly documented and tracked
over a period of time.
3.
Know the requirements: It is important
to involve all stakeholders in the digital transformation process and be
realistic about the outcomes. Some of the considerations can include:
·
The destination of data and information:
in-house, cloud, or a combination of both
·
Risk management implications
·
Technology requirements such as mobility
solutions, cloud, or AI and ML, among others
Importantly, if the digital transformation strategy is too
radical to implement and takes the users away from their comfort zone, it may
create a fair share of challenges.
4.
Pilot testing: Once the
risks are documented and the process thoroughly analyzed, a pilot test run
should be conducted. This can give a fair idea of the type of challenges or
qualitative changes brought about by the transformation exercise. Also, any
issue with pilot testing will not impact the whole value chain but a small
‘manageable’ segment.
Conclusion
Developing a strategy for business transformation through digital
technologies and initiating a culture change should not be complex or time-consuming
to implement. The focus should ultimately rest on fulfilling your business
goals and addressing your challenges.
No comments:
Post a Comment