Accelerating digital transformation in practice
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is transforming industries across the globe, and the way we live and do business.
Many large companies have begun to see the advantages of digital transformation (DX) and are looking to adopt it across their operations.
From wiki:
Digital transformation (DX) is the adoption of digital technology by an organization to digitize non-digital products, services or operations. The goal for its implementation is to increase value through innovation, invention, customer experience or efficiency.
The main driver behind DX is the opportunity to effectively reinvent business processes, create customer experiences that are unparalleled, and drive growth.
DX is certainly not a panacea and comes with its challenges. Enterprises need to ensure they have the right approach, people, and strategies in place to successfully implement DX.
Accelerating digital transformation in practice
Questions to answer before starting to implement digital transformation
What Are The Main Enablers Of The Fourth Industrial Revolution?
Why Do Companies Choose To Implement Digital Transformation?
How Do Enterprises Adopt Digital Transformation?
Practice
- Identify and understand the business case
- Set measurable goals
- Design a clear plan of action
- Gather the appropriate stakeholders
- Test your plan
- Review and refine your plan
Takeaway
Questions to answer before starting to implement digital transformation
What Are The Main Enablers Of The Fourth Industrial Revolution?
The five technologies that are enabling the Fourth Industrial Revolution are:
- Digital Marketing
- Big Data Analytics
- Artificial Intelligence
- Cloud Computing
- RPA
Big Data Analytics is enabling retailers to understand their customers better and provide them with more relevant products and services. AI is automating tedious tasks and allowing businesses to grow and prosper.
Cloud Computing is allowing companies to seamlessly operate across multiple platforms and devices, as well as saving them money and enhancing productivity.
Digital marketing is responsible for driving traffic to websites and turning that traffic into paying customers. This is largely done through the use of digital marketing channels such as search, email, and social media.
RPA is replacing many of the labor intensive manual processes currently undertaken by business users, helping businesses grow and improve their operations.
For any organization to truly succeed during this period of uncertainty and transformation, it will need to have a clear strategy in place to harness these new technologies and their impact on their industry.
Why Do Companies Choose To Implement Digital Transformation?
The main driver behind companies choosing to implement digital transformation is the opportunity to effectively reinvent business processes and create customer experiences that are unparalleled.
The main issue with most businesses today is that they are operating in silos. Having separate teams for marketing, sales, operations, and procurement means that knowledge and training is not shared across the organization. More importantly, business processes and information are not unified, leaving the organization susceptible to error and inefficiency.
DX enables businesses to overcome these challenges by connecting all of their internal and external platforms, analyzing data across departments and countries, and automating business processes. To give you an idea of how powerful DX can be, consider the Coca-Cola Company. Their approach to DX resulted in the creation of a centralized digital platform, which manages all customer-facing interactions. With this platform, marketers can track consumer behavior, identify opportunities for growth, and generate reports about key performance indicators.
As you can imagine, they had to react to various disruptions – such as ingredient shortages, border closures, and so on.
And the good thing about Coca-Cola’s DX model is that it takes the human bias out of analytics and decision making.
Coca-Cola has gained a huge competitive edge over the years through their use of data and analytics to support business continuity planning.
How Do Enterprises Adopt Digital Transformation?
There are several paths that organizations can take to implement digital transformation. However, you need to approach each step with the right strategy in mind. Below, we will discuss a few approaches that enterprises have taken and the key considerations you need to make to ensure your approach is the best fit for your organization.
- Analyze The Data
The first step in the digital transformation process is to analyze the data. This is a crucial step, and one that cannot be overlooked, as this data will form the backbone of the transformation. The data should be mined for any useful information, such as customer details, order information, marketing activities, website traffic, and more.
There are numerous data sources that can be mined for useful information, including:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
- Market and Advertising Analysis
- Web Analytics
- Point of Sale (POS) Systems
- ERP Systems
- RPA bots data
- Other Systems For Sales Operations
It is crucial to know which data should be prioritized for analysis, as well as how the analysis should be carried out, as this will determine the success of the transformation. The information that is gathered should be used to formulate key business decisions and help drive strategy.
- Develop A Performance Model
Once you have initiated the data collection step, you can move on to the next step, which is to develop a performance model. A performance model is a tool that is used to analyze the collected data and identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to measure the success of the transformation.
The main purpose of a performance model is to create a framework for evaluating past performance and assessing future success. The model should be built using the information that was collected during the data collection step. This step is vital, as a performance model will allow you to track progress and identify areas where improvements can be made.
- Create And Maintain A Culture Of Continuous Improvement
In the same way that a business’ physical infrastructure and processes need to be maintained and enhanced to enable them to operate at maximum capacity.. and digital infrastructure and processes need to be maintained and enhanced to enable them to operate at maximum capacity.
As a business continues to grow and evolve, they often struggle with maintaining a culture of continuous improvement. There are several ways in which this can be achieved through the use of performance models and analytical tools. For example, consider the Netflix DX case studies, which used a combination of Lean Startup principles and agile development to continually improve their services over a five-year period.
To extend the scope of RPA to content-driven processes that support strategic digital transformation initiatives across the organization, your DX team can use automated data processing tools to achieve higher KPIs. We spent a long time comparing and trying different programs, but ultimately settled on ABBYY FlexiCapture, and you can read why here.
- Identify The Critical Success Factors
Once you have developed a performance model, you can use the model to identify the critical success factors (CSFs). A CSF is a factor that is considered to be critical to the success of a particular project or initiative. Businesses and individuals often focus on the output of a project, rather than the process that was undertaken to generate that output. However, in order to have a successful project, you need to consider the process as well, as this will identify the key areas where improvements can be made and the strategies that can be used to effectively tackle these issues.
Consider the creation of a mobile application. Without a clear process and approach,the project could potentially fail, as there are numerous aspects to consider such as platform selection, content strategy, and design. However, by applying the above-mentioned guidelines, the project has a good chance of being a success, as the data-gathering phase, for example, can be done in a structured and methodical manner.
Practice
At Wisetrend, we work hard to ensure our customers can always rely on our products and services, which is why we continuously invest in making our products and offering new ones to drive growth and improve customer experience. In the last year, we have been overwhelmed by the transformative power of digital transformation (DX), and it has really made an impact on how we work and live.
The rise of technology and the subsequent ability to harness and analyze big data has changed the game, and industries such as financial services, media, entertainment, and retail have all felt the effects. Enterprises are now able to quickly identify areas of improvement and make effective changes to drive growth.
So how can you ensure you are harnessing the power of digital transformation in your own organization? We’ve put together a guide detailing six essential steps you can take to better understand and strategically implement digital transformation in your business.
1. Identify and understand the business case
The first step in any strategic transformation initiative is to identify exactly which area you want to improve and then to clearly articulate the business case for doing so. What does your current state look like? What are your current processes? What are your key performance indicators (KPIs) – are you tracking them accurately and how are you going to track them going forward?
By answering these questions, you will be able to articulate precisely what you want to change and why it’s important to do so. If you’re still stumbling for words, run through our framework for effective change leadership and gain clarity on the business case for change.
2. Set measurable goals
Setting measurable goals is an important part of any plan as it allows you to track your progress along the way. It also helps stakeholders understand how the plan is going to be evaluated – are you going to measure it against a particular number or benchmark?
For example, if you’re trying to become the digital marketing agency in the region for financial services firms, you might initially set the goal of recruiting and then retaining three new clients per month. Once you have set these goals, you can map out how you’re going to go about achieving them – are you going to focus on marketing directly to businesses, seeking out larger enterprises who can be more strategic buyers for your products and services? Or are you going to focus on attracting top talent by improving your working environment and offering more opportunities?
3. Design a clear plan of action
Once you have set your measurable goals, it’s time to lay out a clear plan of action. This is where you put into practice all the ideas and insights you have gained from the previous step. Start by clearly defining the purpose of your strategic transformation initiative – to what end do you want to be doing this? Why are you seeking to transform your business in this way?
For example, if your company’s aim is to become the market leader in digital marketing for financial services, your plan of action might include seeking out the best talent, designing a marketing strategy and then acting on it.
You also need to set a date for completing the transformation – not just in terms of achieving your stated goals but also giving yourself enough time to make the changes.
4. Gather the appropriate stakeholders
It’s important to involve the right people in your transformation journey. You’ll need people from different areas of the business, such as marketing, sales, and procurement, to play a role. These individuals can help bring new ideas to the table, provide valuable feedback, and perhaps help get some of the work done more quickly.
Remember that your plan of action is just that – it’s a plan. While you’re excited about the new ideas and innovations that digital transformation brings, be realistic about what you can actually achieve in the time you have allocated for the project. Your stakeholders should also be realistic about their roles and responsibilities in the change process and ensure that no one is burdened by unnecessary or unrealistic expectations.
5. Test your plan
You need to be able to test your plan, and this is where good measurement and the ability to analyze data comes in. You can’t truly know whether or not you have accomplished what you set out to achieve until you’ve had the chance to look back and see how well you did – were you able to reach your goals?
For example, if you’re seeking to become the digital marketing agency for financial services, you might want to set a goal of increasing your daily leads by 20% (from a base level of 100). If you’re able to hit this target, your plan might be considered a success. But if you’re only able to achieve, let’s say, an 8% increase, you might want to reevaluate what you’re trying to accomplish and whether or not the plan is the best path forward.
6. Review and refine your plan
Now that you have a plan in place, it’s time to review and refine it. Does the plan fit the initial objectives you set out for yourself? Does it still make sense in light of new information? Does it need to be changed or updated at all?
Take some time to digest everything you learned during the process of creating your plan and determine the next course of action – did you answer all the questions posed at the outset? If you did, great job! If you didn’t, it might be time to revisit the questions and get some more definitive answers.
This step allows you to lay out the key strategies that will be used to drive the transformation. This step is important, as it helps with the formulation of key business decisions and strategy, as well as planning for the future.
The plan’s blueprint should be a living document that is reviewed and updated on a regular basis, as this will ensure that the strategies are still relevant and that no important details have been overlooked. Moreover, it ensures that the right culture of continuous improvement is maintained.
In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to be enticed by the next shiny object and lose sight of the big picture. But that’s all part of the fun of being a leader – it’s important to stay focused on the big goals and ensure you’re not losing sight of them.
Takeaway
The main takeaway from this article is that businesses today have a golden opportunity to completely transform the way they do business. The main driver behind this opportunity is the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the technologies that are enabling it. If you are considering implementing digital transformation, then there are several approaches that you can take, as discussed above. By using these approaches and following the right protocols, you have a good chance of having a successful transformation.