How do you develop a digital transformation strategy? One that helps your organization stay modern and competitive?
The digital era has turned the business world into a fast-paced, fierce marketplace.
Today, battles are being waged on several fronts.
Businesses are fiercely competing for:
- Talent and digital skills
- A technological edge
- Data and data-fueled advantages
Among other things.
To achieve these objectives, most businesses must transform.
In this article, we’ll look at 5 key areas you must address when developing a digital transformation strategy.
Although every business project takes effort, we’ll offer a clear explanation of digital transformation.
This should make it easier for your business to design and execute a strategy for change.
1. Customer-Centered Revenue Models
Today, there is no such thing as an “offline” or an “online” business … virtually every business today is both.
This is true regardless of the nature of your business. Retail giants, for instance, are feeling the pressure of ecommerce, for example.
In this global, digital world, customers have more power than ever.
- They are more likely to leave brands due to bad brand experiences
- Poor digital experiences – such as slow loading times or bad app usability – can push users away
- Customer-driven products outperform feature-driven products, making user feedback
When customers have this much leverage, customer-centrism is the first step towards an effective digital strategy.
This means that business models must often change, using customer feedback to drive designs.
User feedback, for instance, should fuel:
- Product design and development
- Design, from UI design to digital experience design
- Marketing
- Customer service
Among other areas.
Below, we’ll explore more ways that customers are pushing businesses to adapt to the digital era.
2. Digitally-Fueled, Human-Centric Culture
Digital technology is dramatically changing the business world.
However, despite this paradigm shift towards technology, the human experience is becoming more important than ever.
This holds true for customers, employees, and everyone in between.
For instance:
- On average, 30% of customers will leave a brand after one bad experience
- Globally, 87% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work
- And disengaged employees are much more likely to be on the lookout for other employment opportunities
Improving the customer experience, as mentioned above, is an absolute must.
However, this principle should be generalized and taken within the organization itself.
That is, put humans at the heart of the organization – this includes customers, clients, business partners, and employees.
A good way to start is by creating a human-centered culture, mission, and vision.
This scope will embrace experience across the groups just mentioned, producing better:
- Customer experiences
- User engagement
- Employee engagement
- Partner and client relationships
These achievements will, in turn, produce better business outcomes.
3. IT Modernization
IT modernization refers to the technical capacity of an organization.
This includes:
- Customer-facing software and tools
- Applications used internally
- Infrastructure and hardware
- The expertise and skill of the IT department
- Digital skills for all employees, regardless of department
In short, your organization should be fully modern and make full use of digital technology.
This idea is a key tenet of digital adoption: make full use of the technology you deploy.
Software is only useful if you actually use it … which means that software ROI depends entirely on how effectively that software is adopted and implemented.
Digital Adoption Solutions (DASs) – also called Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs) – for example, are essential tools that streamline digital adoption, by providing:
- On-demand, instant training inside the app
- Contextualized learning that can be applied immediately
- Tutorials and guidance that are personalized to each user
These and other tools should be used to help with digital adoption and IT modernization.
4. Agility
Business agility is essential for survival in today’s economy.
Organizational agility should become a strategic imperative, for a few reasons:
- The marketplace is in flux, making fast-paced changes essential
- Agile businesses can adapt more quickly to external circumstances
- They can also develop products more quickly and innovate more effectively
Agility, therefore, refers to a few key qualities:
- Responsiveness
- Adaptability
- Speed
- Openness
This agility should be instilled not only into the culture, but it should be hard-coded into processes.
For inspiration, look to Agile Software Development.
It focuses on collaboration, communication, and speed – with results that have proven very successful in countless companies around the world.
This workflow is so successful, in fact, that it spread from software development to a wide variety of business disciplines. Today, we have agile change management, agile manufacturing, and more.
5. Data-Driven Business
Data drives success in today’s digital world.
It offers significant competitive advantages, in a vast array of business disciplines, including:
- Customer experience
- Marketing
- Business intelligence
- Competitive intelligence
Among many others.
Many businesses have not fully adjusted to the realities of today’s digital environment. Nor have they fully taken advantage of the potentials inherent in their data.
To exploit the business potential of data, organizations should:
- Democratize data – that is, break down data silos and share data across the organization
- Use modern technology, such as AI, to gain insight into their existing data
- Optimize business processes
- Use data to drive and inform business decisions
Steps such as these can generate significant returns.
Also, data insights can help organizations understand their digital transformation journey and know which steps to take next.
