What is Digital Transformation? For the sake of this article, I will define the term by the two words that compose “digital transformation”: Digital and Transformation. Digital, or technology, AND transformation, or change, means that a digital transformation in your organization has produced a technological change within your business that has provided measurable benefits. Word to the wise…a transformation should not be a change to something different, but rather a change to something better. In short, digital transformation is such a broad term, even two people within the same organization, could be speaking about the same term, but may be thinking about two totally opposite ideas.
The term has become so widely used, I’m not sure that if you were to ask ten executives to define what it means to them, you would get any similar responses. For some, it is leveraging artificial intelligence. For others, it means moving all applications to the cloud or automating all business processes. One executive will say it means adopting a mobile strategy or overhauling the company’s website to improve customer engagement. Whereas, a finance executive may say it is incorporating robotic accounting or advanced analytics. It is clear that digital transformation can mean many different things to many different people.
With all of this relativity, it’s important to understand what digital transformation is not. For example, changing your technology environment without observable benefits is not a digital transformation, but rather a digital spending spree. Many companies have made significant expenditures to acquire or build new systems or applications, migrate data, and/or integrate IT system. The results are generally a changed organization that now requires more effort to operate more complex processes, leaving employees more confused and frustrated by the new technology.
Digital Transformation As Strategic Journey
Before committing your organization and your employees to the significant outlay of funds and time, try seeing your digital transformation as a strategic journey and performing these three tasks with your executive or leadership team.
1. Start at the end. Where do you want your organization or department to be operationally? What does “transformation” mean to you? It must be crystal clear amongst all stakeholders about where the organization will go and when will it reach the desired outcome. Consider this...Can you imagine being at the corporate office of APQC in Houston and deciding that you need to “transform” your geographic location without a vision for your destination? So, without deciding where you want to go and when you will arrive, you just start driving north on I-45. If along the journey, your desired end becomes Dallas, then you may get there by chance. But, after starting the process, if the desired end is determined to be Las Vegas, then you have set yourself up for an expensive re-route and a delayed time to completion.
2. How will you get there? On any journey, there can be multiple modes of transportation that can bring you to your desired end. In a digital transformation, ask yourself what are the primary operational challenges that are preventing your organization from achieving its strategic initiatives. Then ask, how can technology solve these problems and get you from point A to point B?
3. Pay the price! All journeys, or for sake of this blog, all transformations will demand significant outlays of employees’ time and organizational funds. Thorough and honest planning; excellent and extensive communication amongst all stakeholders; and a material financial investment will all be required of your organization in a digital transformation. Your leadership team must account for this dynamic prior to initiating your journey.
Of course, following three high-level prescribed steps will not guarantee success. As it is said, the devil is in the details. But, perhaps, utilizing these steps as a roadmap, may ensure that after your organization has implemented its form of a digital transformation project, it will have been for the better.