Digital Transformation of most industries is now on the roll globally. Your company is probably in the middle of one now or is planning to launch one soon. Yet, according to the Everest Group, a U.S. analytics firm, 73% of enterprises failed to provide any business value from their digital transformation efforts.
You can invest into the Digital Transformation initiative and are likely to advance automation, usage of digital technologies, and change the business and production processes. However, it takes a different set of skills and expertise to realize true business value from this undertaking.
High-impact Digital Transformation requires stepping outside your comfort zone, challenging the status quo, such as inventing new products and customer experiences. Last time someone challenged the status quo at your company, he or she was probably fired to preserve the harmony of the environment.
It is said—and it’s more true for Digital Transformation—that consultants are hired for what regular employees can be hated and fired for. Transformation erases the boundaries of power kingdoms of your company, threatens domination of traditional power brokers and gives a bigger seat at the table to customer-facing teams and advocates.
Yes, for survival and for succeeding in the digital economy of the 21st century you must do it. How do you save your major investment into Digital Transformation from failure? How do you realize the dream of the next-generation customer-centric enterprises, effective internally and engaging externally?
- Commitment and investment. It is an expensive project—your financial bottom-line results will take a backseat for 12-24 months, so plan a swift roadmap and do not drag your feet.
- Different decision-making. You will need key decision-makers on this project at all times. Engage the staff to free them from their daily routine or hire temporary decision-makers.
- You are unique, don’t copy and paste someone else’s blueprint. Even though enterprises are made of similar parts, each business is at a different starting point and is too unique to simply copy someone else’s. Develop your own plan and follow own direction.
- Customer-centric concrete vision. Define and validate cases that will be possible thanks to the transformation of external and internal customers. Don’t start with the solution.
- Iterative Fail-Fast and Test-and-Try agile approach. The massive change you are executing is unique and has never been attempted before. You will make mistakes on the way there. Not making mistakes means you are not pushing your boundaries far enough.