If you rely solely on adding or upgrading technology for your business’s digital transformation, you will miss out on key benefits and solutions. Digital transformation is not a black and white process. Every business has different needs with various stakeholders, requiring different customized solutions. If you approach your business initiative holistically, reviewing the needs of people (both internal and end users) and processes (infrastructure and training) you will be able to make impactful improvements and achieve success.

Technology as Part, not the Whole

Technology plays an essential role in digital transformation. However, it’s only one of many critical components and, on its own, doesn’t lead to true business transformation. Starting your journey with just a new technology solution is like going on a road trip with one good tire and three that are ready to pop.

A true transformation involves changing your business model and business processes. Empowering individuals and teams to be more productive and improving the customer experience will improve overall business processes, eliminating waste and inefficiencies. Once you outline these objectives, technology can be introduced as one of many means to achieve those objectives.

Businesses often start their journey only focused on one or two business problems and the technology that would solve them, and they don’t frame the initiative as “digital transformation.”

In today’s climate, you can’t afford to throw semi-solutions at your problems. You must think broader and consider people and processes, then align your technology to them in order to make the most of your time, budget and outcomes. You might find you need to pursue an entirely new strategy, pursue a culture shift, make a process change and/or a people change ahead of any technology implementation.

Essentials of a Successful Digital Transformation

If you’re ready to broaden the scope of solving your business problem and pursue true digital transformation, there are several essentials to consider.

Business, Skill and Technology Assessments

To understand your organization’s optimal state, analyze and document the capabilities of your team members, business structure and existing technology stack.

• Analyze your business strengths and weaknesses with an assessment such as a Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat (SWOT) analysis internally or with the help of a consultant.

• Evaluate team members’ skill sets and capabilities as they pertain to their roles. Is their department understaffed or overstaffed? Does staff have the necessary expertise? What is their willingness to change?

• Assess employees’ processes and the technology they use. What do they perform manually versus in a system? How efficient are these processes and systems?

• Determine what the capabilities are of the technology systems used today. What is missing to support your business objectives?

Goal Setting

Defining clear objectives and mapping out a strategy to achieve them are keys to success. Develop a vision and strategy among leadership using the assessments you’ve performed, considering opportunities such as:

• How you might restructure, retrain or reallocate resources to address inefficiencies.

• How you might improve processes to reduce waste, such as multiple reviews that can be consolidated into one.

• How you can improve the customer experience by introducing a more seamless technology.

To be sure you don’t interrupt a process that does work as it is, ask yourself the following questions for each component you might involve in the transformation:

1. Is there a business need for the way it’s being done today?

2. What is the business value or customer value of doing it this way?

If there’s no need or value for the process as it is, it’s a candidate for change.

Change Management

It’s critical to think through how this will impact people across everything you do, which includes employees, customers and vendors. Employees understand why the change is important, how it helps them and improves their processes, and how they can get the most out of the innovation. Any transformation should address customer needs and how they prefer to interact with your business but consider how you will communicate it. And how you can improve your interactions with your vendors is important to consider during transformation planning.

Leadership Buy-In

A transformation won’t be successful without having leadership support from the executive level. Culture is driven from the top down. Leaders can be vocal advocates for the initiative via email, in meetings and otherwise, leveraging their strong influence on change.

Transform from a Place of Confidence

Once you have these elements in place, you must carefully select which improvements are right for your business, customers, employees and vendors. This includes process changes, structure changes and the technologies you plan to introduce. It can be an intimidating level of planning and preparation, but it’s worth your while to identify and confirm the best next steps to successfully transform.

To learn more about digital transformation, visit eidebailly.com.