For most business leaders, the phrase ‘Digital transformation’ isn’t new. Companies have been using technology to improve their business for decades now. But the pandemic has forced companies to make changes to their business to serve their customers using digital means – In a way, reiterating the importance of investing in digital transformation like never before.
77% of CEOs* reported that they had to speed up their digital transformation plans due to the pandemic.
Companies’ resistance to experimenting and taking risks with digital tools has greatly reduced since. Every major enterprise has enabled their employees to work from home and their customers to remotely connect with the company in order to provide them their products or services.
However, all this is easier said than done. Taking shots in the dark does nothing for your organization’s digital transformation efforts.
This blog discusses important factors that can empower your transformation strategy, and can help your company know where to begin and what to look out for throughout the process.
Before we jump into that, it is important to understand just what we mean by Digital Transformation.
Digital transformation is a set of efforts taken up by a company to improve the adoption of digital technology in order to improve business processes, value for customers, and digital innovation.
Factors That Empowers Digital Transformation Strategy
- Promote a Digital Mindset
- Assign the Right Leaders
- Find the Right Balance Between Technology and Talent
- Digitize Legacy Systems
- Combine Traditional and Digital Communication
1. Promote a Digital Mindset
Digital Transformation requires changes to the organization’s overall culture and mindset. When you bring in new digital technologies that speed up business processes, employees are expected to keep up with this pace.
Empower them to make changes to their way of working to break the hard wiring of the organization. Support them through these changes and help them understand the ways in which these new technologies can benefit them.
Organizations have to manage this change and set the scene for the new digital landscape, where speed and agility is the norm. Taking an employee-first approach to managing the transformation will help businesses navigate through the uncertainty till the employees adapt to the new environment.
It is wise to expect resistance from employees who are skeptical of this change. They might fear the new technology and feel threatened that it might eventually replace them at the workplace. Tools that do not fulfill their promised benefits will also cause employees to resist or not open up to future solutions.
Leaders that carry out transformational changes have a huge part to play in this – Which brings us to our next factor…
2. Assign the Right Leaders
To truly succeed with your digital transformation efforts, change has to happen at all levels, especially from the top. Does your organization have the right executives in place to carry out your DX efforts?
Finding such a leader is crucial to digital transformation success. Assign a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) to support the organization’s transformation efforts. Other leaders of smaller initiatives and senior employees at the organization must also be engaged with the overall DX efforts of the company. There needs to be evident commitment from the leadership to drive the initiative.
Traditional business operations create a hierarchy in organizations and this increases micromanagement and distrust of employees. A digital workplace empowers tech-savvy employees with the right knowledge and passion to be a part of important decisions and projects.
3. Find the Right Balance Between Technology and Talent
Digital transformation brings in a great deal of changes to your organization. This also results in resistance to change from your employees. To tackle this, employees have to be made aware of the benefits of the new tools and ensure that the technology and talent work in tandem, in favor of the organization.
Digital transformation is not just about technology. How efficiently your employees can use these technologies also matters. Empower your employees to leverage the new tools to the fullest and ensure that they get support at any point of need. Apty lets you do just this with in-app assistance provided in real-time.
4. Digitize Legacy Systems
This is an obvious factor for every organization that wants to digitally transform itself to consider. Sticking to old ways will only slow down your transformation. The CTO of the company must find new and innovative technologies that can perform the same operations as legacy systems but much faster.
Employees and sometimes even the top executives might be comfortable with what they are used to and may find new platforms complicated. This discomfort can be addressed by proper communication and training ahead of the launch and providing seamless assistance once the technology is rolled out.
Automating redundant or mundane tasks can free up a lot of time for employees, that they can spend on performing more meaningful tasks. Use a Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) to onboard employees onto new software and to provide quick assistance. Apty is a DAP that speeds up software adoption with on-screen guidance and reduces training and support costs. Apty’s chatbot can also be used to automate tasks seamlessly.
5. Combine Traditional and Digital Communication
Communication is key for successful change. Effectively communicating the benefits of the new tools, frameworks, and processes to your employees can make the process a whole lot smoother. The executives responsible for carrying out the change must envision how a new digital workplace will function and this vision must be conveyed clearly to the employees.
The new digital workplace will also need solid communication channels to function properly. There will be a ton of feature updates and changes to software that will need to be communicated to your employees. Apty’s announcement feature lets you communicate such changes and walks them through the new processes or features.
A Digital Adoption Platform like Apty can streamline your transformation process. Apty empowers your employees to use new tech and ensures that your organization gets high ROI from your tech investments.
*Source: Deloitte
