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In today’s hi-tech world, which is digitally connected head to toe, customers demand a great level of scalability and flexibility from businesses. To ensure this, organizations have to be digitally transformed to ensure they have robust IT ecosystems and leverage them to compete in the global economy. It’s all about technology, data, processes and organizational transformation.
To achieve success in the digital transformation process, every organization has to have the right teams with perfect skill sets in each of the four domains. Putting the right teams in these areas is one of the most important step an organization could take towards digital transformation.
Digital Transformation is a teamwork between business leaders and technology experts who can communicate technology in strategic thought process with the business leaders. Similar, if not more, efforts are needed in the data segment also. All the teams working in the organization, especially the ones dealing directly with consumers should adopt to new environments and help in creating data relevant to the transformation of the business. The challenge here that garnering the acceptability from these mass people to change and break free from their normal archaic routine.
The next domain of digital transformation is the process area of the business, now here it’s very important to understand the need and extent of change in processes as a whole in the organization. Do we need just incremental improvement in the processes, or a drastic reengineering of all critical processes? A question easily asked but very difficult to answer.
The Business leader should be mindful enough to identify this change accurately and spearhead the process mapping activity in the organization.
If all three domains handled successfully, then one can claim that the fourth objective of Organizational Transformation has been achieved. Digital transformation is not for the faint-hearted. Many attempts by very successful organizations have failed drastically, and the major reason is people. Acceptability to change is stressful to people and more so for the people working at the bottom of the pyramid in any organization.
If one of the four domains are handled poorly, the entire effort of digital transformation fails. These 4 domains are very strongly inter-connected and not one can be dealt loosely to another. The most important factor for success here is people. The Business leader’s role is to craft a compelling plan of action, linked to the new transformed vision of the organization and then motivate all people to follow his vision to achieve digital transformation in the organization.
However, Digital Transformation is quite easily achievable in SMEs and MSMEs as their scale of operation is very small and change can be quickly adapted by most of the people in the value chain. If done well, this transformation presents prolific opportunities for SMEs to be global players within no time.
In my next blog I will point towards the people and skillsets needed for each of the 4 domains of Digital Transformation.
Vijay Dalwani