The Outcome of Addressing Real Business Problems: Digital Transformation

We’ve come to a point where almost every organization has, in some way, come to recognize that digital transformation is the business imperative to ensure a thriving future. From my experience, I have come to realize that Digital Transformation is not something you do, but an outcome of doing many things really well, in a highly connected, intelligent, and streamlined manner; taking advantage of new technologies and other capabilities to be faster, smarter, nimbler, and better than your competition.

That said, from my experience, most organizations are still in the early phases of their digital maturity, strategizing and executing isolated projects that often lack coordination. In contrast however, I have seen a handful of businesses that fully understand enterprise-wide transformations, and are making increasingly rapid progress. Indeed, they’re disrupting traditional or legacy competitors, while progressing their transformative journey. But, if businesses are able to incorporate some key ingredients into their transformation strategies, success will more than likely follow.

So where do you start?

Companies that are winning are doing so by addressing specific business problems.

Winning companies are:

1. Adapting to evolving customer behaviours and preferences is constantly rising as consumer needs and expectations continue to evolve. Customers want to engage using the channel of their choice and expect companies to know, understand and respond to their requirements instantly. Customer experience is the survival metric in today’s digital age. Bringing together systems and processes and being agile will be crucial to meeting customer needs. Creating highly engaging employee experiences.
2. Invested, inspired, engaged, and skilled employees are more likely to champion the brand they’re representing, becoming passionate advocates and ultimately, driving sustainable growth. Employees ability to help them learn and develop is one of the most critical factors to ensure future success of any organization. To build a great employee experience requires the consumerization of their experiences. Just as employees consume information in their own time, they also need learning and information support to be as simple and intuitive as consumer-style experiences.
3. Going after growth opportunities within new markets. Many companies have to change their operational process, platforms and culture in order to remain competitive. Around them is a world that is becoming ever more connected, highlighting the need for an expanded focus. However doing so increase demands for transparency, sustainability and compliance, which require greater flexibility and decentralization to respond and adapt faster.
4. Winning, not just competing against their natural, incumbent, and potential new entrant, competitors. In today’s world, there is a vast difference between competing and winning. Competing has become the struggle to remain with the rest of the pack; winning is to influence and control the pack — to be the disruptor.
5. Using new standards in regulation and compliance as opportunities to become digital enterprises. On one hand, organizations aim to stay competitive by taking strategic and bold measures. On the other, there are visceral fears of security breaches with the adoption of new infrastructure and policies. The question organizations must ask themselves is “what security policies will enable my organization to succeed.”

So, Digital Transformation means total business transformation…but this can be done in small, value driving projects. Actually, you are more likely to achieve results, and gain buy-in, if you keep your projects small and value driving.

We believe that every Digital Transformation must incorporate the 4Ps planned, be end-to-end, and go from the customer layer all the way to the operations and data layers of an organization. You can still start small, as long as your are thinking big, you can succeed.

If you are interested in learning more about what makes K2 Digital different from any other technology strategy and execution shop.

I look forward to hearing from you.

About the Author:

Please do not hesitate to contact me at Lawrence.Tepperman@gmail.com or on LinkedIn

Lawrence Tepperman is a serial entrepreneur, having successfully grew and exited two startups, 80/20 Solutions and K2 Digital, and is now Proprietor & President of Berkeley Payment Solutions Inc.