But first, what does digital transformation mean?
- Adding more apps and software to your technology suite?
- Mandating all the teams in your company to implement these initiatives on an emergency basis?
- Reinventing the way you acquire and engage with your customers?
- Changing the way your team works with each other irrespective of their function?
- All of the above?
The answer, as you guessed rightly, is all of the above.
The ultimate goal that drives any organization towards digital transformation is to achieve more profit in business. Of course, this has to go in tandem with customer delight, employee happiness, and a product or service that keeps generating revenue. A tall order indeed in today’s competitive world!
You say Transformation, Suyati says Metamorphosis
Transformation: (n) – a marked change in form, nature, or appearance
Metamorphosis: (n) – a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a totally different one.
Transformation denotes improvement or change, and for the better. But at Suyati, we have coined the Digital Metamorphosis concept to ensure transformation is not just an improvement, it is a completely new way of doing things for the better.
So how do we go about it? Digital metamorphosis involves two key aspects of your business –
- Preparing the organization internally for the metamorphosis
- Changing the way you acquire, manage and delight your customers.
How can you prepare the organization internally?
In our blog, “Revolutionizing products and services with Digital Transformation”, we touched on the four areas that are affected by digital transformation – people, process, information sharing and technology. In this blog, we focus on how to ensure your people are ready to propel your transformation.
An ongoing, proactive approach for managing Digital Transformation is essential to keep the businesses relevant and competitive in the future. To make digital metamorphosis work effectively in an organization, just introducing new technologies won’t help. To be a digital leader, employees will have to be adaptive to the changes in work culture. It is about creating an agile organization that can perceive if any changes are required and respond quickly with an appropriate solution. Some of the key steps include:
Brainstorm:
Given the competitive landscape every business face today, the CEO of a company may feel desperate to deploy the right technology as fast as their budgets allows. However, digital technology affects every company differently. At the outset, the key decision makers in an organization should have a holistic view of the digital threats and opportunities.
Quick tip: If you want to assess how digitally mature your company is, we have an online survey. Companies who take the survey can use the results as a guide to get a clearer picture of how digitally mature they are, the areas that need more focus and prioritize their investment accordingly.
Related: 5 Principles for Smooth Digital Transformation
Being agile can definitely accelerate the pace of your business, as brainstorming involves coming up with innovative ideas to solve process related problems, close internal communication gaps, improve customer service and deliver projects on time.
Top down, bottom up, sideways process:
An organization can be called digitally ready when its CEO succeeds in providing a working strategic framework that trickles down to every employee.
In this digital age, the traditional ladder model is giving way to the new lattice model. Cathy Benko, vice-chairman of Deloitte in San Francisco and co-author of The Corporate Lattice, is in favor of a more grid-like structure, where employees are able to move sideways, pitch ideas directly to top management, and take ownership of certain projects with minimal regulation.
To prepare your employees to embrace the change, and to see far-reaching success, processes will need reshaping along with deployment of new technologies. Leaders at the top should define new roles to employees and adopt new ways of working. Micromanagers and hierarchical layers are inhibitors to empowerment in this approach. Consequently, to have a healthy agile approach, leaders should imagine themselves as creators of social institutions, identify each employer’s strength and let them do what they do best.
For instance, online shoe shop Zappos.com introduced the principles of intrapreneurship by eliminating scripts from its call center. Their customer service staff were given the liberty to deal with complaints however they saw fit. Within a year of introducing this change, in terms of customer satisfaction rating, the company has outperformed most of its competitors.
Related: The digital transformation trends that would dominate 2017
Authorize people:
In a “project team” based approach, the structure is less hierarchical, employees participate in decision-making, each one completes their individual tasks, and work along with the management towards achieving common organizational goals. This approach makes employees feel they are part of the total organization.
For example, information such as customer data and visualization tools used to decode the analytics, is typically controlled by a department. In this approach, it is made available to all employees.
What next?
Now that you know how to get your organization ready for the metamorphosis, the next question is which digital innovation you should invest in. If you are raring to go, (and we bet you are!), get connected with our digital experts at Suyati Technologies. We can strategize and guide you through your digital transformation process.
Related blogs:
How Digital transformation affects the lifecycle of products and services?
The Digital Transformation Advice a CEO needs in 2017: Part I
The Digital Transformation Advice a CEO needs in 2017: Part II