How To Formulate Your Digital Transformation Strategy

The digital environment is changing rapidly, and successful leaders must be willing to experiment with new technologies and become more flexible in their approach. Companies must stay on top of market disruptions and evolving technologies while providing customers with the best experience. In fact, 76% of managers believe that businesses should radically reengineer customer experiences bringing technology and people together in a more human-centric way. 

Business agility, resilience, and performance are the most important factors that determine the success of any organization, no matter how small. A well-defined digital transformation strategy is essential to capitalize on advances in technology. Businesses who are losing market share, experiencing a high rate of customer dissatisfaction, having high turnover, or noticing disruptive technologies used in the industry should consider implementing a digital transformation. The best way to ensure a revolutionary change in the business and minimize risks is to develop a digital transformation strategy. 

Digital transformation is an operation to change traditional business processes with digital technologies to streamline systems and increase profits. The goal of digital transformations is to meet customer needs, maximize productivity with the people within the organization and improve scalability so the business can serve more people. When performed properly, a digital transformation can dramatically improve customer experience, leading to significant company growth. 

Digital transformation isn't simply about making minor adjustments. Instead, it's about radically improving the organization's end-to-end operations using innovative technologies and strategies. So what are examples of digital transformation? 

For example, an energy company may create online portals empowering customers to take control of their energy usage at home. Or perhaps, a bank invests in mobile banking technology to help customers better navigate their finances. 

Simply put, a digital transformation strategy is a detailed roadmap of the methods you plan to use to digitally transform your business to solve any challenges you encounter along the way. It involves redesigning your business model with a focus on customer experience and formulating result-oriented technology initiatives. It is critical to have a framework through which everyone can agree on how to prioritize funding and resources and identify any processes that need to be changed along the way. Digital strategies have legal, financial implications, and if business models change, there are implications for sales and quota structures. The plan also focuses on using technology to improve business performance, whether creating new products or reimagining existing processes.

Digital initiatives impact every aspect of your business, such as employee satisfaction, skills development, employee productivity, and collaboration. Forming an effective digital transformation strategy requires high-level expertise and a shift away from traditional business management practices. Whether you are dealing with modernizing legacy systems or implementing entirely new digital systems, you must find the most fitting technology. 

• Being agile: Leaders should be willing to experiment with new technologies and be flexible in their approach. 

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• Have a purpose behind their transformation: Leaders should know why they need to rethink their business approach. For example, a leader must think about using technology as a tool to give a competitive advantage and push towards innovation.

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• Strive for partnerships: Every leader should embrace partnership. Learning how to leverage people's strengths to their advantage and seeking collaboration can help add another layer to the business. 

The pursuit of adopting these technologies may require outside vendors and partnerships. Therefore, understanding your business needs and gathering expertise essential features or characteristics of the technology. Since the technology often requires a hefty investment, it's important to set budgetary limits. Whether you're upgrading an old system, upgrading an application, or deploying a brand new digital system, you need to find the right technology. 

Connect the strategy with the key business goals for the year. For example, how will implementing a new technology achieve more sales or better customer experience? When the transformation is used to help you achieve business objectives, stakeholders or business partners are more likely to help and provide their input. Ideally, every department should be involved with the digital transformation to ensure connectedness in the organization. An IT department that develops the technology may not fully understand the customer's needs. Therefore, it's vital that the marketing, sales, and customer service department share their input and impart their knowledge in the process. 

• Outline key goals, priorities, and milestones your business hopes to achieve.

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• What are problems that need to be addressed, and how can technology and digital transformation provide the solution to the problems. 

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• What are traditional strategies, processes, or outdated tools that are no longer serving you? It's important to audit every aspect of your business to see which systems are effective and which aren't. For example, if your team doesn't have a way to track, record sales calls, and measure customer interactions, you may want to implement CRM software. 

Going from traditional processes to new digital ones can be difficult. That's because everyone is used to doing things one way. Change must be implemented and enforced from the top down. Before any technology launches, companies must run many tests to identify and evaluate risks. It's one thing to map out a concept or theory, but implementation requires many iterations. Developers get a chance to fix malfunctions or glitches before employees or customers use the technology. Customers using a faulty product or service can lead to poor experience and damage to your brand image. For example, before launching the new mobile app to customers, make sure that multiple unbiased test groups provide feedback. Getting early feedback can help with the initial uncertainty when launching. From a customer's perspective, the app operates smoothly and adds convenience. 

Digital transformation is a massive undertaking, and few people have all the skills or experience to implement these changes seamlessly. To prevent growth problems and rookie mistakes, look for partners with the knowledge and skills to implement your plans. Also, keep in mind that digital transformation is not the work of one person. This should be a cross-functional effort involving multiple departments, so you need to ensure these teams are properly staffed and involved in the project.

Data is useless if you don't use it. As your organization takes advantage of new digital assets (such as improved data collection and analysis), be sure to put in place processes to take full advantage of that asset. Companies that use their data and act on it quickly outperform the competition. Developing a digital strategy is not easy, but it is important to lay a solid foundation to start your digital transformation. And companies that plan ahead today are preparing for a brighter future.

Building a strategy sounds simple in theory but requires complete objectivity and expert analysis. A Digital Transformation Strategist plays an advisory role in your company on organization shifting decisions such as market shifts, organizational restructure, cost-saving plans, and more. 

At Universal Creative Solutions, we work closely with an organization to evaluate its current business model, systems, and customer experience. Then, we help bridge the gap between their current situation and goals by devising a clear digital change strategy. Our in-depth industry knowledge and strategy consulting can help your business implement disruptive technologies to give your business a competitive edge.