According to Gartner, 42% of CEOs have embarked on digital business transformation journeys—and many are facing challenges with changing the company culture, the resulting resistance to change, attracting new talent, catching up with the competition, and dealing with an outdated technology stack. The list continues, but I will stop there for now because I think you get the idea.
For most companies, the ultimate goal is to enhance the customer experience. It’s 2018. Our customers can rate and review us on countless websites and social platforms with the simple click of a button. Are you prepared for bad ratings? Will they affect your business? Are you tracking everything your customers are saying? Have you implemented a social customer service team? Have you mapped your customer digital journey?
Are you finding all of these questions overwhelming? Well, the good news is that there is one overarching question that will determine your answer to any of the above questions: Where are you in your digital transformation journey?
I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with many customers on the execution of their digital transformation strategies. In doing so, I’ve identified key action items that help companies find success with their digital transformation journeys. I will share them with you here, with one caveat: Every company is different. What works for one company may not work for yours. Your digital transformation journey should ultimately be tailored to address your specific needs.
Look at technologies like social, mobile, cloud, and analytics as tactics that enable you to transform your business and how you do things, but you must have an overarching digital strategy that ties into your overall business strategy.
Software development is something you want to take seriously. To stay a step ahead of the competition, you must think and act like an innovator, regardless of your business or industry.
Finding the right technology isn’t the hard part. Transforming your organization—your people, process, and tools—is hard. Remember that it is a journey that you are all taking together.
You should continuously analyze your business and remain on the lookout for new opportunities. Invest in good business analysts and trusted partners and advisors who understand your business and industry.
Getting serious about digital transformation begins with hiring a Chief Digital Officer who will serve as the executive sponsor for digital process innovation, map digital capabilities to strategic priorities, and develop and administer the digital project portfolio.
You can accelerate your digital journey by partnering with external specialists and subject matter experts who work alongside your in-house digital transformation specialists.
The best way to know if something will work is to try it. Pick smaller teams and short durations for testing or pilots. Which leads directly into my next point…
Two-thirds of digital transformation attempts fail. Don’t take this fact as a bad thing; this is the quickest route to digital transformation. Learn and move on from your failures.
The market changes fast, so you have to be willing and able to pivot alongside it. Remain prepared for continuous changes.
Plan for shorter refresh cycles and continuous upgrades to your systems and tools.
Many organizations have realized great benefits by separating “production IT” from “corporate IT.”
Consider a cloud-first strategy that enables you to think and function like a startup company. Cloud can be a great place for your digital transformation proof of concepts, software development, application integrations, and analytics.
You may have different initiatives and strategies going on simultaneously (think business digital transformation, IT transformation, cloud transformation, and so on). Make sure all of these strategies and initiatives are aligned and support each other.
Start from the simplest use cases and demonstrate business value quickly. Look for quick wins that encourage executive buy-in from the beginning of your digital transformation journey.
Plan for life after go-live. Make sure that anything you decide to deploy in production is ready for primetime, and that it is secure, scalable, and will perform.
Remember, your digital transformation strategy has no end date. Technology will keep evolving, which means we will always need to play catch up. A state of constant change and innovation is becoming the new norm, so fasten your seat belts and be ready for a long and—if you’re doing it right—exciting ride.
ConvergeOne's Data Center Experts have written a guide that provides valuable insights about how you can strategically design your data center infrastructure to power the technology of tomorrow. The following areas are explored:
Digital Transformation
Data Protection
Active/Active Data Centers
Converged Architecture
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI)