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10 Steps To Digital Transformation Success

10 Steps To Digital Transformation Success
by Ryan Higginson

Digital transformation is creating unprecedented opportunities for growth and innovation.

For decades, larger companies have held the competitive advantage in terms of scope, delivery and the ability to respond quickly to changing market conditions.

Now, the tables are turning. Advances in technology are presenting small companies with extraordinary opportunities to gain a foothold in markets formerly dominated by large organisations. Cloud computing is easily accessible to smaller companies, and its flexibility and lack of upfront investment make it a perfect fit for businesses exploring new ground. It also removes the need for frequent, costly software upgrades, and has in-built security. Mobility makes it less important for businesses to spend on office rentals, with platforms and collaboration tools accessed from smartphones, desktops or tablets. And physical mail technologies are now being right-sized so small businesses have access to better, faster, more productive technology integrated with intelligent digital platforms.

Businesses are already juggling a huge amount of challenges from staying on top of evolving regulations, to managing skills shortages and high staff turnover, to meeting changing customer demands.

The need to keep up with the pace of change through digital transformation places even more pressure on businesses, and many are not making the most of the opportunities digitalisation delivers. This shows in research from consultancy Arthur D. Little, which found that 80 per cent of firms are lagging in their digital transformation maturity and have reactive rather than active strategies in place. A lack of knowledge is cited as the biggest barrier to achieving digital transformation, identified by half of survey respondents, followed by a lacking sense of urgency and excessive complexity.

It’s not difficult to understand why the thought of digital transformation can seem overwhelming, but there are a few key ways to address this. Thinking of it as ‘digitalisation’ helps – it’s not quite as overwhelming as a ‘transformation’, and refers to the tools your business needs to generate growth. The following tips should also help you form a framework to embrace digital change and drive results:

Map your move to digital, against your business priorities: what do you most want your business to achieve, and what tools could help you do this? Informed business decisions are built on data, so that’s a good place to start. Use what data you have to give you insights: if your sales funnel is growing and you want to formalise your customer relationship management, you might consider Salesforce or an alternative CRM system; if you have sales people with different commission amounts each month, the latest accounting software would work well; and if you need to meet new industry regulations such as the GDPR, you might want to consider ways of protecting your physical and digital customer information.

Read full article on Business Matters.