According to an article published in The Economist, “the infusion of data-enabled services into more and more aspects of life” will be the most obvious consequence of the long-lasting Covid-19 pandemic. Digital transformation is expected to become more important for companies in the future, very soon.

A 2019 survey of CEOs, directors, and some senior executives found that their top concern was risk related to digital transformation. However, 70% of their initiatives towards this motion failed to meet their goals. Of the whopping $1.3 trillion spent on the new efforts in 2019, unfortunately, $900 billion was wasted.

Why?

Fundamentally, digital transformation teams fail, despite the potential for growth and efficiency gains, as people lack the mindset for change. With faulty organizational practices, it is extremely difficult to completely transform. Also, digitizing would magnify the flaws, just to make them appear larger.

What is Digital Transformation?

When you bring a new system into an organization, it’s obvious that you get a little hyperactive with implementation plans, specification, and counting.

Digital change is one of the most critical processes today, ensuring organizations are relevant and profitable in this competitive marketplace.

The process involves integrating innovative technologies and services into existing business practices and streamlining operations. The idea is to improve and add more value to the final product. This involves adding new tools and applications, storing data, recording information, and many new techniques.

That is, of course, the digital aspect of things. But, if you think about it, we are talking about “transformation”, which means introducing innovative ways of working with existing equipment.

Hard, right!

Anyone would be willing to buy a new set of digital suites with the latest tools, but who would run it? The key here is to make sure that the talent, or people, on board and the culture of the company are prepared to adapt. A successful transformation is change management, and only people can make it happen.

Involve your team

Any change is difficult. If you want to make major changes to your organization, you need to make sure everyone is with you, not just your leadership team. Yes, you can’t let the team make important decisions for the organization, but involving your team in a process can yield better results.

A McKinsey study showed that while 84% of CEOs are engaged in major transformational changes, only 45% of frontline employees agree. Obviously, connecting the dots is a major obstacle to implementing a successful strategy.

There are many ways to achieve this:

• Receive feedback from the team on the changes you implemented

• Keep your team on top of the implementation strategy

• Incentivize the team with internal marketing to convince the most reluctant team member of the new technology.

The transformation to the digital landscape can potentially be beneficial for an organization, but only if all team members agree and accept the change. Make sure you have a positive digital transformation team that understands why adopting new technologies and their benefits is important.

Invest and train your team

Digitization would have obstacles. Some of the team members may not be as tech-savvy as others. However, you cannot leave them behind. To get them to that level requires a lot of training to help them adapt to the latest technologies and tools.

Remember, people also have different ways of learning and the speeds may differ. For example, some team members can grasp the concept in a demo session, while others may need several days of training to get familiar with the new technology.

Experiment with various training materials, such as online courses and hands-on learning, and give them the flexibility to choose how they want to learn.

It can take some time to learn how to use new technology for best results, especially for team members who are not naturally tech-savvy. Investing in training is a surefire way to take advantage of this transformation.

The digital transformation framework does not change everything

The digital transformation framework is not about changing everything at once.

When you start to transform the business, letting go is easy. However, it is essential to know the technologies to adopt. You can consider the one that employees would find easiest to implement and be selective in choosing the best way.

All that shines is not better. When you plan to transform your business processes digitally, it is only to simplify the work process and make it easier for your team members. So don’t complicate it. If you have any questions about the changes, please check with your frontline staff.

For example, if you want to adopt a new platform for online communication, but can’t decide between Zoom, Teams, and Slack, ask your staff and get their input.

Expand your vision

Don’t be myopic when it comes to a big transformation. Digital transformation services aim to simplify and improve life. A successful transformation strategy is to introduce new changes to the business to make it more efficient and reduce the workload on employees.

If executed correctly, such a digital revolution can lead to better work practices, increase value for customers, and reduce workload for the team. If your digital move doesn’t tick all the boxes, something is wrong.

Bring the change from above

The concept of rebasing is intuitive. However, in reality, change is more likely to occur if it is driven directly from above. Again, that does not indicate a hierarchical or autocratic structure or a culture that breeds fear. It simply involves leadership, both transformational and transactional.

When it comes to digital change, the main implication is that no major change or even organizational upgrade is possible unless you select and develop top leaders to start with. It’s abundantly clear that leadership, both good and bad, flows down to affect all aspects of an organization. The most important factor that determines the effectiveness of an organization’s transformation is the CEO or top leader of an organization. Of course, the industry, culture, context, heritage, people, and actual technology matter, as do other resources.

However, these things are too similar among competitors, while the values, mindset, integrity, and competence of most senior leaders stand out as the main differentiating factor. It goes without saying that in an organization you can imitate everything, but not talent. So invest in the best talent for the biggest impact, which is exactly where you’ll get the most value.

final thoughts

Technology is all about doing much more with minimal resources, yet the arrangement is effective only when technology is combined with the best human skills. Like the technological disruption leading to automation and eliminating obsolete jobs, it has created more jobs. Precisely for this reason, innovation is also called ‘creative destruction’. Any creative facet of innovation depends on people. So leveraging human adaptability to upskill and reskill the workforce can augment technology and humans simultaneously. Simply put: a brilliant innovation would be irrelevant if we don’t have enough skilled labor to implement it, and the most inspiring human minds would be less useful if they aren’t connected to technology. The central stake is: When leaders want to invest in new technology, they should consider investing in people who make the technology useful.