Businesses considered technology as just a cost centre and ignored it for years. But now, companies cannot rely on technology in isolation. ‘Tech plus’ is now recognised as a true differentiator and value driver. It enables organisations to get value out of their technology truly. But only if companies leverage it in the right way. Tech plus is needed to get the actual value.
In the aftermath of the epidemic, digital change has become the new normal. The 2020 McKinsey Global Survey says that companies have advanced their internal operations’ digitalisation and customer and supply-chain contacts by three to four years.
The previous decade was about innovating and going digital to market, new products/offers, generating revenue, etc. But now, the pandemic has driven everyone to go from 100 to 1,000 mph on the digital path.
Digital Transformation Is Now In Overdrive.
Previously, most businesses researched digital technologies or transitioned to ‘doing digital’. ‘Digital’ was just a buzzword within the industries before the pandemic. The ethos of ‘Being digital’ is alive this time as the shift and acceleration are real.
The pattern we are seeing ascertains the rate of change is unprecedented. For example, the earlier prediction of e-commerce penetration was 24 per cent by 2024. But it jumped to 33 per cent in just two months. All industries want to expedite their digital transformation journey to get a competitive advantage. They have seen significant gains from digital strategies in the last year. Digital assets have paved the way for efficient and simplified logistics and supply chains operations.
Critical Ingredient in Digital Transformation
These days the top priority of every firm is digital transformation. Digital technologies enable firms to transform and gain a competitive advantage over their industry peers. Otherwise, they may fall behind. Amidst this process, data is one of the most fundamental elements that usually gets misunderstood and overlooked.
Models and analytical processes bring many forms of data together to produce insights and answers for businesses. That said, then why is this part of digital transformation so difficult and time-consuming? Because it is usually tricky for enterprises to change their longstanding habits of gathering and protecting data.
Two points to remember:
- Data analytics is the foundation of any digital transformation.
- Digital transformation is much more about culture and behaviour change than technology.
What Are The 5 Keys For Succeeding At Digital Transformation In Today’s World?
1. Leverage automation to allow repeatability and consistency by focusing on technical capabilities.
- Continuous integration and delivery
- Version control
- Deployment and test automation
- Test data management
- Shifting left on security
- Trunk-based development.
2. Invest in good architecture as good architecture provides a solid foundation. Include a loosely coupled architecture for empowering teams.
3. Include product and process capabilities as the process offers consistency.
- Gather customer feedback
- Improve your value stream
- Work in small batches
- Encourage team experimentation.
4. Spend time in improving lean and agile methodologies.
- Limit the change-approval process
- Include monitoring and have proactive monitoring
- Implement work and process limits
- Visualise work.
5. Build a strong organisational culture to optimise information flow and trust.
- Support learning, collaboration, meaningful work and transformational leadership.
- Avoid toxic environments to make it possible for the excellent work to be sustainable.
Conclusion
The shift to digital-first made organisations reimagine their business structures and consumer strategies. Successful digital transformation strategy includes modernising traditional infrastructure and QA methods. While handling the multiple dimensions of digital transformation, companies need to maintain agility and customer-centricity to the core.
