What is Digital Transformation?
We define Digital Transformation as:
adopting a modern framework for your business to enable you to outperform your competitors and keep pace with customer expectations in the digital age
What does that mean?
We have to acknowledge that this can mean different things to different businesses and different industry sectors.
Exactly what Digital Transformation looks like in your business will depend on a number of factors, and requires a deep understanding of your business, goals, processes, technology stack, and customers.
C’mon, answer the question…
It will become clearer as we progress through this guide, however we can begin to clarify and kickstart your thinking by expanding on our definition of Digital Transformation a little…
*adopting a modern framework for your business to enable you to outperform your competitors, and keep pace with customer expectations in the digital age*
A modern framework is one that:
- maximizes effective use of digital technologies
- e.g. social, mobile, analytics, cloud
- encourages innovation
- enables your organization to be responsive to change
Outperform your competitors via:
- automation
- product innovation
- unlocking the value in your data
- platform consolidation
- better customer experiences
Today’s customer:
- expects immediate, personalized service delivered on their terms
- can switch brands or service providers more easily than ever before
How do I get there?
Consider this guide a map you can use to plan your journey through Digital Transformation and becoming a Responsive Organization.
It introduces a framework consisting of three key categories of transformation: culture, technology, and information across three key domains: purpose, principles, and product, combined with intelligent support through the use of effective methods & tools.
| purpose | principles | product | |
|---|---|---|---|
| culture | vision* | innovation | importance |
| technology | strategy | empowerment | expectations |
| information | intelligence | influence | experience |
If you prefer, the three domains can also be considered as being loosely aligned to three domains of people that make up an organization:
- purpose : leaders
- principle : contributors
- product : customers
*This framework is a matrix and the sections can be tackled in order you like with one caveat: always start at the intersection of culture and purpose.
Culture - briefly
Of the three transformation categories in this framework, building a culture in your business that supports Digital Transformation is often both the hardest and the most important as it requires a mindset change in your leaders & contributors, and your culture underpins everything in your organization.
This part of the framework is presented first, as the success in other areas of your Digital Transformation will depend on it.
The culture category covers topics including:
| purpose | principles | product |
|---|---|---|
| Responsive organizations… Shared vision… Goal setting… Acquiring tech talent… The transformation team… |
Autonomy… Collaboration… Incentivizing innovation… Cross skilling… |
Customer centricity… |
Technology - briefly
The technology transformation category adds emphasis to the Digital in Digital Transformation.
It introduces proven methods for successful digital strategy and innovation, and encourages you to examine your current strategies & technology stacks to assess whether they are solving the problems they are intended to.
The technology category covers topics including:
| purpose | principles | product |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-level strategy… Small change… Technology stacks… |
Everyday innovation… Workflow models… Empowerment… Development… Automation… |
Digital first… Customer networks… Rapid response… |
Information - briefly
The information transformation category is all about unlocking the value in your data.
You have spent years digitizing everything. Now it’s time to make sure you have the right Data Architecture applied so you are able to effectively use your data to your advantage.
The information category covers topics including:
| purpose | principles | product |
|---|---|---|
| Data architecture… Modern data warehouse.. Business intelligence… Measuring transformation… |
Data accessibility.. Social analysis… Knowledge management… |
Customer value… Customer experience… |