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Did you know that, according to Gartner, 51% of CEOs report increased revenue for their companies due to improvements related to digital transformation? This is no coincidence - digitalization opens up entirely new opportunities for growth. Regardless of your company’s size, this process can be the key to success. Find out how to implement innovative solutions in your organization.
What is digital transformation and why is it important?
What exactly is digitalization? In short, it involves introducing digital technologies into every aspect of a company’s operations. Its goal is to improve efficiency, better understand customers, and deliver value in innovative ways.
Why is this so important? The business world is changing at a breakneck pace. Customers expect personalized services at their fingertips. Competition doesn’t sleep and constantly raises the bar. If a company wants to keep up with these changes, digital transformation is inevitable.
Why invest in digitalization?
The benefits of digital transformation are truly impressive. What can your company gain from it?
- Delighted and loyal customers - through personalized services, automated support, and quick responses to needs, you’ll retain devoted customers for longer.
- Higher efficiency - process automation, cost reduction, and better resource allocation all translate into smoother operations for the entire organization.
- Competitive advantage - digitalization opens doors to new business models like subscriptions or digital products. It also boosts sales effectiveness through new customer outreach channels and digital tools. These are ways to stand out from the competition.
Thanks to digitalization, small and medium-sized enterprises can access new markets, implement innovations faster, and optimize costs. Meanwhile, large corporations become more flexible, make faster, better decisions, and use data more effectively for strategic decisions.
Larger-scale enterprises often struggle to quickly react to market changes and make decisions due to their complex structures, multiple management levels, and long decision-making processes. Digitalization helps overcome these problems by improving communication, speeding up information flow, and enabling faster adaptation to changes.
Build a digital transformation team
Effective digital transformation requires the commitment of the entire organization. However, the first step is to establish a dedicated transformation team. Its leader should have competencies in change management and leadership. Ideally, the team itself should have an interdisciplinary character, combining specialists from various fields—from project management, IT, and data analysis to digital marketing and HR.
The team should also include people involved in the company’s core activities. For example, if the company specializes in sweater production, the digital transformation group should include clothing production experts. This will help tailor digital solutions to the organization’s real needs and challenges.
Importantly, such a team can largely be built using external resources from a technology partner, such as a software house. Collaborating with an experienced IT service provider will fill competency gaps and accelerate the entire digitalization process.
Create your digital transformation project with us.
Assess the current state of your organization
Before implementing changes, it’s crucial to understand where the organization currently stands. Conducting a holistic analysis of all business processes will help identify areas that need improvement.
Use tools like BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) for process visualization and analysis.
Next, identify processes most important to the customer and areas where new technologies can help. Don’t forget about a technology audit. Assess your current IT infrastructure, applications, and data architecture for alignment with the company’s long-term strategy.
Define your digital transformation goals
Now that you have a complete picture of the starting point, it’s time to set digital transformation goals. These goals should be clearly defined, both short- and long-term, and aligned with the company’s overall business strategy.
Examples of short-term goals include quick operational improvements, such as automating administrative processes. Meanwhile, long-term goals could include building an integrated digital platform to support new sales models and market expansion.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to be measured and monitored throughout the digitalization process. Define specific metrics such as:
- digitalization process index - the level of digital transformation advancement in the organization;
- decision cycle reduction - accelerating management processes through digitalization;
- customer acquisition cost - efficiency of new digital sales channels;
- revenue from new markets - effectiveness of expansion into new markets using digital tools;
- process execution time - reducing critical business processes through automation;
- employee satisfaction - team satisfaction with introduced digital improvements and automated solutions.
Develop a comprehensive digital transformation strategy
A comprehensive digital transformation strategy should begin with strategic analysis and planning. Build a long-term strategy based on tools like SWOT and PESTLE analyses. Identify the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, external opportunities, and threats.
Take into account changes in the environment, such as technological and regulatory shifts. What does this mean? Imagine a bookstore owner. The advent of e-books and online stores is a technological change that could threaten traditional booksellers. On the other hand, it’s also an opportunity to expand into online sales and e-books.
What’s next?
- Develop a detailed action plan outlining stages, milestones, resources, and timelines.
- Prioritize and sequence the actions.
- Allocate an appropriate budget and resources to implement the digital transformation plan.
Remember to engage all departments and levels of the organization to ensure full support for the changes.
Choose the right technologies and partners
Successful digital transformation requires effective solutions. Analyze and choose technologies that meet your company’s specific needs and goals. Consider whether new tools::
- are scalable;
- can be integrated with existing systems;
- are easy to implement and adopt;
- fit your budget.
When selecting technology partners and IT service providers, assess their competencies, experience, and references. Look for companies with proven success in implementing similar projects and an understanding of your industry’s specifics. Pay attention to their approach to collaboration - do they offer long-term support and are they open to tailoring solutions to your needs?
Implement changes to processes, products, and services
After planning comes execution. With business process analysis complete, goals defined, and resources secured, you can focus on implementing the planned changes
Detailed action plans
For each initiative, create a detailed plan that includes:
- goals and success metrics (KPIs and OKRs);
- a schedule with start and end dates for each phase;
- assigned human and technological resources;
- identified risks and mitigation plans.
Iterative changes in business processes
To streamline processes, start by automating repetitive tasks that don’t require creativity. Examples include generating regular reports, processing orders, or data verification. Technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are perfect for this.
Run pilot tests before scaling solutions. This allows you to evaluate their performance and gather user feedback. Use this feedback to refine the process, such as adding exception handling.
Apply the same principle to new product development. Instead of building a full version immediately, start with a MVP (Minimum Viable Product), that includes only the most critical features. Test it internally and with select customers. Gather feedback on functionality, usability, and value, then use it to iteratively develop the product.
Monitor progress and manage change
To effectively monitor the progress of your digital transformation, hold regular retrospectives - for example, every two weeks or every month. During them, summarize what has been achieved and discuss next steps with your team. Also analyze selected indicators that will show how the goals are being met. These could be, for example, the number of business processes that have been digitized or whether users are satisfied with the new solutions.
Meetings like this are also a good time to consider what is going well and what needs improvement. Together, think about what you have learned so far and what can be done better.
Regularly collect feedback from employees, customers and implementation teams using surveys, interviews and analytical tools. Discuss the collected findings in meetings and use them to plan next steps. This will allow you to adapt solutions to real needs - for example, improve automation rules or add new features to the MVP based on user feedback.
Regularly looking at progress and learning from the experience so far will help the digital transformation run smoothly.
Scaling successful initiatives
After pilot and iterative implementations, conduct a detailed analysis of the results. If an initiative meets its goals and KPIs, scale it up. Prepare a scaling plan that includes resources, timelines, and potential risks.
Begin a full deployment across the organization or across all markets, using the lessons learned from the pilot phase. For example, you can extend order processing automation to all departments of the company.
Your road to success in the digital era
Digital transformation requires a strategic approach, commitment across the organization, and collaboration with trusted technology partners.
What should you keep in mind?
- Start with analysis and planning - thoroughly assess the current state of the organization, define clear goals, and develop a comprehensive digital transformation strategy.
- Engage an interdisciplinary team - digitalization requires diverse competencies, from IT to HR. Consider collaborating with an external technology partner.
- Choose technologies and partners strategically - look for scalable solutions that are easy to implement and aligned with your business goals. Opt for partners with experience and a long-term cooperation mindset.
- Implement changes iteratively - start with pilots, gather feedback, and optimize. Monitor progress using KPIs and regularly adjust the strategy.
- Scale successful initiatives - after testing solutions, roll them out on a full scale, leveraging the knowledge gained along the way.
Digitalization is a continuous process that requires consistency, flexibility, and openness to change. However, the benefits are well worth the effort.
Start today - contact WebMakers Expert. We will help you take the first step toward full digitalization and prepare you for the demands of the modern market.
