Aspirant Blog

Digital Business Transformation: Steps Toward Success

Written by Mike Youhouse | January 23, 2023

Digital business transformations have the potential to significantly change the way they operate; impacting systems, processes, workflows, and people. Here is some insight to contemplate for your organization to see the true success of digital transformation.

1. Be clear on your reasons for undertaking a digital transformation. Know your "why."

Start by asking these questions:

  • What strategic goals or business objectives will this deliver? 

  • How will you measure your progress toward meeting these objectives? 

  • How will you manage the progress and delivery to ensure you reach these goals? 

  • What are the main and supporting reasons for going through this process? 


 

2. Evaluate a digital transformation's potential impact on your organization and your customers.

Consider asking these questions when undergoing a digital transformation: 

 

Customers

  • Your goal might be to transform some specific aspect of your customers’ experience, but have you considered how these changes might impact their overall journey?
  • Have you considered the several customer types and how your approach will affect each type?

 

People

  • How will these changes affect the people within your organization?
  • Have you sought their input into these changes?
  • Do you have a change management plan in place to help ensure a smooth transition and maximize internal adoption? 

 

Processes and Systems

  • Implementing new software (or modifying existing) may be part of your solution, but how will it affect your existing systems and data management needs?
  • How will the introduction of new software impact existing processes? Explore this beyond the immediate domain of the proposed changes.
  • Have you considered the impact of this on your enterprise system architecture? Think in terms of scalability, performance, and cost. Could these changes inadvertently and adversely impact your customers elsewhere in their experiences with your organization?
  • What system integration efforts will be needed to make this successful?

 

3. Determine the right incremental delivery approach and how to measure success.

A well-planned, incremental delivery approach is a proven model for successfully delivering digital transformation initiatives. Your approach should consider:

  • Your current capabilities and methods for developing a set of features and capabilities that will deliver on your business objectives and targeted outcomes

  • How to prioritize and manage these across a plan that incrementally delivers customer experiences while encouraging and facilitating meaningful and measurable feedback that can help refine future deliverables

  • How will your delivery team function? Will they be delivering demonstrable outcomes every two weeks? How will these feed into your release schedule and how will you package these up for your customers?

  • What mechanisms and processes will you have in place designed to capture feedback from your customer (internal and external) so that it can be incorporated into your ongoing product refinement and delivery

  • Who will develop and execute your change management plan to help optimize the adoption of the changes being made within your organization?


     

Follow these 3 steps to help prepare you for a successful digital transformation for your business. 

  1. Be clear on your reasons for undertaking a digital transformation; know your WHY
  2. Evaluate the full potential impact a digital transformation will have on your organization and your customers
  3. Determine your incremental delivery approach and how to measure success  

Interested in making sure you do not overlook anything while you transform? Fill out the form below to get more information.