One simple thing that can boost your Digital Transformation
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Digital Transformation affects every organization in the world. No matter what business you are in, sooner or later you will be confronted with it.
Digital Transformation is about transforming your business and operation to become more data-driven, to leverage that data for a variety of purposes, and to adapt to the profound new dynamics that come along with all of that.
And while this is a correct statement, there are also many other ways to describe or define Digital Transformation. Therefore, in the first place, it is very important to clearly understand what the actual goal of Digital Transformation is, and to ensure that this is crystal clear to everybody in your organization.
Ensure the goals of Digital Transformation are crystal clear to everybody in your organization.
Because while many corporations consider themselves to be in the midst of a Digital Transformation, it might surprise you to hear the wide variety of responses you get when asking people about what it is that they ultimately need to achieve. Just test it out with your own teams, and you’ll see for yourself soon enough.
And then wonder: how can you be successful as an organization if not everybody involved knows exactly what the endgame is all about? How can people throughout the organization make the best possible day-to-day decisions when they don’t realize what the actual goal is?
What is the actual goal of Digital Transformation?
If you carefully consider the true nature of everything happening around you and the impact of it, the very essence of Digital Transformation is that you want to put your entire organization into a position to be capable of dealing with change easily and efficiently. Or to put it differently, it is not so much about the changes that you are implementing today, but it is all about making changes to be able to adapt and change continuously from then onwards.
After all, we are hurtling into an ever more connected world with ever faster evolving technology that offers everybody almost unlimited options and potential. And consequently, it has become utterly and completely impossible to predict what will happen next and how it will affect your organization. So the only thing that you can do to be successful in that type of new world is to put your organization into a position so that it can change and adapt continuously, as easily and efficiently as possible.
Positioning yourself to continuously evolve and adapt easily and efficiently from tomorrow onwards.
And although this concept may sound a bit abstract, just make sure that everybody in your organization understands, and effectively takes the time to consider this very essential goal whenever decisions and choices need to be made.
You will be surprised how fundamentally it can shift your entire perspective on any project or undertaking. How it can even result in a completely different choice of technology, for example, or a completely different architecture for your technology stack.
But it will also make people realize more quickly that Digital Transformation is not simply about buying and deploying some of the new technologies. Because, in reality, a successful Digital Transformation is effectively a very complex, multi-faceted undertaking that affects every imaginable aspect of a corporation. And while it does involve technology, it revolves, for example, just as much around people and methodologies that need to evolve as well.
In conclusion
It is really not about the changes that you are implementing today, but all about positioning yourself to continuously evolve and adapt easily and efficiently from tomorrow onwards. The need to change again and again will be unavoidable and it will only come in ever faster waves. So, your success entirely depends on how easily and efficiently you will be able to deal with that as an organization.
Main takeaway of this article
1. Goal of Digital Transformation
The goal of Digital Transformation is to make an organization capable of easily and efficiently adapting to continuous change.
2. Technology, people & methodology
Successful Digital Transformation involves changes in technology, people, and methodologies
3. Keep the essence of Digital Transformation in mind
Understanding the true goal of Digital Transformation can shift perspectives on projects and decision making
In a next blog post, we'll provide some practical examples and use cases of how this translates to real life. Because change will manifest itself everywhere, ranging from changes in your business models, to adapting to new software and firmware versions from your vendors, evolving operational workflows, onboarding new products, changes in the competitive landscape, responding to new security threats, the impact of geopolitical events, and so much more.
But pending that next post, let this very essential strategic necessity sink in across your entire organization and have people carefully reflect on what it means. Make it a mantra for all your teams. It’s only a small initiative when looking at the bigger picture to follow up on this advice. However, we promise you that it will have a huge positive impact on the effective outcome of your Digital Transformation process.