Is your Digital Transformation stuck in first gear?

Similar to shifting gears to keep accelerating a car, digital transformation is necessary to keep up with today’s business environment. Although the theoretical strategies are easy to design, explicit steps are needed to change processes, avoid pitfalls, and ultimately execute an organizational gear shift. 

Before I go on, let me first remind automatic transmission drivers of what a gear shift entails. You take your foot off the gas, press the clutch, shift gears, and then release the clutch to get back on the gas, all in one synchronized motion. Inevitably, by disengaging the engine, a gear shift can momentarily slow you down if not executed well.  

In any case, like a gear shift, a digital transformation requires a thoughtfully executed orchestration of activities at the right moment in time to deliver the optimal outcome and avoid slowing you down if even temporarily. If your goal is to continue at the same pace, a gear shift might not be needed. However, if your goal is to accelerate, it becomes essential. 

Here’s my advice for your digital transformation. 

1. Assess and Strategize: Assemble a tag team of cross-functional team members who can document current business processes. Despite having a system of record, many companies tolerate or aren’t aware of undocumented, offline processes – especially those that are woven into the fabric of the organization. It’s not uncommon to discover that individuals have created unofficial spreadsheet routines for key steps and manually transfer the output from the spreadsheet to the official system. Avoid this experience and devise a systems readiness review process to detect and document any such behavior. 
2. Choose and Integrate Technologies: Once you have defined your digital transformation goals, investigate how other organizations similar to yours have approached their transformation journeys. To get the transformation underway sooner, you can often bypass the more comprehensive RFI/RFP vendor selection process and pick 2 to 3 of the presumed best-fitting providers based on quick research and 3rd party validation. Center your selection process around a few key parameters, such as speed of delivery, industry-specific features offered, ability to integrate with your existing technology investments, alignment to your business needs, and cost. 
3. Automate and Standardize: Perform a gap analysis to identify the differences between old and new systems. Decide what you can give up and what you can’t live without if the new platform selected doesn’t exactly match your needs. We all think our business is unique and, therefore, want our digital transformation to fit that distinction rather than have our processes fit the transformation. However, many providers’ standard platforms are well thought out by teams of industry experts who offer deep experience in the sector. The better platforms have feature sets that can be toggled on and off and are, therefore, adaptable, flexible, and agile. Try to avoid customizations, as that may cause unintended version blocking and limit the ability to upgrade to successive releases without further modification. 
4. Manage Change and Scale: Train employees, foster a digital-first culture, and ensure scalability for future growth. Make it an organizational imperative for all users to let go of the old and start applying the new, so business processes transform to fit the latest system. Everyone tends to stick with what they know, but change is compulsory during a transformation. In addition to setting a dictum and ensuring it is followed, also make it clear to users that mistakes are expected and accepted as part of the necessary and inevitable learning and adoption process. 
5. Monitor, Measure, and Improve: Track KPIs, gather feedback, and continuously refine processes for ongoing optimization. The need to fast-track is often the result of deadline pressures because of competitors, launching big new initiatives, or unavoidable operational faux pas. Nevertheless, the transformative effects of simplification and standardization provide a quick way to get ahead of these challenges and open the aperture of opportunity. 

If you are not willing to commit to a gear shift, you won’t be able to accelerate your car past a certain point. That said, a gear shift doesn’t have to slow you down, like an automatic transmission, it’s all about how effectively it is executed. Highly skilled drivers will argue that a manual transmission offers more control and performance, allowing you to time shifts perfectly, such as avoiding upshifting before a hill or sharp curve. Success is all about timing and well-thought-out execution; the same is true for digital transformation. It’s time to shift gears, start planning your digital transformations today, pick a moment, and commit!