The world-renowned technology research firm, Gartner, defines Digital Transformation as ‘the changes associated with digital technology application and integration into all aspects of human life and society. It is the move from the physical to digital’. While many businesses are taking up the task of planning for and executing Digital Transformation (Dx), many businesses will find these initiatives fall short of expectations.
As a business owner, manager or executive, you have probably read and heard a lot about Digital Transformation in industry publications and at conferences. As Gartner says, Digital Transformation is ‘the changes associated with digital technology application and integration into all aspects of human life and society. It is the move from the physical to digital’. If your business has embraced the concept of Digital Transformation and is ready to dive in and make it happen, you may be wondering about the pitfalls others have faced. A wise business manager wants to learn from the mistakes of others and increase their chances of succeeding without missteps.
If your business is trying to decide whether to launch a Digital Transformation initiative, you may be wondering how this effort will affect your team members. Will your team perceive this effort as adding work to their already heavy workload, or resent having to learn new systems and solutions? Will your team benefit from the initiative or will you be challenged to convince them of the benefits the enterprise will reap and why they should care enough about the organization to sacrifice their own productivity or to learn something new?
The Corona Virus (COVID-19) has taught us many hard lessons, not the least of which is the importance of being prepared, the importance of anticipating what may be just around the corner, and the importance of being able to theorize, hypothesize and predict. All of these skills are amply supplied by data scientists and analysts. But, in today’s world, it is crucial to prepare and educate the average business team member to improve data literacy and engage in digital transformation (Dx). As the idea of data popularity becomes more mainstream, and team members and industries embrace data sharing and fact-based decision making, our understanding of looming issues, collaborative possibilities and possible solutions to address these issues will improve and so will our response time and efficacy.
There is nothing more damaging to a business than the inability to leverage great, innovative ideas to improve services, increase revenue and enhance positive market visibility. Often, these shortcomings are due to resource or skills limitations, and when it comes to software development, mobile application development and software product development ideas, these resource and skills limitations are very common.
These days it is hard to pick up an industry journey or business publication without seeing the term ‘Digital Transformation’ (AKA Dx). The basic premise of Digital Transformation is the adoption of digital technology by businesses to transform, streamline and improve services, workflow and business processes. These initiatives involve a systematic review of non-digital or manual processes to replace these inefficiencies with digital processes and might include replacing out-of-date technologies with new, more effective digital technologies.
When a business considers the wisdom and benefit of Digital Transformation, it often thinks first of the cost and the chaos it anticipates and may think that the investment and disruption is not worth the effort. But, the benefits of Digital Transformation cannot be ignored. There are many reasons to consider this type of initiative, and we look at some of those in this article.
The world-renowned technology research firm, Gartner, has predicted a strategic focus on Digital Transformation in the coming years and that focus is appropriate. If businesses are to improve productivity and the quality and timeliness of decisions; if business leaders are to ensure a sustained competitive position and retain customers and employees, it is imperative that these businesses focus on improving data literacy and initiate a comprehensive Digital Transformation (Dx) strategy.
If you keep up with business and technology publications, you have probably heard the phrase ‘Digital Transformation’. So, what exactly IS Digital Transformation? It is the process of incorporating digital technology into workflow, activities and business tasks, creating new ways of working or modifying current processes and culture to create a more effective, streamlined and fact-based environment where business users, team members, managers and all employees can thrive and where customer focus can be clarified with clear, accessible information and direction.
Digital Transformation is all the rage but support for digital transformation may be in short supply. When a business begins to look at this type of initiative, they may not understand the depth and breadth of the required changes. The business will have to look at existing technology and determine the need for upgrades and changes. Organizations will also have to look at data literacy of business users and try to find ways to streamline, automate and apply technology to workflow and processes and tasks. If the business is to succeed in the digital transformation arena, it must take a step-by-step approach to build the technology and the foundation and to change the business culture to support data-driven decisions and collaboration.
