DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: GAPS IN BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION AND HOW TO FILL IT
Seeing many companies keep transforming their business while yours doesn’t show any progress might be a little bit frustrating. But are they really moving toward their digital transformation goals?
According to the study conducted by BDO, while leaders of many businesses believe that information technology can really help them to transform their business, there are still many gaps and challenges that they have to face. Here, 34 percent of the respondents suggest that they want to utilize digital technology to become market leaders, and 71% have witnessed improvement in revenues from digital initiatives.
However, 54 percent of them say that their mission-critical systems could be a challenge due to lack of skills or insufficient training. This means more than half of the surveyees agree that they are short of resources to change their business models, which means they might not be positioned for success.
What makes the answers so conflicted, in terms of wanting but can't implement, is that despite working with the right technologies, isolated business units within the enterprise may have different goals than the larger ones.
Among businesses, different cultures and leadership can lead to different strategies that advance the companies’ transformation agenda. In order to close the gaps, many companies have to overwork themselves to complete tasks which they should have done a while ago including building strong leadership and internetworked teams, modernizing IT, instilling a culture of collaboration, and so on.
However, as we have already mentioned in previous articles, there are formulas for anything. Here are some points that you should skim through to get a rough idea of how to close the gaps in business transformation.
The new leader
Through the history timeline, the leader in the hierarchical model whose notion was explored during the two World Wars and the Depression doesn’t work anymore. The demand for new generation leaders is rising.
We’re now living in the world of disruptive business models, flattened organizations, and augmented workforce, many companies need to step up their game by finding and developing future-ready leaders. Leadership is our collective and individual response to make the world a better place. In terms of digital transformation, it is an indispensable factor. A real 21st-century leader will realize the transformation vision and seize any opportunity to take their business to the next level.
In the IT company context, C-level leaders and mid-level managers must be knowledgeable about technology so that they can be outspoken advocates for business’s efforts to transform, improve agility, productivity, and innovation.
Modernize legacy system
Many companies are hesitating when it comes to digital transformation because of the amount of effort they have put in legacy systems. There are many reasons that affect the decision to keep an old system instead of replacing it such as return on investment challenges, vendor lock-in, challenges occur by changing the inherent management system and many more.
Moreover, there are several misperceptions that digitization or modernization means scrapping existing technology, which in fact, does not need to.
Taking pager as an example: It’s an outdated device that was widely used in the 90s, it was supposed to be listed in the dinosaur age of communication and should have been long gone like VHS tapes, phone books and floppy disks.
But in reality, pager still matters as it’s hard to replace since it carries vital business processes in some organizations. However, just because they’re still broadly used around doesn’t mean that they don’t need modernization, unless you want to see it crashed at some points and your hands are tied.
A digital transformation consulting service might be handy at this point since they will assess your systems, evaluate the compatibility of both systems (the old and new ones), suggest which step you should take. If you want to do it internally all by yourself, follow these steps:
- Assessing the current state of your systems detailedly and systematically. Ensuring that you understand all aspects of your technology.
- The modernization approach does matter. Remember to choose the one that fits best for your needs and helps you to deliver results faster.
- Less is more when it comes to architecture and functionality. Starting out with the most critical features and work on from then.
- Choosing a technology stack to deliver, this should depend on your products specifically.
- Introduce a set of coding standards and process or adopt best practices from other companies. A clean and organized document will make your software easier to understand, maintain, and in the future.
- Don’t scrap everything all at once. What you should do is create a separate support and retirement plan for your old systems.
Also, take this framework into consideration when modernizing your systems: technology analysis, architecture audit, code review, UI/UX review, and performance testing.
Digital platforms will be your supporters
We’re running through the concept of ‘platform’ or ‘digital platform’ every day, but what exactly is ‘platform’? A digital platform is an assemblage of multiple components like a data-ingestion engine, an analytical engine, an AI engine, APIs, etc. These components must be integrated and interoperable to improve customers, employees, and strategic partners’ experience. Especially, it reduces costs while improving scale. It also helps in making rapid progress in the digital transformation journey. By developing a digital business platform, businesses can grow stronger and faster regardless of industry.
Business leaders can build their business platform by getting educated, understand the concept of it, and come up with the most compatible strategy for their business.
The path to success with a digital platform is to focus on the people who will use it. Think about what matters most to each user, if the experiences delivered matter, it will succeed.
Data focusing
Data is the core factor when mentioning digital, it plays a key role in developing new products and new customer experiences. Business leaders who want to digitally transform their business must look at their data first and see how they cleanse, review and blend business-critical data from different sources. Data can come from many sources, internally or externally. According to Gartner, by the year 2022, 90% of corporate strategies will include information as an important asset.
Side-note:
By understanding barriers and challenges, companies will be able to build broader transformation initiatives that will help many companies take a leap and reap remarkable dividends.
At TP&P, we can help you to recognize the barriers and challenges that your business has to deal with. Contact us for more information!
