Goals of digital transformation srategy

Digital transformation is a unified management effort to transform digitally business processes aligned with new business models. It is achieved using digital technologies, tools, and data-powered insights and aims to drive decisions and customer-centricity while innovating and collaborating across the organization.

When implemented purposefully, digital transformation technologies can drive sustainable action, create value for all stakeholders, and improve customer experience.

To reach that, however, companies must ensure they have the right goals for digital transformation set. When looking for digital transformation goals, it’s important to remember that the organization’s ability to be successful will depend on its ability to adapt to change.

What is a digital transformation strategy?

Digital transformation strategy is not a new term but has new aspects that must be considered continuously. Explained in a nutshell – it is the introduction of digital tools and digital technologies to existing strategic objectives to answer the needs of a digital world. It also usually reshapes the business strategy by aligning better products and services to customer pain points and needs.

Digital transformation doesn’t have a successful formula, “One-fit for all”. It follows a digital transformation roadmap created after careful analyses of processes and plans for their optimization.

The whole process is to be recognized in an agile business structure and continue even after the end of the roadmap. The digital transformation process requires participation at all levels of the organization. The learning cycle lets each company learn from its mistakes and keep improving its strategy and the organization.

Objectives for digital transformation

Digital transformation aims to gain a competitive advantage and achieve increased revenue and cost reduction via optimized business operations. Overall, the key points that digital transformation brings are: external – oriented to the relations with clients and internal – about the company’s organization.

External Drivers

Digitalization and the introduction of the Internet can be compared just with the industrial revolution discussing the impact on a business.

The digital revolution challenges an organization’s ability to answer more strategically to unpredictable market pressures and shows re-shaped operating models built around consumer behavior. In general – those are external organization factors that provoke the company to change. But how exactly?

• Customer satisfaction & providing better service

  The critical objective of every digital strategy is enhancing your customer experience and letting your company gain a competitive advantage by using artificial intelligence and data-driven decisions to understand its clients and adapt its supply chain management.

  Transforming the customer experience allows businesses to get to know their existing consumers and focus efforts on penetrating prospective customers.

• Profitability

  Digital technology can streamline customer interactions and transform how users purchase items and make payments. With the introduction of digital tools, the new business models diminish manual processes and, at the same time, empower employees and bring productivity improvements.

  Thus one of the digital transformation benefits is to increase revenue by optimizing processes.

• Speed to market

  Digital transformation provides incomparable tools for two-way communication between business owners and their customers.

  The rapid feedback lets owners answer fast and adjust according to information obtained directly from their customers. It is way in the past the old-fashion marketing research that maybe catches just part of the right target.

  Obtaining much more information directly from the source lets the company have much more adequate reactions and do it much faster and logically – shortening the time to launch it to customers.

Internal drivers

External drivers can be quite visible and universal for every business. But is it the same for those that are internally pushing for change?

• Process optimization

  Process optimization is the most critical objective of introducing a digital transformation strategy to business models. The involvement of digital technology, usage of mobile, lower manual processes, and more transparent hierarchy are different elements of digital transformation.

  Whether these tools are used for measuring employees’ performance or customer satisfaction, they lead to more transparent and open internal construction.

• Department interconnection

  The time when going from desk to desk to fetch information or investigate as Sherlock Holmes is over. The digital age has challenged many aspects of a business model and organizational culture – for good or bad.

  Thanks to digital transformation, information flows through the right channels just as the blood feeds the cells in the body. Information reaches the right target effortlessly, and all colleagues, no matter which department, can continue their work informed and build up on the work of others.

• Increasing productivity

  Digital adoption inevitably changes many aspects of the human resources factor. Technology plays an important role in the continuous learning curve, and introducing different tools is important for the development of businesses today.

  When technology ensures that your ideas will be heard - you can put much more precision into shaping your actions and work result. Employees’ work is easy to track by managers and teammates; there is a track record for their work in case of substitution or archiving.

  Decreasing manual operations logically increases efficiency and productivity. Simplified processes let employees allocate more time for creative tasks rather than repeatedly technical assignments that sometimes can be very time-consuming. This, logically, can increase the personal satisfaction of employees and let them focus more effort on achieving business goals.

Starting points for digital transformation goal-setting

SWOT, S.M.A.R.T, and many more useful acronyms we have often heard remind us of the basics - everything starts from defining the goals and objectives of the activities to be performed. Digital or not - this transformation process is no different, and a few factors must be considered.

Who are the key figures leading the implementation, and is there an audit committee?

An essential point to start a digital transformation is to define the people involved - as we have already emphasized in other publications - getting the company’s management onboard is key to digital transformation success. But also clarification on who takes the final decision and responsibility is important.

What needs to be done differently, and how much time and resources are needed?

Another key factor for the successful definition of digital transformation goals is the outlining of what and when to be done. Take a realistic look and measure the time, dedication, and resources that this digital transformation involves having it as equal, if not more important, than other ongoing projects.

What obstacles can we meet?

As with every change - this one also requires things to be done differently. Don’t be afraid to try new things, don’t be afraid even to make mistakes….but also try to foresee some obstacles and prepare your response. What is your major concern for the process implementation? Is there some digital disruption that can jeopardize the process? Brainstorm the devil’s advocate position and plan the company’s answer in advance.

The most common digital transformation goals

Many organizations implement tailored digital transformation strategies and threats as it has been a usual A to Z project. Once going through all the steps - they think the company’s digital transformation is already a done deal. But actually, one of the most important aspects of digitalization is to measure results and improve constantly.

This shows that a company is open to feedback, can resist external factors and disruptions, and even turn them into constructive lessons. All business processes have their specificity - that’s for sure, but still, there are common goals that all companies share going through digital transformation.

Improved customer interaction and satisfaction

Customers are often at the center of business and organizational activities. A company can gain a competitive advantage through technology by shortening the time and process of communication with customers. The possibility for companies to use data analysis, get feedback, and generally know their customers much better is surely one of the common digital transformation goals every company has.

Becoming more agile and speeding up the bottom-up and top-down communication

Flexibility and the possibility of fast response to disruptions is the ultimate goal for every business. Becoming more agile can let problems be tackled much faster and more efficiently.

Cost reduction & increase of revenue

Optimizing the processes, lowering the manual work, and improving inter-connectivity for sure will reduce the cost of production, which, combined with customer satisfaction logically should increase the revenue.

Employee performance and monitoring

Fostering a work environment where employees can achieve flow in their workday surely will result in increased performance indicators which can easily be monitored by the management.

Process optimization and gaining an advantage

Building processes without physical restrictions and improving interconnectivity is an achievable goal for almost any business. At the end of the day, this is what digital transformation means - clearer and optimized business processes, which let employees spend more of their time contributing to the company’s agenda and less on manual processes.

Set the right digital transformation goals with a trusted partner

There is no universal formula for setting the right digital transformation goals. Every process and every company is different. That is why it is always useful to have a trustworthy partner for that undertaking.

Resolute Software’s mission is to help companies achieve digital transformations and modernization of their systems and processes, and it has realized many successful projects throughout the years. Contact us and embark on your digital transformation journey!