In a Harvard Business Review, Thomas H. Davenport and George Westerman defined digital transformation as “Digital transformation is an ongoing process of changing the way you do business. It requires foundational investments in skills, projects, infrastructure, and often, in cleaning up IT systems. It requires mixing people, machines and business processes, with all of the messiness that entails.”
This is most definitely true as more and more businesses currently are incorporating digital transformation processes and tools to improve customer experience, productivity and infrastructure in the company.
However, even though enterprises have a clear vision of what they want from their digital transformation process, it is not always easy to achieve the expected outcome since there are a lot of challenges businesses face in the path to digital success. Here are four common challenges that hinder the goal of a successful transition.
1. Digital Adoption
Adopting a new tool, software or strategy doesn’t always go down as planned. Even if it works in theory, to successfully adopt transformation tools, enterprises need to onboard employees that are at the centre of these processes.
True adoption requires both technology and humans to be on the same wavelength to ensure an accelerated, productive and positive transformation. So, before investing in technologies enterprises need to look into their resources, provide employee onboarding support, and analyse the data to make a successful transition.
2. Security
Security has a key role to play in all business processes across the organisation. It is important that security strategies should be embedded directly before adopting any application or tool, and that goes for digital transformation as well.
How organisations cope with the security challenge will make or break the success of their digital transformation journey. This is the reason why enterprises are turning to data centralisation to ensure a scalable digital transformation without compromising data security.
3. Culture
Employees and work culture play an important part in the success of companies digital transformation journey. When trying to modernise your tools, a traditional office structure will not suffice. Cultural barriers, long term employees and other corporate factors can hinder a successful digital initiative.
It is therefore crucial for organisations to confront and proactively address these changes with their employees and management to foster a digital culture. Coordination and collaboration are essential for digital acceleration and business growth.
4. Digital Strategy and Vision
Industry trends and market pressure forces enterprises to focus on tools that promise performance and ROI in short term. And even though this might be beneficial in the current state, it does not provide value in the long term. Investing in transformation tools without workflow alignment or infrastructure in place can lead to digital transformation failure.
This is the reason why business heads need to clearly define ‘success and provide a vision for their digital transformation journey. Clarify your goals in terms of how much value and improvement your digital tools should incorporate into the company’s core strengths in order to call it a success.
To sum it up, digital transformation is a long game and for its success, technology, workflow and organisational structure need to go hand-in-hand. Even if enterprises have a solid strategy in place, cultural and organisational challenges can blindside business growth. Without visibility and flexibility, it becomes impossible for organisations to manage these challenges. Therefore, before starting a digital initiative, it is necessary to navigate through these barriers for a successful transformation.
Are you eager to embark on your digital business transformation journey but uncertain about the initial steps? Connect with our consultants at JOY IT Solutions for Digital Transformation Services – https://www.joyitconsulting.com/
