Leveraging & Accelerating Digital Transformation
Updated: Jun 2, 2021
Five (5) Key Approaches that Deliver Results
Satya Nadella in April of 2020 said - "We've seen two years' worth of digital transformation in two months. From remote teamwork and learning to sales and customer service, to critical cloud infrastructure and security - we are working alongside customers every day to help them adapt and stay open for business in a world of remote everything."
His analysis was spot on - a cataclysmic event forced us to perform the unthinkable as most of us headed home and looked to do whatever we could to service our customers, keep them happy, and ensure things were running well while working remotely. Simply, it was a time to adapt, adjust and overcome.
Technology had saved the day for knowledge workers across the globe!
Well fast forward to today - many are now vaccinated and the world we knew is starting to return slowly, but surely as more and more people head back into the office and begin meeting again face-to-face.
During this time, I only have one thing I'd like to see remain the same and that is to see another two years' worth of digital transformation happen between now and the Labor Day weekend.
This time we will have to do it the old-fashioned way - which is of our own volition where we actually apply the catalyst needed to change and throw in our own dose of bull-headed determination to keep the momentum needed to keep things moving at internet speed.
As the iceberg above suggests, Satya only described the tip of the iceberg rather than the much larger situation and opportunity that exists below the waterline. Here is a high-level approach to how we can all become digital organizations.
There are five (5) key approaches and focus areas that allow organizations to leverage and accelerate their journey and become digital-focused entities. The approaches include:
Making digital transformation and digitization a core strategic imperative that is owned and driven by a savvy leader who has the juice and support of the executive team to transform the organization.
Developing a plan that ensures consistent progress and is framed to promote incremental improvements that generate small impactful wins.
Beginning with customer-facing process and policy improvements that focus on identifying a few important processes, understanding them, simplifying them, and then automating them to remove mundane and repetitive activities that tend to be error-prone and generate friction.
Understanding, organizing, and cleaning your data to ensure that your most valuable asset, beyond your employees, can be leveraged to be weaponized and monetized.
Creating measurements and mechanisms to ensure that you are making progress, hitting your objectives, and creating value for both your internal and external clientele.
In the end, you are looking to optimize the things that constantly hold you back and at the same time ensure that you significantly improve your customers' experience in doing business with you.
After the year we have had, we could all use a little less friction in our daily lives by allowing technology to do more for us as we look to take our own digital transformation journey and leverage and accelerate the improvements made during the most challenging times many of us have ever faced.
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