7 Best Practices to Strengthen Your Digital Transformation Strategy

Digital transformation can be a game-changer for businesses, but it requires a well-planned and coordinated effort to be effective.

Without a clear strategy, digital initiatives can become disjointed and fail to deliver the desired outcomes.

In fact, a survey conducted by Wipro Digital revealed that over 33% of executives consider the absence of a well-defined digital transformation strategy a significant obstacle to achieving their organization’s complete digital potential.

A digital transformation strategy enables companies to align their digital efforts with key business goals and ensure that resources are used effectively to drive measurable impact.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation is leveraging technology to bring about significant change across a business.

It’s a way to improve efficiency, increase agility, and unlock new value for everyone involved, including employees, customers, and shareholders.

There are many different paths and stages to digital transformation, and each journey is unique.

For example, a company might use AI or cloud computing to enhance the customer experience or implement machine learning to optimize its supply chain. With the right tools, it’s even possible to predict future customer demand and adjust production accordingly.

But no matter the approach, starting a digital transformation requires a shift in mindset. It’s an opportunity to rethink how business is done from the ground up.

By being open to new ideas, companies can unleash the full potential of digital transformation and unlock a world of possibilities.

Let’s discuss the best practices to start a digital transformation journey.

7 Best Practices for Digital Transformation

Here is how you can get started with your digital transformation journey:

1. Align Your Business Goals to Digital Transformation

The term “digital transformation” can be ambiguous and mean different things to different people.

Unfortunately, many leaders make the mistake of assuming that digital transformation is primarily about adopting new technology and only considering the reasons behind the implementation after the fact. This approach is flawed and has led to many failures.

To ensure a successful digital transformation, it is crucial to identify your business needs and strategic goals and create a digital strategy to achieve them.

To initiate a successful digital transformation, begin with your organization’s long-term strategic goals. This will enable a discussion that prioritizes business value and the creation of a persuasive business case.

For example, Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, recognized the need to transform its business to improve its operational efficiency and customer experience.

To achieve this, Maersk invested heavily in technologies, including blockchain, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things (IoT), to track its containers and optimize its shipping routes.

As part of its digital transformation process, the company developed a digital platform called TradeLens, which enables all parties involved in global trade to securely and seamlessly exchange information and documentation.

2. Adopt a Transformative Mindset

Digital transformation isn’t about technology; it’s about the people who use it.

Resistance to change is a natural human reaction, so it’s important to anticipate and address push-back when implementing a digital transformation initiative.

Adopting a team mindset and involving representatives from across the value chain, including IT, OT, sales, marketing, and design, is crucial to ensure success.

Organizations can build a strong governance structure that will drive the initiative forward by developing a core team of “cheerleaders” who understand the vision behind the digital transformation strategy.

However, it’s important to remember that any transformation will encounter challenges. Therefore, leaders should foster a culture where mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn, and successes are celebrated and built upon for long-term success.

3. Start Small and Strategize Quick Wins

The road to digital transformation is a never-ending journey of growth and evolution.

The best foot forward in your digital transformation journey is to identify the first proof-of-concept (PoC). This will be the core around which your future initiatives will take place.

Also, digital transformation gains momentum when ROI is proven within a short period with a PoC.

While some projects may have a high ROI, they may take a longer time to implement.

Therefore, starting with quick-win initiatives that can be deployed quickly and show measurable results within six months or less is recommended.

This approach provides early momentum and helps to build support for larger-scale digital transformation initiatives.

4. Outline Technologies for Digital Transformation

To build a strong business case for digital transformation, it is important to have a clear vision of what the organization hopes to achieve. This vision should be aspirational and ambitious, inspiring employees and stakeholders to work together towards a common goal.

However, having a vision is not enough. To turn that vision a reality, organizations need to identify the technologies and tools that will enable them to achieve their goals. These technologies may include:

• Cloud Computing
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Machine Learning (ML)
• Blockchain
• Digital Twin
• RPA
• Augmented Reality (AR)
• Digital Twin

To achieve your initial digital transformation goals, you may need one or more technologies, some of which may already be used in your organization.

However, to realize the full potential of these technologies, you may need to fill some gaps. It’s important to remember that working with outside vendors like Innovify is often necessary and should be done with a long-term strategy in mind.

Choosing partners with the right expertise and product offerings can accelerate your progress and help you achieve your goals faster. This brings us to the next tenet of digital transformation – partners and expertise.

5. Map Out Partners and Expertise Required

Implementing the right technology for digital transformation is only half the battle; finding the right partner is equally crucial.

Even the most advanced technology can fail to deliver the expected results without the proper expertise.

Moreover, it is also important to avoid “spot solutions” that solve one problem but do not scale across the enterprise. Engaging CXOs in technology decision-making can help align the company-wide strategic vision.

To ensure success, seek out partners that complement and enable your digital transformation vision.

6. Iterate Digital Transformation

To be successful in digital transformation, companies should embrace an iterative approach and continuously refine their processes based on feedback and emerging technology trends.

This means it’s important to approach digital transformation with an agile mindset and iterate your efforts based on feedback from internal and external stakeholders.

Regular communication and feedback loops with colleagues and employees are crucial to ensure that digital transformation efforts are on track and aligned with business goals.

By listening to the thoughts and feedback of stakeholders, digital transformation efforts can be refined and improved over time.

Another important aspect of iteration is the ability to modify processes quickly and easily using digital technology. This agility is a significant advantage of digital transformation compared to traditional approaches, where changes could take months or even years to implement.

This requires a culture of openness to change and a willingness to adapt to new working methods. By doing so, you can stay ahead of the curve and reap the benefits of a digital-first approach to business.

7. Scale Horizontally

As your organization begins to witness the positive outcomes of the first use cases identified in your digital transformation strategy, you can utilize this success to your advantage. Use it to build momentum and foster collaboration around the next phase and long-term objectives.

As digital transformation continues, it opens up new avenues for digital technologies to transform the physical realm.

To expand this positive impact, it is important to explore opportunities for horizontal scaling. This means applying the same strategies to multiple locations.

Additionally, you should consider vertical scaling by integrating additional technologies to augment the existing ones.