A Digital World: Explore Digital Disruption
In today’s fast growing age of cut-throat competition, digitalization and technological advancement has disrupted the norm and become the top agenda for many businesses across the globe. Although, there is no set-in stone definition of digital transformation, companies are pressured to get uncomfortable again and rethink their business models. Each, competing on a virtual digital space that offers fair ground for competition and sustainability.
To help begin your new transformative journey of cultural adaptation and ever-evolving market conditions, we have put together the best practices that challenges the status quo, shifting business emphasis to digital sources.
1. Strategise a digital blueprint
The first step in the transformation process is developing a practical and achievable digital strategy. We cannot reiterate the importance of planning and translating a clear roadmap with specific actions and goals. Rather than the traditional single all- encompassing system of waiting for results, execute open-minded modernisation by orchestrating and tracking your discrete delivery increments in frequent release stages to bridge the new digital divide.
Building a successful website or mobile app is not the means of going digital. True digitalisation involves far more than implementing new technology, it starts with a business outcome, centred by a digital agenda, that weaves into the organisation structure and pervades every aspect of the operational processes. When change and performance become prominent, it’s only a matter of time success translates itself to the entire business.
We have put together a checklist to evaluate your digital process:
· Users: What are the transformations to delivering digital user experience?
· Products & services: Are you maximizing capacity for agile innovation? Ability to swiftly adapt to new diverse demands?
· Talent: Types of digital technology invested to inspire and improve employee engagement?
· Operations: Are your operational decisions automated? Smart, Faster and better?
2. Actively build a digital ecosystem
Digitalisation is not a one-off project, it is a continuous progressive effort to expand the borders of your company, integrating the internal business structure with the wider system of customers, suppliers and partners. It is holistic given, which doesn’t happen overnight. Incremental steps must be taken to achieve the many components and intermediate goals. Hence, leaders will need to be optimistic about the transition and seek for fresher thinking outside of their current sector. This means cultivating their desired workforce culture, developing talent by upskilling existing employees and assembling for digital maturity. It is good practice to review how teams and key roles within them function together to create well-defined responsibilities for the most effective organisational infrastructure.
With innovative technologies and evolving processes, the unified team will invigorate a collaborative learning environment, productively reinforcing digital concepts at every opportunity to elevate efficiency and competitiveness.
3. Embrace an agile experimental mindset
We have stressed on the need for interactivity but one of the greatest challenge of digital transformation is to manage the paradox of constant streams of tensions: balancing creativity and experimentations along with control for the uncertain future.
To tread new grounds, modern organisations empower teams to be resilient to absorb shocks in times of chaos, with individuals being more proactive and confident to cope with adjustments. This can be encouraged through training, building an understanding of effective decision making, problem solving and risk taking in a ‘start small, think big, scale fast’ approach. It is important to foster an organisational environment, where team members feel safe to experiment their ideas and generate the best combinations of tools to accommodate the varying visions.
Do not panic if it’s not all smooth sailing at first, it will never be. Plan for failures in your experiments. In these pockets of digital revolution, begin to analyse new approaches of doing business, while simultaneously supporting the core. With people and processes being transformed, learning of practices, experimentations, tested theories and new solutions will fuel innovations to deliver significant business value for future developments.
Start by asking principled questions to garner data and articulate hypotheses about current and potential outcomes.
1. Why do we need to transform? Company’s vision for the future and growth.
2. How can we transform? Practice identifying your assumptions and formulating them into questions. Develop teams who can work with you on that idea.
3. What do we need to transform? Steps to identify, design, prioritize, run and learn from tests.
4. Rely on data with intuition
From differentiating opinions towards a reasoned conversation based on facts and experimental measurements, data is key when making decisions. From web analytics in marketing spaces to integrated approach with customer relationship management, knowing the role of data and analytics to frequently obtain system user feedback opens new entrepreneurship goals and opportunities.
(Users of your system includes your customers, employees and anyone who interacts with your company).
While data harness patterns and accelerates business optimisation, intuition still plays a role in envisioning the future. Especially in today’s rapidly changing environment and endless sea of information, digital minded leaders must be data-driven to translate, interpret and act on those insights, accurately assessing project risk at the outset.
5. Design customer experience approach
When we discuss about process in business, we inevitably view two paradigms: Inside-out and Outside-in perspectives.
The Inside-out orientation is guided with the company and its inner capabilities in mind to produce a prevailing sustainable future. Decisions are made based on what is best for the organisation and rarely customers’ needs are taken into considerations.
A great example would be Apple, who do not directly ask their customers what they want but innovate things differently through observations and projective techniques. We believe it is their good sense of customer instinct that contributes to their success today.
The Outside-in orientation is designed and reviewed through the customers’ eyes, looking for ways to expand demand. Rather than focusing solely on products and sales, it firmly believes in customer satisfaction and truly understanding their needs to achieve a better societal impact on business values. With the external world as the nucleus, organisations tend to be less wary of its limitations as they work backwards to pursue the market opportunities identified.
Which is ideal for my business, you may ask? We advise neither but what we call the hybrid approach – a formula for success, skilfully employing both internal and external practicalities. First, you need to know where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Without staying inside your own internal bubble, you need to then spend enough time in outward-facing to understand and respond to market opportunities or threats. This will give you an edge to providing a ‘WOW’ factor around trends and latent customer needs. Remember, there is a difference between thriving and struggling to survive.
Turning a Digital Vision into Intelligent Actions, Together
Get Ahead and Stay Ahead! As leaders look to transform for tomorrow, it’s high time for a radical makeover! Your readiness for success determines your current business combined with your balanced future objectives. Our service programs powered by inspired individuals, equipped with technologies, brings an ingenuity to mindfully devise smart ideas and navigate the right digital tools with confidence to commercial success.
Over time, our approaches may be broadened and refined, but together we can fundamentally build a comparative breakthrough, delivering new values to our customers, increasing digital surveillance and dominating the ecosystem.
Let’s keep in touch! Our team will be happy to hear from you.