What is Digital Transformation?

Definition

Digital Transformation definition can be simply broken down as the radical changes (or “Transformation”) of conventional business systems to integrate new technologies and IT tools (hence “Digital”). The process, however, is not that simple.

Need

 1. Customer Engagement:

Nearly everyone uses social media at least once a day. What if you could harness this huge online traffic and use it to your advantage? Using Digital Transformation, we can tap into a large number of online resources and use that for customer engagement, creating leads, and basically to earn more profits.

 2. White Box Philosophy:

Digital Transformation helps to create a large reservoir that integrates all the company data. It promotes transparency across the organization. It can be further extended to include clients wherever desired. This helps to establish trust with employees and long-term relationships with clients.

 3. The efficiency of Operations:

Once complete, all the digital streams are combined into one system that helps improve operational efficiency and remove redundancies.

 4. Business Goals:

Going digital for the sake of it is futile. A successful Digital Transformation allows the company to achieve its future goals and faster. Plans should be made keeping in mind the outcomes to be achieved.

Method

To successfully transform your business digitally, a stepwise procedure should be followed:

 1. Analysis of the existing business system:

Ensure that:

the company’s top management approves and supports the plan of Digital Transformation.

there exists an open culture, collaboration and innovative spirit in the company.

customer interaction occurs at multiple levels of operations

current digital services are mobile deployable

cloud-based platforms are used wherever possible.

2. Preparation for the Digital Transformation:

Analyze future industry trends and the company’s future goals. Create a path that balances both of these. A “today-forward” approach can be used.

A clear understanding should exist between business and IT. It is important that the IT goals are formulated keeping the future business goals in mind and that the path moves forward in the desired direction.

Define the required budget for the procedure, the expected ROI, payback period and loop in the senior management to get their approval.

Define the types of business capabilities required. Business capabilities involve the people, processes (or operations), technologies and content required for Digital Transformation.

3. Formulate the Digital Transformation Roadmap:

 At this stage, we have the required resources, support, and an optimized business system. We are ready to go ahead with our Digital Transformation. We now devise our Digital Transformation Plan.

 Define a set of outcomes that are to be achieved through the Digital Transformation. Prioritize these outcomes based on their importance, ROI and payback period.

Make a list of initiatives (deliverables) to obtain the outcomes to be achieved. Also jot down the business capabilities required in terms of people, processes, technology and content. Also, evaluate the financial requirements and the sources of funding for the process.

Set a timeframe for the entire process and mark the major milestones to be achieved. Breakdown the process into phases which span from the current state of the company to its future vision.

Keep the approach user-centric. Try and embed the technologies that are already working for the company. 

A Digital Transformation Roadmap Template

The table below shows the topics to be covered in one phase of the process. The same can be repeated for a number of phases so as to cover the entire timeframe.

Phase #: