For many organisations, the last few years have been the most disruptive in living memory. Organisations and their IT teams have had to accommodate huge changes to the way people work and deploy new technology tools to support their teams while unlocking new capabilities to meet changing customer demands.

Since the start of the pandemic, organisations have had to enable remote and hybrid work environments, digitise their supply chains to better deal with disruptions, and utilise technology to develop new business processes and revenue streams, all the while delivering an exceptional customer experience.

Despite the worst of the global pandemic seemingly over, spending on digital transformation continues apace. Global investment into digital transformation is expected to reach $1.8-trillion in 2022, . By 2024, it is expected that direct digital transformation investments .

Understanding poor digital transformation

Despite this abundance of digital transformation initiatives, few companies achieve the outcomes they seek. found that only 14% of companies that have begun digital transformation projects have seen sustained performance enhancements as a result.

For technology companies and their partners, this poses a serious challenge. Every digital transformation project that falls short of expectations is a wasted opportunity for innovation, not to mention the sunk costs and time.

The customer expectations of what their digital transformation should achieve have also changed. Common expectations for modern business transformation initiatives include clear, positive business outcomes, an exceptional customer experience, and a high level of engagement velocity to ensure the project runs smoothly and can achieve its milestones according to strict timelines.

The reasons for failure can vary. Typically, digital transformation projects fail because of a lack of clear goals, poor leadership support, ineffective change management which may lead to internal resistance, lack of suitable skills, and poor understanding of the current state of the business and how the digital transformation is meant to enable new capabilities.

Four solutions to common transformation challenges

However, common digital transformation challenges can be overcome. In our experience working with organisations across the continent and the world, the following four methods can greatly improve the chances at digital transformation success:

1 Understand your digital transformation maturity

One of the biggest obstacles to a successful digital transformation initiative is a lack of clarity over what the transformation is meant to achieve. Is the business seeking efficiency gains in high-priority business processes? Does the business need new capabilities for managing its workforce, or is it a matter of meeting changing customer expectations?

Without a solid business case, digital transformation initiatives will fail to illustrate value since there’s no clear way to measure progress.

Technology companies and their implementation partners have well-developed tools and processes to help organisations measure their present level of digital transformation maturity, identify clear areas for improvement, and then provide input on a transformation plan that aims to deliver gains in the priority areas.

2 Focus on continuous value generation

One of the biggest changes in how organisations adopt and consume new technologies and associated capabilities is in the concept of continuous value generation. Digital transformation projects are no longer only measured by the immediate outcomes, but also in how the organisation can continuously generate greater or different forms of value from their investment.

For example, a retailer that invested in a new customer loyalty system may want to use the data from that system to deliver hyper-personalised offers, or even launch new products and services tailored to customer preferences. Rather than start an entire transformation project from scratch, the retailer would benefit from simply building on what has been done to date, ably supported by expert partners that can guide the project to a successful outcome.

Technology companies and implementation partners therefore need to look beyond just one successful project and take an approach of continuous value generation. It’s less a case of knock-and-drop and more a case of partnering for the long term.

3 Ensure a steady mix of relevant skills

A lack of appropriate skills can undermine the success of any digital transformation initiative. The IDC estimates that IT skills shortages will affect 90% of organisations by 2025, at a cost of over $6.5-trillion.

Without access to the correct skills, organisations will fail to successfully complete digital transformation initiatives, and will not generate the desired value through new digital capabilities.

In response, organisations should invest in programmes and partnerships that can ensure a steady mix of relevant skills. This can be done through internal skills development initiatives, collaboration with partners that have the correct skills mix, or through other skills development programmes.

Initiatives such as 51风流Skills for Africa, for example, provides African organisations an opportunity to secure SAP-trained graduates that have gone through a months-long work readiness and skills development program and can make an immediate impact on digital transformation efforts.

4 Don’t neglect change management

No digital transformation initiative can succeed when end-users don’t adopt the new capabilities to drive the desired outcomes. In fact, a poor change management program can undermine the entire project’s success at the last mile, scuppering months of work and leaving the organisation with lower levels of competitiveness.

However, the opposite is also true. From internal resistance to change to poor adoption of new capabilities, several common challenges with successful transformation initiatives can be addressed through an effective change management program.

And yet, only 34% of change management initiatives are a clear success, .

Here, technology partners can play a vital supporting role. By providing insight into common obstacles and best-practices from similar projects elsewhere, technology partners can help organisations identify high-impact areas for effective change management and ensure business users are supported and enabled all along the way.

This can drive greater adoption of the new capabilities that resulted from the digital transformation project, and help the business drive positive outcomes that can boost competitiveness, unlock new revenue streams, drive innovation and achieve efficiency gains in the project’s priority areas.

The post Four Ways to Overcome Common Digital Transformation Challenges appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Since the start of the pandemic, digital transformation has become a core objective and top priority for nearly every business in the world.

From enabling remote and hybrid work environments to shifting customer-facing operations to digital channels and implementing data and analytics to better understand a volatile and highly unpredictable business environment, digital transformation has featured prominently in boardrooms over the past two years.

Even as the world races to a return to some form of normalcy, companies continue to invest heavily in digital technologies. A recent IDC report predicts that .

Clear business imperative to transform

While the immediate task of adapting to disruptions and changes caused by the pandemic and a host of other factors remain the focus, all indications are that new digital technologies will feature prominently in future transformation initiatives.

For example, the same IDC report found that 90% of organisations worldwide are expected to prioritise investment in digital tools that augment physical spaces with digital experiences.

And considering the urgency of the fight against climate change, it’s no surprise that more than 90% of companies will use digital transformation to reduce their carbon footprints by 2023.

Even prior to the pandemic, studies found that , grow 9% faster and have market valuations 12% higher than their less transformed peers.

However, despite the enormous benefits of digital transformation, the majority of digital transformation projects fail, with McKinsey data estimating that .

Every failed project costs the business money, resources, time, and opportunity. A failed digital transformation project undermines faith and confidence in future initiatives and increases organisational resistance toward further digital transformation efforts.

So, why is digital transformation success so important to building successful modern businesses?

The ‘why’ of digital transformation

For most companies, a digital transformation initiative will be rooted in either growth objectives or to protect the business against disruption.

A growth-based digital transformation may see the organisation adopt new technologies such as IoT to bring greater transparency to core business assets, for example sensors based in delivery vehicles tracking e-commerce fulfilment.

By integrating the data produced by sensors to a powerful analytics and business intelligence platform – and matching those insights to third-party data such as traffic and weather data – organisations could identify ways to optimise the delivery process and improve the customer experience.

A growth-based digital transformation initiative could also involve a re-engineering of customer experience processes, for example a retailer developing omni-channel customer experiences that deliver personalised offers at scale through a variety of digital and physical channels.

For companies wishing to utilise digital transformation to protect against disruption or risk, the use cases will be slightly different. For example, in light of ongoing supply chain issues, many organisations are seeking to digitally transform their supply chain processes to achieve greater transparency and predictability over such processes.

Building safe, accessible, and collaborative hybrid work models protects the organisation against the disruption of lockdowns and helps to future-proof their workforce engagement strategies by enabling much-needed flexibility.

A blueprint for successful digital transformation

Every digital transformation effort has three core elements: People, Processes, and Technology. Each of these elements need to be aligned to a clear, strategic vision and defined business objectives to ensure the digital transformation project delivers to actual business and customer needs.

found that companies believe their digital transformation initiatives were a success mainly when they improve performance and equip the organisation to sustain improvements over time.

What are the key ingredients to implementing a successful, value-generating digital transformation initiative?

Firstly, organisations need a sense of urgency about the transformation, driven from senior management throughout every layer of the organisation. Many of the most impactful digital transformation projects show quick time-to-value, which helps secure further support and buy-in for the project from the broader organisation.

Digital transformation projects should focus on simplification by means of standardisation and the use of templates. In most cases, the biggest cost of an implementation stems from the organisation’s nee to adapt systems to meet unique requirements. Leveraging a global services provider that can bring international best practices to a digital transformation initiative can significantly cut down on the project timeline and reduce associated costs.

Prioritisation is also essential. Digital transformation initiatives are meant to shape the future of the organisation. Companies should therefore commit their top talent and skills to seeing the project to a successful outcome.

This does raise the challenge of how to keep the business running optimally when some of the best teams and people are focused on the new initiative. Companies need to be clear on their current capacity and not take on too much, avoiding in particular large-scale once-off transformation initiatives. Finding the correct balance is key to a successful transformation project.

A sometimes-neglected but always critical element to any successful transformation initiative is the change management needed to embed new systems and processes within the organisation.

Digital transformation initiatives promise a new end-state for the organisation, one that features new and enhanced capabilities. But the implementation itself puts the organisation in an interim state between what was and what could be. Companies should be ready to navigate users through this interim phase and give the correct level of consideration to technical and change management elements, over and above successfully deploying the technology.

Once companies have established a suitably powerful technology platform, they can innovate across a broad range of business areas. Digital transformation is not about finding new tech to perform old functions better or faster: it’s about shifting mindsets to unlock greater innovation capacity that can help drive the organisation’s success for years to come.

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