Approaching your business with a digital mindset is a must. There’s no denying it, embracing the right business technology for your operations will lead you to be more digital. When the right technology is in place it naturally helps people be more productive, creates agility when your world is in flux, and drives data that leads to faster decision making for you and your team.
Unfortunately, we see many businesses react versus strategize when adding new systems, apps, or hardware. This approach often leads to a jumbled tech environment of disjointed or legacy systems that struggle to talk to one another, which reinforces silos in the business. We’ve said it before, and we will say it again… approaching technology this way isn’t ideal and it is costly in time, people effort, and money.
What is a Digital Transformation Strategy?
A digital transformation strategy is a process and plan used to help your business become a digital leader. Knowing you want to be a digital business is the first step. Building a digital transformation strategy is next.
How to Build a Digital Transformation Strategy?
- Vision & Strategy Mapping – Do you have a vision or strategic plan and know the key metrics for your organization? If yes, you’re heading in the right direction. If no, you may want to think about adding this practice into your business. Strategic planning is a solid foundation that will help you focus your business and organize long term growth plans. It doesn’t matter which approach you take to strategic planning and/or defining important metrics for the business, the key is to have something in place as it provides a solid base to build a digital transformation strategy.
- Building a Technology Roadmap – A roadmap is a key planning document that outlines your business. It includes existing/future technology, business processes, data storage, and reporting. It’s an effort to build, but you end up with an easy to understand diagram that provides a blueprint of where you are today and where you want to go in the future. (1)
- Identifying The Gaps – With a technology roadmap that’s built alongside an overarching strategic plan, the challenges or gaps in the business start to identify themselves quickly. Pain points jump off the page, inefficient processes and outdated systems have no where to hide, and paths to unlock data and metrics become evident.
- Prioritize the Opportunities – The gaps and challenges you inevitably identify in the business then need to be organized. The trick is to not overcomplicate it…make a list and prioritize the work that needs to be done based on what’s going to bring you the most business value. This understanding will also make it easier to analyze new ideas (systems, apps, hardware) that pop up in the day to day. With a digital transformation strategy in your team’s pocket you can see if new ideas fit into your strategy? If yes, add it to the list… If not, then it’s an easy no and you can also clearly explain why.
From here you can decide how to begin. It may be smaller inhouse initiatives or larger transformation work efforts, the key is to start doing something because technology isn’t slowing down and you don’t want to be left behind or let your competition get ahead.
Digital Transformation Consulting Services
This is where our team shines. A digital transformation strategy is an undertaking that often benefits from expert guidance to help you build a useful technology roadmap and define priorities. As a Microsoft Gold Partner, Convverge is focused on business transformations that choose to include Microsoft technology. Our digital transformation consultants work to match the ideal technology for your business. Beyond that, our specialties extend into configuring and applying technology for business process automations, business analytics and data modernization, as well as cloud infrastructure to ensure you’re setup with modern workplace solutions. If you think our team could help your team, let’s talk.
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