As the world moves out of the pandemic and settles into a new way of working, executives are tasked with leading their organizations into a transformed, digitally native future. From cloud migration to SaaS optimization, digital transformation has been the topic of discussion for every board meeting globally for the last several years.
But after several cycles of innovation and as employees transition to new roles, new solutions enter the market, and business goals change, the driving force behind the digital transformation can become muddy and often needs redirection to get back on track. To reinvigorate your digital transformation efforts, consider the following questions:
1. Why is digital transformation critical to my business's success, and how will it help advance our organizational and revenue goals?
As you move into planning for Q1 2023, now is an appropriate time to go back to the beginning and reconsider the driving force behind your digital transformation. Ask yourself what parts of the business you were hoping to impact. How many of your goals have you crossed off? Have those goals changed? To build forward momentum, it is necessary to understand the ‘why’ behind your transformation goals.
[ Also read Digital transformation: 4 questions to help drive momentum. ]
Furthermore, an end-of-year check-in will allow you to realign your change-makers around the priorities for the following year. Perhaps you still want to focus on digital transformation, but for different reasons. Or maybe the original goals you had were already achieved. Asking yourself this question can put things back into perspective. A base level of understanding will set the stage for the next phase of your transformation.
2. How does my business's digital transformation fit within the concerns of the larger industry?
According to Gallup, globally, only 21% of employees feel engaged at work. Organizational change adds pressure to already resource-constrained teams. Still, alignment with a larger mission and an attitude that each employee has an enormous impact on the industry can significantly improve morale.
It is crucial to put your team’s work into the context of how you are shaping the larger ecosystem. Are your digital transformation goals rooted in sustainability or culture? Once you’ve zoomed in on how far your transformation has come, you can zoom out and align your goals so that the desired outcomes of your digital transformation positively impact the global workforce. You can use this mission-driven approach to inspire your employees, leading to better connections and higher engagement.
3. Who on the team can guide digital transformation forward?
If your digital transformation effort has waned, it can be helpful to reevaluate who is in charge of carrying your transformation forward. Choosing the right leader or leaders who can own parts of the transformation process is critical to seeing your projects through to the end. Teams often falter by failing to appoint leaders across teams, leaving the burden of change to be managed by IT teams alone.
[ Related read 3 critical roles for successful digital transformation ]
To empower your team leaders, arm them with tools to take ownership of the process. Implementing new processes using low-code or no-code that non-technical business leaders can own without the oversight of IT can restart a stalled digital transformation initiative quickly.
4. Are my digital transformation initiatives uniting cross-functional teams or driving them further apart?
Along with these tools that empower business leaders to drive transformation, you should also build an infrastructure that supports contextual collaboration. Connecting IT and business teams is essential to aligning on the goals of your digital transformation Ensuring teams have the tools necessary to collaborate allows digital transformation to run more smoothly and efficiently across an entire organization.
5. Am I investing in processes that are designed to scale?
If organization leaders have learned anything throughout the pandemic, the business’s core tenets can change on a dime. As you kickstart your digital transformation efforts once again, keep scalability in mind. This will prepare your business for a more digital, connected ecosystem built to change.
It’s also important that business leaders understand the capabilities of their digital suite and have a plan to maximize them. Regularly assessing and adjusting current processes is key to transformation and innovation. Asking yourself the questions above will help to ensure your digital transformation efforts do not go to waste.
[ Where is your team’s digital transformation work stalling? Get the eBook: What’s slowing down your Digital Transformation? 8 questions to ask. ]
