By Nej Gakenyi, CEO and Founder of GRM Digital
As new digital technologies continue to revolutionise workflows and processes across many industries, such as finance, healthcare, HR, and manufacturing, this has resulted in many businesses beginning their digital transformation journey. But, over 84% of these digital transformation journeys fail.
Many businesses often approach digital transformation as a project, with a definitive beginning, middle, and end, but this is often where businesses fall short. Any digital transformation journey should be considered as an ongoing investment, that will continue to evolve and adapt to the latest technologies and strategies. The inherent nature of digital transformation means that it does not have a clear finish line, but approaching digital evolution with an infinite mindset will allow businesses to recognise the processes as a flexible innovation to grow alongside the business, not as an event.
A study by McKinsey & Company found that only 16% of large digital transformation initiatives succeed in achieving their desired outcomes. This is, in part, due to the approach and mindset of the business. The high failure rate of digital transformation initiatives stems from the lack of understanding of the vital stages of any digital evolution journey. This begins with the digitisation of all documents and data within a business, before incorporating the digitalisation of all processes and workflows through digital procedures. And finally, there is infinite digital evolution, the process of enabling employees within a business to continually evolve, optimise and innovate by using the latest digital processes.
Dispelling this finite project mindset is key to ensuring a successful digital evolution for any business.
Creating digital evolution business outlook
Outlining your business’s approach to digital evolution is vital to beginning a digital transformation journey. C-suite executives and IT teams must be aligned on their views of digitising their business, will this be a long-term commitment, or simply a one-off project? And this is where many businesses fall at the first hurdle.
For any business to reap the benefits of a digital transformation journey, it first needs to view this as an evolution, a continuous process that is constantly evolving and adapting along with the company as both grow together.
By establishing a digital evolution journey, IT teams can begin to ensure that c-suite executives and decision-makers are committed to a long-term investment in not only digitising their business processes but also continually adapting and implementing new technologies to stay abreast of the competition.
Digital evolution begins with changing this finite mindset, encouraging people to optimise and innovate their internal processes and fostering an ethos of continuous perpetual innovation at all levels of business. Shifting from a finite to an infinite mindset is what will set businesses apart and once this mindset shift has been embedded within stakeholders, the C-suite and decision-maker level, this can then permeate through all levels of a company. It a digital evolution journey is not adopted at the decision-marker/board level, it is never likely to succeed.
Indefinite innovation
As with any new technologies, creators are constantly evolving and innovating, and this is the same with a business’s digital evolution.
Once a business’s mindset has been challenged and changed, IT teams can begin their digital evolution process. Firstly, by creating a digital foundation, digitising and digitalising files, processes, and data throughout the company. Once this foundation has been secured, IT managers can look to implement stage two of their digital evolution, a siloed innovative effort across parts of a business. This process will look at the technologies in use across the company and create new ways to utilise these technologies to transform the organisation.
Following this, the third stage is to begin partial synchronisation across the various departments, allowing departments to collaborate and show what has worked well for them and what hasn’t during their digital evolution journey. Now, the fourth stage is where many businesses fail, there is no end point with digital evolution, so the job is not done once stage three is complete.
Digital transformation is an evolving journey, a digital evolution, that needs to be continuously assessed and challenged. So, developing a continuous culture of constant innovation provides employees with the opportunity to take risks, be creative and not base success solely on KPIs but to analyse their progress by looking at their ROI and their competitor evaluation.
The business of the future
The changing business landscape in 2024 will be very different and will continue to adapt alongside the creation of new technologies, including data analytics, AI and digital evolution tactics.
For organisations to adopt a composable approach, businesses must focus on alignment, balance, and consistent perpetual innovation in 2024, and incorporating breathable technologies that can flexibly adapt and evolve will be vital this year. Flexibility is the main driver in the business landscape this year, and it is the key for digital evolution. For those who adopt a composable architecture approach, these businesses will reap significant benefits on their return on investment, but also will provide the groundwork for a successful digital evolution journey.
