The goal of many digital transformation projects is to simplify and automate some of the ways that a business is run. By utilising new technology, it’s possible to make processes much more efficient, increase the time spent on innovation, and improve productivity significantly.
At this point in time, 70% of companies have already implemented a digital transformation strategy or are in the process of using one to boost their business. One of the biggest benefits of doing this is that introducing digital technologies into workplace systems and processes can help to speed up the time it takes to reach goals relating to everything from environmental impact to financial success.
However, there are many elements of a digital transformation project that can get very complicated, delaying its progress and leaving you with new problems to solve. In this article, we explore some of the key challenges of digital transformation and then share some of our top tips on how to simplify your projects.
The Challenges of Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is undoubtedly a beneficial process, but it’s certainly not one without its challenges. When it comes to simplifying your digital transformation projects, it’s a good idea to be aware of the challenges you’re likely to come up against. This way, you’re prepared for potential setbacks and can also adapt your approach to try and avoid any that may cause significant delays or complications.
A challenge that you need to be prepared for is that there is likely to be a stage during the project where systems and processes become more complex as new, digital elements are introduced. The project team and other employees will be dealing with both legacy systems and the new digital features that have been introduced, and this is likely to slow things down and cause some confusion until the implementation is complete. It may also impact productivity, which businesses may need to account for when figuring out deliverables.
Speaking of legacy systems, another classic digital transformation challenge is updating and upgrading these without having to introduce an entirely new way of working that is likely to rattle a lot of employees. Many businesses hang on to legacy systems because it feels easier than introducing a new digital one, and whilst removing these does also remove significant bottlenecks in innovation and productivity, the process can be challenging.
Digital transformation may also be slowed by internal hierarchies that create decision-making silos. These long-winded approval processes can really slow transformation down, especially when key decision-makers are very risk-averse and wary of introducing radically different systems or ideas.
When you introduce innovative digital solutions to help transform a business, you need to be prepared for the fact that some employees may lack the skills and experience to easily adapt to this. Training will be required and may take longer for those that aren’t as digitally literate, and this dip in efficiency and productivity can be challenging.
An important challenge to prepare for is the fact that digital transformation can present a security risk. This is particularly relevant if implementing a new system is rushed or the budget isn’t properly allocated to account for necessary security checks, which may lead to later complications if any of these security weaknesses are exposed.
Finally, a challenge of digital transformation is that it can lead to a lack of clarity concerning overall business goals, especially during the migration and implementation phases. It’s likely that transformation is taking place in order to make reaching your goals more achievable, but the structural change and necessary adjustments that come with this can make it hard to maintain a sense of alignment.
7 Tips for Project Simplification
Keeping a digital transformation project simple is the best way to minimise the challenges that you face and keep the transition to new systems and ways of working as smooth as possible. Here are seven of our top tips to help you achieve just that.
Run an Initial Risk Assessment
A key part of keeping a project simple is avoiding running into problems or setbacks, especially those that could have easily been avoided. A great suggestion to help with this is to run an initial risk assessment before your project begins to help you get an idea of where potential difficulties might arise.
Begin by going through each stage of the planned project timeline and identify any area where something might go wrong. This might be from a technical point of view or an internal one, such as miscommunication or an unexpected decrease in productivity.
Next, calculate the likelihood of each of these issues arising. This will help you to create a list of the most likely problems to occur during your digital transformation project, which helps you to prioritise which ones to focus on avoiding.
You should also identify the potential problems that are likely to cause the most amount of disruptions, as these are also risks that you should prioritise preventing.
Once you have a list of potential project risks that need mitigating, work through each of these and come up with a strategy for either preventing them altogether or just minimising the potential damage as much as possible.
This risk assessment process helps with project simplification because it gives you a roadmap of what to avoid and areas of the project to dedicate more time and attention to. It also means that, if something does go wrong, you already have a plan of action outlined which will help to navigate this setback much faster.
Implement Targeted Solutions
Digital transformation encompasses a huge range of different things, and it can sometimes be tempting to get carried away with popular ideas for innovation or implementing new systems that have been successful with other companies. However, a key piece of advice for simplification is to only implement solutions that have a specific purpose in your digital transformation project.
This might seem like an obvious piece of advice, but you’d be surprised at the number of companies that end up trying to navigate vague or unnecessary changes to their systems as part of digital transformation efforts. Every project should begin with a clear idea of what needs to be changed, why it needs to be changed and the specific benefits this is going to bring. If you can’t properly answer any of these three points, then you should rethink whether this idea actually needs to be included in the project.
Identify Internal Knowledge
It can be incredibly beneficial to bring in partners and consultants when you’re embarking on a digital transformation project, but if you’re looking for ways to simplify the process then it’s worth searching for internal knowledge that might be particularly valuable. At least some of your employees will likely have skills, either part of their role or unconnected, that may be a huge asset throughout the project.
In many cases, you’ll need to bring in advisors and experts from outside the company, but it’s worth asking current employees whether they have experience with new software or digital processes for example, and utilising this experience to help make implementation smoother. It’s also a good opportunity to allow employees to lead projects or deliver training and gain additional responsibility that can help with personal development, upskilling your workforce at the same time as you transform the workplace.
Making use of internal resources and skills is a great way to help simplify a project, as it reduces how much external support is needed, which in turn reduces the time that has to be taken onboarding these people. It can also increase the value of your workforce, as 69% of employers prefer to hire employees with data science skills and views these are particularly desirable.
Support Internal Skills Gaps
Whilst you’re considering the internal knowledge and experience you have available, you also need to consider where your internal skills gaps are. Some employees will need training and support as new systems and processes are implemented, and it’s a good idea to identify these early on so you can calculate the time and resources that will be needed.
Returning to the previous tip, a great way to handle this is by getting your employees to train and support each other, especially if some of them have more relevant experience. It may also be necessary to dedicate time to getting teams up to speed on the outcomes of digital transformation projects, and having this planned out from the start will make the whole process much more simple.
A study done by McKinsey identified that 70% of digital transformation projects fail because of employee resistence. You can prevent this by supporting your employees through skills gap training and ensuring that everyone is prepared to adapt to new technology.
Adopt an Incremental Approach
It’s easy for a project to become overly complicated when multiple developments are happening at once or too many steps have been put into a single stage of the project. In order to avoid this and keep your digital transformation efforts as simple as possible, adopt an incremental approach, taking things step-by-step to keep everything in sight and avoid problems arising from rushing or a lack of guidance.
It might feel like you’re wasting time by approaching a digital transformation project in strategic increments, but taking things slowly at this stage will save a lot of time from dealing with problems that are likely to have arisen if you had rushed.
For example, instead of trying to introduce a new feature for customers, work on identifying ways that you can use digital transformation to improve their experience. This is a particularly good area to focus, with a study showing that digital transformation work on improving customer expeince can boost satisfaction by 20-30%.
This approach also gives you a lot more scope to measure the success of each stage of your project and review how effective different areas of transformation are. This will not only allow you to identify issues faster, but also make it easier to identify successful areas or approaches and apply this to later stages to help make the project more efficient.
Simplify Management, Not Systems
Whilst you want to avoid implementing new systems that are unnecessarily complex, it’s often hard to try and keep a digital transformation project simple by only introducing new, simple systems. Therefore, the best way to navigate this is to create simple processes that manage the new, more complex systems.
This approach will help to keep your project as simple as possible whilst making the most of the different digital options available. It will also make it easier for employees to adapt to these new systems and processes and return to previous or improved levels of productivity, saving a lot of time.
Remember Workplace Culture
Finally, it's important to remember that digital transformation can have a massive impact on workplace culture. You’re going to be replacing legacy systems and processes with the intent of improving your business, but you need to keep sight of how this might impact elements of your company culture that also help to keep the businesses running smoothly and successfully.
Perhaps the project has been introduced with some culture change in mind, and this is fine as long as employees are prepared and you know what the final outcome is going to look like. But in order to keep the whole project as straightforward as possible, don’t forget to consider the impact it may have on workplace culture and measure this throughout so that negative effects are minimal.
This will also benefit your business from a recruitment perspective, as a positive workplace culture can massively help with candidate attraction. Having a reputation for innovative digital processes will help with this, but damage to company culture may impact your employer branding, so there’s plenty of incentives to keep this in mind.
Summary
Digital transformation projects are growing more and more common across a range of industries, which means that the challenges they present are becoming easier to navigate as solutions are found and experiences are shared. Simplicity is a key element in reducing complications and keeping a project on track, and the above advice is an excellent place to start if you’re deciding how best to approach this.
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