Elements of Digital Transformation

According to a study done by BCG research, around 70% of digital transformations do not meet the actual goals, which in turn leads to untoward consequences. To avoid these kinds of pitfalls, organizations must have a robust IT infrastructure, a clearly defined strategy and a skilled team who not only have good knowledge in digital technologies but also knows how to implement those technologies in a real-time scenario for optimal results. 

(Source:https://blog.dreamfactory.com/what-are-the-elements-of-digital-transformation/)

What is digital transformation?
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It creates new or modifies existing culture, customer experiences and business processes by using digital technologies. This process is conducted to meet the changing business needs and market requirements. It integrates digital technology into specific areas of a business to transform the way value is delivered to customers. It pushes organizations to experiment more and come out with innovative solutions regardless of how many failures the organization goes through. Analysing customer needs and implementing specific digital technologies are the two core factors that need to be focused upon.

​Elements of digital transformation:

1. Develop clearly defined goals: In many instances, it has been found that lack of goal-setting and planning the digital transformation activities has been the cause of failure. Certain organizations just go for those technologies that are popular and trendy without even knowing whether it is required to meet their business objectives. Hence, goals need to be meticulously prepared that covers processes, technologies and tasks for accomplishing goals.

Some of the key questions to ponder upon are:

• Why does an organization want to invest in digital transformation?  Cite specific reasons
• What are the priorities that need to be met? Some of the key priorities that can be taken into consideration are increasing supply chain efficiency, reduction of spending on IT, building a more flexible business, boosting sales etc. 

2. Implement a workable strategy: An organization’s IT infrastructure needs to be focused upon. How well are the systems integrated and what is their level of efficiency needs to be scrutinized. The data and processes that are integrated across departments and multiple systems while breaking through information silos is what actually brings fruition.

3. Top-level management is accountable: To carry out digital transformation strategies seamlessly, a top-level management team, especially CMOs and CIOs are required. If due to any non-availability, at least their respective departments can come up with some meaningful solutions. To leverage marketing activities and enhance customer experience, the CMO and CIO must work unitedly to come up with effective and pragmatic ideas.

The CMO and marketing team must collaborate with CIO and IT team in order to ensure that the security and operational aspects of marketing’s digital systems are optimized.

4. A flexible infrastructure needs to be constructed: Another key element is to maintain flexibility. To increase flexibility, legacy, on-premises systems can be transformed into cloud-based, microservices-based systems. Organizations can achieve greater scalability, agility and location-independence when on-premises monolithic applications are refactored into networks of microservices that are cloud-friendly. Through a microservices-based model, different features and services can be added, removed and updated in a faster, easier and affordable manner.
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5. Hire skilled professionals: Hiring the right IT professionals goes a long way in making the digital transformation strategies a success. The IT staff must understand that to meet specific objectives, they have to be skilled in certain technologies. Some of the technologies where the need to hire IT professionals are listed below:    

• Cloud migration
• API-first development
• Data science
• Data engineering
• App migration 
• Data integration
• Microservices-based development
• Web app development
• Remote team management

Conclusion: The above-mentioned elements will help an organization embrace and tactically implement digital technologies to chart out a new roadmap for progressive development. If you are looking for in-depth advice on how digital transformation can help your business grow through some definitive strategies, then just go for a company that can truly justify your requirements. 

About the author: I am a technical content writer focused on writing technology specific articles. Software testing is one of the areas in which I’m really interested. ​