Is Now a Good Time to Tackle Digital Transformation?

The current COVID-19 pandemic has meant that many organisations have rapidly changed the way they work and the tools they use.

Many people are calling this change in behaviour a digital transformation, but I disagree. It’s a change, sure, but it’s actually a case of “being more digital”, not digital transformation.

We’re all becoming more capable with digital tools all the time, but COVID-19 has rapidly accelerated this change. Being more digital is generally a good thing; new digital tools allow us to get tasks done more efficiently (and often more enjoyably). Digital tools often enable us to make better business decisions and focus on higher-value work.

For most people lucky enough to be able to work from home, a face-to-face meeting has become a Zoom, Skype or Hang Out: a virtual meeting using a digital teleconferencing tool. In reality, all that has changed is the tool being used to do what we were already doing.

I would say this is hardly transformational on an individual basis. Yes, if every worker decided to stay home — even after the threat of COVID-19 has passed — that would transform industries (public transport for example) and workplaces (with a sudden surplus of office space).

The driver for this behaviour change was necessity; if you want to keep working, you have to Zoom. And the scale of the change was not unsurmountable because tools like Zoom are easy to use.

Now is an excellent time to be more digital, but being more digital is not digital transformation.

However, being more digital can enable a digital transformation — in fact, you can’t successfully implement a digital transformation without becoming more digital. So what is digital transformation if it’s not a case of being more digital?

Let’s start by defining digital as the use of various technologies to improve the way you do business. As we know, good digital technologies let you do more, more efficiently, and more enjoyably than ever before. And the word ‘transformation’ means change, often a complete change.

Therefore a digital transformation is a large change that an organisation undergoes to improve the way it does business. For it to be a transformation it has to impact on every part of the business — both internal (the way you and your team work) and external (the way people engage with your business). This is the simplest way to think about digital transformation.

Ask yourself, is this going to significantly affect the way everyone works? If yes, then it’s a transformation. If no, then it’s not.

The beauty of this simple definition is that it scales. A small or newer organisation can more easily change the way everyone works. A large or legacy organisation can’t do so that easily, and doing so takes significant time and risk. It’s possible to undertake a digital transformation regardless of size.

Let’s say that your company undertakes customer research to understand how most of your customers now want and expect to be served online. It then sets out to transform its website, mobile app, sales and finance platforms, as well as retraining staff to focus on online sales. These changes result in your company shifting from doing 30% of its business online to over 80%. It’s a true digital transformation because you and every other person and process — internal and external — have been changed.

Being more digital makes it easier to do a digital transformation.

In the case of your company undertaking such a transformation, you can see how being more digital would help you and your team adopt to new ways of working. In all likelihood, after transformation it would be difficult for any one in your company to not be more digital.

By comparison, changing your website (perhaps led by the marketing department) or replacing your asset management software with a different platform (often led by IT) are not transformations on their own. Yes, they will affect a bunch of people but they won’t affect everyone and won’t necessarily change the way you work.

Big IT projects are often called transformations, and often go just as badly, but they’re not true transformations. A true transformation requires combining and changing all aspects of your business.

Crucially, transformation is more about people than technology.

The ingredients for a successful transformation are (in this exact order):

1. Purpose — be very clear on what you are trying to achieve and why you want to change. This purpose should dovetail with your organisation’s overall strategy and mission.
2. People — make sure you have the right leadership, capability, culture and capacity to undertake the work. To pull it off, you’ll need experience, along with a nice balance of consultants, creatives and pedants, and you’ll need to work hard to keep them all focussed and on the journey.
3. Process — put the right structures and resources in place to manage, govern and support the work. Transformations take time and money and are often upsetting. There will be casualties along the way so make sure your steering group is in place early and aligned behind the purpose.
4. Technology — lastly, choose technologies that support your strategy, people and processes. There are many different and equally good technology options, the best vendor and platform is the one that fits with your culture and goals.

There seems to be endless stories of digital transformation projects going badly, but they don’t have to. In my experience where they do, the most common root cause is a lack of clarity regarding purpose and getting the sequence wrong.

If you start at the bottom with technology, you’ll undoubtedly fail. Similarly, if you undertake a transformation project without all four ingredients in place, you’ll also likely fail.

To succeed, start your transformation at the top by deeply understanding what your customers want.

To fail, start your transformation by asking your staff how they do their job: this surprisingly common ‘requirements’ approach merely codifies status quo and will never produce a meaningful transformation.

So is now a good time to tackle a digital transformation project? Honestly, probably not. Certainly not if it’s undertaken in haste and without clear purpose or any of the key ingredients in place.

The truth is that real transformation takes time and introduces risk — the faster you go, the bigger the mess. If you haven’t already started, don’t expect your transformation to be completed before the threat of COVID-19 has passed.

But now is a good time to start preparing for your digital transformation by focussing on your digital strategy. Now is definitely a good time to be more digital. Being more digital now will supercharge your transformation later, when the timing is right. So go forth and empower your teams and IT departments to use more digital tools and try different ways of working.