Practical Steps to Achieve Enterprise Digital Transformation

One of the most talked about things in IT industry these days is “Digital Transformation”. For CIO’s and IT decision makers, this means migration of their existing applications, built on legacy technologies that are so out of date, that they are afraid to tinker with them. While still others feel the need to catch-up to modern technology and leverage Cloud deployments for significant cost savings. If nothing else, their internal users and customers demand modern systems.

The questions that CIO’s and IT leaders get stuck are along the lines: “How do I go about this Digital Transformation?”, “Where do I start?”, “Which vendor do I pick for this transformation?”, “Which technologies should I bet on?”. Read on to see some very straightforward ways to achieve your dream Digital Transformation in your organization.

Create a Request for Proposal

Start by putting together a RFP that captures the essence of your existing application (say legacy CRM system) and what you envision would be its most modern version (open source technologies, responsive design, deployed in the Cloud etc.) In addition, you also need to come up with a rough timeline for execution of this project (month level accuracy is ok) and a rough budget for the entire transformation project. Once you have created this RFP, it is time to source several vendors who can help you with this transformation (System Integrators, Platform Vendors, Industry Specialists, to name a few ). Talk to your colleagues for references and fully leverage your procurement team for sourcing. Your procurement team can help send out this RFP and shortlist vendors based on high level criteria for meeting your timeline, references and estimated costs for Discovery and Implementation Phases (more on this shortly)

Evaluation Phase

The best way to pick a vendor (assuming several bidders) would be to put them through a “real test scenario”. Create a Proof of Concept requirement document (POC) that you would want all vendors to execute in a short period (weeks, not months). Once POC is completed by the vendor, have them come to your office for a detailed discussion around their platform, technology, services and how they went about building your POC. By comparing apples-to-apples, you will have a good sense of the vendor that is right for you. Based on their performance at this stage and their cost estimates for the next three phases, you would be able to shortlist and select the vendor for your project. This is also the time to negotiate a contract and deliverables for the next phase.

Discovery Phase

This is the phase, where selected vendor would bring in their team of Business Analysts, Architects and Designers and capture all your business and technical requirements. On your end, you would have a Project Manager to manage various internal stakeholders, scheduling meeting and approving documents captured by the vendor. This is also the time to come up with improved workflows, discarding any sub-systems that are no longer needed as well as chalking out a long term plan for maintenance and upgrades. At the end of this Phase, ask the vendor for final cost estimation for Implementation and Maintenance Phases that are coming up next.

Implementation Phase

In this phase, your chosen vendor would work very closely with your IT and Business stakeholders as they gradually roll out the project according to a well defined plan. This should not in any way disrupt your existing business. But at the same time, your vendor will start training and gradually bring your team on to the new platform. It is critical that your users get accustomed to the new system, give feedback for improvements and help vendor with business validations. If all goes well, you should have a new system that was well thought out, executed, tested and now deployed in the Cloud.

Maintenance Phase

You should have a vendor agreement in place by the end of Implementation Phase for at least a couple of years of maintenance. This phase would include adding new business requirements, workflows or changes to the user experience based on feedback. This Phase can be executed on a Time and Material model with the same vendor (or have a contract for say “100 man days” for maintenance). Also, as part of your contract with the vendor, ensure that you have all the licensing in place for any technology platform that they may have introduced.

About the Author

Vinay Murthy is VP, Business Development at WaveMaker, Inc. In this role, he interacts on a regular basis with CIO’s, IT leaders and other business stakeholders who are seeking advice for Digital Transformation of their organization. Earlier in his career, Vinay co-founded two companies and worked in an executive capacity at Google and YouTube. He can be reached at vinay.murthy@wavemaker.com