Digital Transformation In A Nutshell
Digital Transformation is a big theme. It’s such a big theme, that it is hard to get a grip on what it actually means, encompasses. It’s hard to know where to start. Wikipedia tells us that Digital Transformation (DT or DX) is the use of new, fast and frequently changing digital technology to solve problems. Well that’s not very informative. In order to solve problems with new technology, you have to make fundamental changes to your business. There is more to Digital Transformation than just technology.
More than just technology
Most people, including the authors of the Wiki, tend to focus on the technological side of Digital Transformation. But Digital Transformation is not about technology. Technology is going to develop regardless of whether you leverage the new possibilities it creates or not. The first thing that I think is important is to realize that Digital Transformation is as much about people and the way you organize your processes as it is about technology.
Why should you Digitally Transform?
Everybody is digitally transforming. So there seems to be no way around it. But it’s a good idea to think about what benefits you want from your Digital Transformation. It will take a lot of efforts, so you need a clear business case. Digital Transformation can be undertaken to develop new services, enhance the user experience of services, become more agile and reduce costs / increase performance.
Required Skills
It takes more than knowledge about technology to execute Digital Transformation successfully. It’s about business, technology and the user. Successful execution requires skills and knowledge in all these areas. You need to know about technology obviously, but it’s also about UX design if you want to enhance the UX of your services, agile working, business savvy and co-creation to leverage the power of your staff and entrepeneurial spirit to change things.
Step by step
Digital Transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It is the end result of a long process that starts with making your products and services digital, then changing your business models and processes to leverage the power of digital and that ends with digital thinking completely changing the fundaments of how your business is run.
Tech involved
The amount of technology one can leverage these these is enormous. Not all technologies will impact all industries. But it’s good to think about all these technologies to see which of these will impact your industry.
The next step is to figure out how to approach Digital Transformation. I hope this overview helps to get you started.
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