5 Reasons Why Digital Transformation Strategies Fail
Digital transformation is a term that we hear a lot in the modern world of business. Companies are becoming increasingly conscious of the impacts of digitalization and, being worried to fall out of the loop, start implementing their own versions of digital transformation. However, it seems as though a large number of these businesses tend to fail and consider the whole thing a huge waste of time and money. The best way to find out what happened would be to seek digital transformation consulting, however, if that’s not a possibility – here are 5 common reasons for failed digital transformation strategies.
Lack of planning
Implementing a digital transformation is a massive project that requires a lot of time, patience, and planning. Many businesses tend to make the mistake of rushing into things and trying to get it over with as quickly as possible – after all, ‘time is money in business… In this case, however, it’s not wise or helpful to do that.
On the contrary, the planning stage of this project should be as well thought-through as possible: you need to split the project into smaller, more manageable chunks, allocate realistic time-frames and deadlines for each task, and have SMART goals and objectives. It should be a detailed roadmap with room for setbacks as well as contingency planning – all leading to a successful outcome.
Misunderstanding the benefits of it
The companies that choose to implement digital transformation strategies solely because they are scared to lose their market share are typically the ones to make this particular mistake. Digitalization of a business has many advantages and it’s important that you are very clear on why exactly you chose to do it and how your business is benefiting from it in the long run.
Digital transformation is all about the innovative aspects of a business: it allows them to stay relevant, be agile and resilient to change, increase overall productivity and efficiency with automated processes, leave room for future scalability as well as many other benefits. If a business does not understand the reasonings behind its own transformation and, even worse, expects immediate results – the process is more likely to be considered a failure.
Untrained employees
This point is incredibly simple and obvious, yet it catches many companies off-guard. If the team within a business is not prepared for the changes that a digital transformation will bring in advance, the whole process becomes useless. It’s not just your IT team either – the whole team, on every level of the business, should be on board with the changes and ready to embrace them. There should be a comprehensive training plan too, ensuring that everyone understands the point of the changes and learns how to work in the new, digital ecosystems.
Forgetting the customers
One of the most important benefits of digital transformation is the impact it will have on your existing and new customer base. Not has digitalization previously proved to help businesses improve their customer engagement and loyalty levels, but it also creates the perfect environment to create new value for the consumers.
The company has every tool needed to start innovating new business models and diversifying its revenue streams, while also satisfying the needs of its existing customers. Failure to do so would essentially lead to a failed transformation too, as the company is not making the most of the investment they’ve made.
Not thinking about the future
As mentioned above, digital transformation helps businesses stay relevant and agile as well as increase their resilience to change and other potentially harmful factors. When implementing a digitalization strategy, the future considerations should be at the core of the whole project – the company should already have a comprehensive 5-year plan, understanding well what will be changing within the business, whether it’s intentional or forced by external factors. The chosen digitalization strategy should also be future-proof, with plenty of room for long-term scalability and innovation.
