A 2018 survey by McKinsey states that the success rate of these digital transformations has been very low. Only 16% of the respondent in the survey said that the digital transformation has enabled them to improve their performance and have helped them to sustain the changes in the long term.
The pandemic with its social distancing norms has pushed businesses globally to adopt digital technologies. As a business professional myself, I could say that it is easy to justify the need for digital transformation. It is not only great with productivity and cost-saving but also a vital strategy to face the current pandemic as we all are working from home.
Digital transformation has largely taken place in three major areas
- supply chain
- customer interaction and
- internal operations
To truly transform digitally is much more than just attaching a printer to your computer or setting up network security. The entire organization has to change. The employees have to develop new capabilities to match up and should have a sense of the impact on the business's structure and culture. So in my opinion, a true and successful digital transformation is all about people.
Failed digital transformation could have many reasons, however, it boils down to just one, "People". Companies often fail to digitally transform because most of the companies forget that digital transformation which involves a vision and strategy that should be communicated to the organization as a whole before executing it.
Digital transformation does not mean that adopting new technology will lead a business to success. It is the use of this technology to reconstruct business processes, models and an organization's culture. It is understanding and using the insights that are obtained by the technology to come up with new business models, expand the market and find more effective ways to attract, engage and deliver value to the customers. This is the reason why the organizations that concentrate on putting talented employees in key trades of the business at the inception of the digital transformation projects are more prone to see success.
Pandemic was the catalyst
With social distancing norms and lockdowns from local and state governments, the physical offices were closed down. Many businesses had to move to the remote environment within a matter of days of the lockdown.
Acknowledging the fact that it was difficult for everyone, but out of necessity people responded. People were trying to find out a temporary way of working. This was when they realized that this digital transformation or shift need not have to be gradual or wait. This propelled companies to work with employees, stakeholders and partners to increase the rate of technology adoption during the pandemic.
How to sustain this digital transformation?
There is no doubt the pandemic propelled the organization into adopting digital transformation. Most managed to embrace it but begs the question that now that they have how to continue? For this, we must first understand and define the gaps between a business current capability and performance and where they need to be in the market in order to stay ahead of the competition.
Perhaps the only anchor that keeps your business at bay is the development of talent agility. Talent agility in simpler terms is the ability of an organization to change the structure of talent in-house, quickly and cost-effectively. It takes into account all the driving factors to build and develop talent such as learning & development, engaging them and acquiring and retaining them. A talented and agile pool results in better business and gives organizations the ability to reshape themselves while addressing new market challenges, offer new products and services and stay ahead of the competitive curve.
Here are 5 features of talent agility that businesses must adapt to sustain the effects of digital transformation.
Employees Should Embrace The Change
A Survey Monkey survey indicated that around 27% of workers in the US fear that their jobs will be eliminated by technology in the next five years. Pew Research learnt that 65 per cent of Americans think that their jobs will be performed by computers and robots. If your employees feel threatened, then it is not good for their morale and productivity. This situation can be tackled by assisting the employee to adopt digital transformation and helping them take ownership of the change
Talent Scarcity And Skill Gaps
Working from home or working remotely requires different strategies and tools which require diverse skill sets which employees often demonstrate in an office environment. As an organisation, you must acknowledge that some or all the employees aren't just ready to drive accelerated growth or recovery. Rather than assuming that they are no longer fit for the job profile, you can ensure that they have proper training and abundant opportunities.
Shift In Culture
Working from home and working remotely have their sets of pros and cons and can disrupt the entire company's atmosphere. Since we are trying to help employees adapt to the transformation, it would be a good strategy to ensure that the employees question and be upfront with the challenges they face. We have to ensure that they stay committed to the organisation's priorities and values.
Improve Employee Engagement
In a study by Deloitte, it was found that around 87 per cent of employees are less likely to leave their organization if they are engaged properly. A proper balance between learning, engagement and retention should be maintained. Organizations have to find new ways to keep their employees interested and happy, at work and outside of work as well.
Diverse And Cross-functional Workforce
Earlier there was a notion that homogenous teams were easier to manage.
However, some studies showed that abundant similarities among team members can cause biased patterns of problem-solving. To have fully functional and effective talent agility requires collaborative, cross-functional teams to abandon the silo mentality.
However, it is human nature to push back significant changes like the current digital transformation. This is mainly due to the affection of the comfort zone. This world is changing and evolving at a rapid rate and it is up to us to change with it. It is up to us to come out and get ahead and control ourselves and harness technology for the betterment of human lives. If you are looking for digital transformation services for your organization, do visit us.
The everyday use for Digital Technology is always seen to be on the exponential raise that in 2019 it is even going to progress further and trending.
The significance of this digital transformation is that it would create synergy and thus follow only selective technologies for the enterprise transition to happen.
Predominantly it is the stability in digital transformation that results to the instant success of any enterprise’s digital journey.
Enterprises can include these accelerated digital strategies and then become more influential towards running their business.
The observed interest levels for Robotic Process Automation is overall high within traditional enterprises like shared services and administrative organizations who have their earnest contributions already.
In the beginning there were a number of start-ups preferring Internet of Things Apps Development and now a lot of billion-dollar enterprises are showing keen interest and have started their investments.
