Blog / The Inside Scoop on Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is one of those IT business phrases that gets bandied around a lot but doesn’t mean much to those on the outside. In fact, you could almost call it a buzzword. After all, loathe as I am to start one of these articles with “Webster’s defines ‘buzzword’ as…”, the famous dictionary does describe it as “an important-sounding usually technical word or phrase often of little meaning used chiefly to impress laymen.” Now, referring to one of your own core services as a buzzword might wound a little weird coming from a Managed Service Provider (MSP) that prides itself on digital transformation services, but bear with us. We’ve got good cause.
First off, let’s be clear that digital transformation isn’t just a buzzword, even if some of those other MSPs treat it as such. It’s a valuable service that any forward-thinking organization should undertake. However, the ubiquity and sadly, lack of realization of value for those who have invested, makes some outsiders feel the phrase is important sounding but ultimately meaningless sales jargon. With every MSP offering some version of it and tales of wasted investments worth up to $900 billion making their way around the internet, it’s easy to see why “digital transformation” might come across as a sales or politician’s buzzword.
Selling promises, not products
Likely the biggest cause of distrust around digital transformation is how the service has been sold to users in the past. Digital transformation often carries with it the promises of improved efficiency, better outcomes, and reduced costs in the long run. Unfortunately, many MSPs are selling those promises rather than concrete results. Companies make huge investments in their technological infrastructure, only to discover later their new systems haven’t improved anything. This is because digital technologies only offer the possibility of improved efficiency, while many of us assume their implementation automatically makes us more efficient. Changing this mindset and focusing on specifics of how new technologies will help is crucial to making your digital transformation pay off.
Business before technology
Digital transformations come in all shapes and sizes depending on your market, size of your organization, and ultimately its goals. Too often we get caught up in the excitement of the moment, and even just the prospect of new upgrades can lead to unnecessary purchases and scope creep. The next thing you know, you’re contributing to that $900 billion figure we cited earlier.
That’s why, despite our constant and never-ending excitement about new technologies, TRINUS has always put business before technology. To pull off a truly valuable digital transformation, you need a holistic approach that prioritizes strategy and business results, which means taking a deep dive into internal processes and procedures. You need to locate flaws in your workflow before you can ever hope to address inefficiencies. In fact, implementing a transformation can even magnify bottlenecks if they’re not properly accounted for from the beginning.
Setting yourself up for success
Not understanding the business problem(s) you are trying to solve can lead to disaster but setting appropriate goals and how to measure them can be a godsend. Unfortunately, often the goal of these projects is to come in on time and under budget. Of course, you’re going to want a reasonably accurate estimate of how much your project will cost, but it’s important to remember that the point of the process is to optimize each digital touchpoint in your organization.
Success should therefore be measured by the transformation’s impact, rather than the process itself. The best way to help ensure that happens is to not just identify the goals, but to also communicate them clearly to both the provider performing the transformations, and across internal teams and stakeholders. Clarity about problems and proposed solutions is one of the most critical factors in a successful digital transformation project. Without synchronicity and alignment throughout every level of an organization, all the different moving pieces are likely to grind up against each other and either bring to project to a screeching halt or explode in your face, neither of which is an acceptable outcome.
Now, to be fair, so far we’ve just dug into the details of the planning process while pointing out some of the pitfalls you might run into, but digital transformation, as we’ve hopefully made clear, is a huge topic so there’s lots more to discuss. That’s why we’re turning the spotlight on it for all of March, with newsletters and blog posts dedicated digitization vs digitalization, digital transformation as the foundation of IoT driven smart cities, and more. And here’s a teaser, user training is vital! Spending $50,000 on a car isn’t going to get you to grocery store if you don’t know how to drive; you might as well keep taking the bus.
In the meantime, if you’d like to discuss planning a digital transformation for your business or municipality that will actually pay off in the long run, contact a TRINUS account manager to get yourself some stress-free IT today.
Sincerely,
The TRINUS Team
trinustech.com
