Where Organizations Win with Digital Transformation
Now that we know what digital transformation really is and examples of when it goes sideways, let's take a look at a few examples of how organizations win with their digital transformation programs.
Remember: three word hierarchy, design top-down, build bottom-up, no skipping.
Strategy
Processes
Systems
So, how does digital transformation go right when following that guidance?
Example 1
A team-building events company wants to grow both revenue and profit margin (lofty!) by improving how they run their business. Their strategy is literally to improve their processes and use the right systems.
They achieved their objective before December by using a series of small digital transformation projects throughout the year. These incrementally improved or entirely overhauled how parts of the business operated.
Within this year alone, they have made it easier or faster to do these (and more):
Get a quote for their services
Attribute ad spend to conversion
Sign contracts and collect payment
Manage projects to produce an events
Order their physical products
Example 2
A wealth management firm wants to grow their business organically and through acquisitions. To support this strategy, they have crafted a robust set of processes to integrate acquired firms into their organization that are intentional and repeatable.
One of the processes is migrating the acquired firm's client and prospect data into their CRM and other applications. This often is messy and tedious work.
By creating a set of systems to facilitate it, the firm is able to repeatably and reliably execute that process with high confidence that the data is accurate and fits how they operate.
Example 3
A nonprofit foundation wants to grow the number of donors and their donation revenue. Their strategy is to target people adjacent to existing donors, which is metaphorically like second and third degree connections on LinkedIn.
Two sets of processes were designed to focus:
Existing fundraisers to engage second degree prospects
Hire new staff with a background in sales to cultivate third degree prospects
As each of those are distinctly different, the organization used different systems to facilitate that work, which was more efficient and productive than attempting to consolidate into one place.
What's the common thread?
In all of those examples, the organizations followed the three word hierarchy.
They started their transformation by:
Refining their strategy to strongly align with their goals
Designing processes to efficiently support it
Selecting systems to productively facilitate work
Then, they achieved their transformation by:
Building systems to satisfy their use cases
Executing processes to deliver value
Realizing strategy through measurable outcomes
It also helps to have a guide along the way with an outsider's perspective that has seen what does (not) work.
TLDR: If you follow the hierarchy (strategy, processes, systems), you'll end up in a great place.
