Digital transformation is a pivotal priority for every business, no matter their sector or processes. In a landscape plagued by disruption, challenges, and obstacles, every organization needs to consider how they can implement technological change at scale — and do it quickly and at the level of quality, their customers demand.
As the world rapidly changes and encounters new obstacles on a regular basis, businesses are rising to the challenge of addressing them. Whether you’re partnering with a technology firm like BairesDev to facilitate transformation or tackling it independently, you can make it happen quickly. Curious how you can do it? Here are our top tips for success.
#1 Think Big-Picture
Transformation is not confined to a single individual, department, or unit. It’s company-wide — so your efforts, too, must involve everyone. While digital change may seem like it’s solely the responsibility of the software development team, in reality, everyone is responsible for its success: the quality assurance (QA) team, marketing, sales, finance, operations, and so on.
Because of this, every employee should be informed about your plan for digital overhaul. They should be provided with the business-wide objectives, as well as their own roles in these initiatives. Additionally, everyone should understand the motivation behind these developments and how their responsibilities will affect transformation — that is, the big picture. The why, after all, is as important as the how.
#2 Establish a Culture of Disruption
Some employees may be tasked with innovating, like product managers, but everyone should share the responsibility of thinking outside the box and brainstorming ways to create and keep pushing your business forward. Building a culture of disruption — ensuring that all employees know that they’re encouraged to develop different and unique ideas — will help your organization persist and thrive in a world that is always encountering change and difficulties.
#3 Use Data
All your business decisions must be backed by data. Fortunately, in the digital age, there is an abundance of data available at every turn. Use this information — from user patterns and habits to timely trends to website and social media traffic — to make better choices as a team and company.
Capitalizing on data drives digital transformation because you will be able to take advantage of your knowledge of consumers to fuel innovations that will actually matter to them. And, given the sheer volume of information you have at your fingertips, this isn’t as time-consuming or painstaking a task as it might have been before the digital era.
#4 Provide the Necessary Resources
You must supply your team with resources to allow them to do their best work. After all, no one can work speedily or bring in an innovative mindset if they don’t have the necessary tools or environment at their disposal.
For example, they will likely need cloud-best applications to facilitate document and file sharing, collaborative editing, remote access to various tools, and so on, along with powerful security measures. They may also need special programs, depending on the nature of their roles and responsibilities. Make sure you ask what kinds of resources and infrastructure your employees need to make decisions, create, and speed up the pace at which they complete their work.
Routinely perform audits of your systems and programs. Some applications may need to be upgraded to take advantage of new features that will empower greater digital change, for instance.
#5 Embrace Automation
In a world that is increasingly relying on artificial intelligence, automation is a surefire way to complete tasks and encourage your business to power transformation. There are many procedures and processes that can be completed by machines independently or with minor human intervention, such as some types of QA testing. This will prove extremely useful when you’re looking at acceleration innovation.
However, there is a risk of over automating. There are some tasks and responsibilities that need to be performed by humans. Be careful to not automate work that isn’t straightforward, repetitive, or otherwise lends itself to the power of machine learning.
#6 Always Have the End-User and Goal in Mind
Ultimately, your products are about the consumers — the people who will be using them. Have this at the forefront of your mind at every phase and facet of your digital acceleration process.
One activity that’s useful during this process is to envision who your end-user is. You can catalog their habits, their experiences, their demographics, their likes and dislikes, and any other relevant information based on the data you’ve collected. This will help inform a clear picture of the typical consumer and how they will interact with your product, as well as what they’re looking for in software of this nature.
To encourage all of your teams to assume this mindset in pursuit of your ultimate goal — satisfying their demands — make sure that everyone is familiar with this picture of the prototypical user. This will inform their ideas and decision-making and empower them to work toward a singular, common objective. It will also help confirm that everyone is on the same page when it comes to creating and innovating.
Looking Forward
With so many changes occurring every day and even more on the horizon, every business in every industry must work to transform and thrive in different landscapes. This will help them guard against the many obstacles organizations continue to face on a daily basis. Digital acceleration is an ultra-important priority for any company, no matter what its objective or mission.
Are you looking for a partner to help drive digital acceleration processes at your business? BairesDev, a top software development and IT outsourcing company in Latin America, has worked with companies in the United States and beyond to facilitate innovation at scale with an ultra-speedy turnaround. Contact us to learn what we can do for your organization.
