Culture is the Key to Successful Digital Transformation

Although internet penetration was already significant in the beginning of this century, many people still question the relevance of digital technology. At that time cloud computing was just getting started and artificial intelligence was not seen as something realistic and applicable. E-commerce made up not more than 4% of all retail sales. However nowadays all these technologies are the key to be competitive enough. The tricky part is that implementing them is far from an easy and smooth process. According to analysts as much as one third of all digital transformation efforts actually succeed.

And here’s the surprising truth. In fact, the failures have less to do with technology itself, but are related to the cultural and organizational challenges that this shift involves. A research shows that companies which focus on culture were five times more likely to achieve breakthrough performance in comparison to those which do not.

So, here’s what you should keep in mind to help you get your digital transformation right.

Look outside

Engage with customers and partners to develop new solutions. Few years ago, the former executive director of Lonely Planet put it this way: if one wants to master digital transformation, they should stop thinking about their own problems. That is to say, focus on the customers’ needs, not on the internal systems.

Business objectives

The first question you should ask yourself is what business outcome you are trying to drive and achieve. Instead of focusing on technology, start with business related questions considering your goals and the way you want your business to be transformed. Once you make your business goals clear, you can think about technology and make concrete decisions.

Use technology to improve the effectiveness of human employees

This needs special attention because most companies think that implementing a certain technology is meant to replace humans and save costs. Why not in order to improve employees’ performance?
This happens by combining human and machine efforts. And humans are worst at the tasks that are most tedious whereas machines don’t get bored or tired. Instead of replacing, think about bringing in interaction and increasing productivity.
Also, digital culture thrives on boldness, it is not based on caution. So, you should encourage people to make decisions, take risks and learn.

Shift your business model

Many people think that if a major technological shift is made, the rest of the business can remain unaffected. The truth is that if you do not learn how to redeploy the resources in a productive and effective way, the benefits of the initial shift won’t stay long. Here’s a thing: when you have the business result in mind, the goals, it is much easier to get everybody involved and create a real transformation. Think about technology and technological shift from a broader perspective – as an opportunity to reconfigure and reorganize so you can open up new business opportunities.

As Eric Clemons, a Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions, says:
What makes today’s modern, digital transformation different is that it’s almost all-pervasive. In other words, it’s not transforming a part of the business. It’s transforming the structure and the strategy of the entire business.

Human transformation

Indeed, digital transformation is human transformation. And you can clearly see this by going about two decades back in time. Since then the nature of work has thoroughly changed. The value of social skills and collaboration is greater than ever before. A digital culture values collaboration over individual effort. It is based on encouraging humans to collaborate with other humans so that they design work for machines. And this is the major point: if you focus on people and get their part done right, technology makes its way.

The term “organization” is not restricted only to the actual structure of the company and its departments. In a digital transformation world, it includes the work culture and the practices needed for the actual transformation. Culture is the key to an organization’s ability to be agile and to innovate. More importantly – only building a culture of constant change leads to overall positive transformation and development.