Success Factors for Digital Transformation

​In terms of success factors for digital transformation we see that understanding what you’re trying to accomplish and measuring in being the number one success factor. So trying to figure out – you know and if you look at traditional businesses, they have KPI’s that are really important, like how are sales doing, how is the customer satisfaction doing, how much revenue from the lines of business and having establishing digital KPI’s that match that or for what the business that you are trying to create. Without those really clear measures you don’t have anything to manage your digital transformation to. You don’t know what you’re accomplishing, and you can’t guide it as a senior executive.

So it’s really important. The next piece is having a team that can execute. By the lessons that we see by looking at hundreds of different IT projects, is that the organizations that invest heavily in ability to execute and they have one part of the team that uses a phrase that is often used is really good at creating new things, and then they have really great operations that come behind it and scale it up and make it work, and make it an operational capability. But without your ability to manage or measure what you have done on their execution side of it, it’s not as critical. So the most important is the ability and the biggest success factor is understanding how you’re doing that actually executing against it that is really important.

So building teams that have an understanding, and then not trying to do it all yourself. Digital transformation is not a strategic initiative often in the corner of the organisation. What we’re seeing is that organizations that succeed is that you’re creating a broad based enablement for change across the organisation, giving local departments and divisions and lines of business the tools, support to succeed long term. So that begins changing the engine on a plane, wire-flying it in other words, and that requires a lot of people across the organisation to pull on the ropes. So these new types of change processes where you engaging probably with the organisation, giving them a clear vision, and giving them the tools to succeed. And then measure who is doing it.

Again, going back to those KPI’s and to be able to figure out where it’s happening, where it’s not and be able to address both in terms of making it more successful.