A digital transformation roadmap is an essential guide that you can use during your transformation journey.
Below, we’ll show you an easy-to-follow template that you can use to create your own roadmap.
The template we’ll cover has four core parts:
- Digital Maturity – The technological capabilities of an organization, including technical competencies of users and staff.
- Data – Data is the fuel that powers digital-first organizations, providing competitive insights and intelligence.
- Digital Culture – A workplace culture that fluently makes use of digital software and work processes.
- Human Experience – User experience and customer experience lie at the heart of successful design, from products to brand experiences.
Let’s look at each of these parts in more detail.
Digital Maturity
As author William Gibson said, “The future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.”
This axiom holds true for organizations as well – some organizations are more digitally evolved than others.
Digital maturity – the first part of your digital transformation roadmap – consists of:
- Technological capabilities of the organization itself
- Software and hardware, including how well these are utilized
- Worker competencies and digital skills
- Digital fluency throughout the organization
Elements such as these contribute to an organization’s digital maturity level.
A greater digital maturity level can be achieved through:
- Digital Adoption – Software adoption, training, onboarding, and utilization.
- IT Modernization – Systems and software, as well as infrastructure and data
- Strategic Focus – Integrating digital strategy with organizational strategy.
Organizational changes that aims at targets such as these will greatly enhance the company’s digital maturity levels.
Data
Some feel that data is the new oil.
That is, it is the most valuable asset for organizations in today’s digital era.
During digital transformation, focus on goals such as:
- Data culture – A data culture puts data at the center of its decision-making.
- Democratization – Break down data siloes and giving the entire organization access to data.
- Modern tools – Adopt state-of-the-art data tools that can offer significant returns, such as digital adoption platforms and data analytics.
Achieve these goals through targeted change programs, such as:
- Spearheading data-centric projects
- Employee training and education programs
- Development of data and analytics departments
- Campaigns that promote a data culture
The more advanced your data capabilities, the more value you will be able to extract from your existing business.
You may also discover new, as-yet-undiscovered ways to improve your business.
Digital Culture
Humans are the beating heart of any organization.
To enlist their support and maximize productivity, you must build a digital-centric corporate culture.
Characteristics of a digital culture include:
- Innovation
- Human-centrism
- Technological fluency
- Collaboration
- Agility
These aims can be achieved through:
- Communication and campaigns that actively promote the principles behind digital culture and technology
- Education, training, workshops, and meetings, to help inculcate a new culture
- Projects and pilot programs that explore new work methods and business processes, such as remote working or agile business processes
Culture is an essential, big-picture perspective on the human element.
However, today’s digital businesses also emphasize the individual.
This brings us to the fourth element of your digital transformation roadmap…
The Human Experience
Culture describes group behavior, but every human interacts with a business at the individual level.
In this case, humans includes several groups of people:
- Users, such as app users or website users
- Employees, managers, staff, or executives
- Business partners or investors
- Customers, prospects, leads, or former customers
Today, customers are considered the most important group in this list.
And it’s no wonder – paying customers drive a business’s success.
However, it must be remembered that people’s experiences impact business success at every level.
For instance, employee experience can impact productivity, loyalty, and even indirectly impact the customer experience.
To create great user experiences, design great experiences in each relevant business environment.
For best results, inform those designs with:
- Feedback
- Analysis
- Collaboration
There are many ways to optimize user experiences across their contact a business.
A few include:
- Product development
- Onboarding
- Training
- Customer service
Regardless of the business process, there is certainly room for improvement.
Final Thoughts
Digital transformation should be driven systematically.
The four elements listed here – with two focuses on technology and two on the human element – are an excellent place to start.
For best results, enlist the help of others within your organization:
- Collaborate with employees, managers, and executives to obtain support and get new ideas
- Earn buy-in from executives early on – without it, digital adoption programs will be harder to fund and lead
- Implement some of the approaches mentioned here – agile and user-driven business processes – to design a transformation program that is adaptable and flexible
As the saying goes, “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.”
Keep this in mind when creating your roadmap.
Following these principles – while remaining agile – will help your roadmap stay on-point and relevant, even when context changes.
