Businesses are constantly being told they must brave this still newish Digital Era or else fall behind in what remains a fiercely competitive marketplace.
Yet, it’s claimed the majority of advice on how to digitise concentrates on start-ups or new entrants rather than seasoned firms looking for a steer in the right direction. Such is the rapidity of tech advances nowadays, it can prove quite bewildering when it comes to deciding what’s the best way forward in terms of boosting productivity and business processes.
With this shortfall very much in mind I’ve come across a handy digital guide from Scots-based Exception, a leading UK IT consultancy and services outfit that specialises in delivering digital transformation. Founding director and chairman Martin Burke tells me the challenge for established organisations can be both complex and multidimensional. Not least because they have to tackle it from a different starting point compared with digital entrants.
Information technology remains critical to the transformation plans of any organisation but many encounter challenges. Both with their infrastructure and capabilities when seeking to take advantage of the opportunities that digital technologies create.
IDC, the independent market researcher, believes that many are not moving fast enough to address the digital challenge predicting that over the next three years, a third of top 20 companies in every industry will be “disrupted” by new entrants that are switched on digitally. Not necessarily going out of business but with their revenue, profits and market position under threat. Martin warns against what he calls “significant market hype” around digital transformation.
The reality is that most organisations will have some way to travel to realise their digital ambitions – if, indeed, they have defined what these are. Key areas identified and requiring consideration, based on Exception’s experience of working with clients across different sectors: whilst no means exhaustive, should be addressed to create and deliver a successful digital transformation strategy.
Martin highlights Leadership, Capability, Architecture, Governance, each critical whether managing innovation, digitising the core business, reducing complexity or delivering mobile-first applications.
Getting these four areas of your business right in any digital transformational initiative will better ensure that a defined and delivered strategy is achieved to the lasting benefit of an organisation.
