6 Steps to Creating a Successful Digital Transformation Strategy

The modern enterprise companies must constantly look for ways to better adapt and compete in today’s digital landscape, and the way enterprises are doing that is with a digital transformation strategy. Digital transformation enables enterprises to take advantage of the modern technologies that automate processes, improve customer experiences, increase operational agility and flexibility, and help employees become more productive. Companies without a digital transformation plan put themselves at risk of falling behind their competition.

Importance of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is important to enterprises because it allows them to take advantage of newer technologies to improve the ways they can compete in their markets and serve their customers. With all the service options a customer has nowadays, the relationship a vendor has with its customers has never been more critical. Businesses must be agile and flexible to meet their evolving demands, and the onus is on these businesses to support those needs and streamline efficiency.

Additionally, a digital transformation strategy helps employees being more engaged. With updated systems, applications, and solutions, it’s easier to communicate with customers, partners, and coworkers, and it leads to better collaboration as well, helping them succeed in driving important business initiatives.

There are many ways that a company can gain benefit by instituting a digital transformation plan, some of which are short-term wins, while others become more obvious down the line. The four key pillars of change a digital transformation strategy bring include:

• Improved Customer Experience

Your customers demand a certain type of experience today, and with so many options, they can shop around till they find it. Organizations can provide that high level of satisfaction by making a commitment to digital transformation and putting the needs of their customers first.

• Product Digitization

When a company digitizes its products, it opens up opportunities and new markets that were previously unattainable. This could mean selling products directly through your own digital marketplace or having the ability to quickly connect and sell on Amazon or Alibaba.

• Employee Engagement

Employees are more engaged than ever with more simplified and collaboration mechanisms that empower them to succeed in their roles. Additionally, new internal platforms – HR and benefits apps, online payroll portals, robust messaging solutions – improve the on-the-job experience.

• Product Optimization

Product optimization is possible because technology unlocks value within an enterprise’s environment that allows you to collect, analyze, and share data to maximize your business potential. This data can help businesses adjust prices, rework logistics and fulfillment processes, offer region-based promos, and more.

Creating a Successful Strategy

 In order to execute a digital transformation strategy, enterprises must carefully plan and roadmap their vision for success. If an enterprise does not adhere to their plan, your efforts at digital transformation will end up doing more harm than good. Once you have this plan and determine what it is you want to gain from upgrading your digital foothold, then you can decide on how to get there.

Step 1. Determine What You Want

Before you get started, it is imperative that all departments and lines of business are aligned with the goals and objectives from a digital transformation strategy. Enterprises must define what it is they want to accomplish through digital transformation, especially in terms of customer experience and engagement.

Step 2. Design the Transformation

The overall digital transformation goals must be broken down into more specific objectives. This can include everything to how you want your employees to collaborate with each other to how you want to better communicate and serve your customers. The more specific, the better end-result your transformation will have.

Step 3. Examine Your Existing Environment

It’s critical for enterprises to have a firm understanding of what their current environment looks like, from legacy systems and applications to their order-to-cash and procure-to-pay business processes. From there, it becomes easier to identify the gaps that digital transformation mechanisms can improve.

Step 4. Review and Pick Your Solutions and Vendor

There are so many potential tools out there for an enterprise to use to enable digital transformation, but a modern integration platform will play a critical role in any IT modernization and transformation strategy. However, not all integration tools are created equal. Enterprises must conduct a thorough review of the potential solutions and vendors to ensure their needs align with what the vendor can offer.

Step 5. Establish a Timeline

After an enterprise has defined its goals, established a firm understanding of their current environment, and selected a path to achieve its goals, the next step is to determine how long you want to spend on digital transforming before you see results. It is crucial to carefully (and realistically) plan how long each process will take. This provides a benchmark that an enterprise can use to compare the actual results with the planned results.

Step 6. Select a Modern Integration Platform

The right integration platform that prioritizes ecosystem enablement will provide enterprises with an array of technology and process benefits to improve your business and provide a better experience for your customers. Enterprises must constantly evolve, and a centralized integration platform enables companies to do just that.

Cleo Integration Cloud eliminates the complexity of end-to-end integration with a modern cloud integration platform that connects B2B data flows, applications, and data across your entire ecosystem and drives complex digital transformation efforts.

Download “The Common-Sense Guide to IT Modernization” to learn more about how to improve your business operations through IT modernization and how an ecosystem-driven integration platform enables that improvement through enterprise agility, insulates organizations from disruption, and support digital business transformation.