Digitisation has become more complex for small and medium businesses. SMEs and entrepreneurs can no longer afford following their traditional ecommerce business models to get more leads. While intranets, social media, mobile, cloud and location based targeting allow businesses to easily reach their customers, rapid changes in these technologies has made satisfying their expectations more challenging than ever! This makes it imperative for businesses to recheck their approach towards digital if they want to keep pace with the competition.
Having spent a significant amount of time assisting SMEs manage their digital transformation projects, what I’ll be sharing next will help businesses break free from their traditional silos and standard operating procedures by instigating change in their approach towards digital.
Planning the Digital Roadmap
Content redundancy and misalignment between activities are common problems in managing digital projects. Having a well sought out plan can simplify all the granular details as to who is responsible for what and which tasks need to be delivered when. A digital roadmap helps you see the big picture in terms of time, scope and budget. With the right planning, SMEs can determine the results they want at the end of a given digital transformation project.
Having a digital roadmap can also act as a bridge connecting various departments making sure everyone is working towards the bigger strategic goals.
Leading the Transition from the Top
SMEs new to digital transformation find it hard to overcome barriers posed by rigid corporate cultures that don’t welcome change. Hence such projects call for an overarching vision from the leaders. Leaders not only need to motivate the team to do better, but also explain why the company is going through the transformation in the first place. They need to instil a digital-first mindset throughout the organisation trickling down to every department.
A strong leadership embraces digital with open arms. Leaders encourage employees to explore new digital ideas and are not afraid of investing in innovation, be it in terms of people, processes or technology.
Keeping Communication Lines Open
Miscommunication on progress, deadlines, customer expectations and deliverables could very well doom your digital transformation project. With the communication lines open, digital projects can build on cadence allowing teams to re-plan when something goes wrong and receive quick feedback on progress made. This also provides a level of visibility into work initiated and completed by each department.
Open communication lines also add more agility to development teams while keeping everyone on the same page.
Taking Calculated Risk
Unlike other projects that focus on minimising risk, digital transformation projects are more about discovering breakthroughs instead of focusing on marginal improvements, says Gartner – a technology research and advisory firm.
Hence for digital transformation to be successful, businesses need to focus on “discovery oriented project management.” This happens when businesses stop being afraid of taking risks and can adopt flexible ways of operating with unknown outcomes. However, while doing so, they must ensure that everyone is working towards pre-defined customer-centric goals.
Evaluating Success
Analysing metrics during open discussions can help in evaluating how far you have come in your digital transformation journey. The process identifies bottlenecks, minimises the chance of failure in the future and helps you commit towards getting better.
Each project provides new lessons that can be applied later on to improve performance, replicate ideas and increase the chances of success.
Digital transformation warrants creating a culture of change, collaboration and a shared vision in order to take the organisation to new heights of success and deliver a seamless digital experience to your customers.
“The only wrong move when it comes to digital transformation is not to make any move at all.” – Didier Bonnett
Are you looking for an agency to help your business through its digital transformation journey or maybe a team of experts to oversee individual digital projects? If yes then we might be able to help you.
Our digital transformation agency, solomoIT specialises in providing management, consultation and training services to small and medium businesses across Australia, helping them achieve their digital transformation goals through the use of social, local and mobile technologies.
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We also specialise in providing responsive/ecommerce web solutions, mobile app development, social media management and digital marketing solutions. Are you a small business in need of a new website and ongoing support to manage your digital presence? If yes, then visit our website to learn more about our services.
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About solomoIT
SolomoIT is a boutique digital marketing agency based in Melbourne and Sydney since 2004. Our clients benefit from our years of experience in Digital Marketing. Our strategies are flexible and adaptable and we make sure our clients get the right message in front of the target audience with our expert guidance and holistic approach.
Are you ready to take your business to the digital era and “Think Digital”? Give us a call on 1300 430 949 or +613 8630 2810 for a consultation and we can help you take your business to the next level