10 critical questions (and their answers) that CIOs must ask before undertaking a digital transformation journey

The need for digital transformation stems from the fact that technology is permeating all aspects of business and customer expectations are increasing. The marketplace is so insanely hyper-competitive that CIOs are compelled to plan an investment in the digital landscape. There are a whole lot of questions related to digital transformation. You can empower the future of your business if you embrace new practices and solutions, and most importantly, the digital ideas and work towards changing the company culture.

Image Source: https://image.freepik.com/free-vector/press-on_46706-275.jpg

There are 10 critical digital transformation questions that you must consider, as a CIO or someone in the leadership, before starting on a digital transformation journey.

1. Do you understand digital transformation?

2. What is the common barrier in the digital transformation journey?

3. Are you aware of the advantages that digital transformation can bring to the table?

4. Organization culture plays the most important role in digital transformation. What kind of organizational culture is needed for a successful digital transformation?

5. Where should businesses start their digital transformation journey?

6. What is the role of leadership in the digital initiative?

7. How does Digital Transformation impact all business units?

8. What are the business challenges that digital transformation can eliminate?

9. What about data security?

10. What is the best advice for a company seeking digital transformation services?

And here are the answers.

1. Do you understand digital transformation?

Digital Transformation is being able to leverage emerging technologies in unique and improved ways to grow the business.

2. What is the common barrier in the digital transformation journey?

Most of the digital transformation efforts fail as people are not willing to take ownership or take a lead on the initiative. The failure is often blamed on people or process, while it is primarily a lack of strategic direction that can be followed up with a roadmap.

3. Are you aware of the advantages that digital transformation can bring to the table?

Cloud, services as an automation, IoT, XaaS and other next gen technologies are all realities that we must understand and adopt to be geared up for the future. The use of these technologies will help in (1) increasing productivity, (2) reduced time to market (3) improved agility and (4) preparedness for newer market or market conditions.

4. Organization culture plays the most important role in digital transformation. What kind of organizational culture is needed for a successful digital transformation?

The leadership must be outward facing for the real benefit and impact from digital technologies. Organizations must be committed towards a culture of innovation and open to new ideas from employees. The work environment must be conducive for employees to come forth and contribute new ideas.

5. Where should businesses start their digital transformation journey?

The needs of every business are unique; therefore, priority must be set. The economic value of digital technologies is its ability to optimize resources. One of the top most priorities for organizations is to connect internal resources across different channels. They want to create compelling customer experiences with the help of enriched product/service knowledge and customer knowledge.

There are other organizations that wish to focus more on improving business operations. It is believed that true digital transformation is achieved if employee engagement, external engagements, business operations and products/platforms/networks can all be interconnected to deliver maximum value.

6. What is the role of leadership in the digital initiative?

Most of the organizations who have successful digital transformation journeys have an active involvement from C-executives. They can help set the expectations from the initiative, identify digital threats and opportunities, work with their customers directly, set an integrated vision, present the plan to key stakeholders, and how can innovation be ramped up.

7. How does Digital Transformation impact all business units?

Digital Transformation enables a wholistic view of all business units. All the department or business units like accounts, sales, marketing, operations, etc. are inter-dependent and can work in tandem to reach new levels of efficiencies if there is complete and full support to the IT department.

8. What are the business challenges that digital transformation can eliminate?

It addresses some grave organizational issues like quality of service, resource availability and improved efficiencies. Automation reduces the burden of both the IT department and all other business units.

9. What about data security?

As we open our services and make them more available, data security becomes a concern. Use next gen security tools and platforms to make the digital transformation seamless, smooth and most importantly secure.

10. What is the best advice for a company seeking digital transformation services?

Always find the answer to why -so why digital transformation? You need to be agile and have a clear end goal in mind with a clear direction on how to achieve the goal.

We tried to encapsulate the primary digital transformation hiccups in a short and crisp answers above. If you wish to discuss anything in detail, we will be happy to answer your questions on digital transformation and help you embark on a journey into the future.