Whatever their size, sector of activity or challenges, every company today faces the question of digital transformation. For 88% of companies*, it has become an important issue. Here are five questions to ask yourself before taking the plunge…
What Is The Level Of Digital Maturity Of My Company?
As soon as the idea of the digital transformation project begins to germinate, the first step in the process is to analyze the digital maturity of your company. This essential step will give you a clearer idea of its place and importance in your business. It will also allow you to see for each of your company’s departments and each team the possibility and the capacity to integrate new digital bricks and to what extent they can be.
Several tools are at your disposal to enable you to carry out this audit. First, you can set up a survey for all or just some of your employees. You will thus collect their opinions, obstacles and needs regarding digitalization. This survey is also an excellent way to initiate a discussion with your employees about your digital transformation project. Be aware that online tools exist to help companies self-assess their digital maturity. You can rely on digital diag, developed by Medef, which allows you to analyze your existing system quickly.
What Are The Key Objectives Of The Project?
Once the first analysis has been carried out, you can consider that you have “cleared” the ground to make way for your project. Now comes the question of your business needs and goals :
- Improved productivity,
- Increase in turnover,
- New sales channels,
- Improvement of the internal process,
It should be noted that digital transformation can be undergone or chosen:
- “Subied” if the company is faced with new challenges and must adapt to market developments so as not to be competitive,
- “Chosen” when the company is aware of the positive impact of digital technology and wants to get ahead to stay at the forefront of innovation.
The company’s digital transformation will only necessarily concern some of its entities. By meeting the objectives set, you will have better visibility and know for whom to deploy it. Remember that it only makes sense if it meets your key goals while bringing value to the company, its employees, customers, and partners. To guide you throughout this project, setting up a roadmap will give you a clear strategic vision to prioritize the tasks and the objectives to be defined as a priority, in particular, according to their gains and impacts.
What Are The Expectations Of My Employees?
Once your objectives have been defined, the next step will be to confront them with the reality of your different teams and discuss their expectations with them: their needs, how the digitization of specific processes could improve their way of working, etc. Note that some teams may not have expectations of this project and feel that they do not need this transformation.
We must consider this feedback to rethink and adapt the project to these teams. Do not hesitate to give them and show concrete examples of what digitalization could bring them in their daily lives because, often caught up in the operation, it isn’t easy to take enough steps back. The objective of this stage is also to bring the employee into the process of reflection and design of the project so that he can appropriate it to be a fundamental driver of change.
Who Are The Actors Of This Transformation? What Are Their Roles?
Internal Actors
Contrary to one might think, the DSI is one of many to manage this project. Of course, it plays a central role in defining, developing and implementing the technologies and systems enabling the company to deploy its strategy. Some employees will have critical roles in this project: it will then be necessary to identify ambassadors in the teams concerned. These ambassadors will be able to describe their needs and define their priorities, follow the stages of the project, move it forward and finally communicate the changes to come.
The general management of the company, the marketing department and the administrative and financial departments, among others, have the crucial role of raising awareness and motivating employees on this significant project. Everyone must learn to collaborate in an interactive and transdisciplinary way. Finally, the Human Resources Department also has an essential role: promoting a real cultural revolution so that employees relearn how to collaborate and share information.
External Actors
One of the challenges of digital transformation is facilitating corporate communication for greater efficiency. In this regard, several players are now offering innovative collaboration solutions for companies. Choosing a partner who is both an integrator and operator means benefiting from their 360-degree vision to guarantee the integration of a communications solution with the IS and business applications. The latter must provide technical and social expertise; that is to say, he must be able to offer a service and comprehensive support and be a single point of contact for the customer.
How To Create Internal Support And Support Change?
As mentioned above, Human Resources must position themselves as actors and drivers of your digital transformation, the aim being to support employees and introduce them to new behaviors. In some cases, actors may find no interest or feel uncomfortable with digital tools and therefore wish to avoid getting involved and changing the working methods that have been theirs until now. These significant obstacles, because they concern the end users, must be identified and countered with support or advice to avoid the risk of failure of your project.
We repeat that this support for change is essential for the project to succeed. For this, it is necessary to identify the different profiles of your employees and adapt to them by offering training or exceptional support for the most reluctant. Recognize the most interested users to make them critical people in the project, ambassadors who will be driving forces for the company and who will be able to deliver the positive messages of this change.
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