It is estimated that 89% of businesses have implemented or plan to implement a digital strategy.
It is the IT department’s responsibility to make these strategies a success, and it is the IT department that carries out most of the work.
Digital transformation in IT has many moving parts; it is vital to manage them efficiently to ensure that things move smoothly. It would be best if you had a robust digital transformation strategy to work through all those puzzle pieces. But what does that mean?
The purpose of this post is to define a digital transformation strategy and to provide five tips on creating a successful one.
What Is a Digital Transformation Strategy?
Technology plays a critical role in today’s economy, and correctly using it is essential if you want to stay competitive. You may need to upgrade a specific technology to remain competitive, or you may need to undergo a more comprehensive digital transformation.
From an IT perspective, a digital transformation is about improving security and efficiency by updating and integrating your technology. For this to happen smoothly, you will need a well-defined plan.
To achieve your goals, you should have a comprehensive strategy that outlines how you plan to achieve them.
1. Analyze the current state of your systems
To update and transform how your business uses technology, you need to know where you start. Where can you improve? Are there any areas of improvement? Is it device security? Is it company hardware and software? Can it be cloud computing? How could new technology make these systems more efficient? Would it be a project management tool? Can it integrate with JIRA?
Several companies have recently experienced an increase in remote workers, and you should know whether you have the technology necessary to support them. Virtual desktops may be essential to ensure employees can access all the required software and files and implement any necessary security measures.
Adding new software that doesn’t work with the existing software can be an IT nightmare. Make sure new technologies can easily integrate with your current systems.
2. Decide what your success metrics should be and set them.
Setting clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential when making any plan, especially one that involves expensive investments. Establishing KPIs can guide your transformation, ensure that all changes align with your business’s overarching goals, and supply a strong return on investment (ROI).
You should focus on improving the company’s productivity when setting your transformation goals, not just adding new technology. One of the essential things to remember when placing your transformation goals is why you are making changes.
During step two, you will have to look at your current systems. Refer to the problem statements you have set for yourself, such as moving to cloud computing, improving cybersecurity, etc. Now that you know the challenge, you can set goals for your transformation. For instance, reducing ransomware attacks, improving file sharing and security, etc.
You can decide what KPIs to use to measure the success of the transformation once you’ve decided what your goals are. Suppose you have experienced a ransomware attack or a successful ‘smishing’ attempt. These benchmarks determine how well the transformation is going and how far away you might be from seeing an ROI. It is possible, in this case, to quantify the challenge and say you will save the company approximately X dollars per year by reducing those events by X percent.
3. Conduct a cybersecurity assessment
As mentioned above, increasing technology use increases the risk of data breaches and cyberattacks. The number of companies affected by ransomware attacks is staggering, and your company needs to be prepared to be protected if it ever encounters one. A lack of basic security measures and employee training in most cases could have prevented the attack from succeeding. Mitigate these risks within your strategy by integrating a mitigation plan.
There are many factors to consider here, including solid vendor management policies. More technology often means more vendors and software involved. You must have clear, consistent standards to keep new vendors and software partners vetted and assessed for their risk.
Additionally, as more and more employees return to the office, the company network will be connected to a more significant number of devices. How will you secure the network? You may desire to implement the following security measures:
- Security awareness education for employees.
- Software updates should be performed on all systems.
- A multi-factor authentication protocol should be added.
- Restriction of network usage by employees.
Security concerns and vulnerabilities are also unique to work-from-home situations. Because employees are unaware of essential cyber awareness and procedures, smishing and other hacker protocols are becoming more common and successful. It’s crucial to remind them repeatedly that the CEO would never text them to ask for gift cards.
4. Timeline for implementing the changes
During significant transitions like these, confusion is the easy result that stalls or derails the process. It’s crucial to develop a clear timeline of events that keeps everyone on the same page and moving forward.
You must consider a timeline if you plan to update hardware as part of your digital transformation. If employees work from home, you don’t want them to show up to work without the necessary equipment because it was removed before it arrived or because the new equipment will take a few days to install (or ship to their home).
By providing a timeline, the company will be able to mitigate expectations from other members of the organization who may not understand how long such a transition can take.
5. Be communicative at all times!
There will likely be challenges along the way during a digital transformation because these are large-scale operations. Good leaders should constantly communicate with the rest of the company to stay on top of their actions.
Keep employees informed about changes and how they will be implemented (and, if necessary, provide training). Learning to work on new hardware or software can be overwhelming, and not knowing when or if other things will change can worsen it.
The best practices of new software will need to be effectively communicated since everyone will need to learn them. You will likely receive a flood of help desk tickets asking how to use the new technology if you do not find a way to communicate that.
Invest with confidence in your digital transformation!
Developing an effective digital transformation strategy can help you begin one with confidence, even though it is not an easy task. This guide should help you create a digital transformation strategy for your business that will boost efficiency and improve security as well as improve efficiency.