You know what they say about a watched pot. Have you ever been a part of a project or initiative and thought to yourself: I keep getting told that we are making progress, but I just don’t see it? Digital progress, especially in relation to technology adoption, is sometimes hard to see if you don’t know what you’re looking for. And if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you may be identifying technology changes as digital transformation when it isn’t true transformation. Here are some ways to recognize digital transformation progress.
Repeatable Processes
As in any endeavor that includes measuring progress, digital transformation can be found in the ability of processes to be repeated and achieve the same, or similar, end results. But what does that look like?
The Enterprisers Project talks about the importance of having repeatable processes in your digital transformation journey:
“At a high level,” says Mark Sami, director of technology at West Monroe, “these include defining goals; identifying gaps between the current state and those goals; KPIs [key performance indicators] to measure success; cross-functional pilot teams and processes; enterprise change management; agile training; modern architecture and infrastructure; and ongoing learning, iteration, and scaling what works.”
New Innovative Solutions and Processes Are Emerging
Another hallmark of digital transformation progress is the emergence of innovative solutions. If your teams can use the new technology they’ve been given to speed up productivity, increase efficiency, or reduce errors, you know you are on the road to transformation.
As transformation takes hold, it will be easier and easier to spot the new and creative solutions that start outpacing the original purpose of the technology. Processes will become more streamlined, as well.
Shared Ownership of the Work
Teaching someone to fully adopt and utilize a new technology is a difficult, but worthwhile, task to undertake. If you are on the road to achieving digital transformation, you’ll start to notice your colleagues and employees start to take ownership in their part of the process.
The technology will gradually be considered less and less a product of the IT department and whatever goals and initiatives they’re chasing. It will then be more about how each department or team is taking that technology and shaping it to suit their specific needs.
Happy Clients, Customers, and Employees
Tracking employee and customer satisfaction scores is a great way to visualize progress in your digital transformation journey. Improved satisfaction, heightened engagement, a growing customer base – these are all indicators that your new technologies are having their intended effect.
It’s good to note, however, that these scores may not all rise at the same time – that depends on the goals and implications of the digital transformation. Ideally, all scores should slightly improve, it’s difficult to expect a huge surge in customer satisfaction or sales if your digital transformation was more focused on creating a better and more dynamic product inventory system, for example.
Digital Transformation Starts with Full Technology Adoption
Meet Me In The Cloud wants to help you achieve faster ROI on your technology investment through our technology adoption services. We do that by using our proven methodology coupled with your desired business outcomes to make sure adoption is fully realized in just 60 days.
Contact us today with any questions.