For many organizations the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation. As we all know far too well by now, stay at home orders forced many businesses, schools and other institutions to shut down face-to-face operations between 2020 and 2021. People have had to adapt to a new way of working. If Zoom’s revenue spike during the pandemic was anything to go by, digital systems including video conferencing services became commonplace for many organizations who had never relied on them before.

During this time, for many decision makers, choosing to adapt and digitize was the difference between remaining operational and closing down doors. It was an intensive time of digital Darwinism; adapt or die. Now that the worst of the pandemic is seemingly behind us and operations have returned back to quasi-normal, do we need to remain digital?

In a world that is increasingly virtual, digital transformation is no longer a sign of getting ahead of the curb. To match the evolving demands of consumers, employees and service users,  digitization is a means of sustaining and futureproofing operations.

For businesses, for instance, digitizing the customer experience is increasingly essential for meeting customer expectations. As customers become increasingly digitally savvy, their expectations around business digitization continue to rise. A study conducted by Appnovation found that 89% of millennials expect businesses to adopt digital technologies to shape their customer experience, no matter what type of business they’re dealing with.

So what exactly is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is a process of integrating digital technologies into every facet of an organization in order to meet objectives more effectively or efficiently. Usually tied to high level organizational goals, a digital transformation strategy might be put into place to save money, to streamline internal processes, drive efficiencies, improve the customer experience or increase overall organizational effectiveness.

Which industries are ripe for digitization?

Law, education, architecture, engineering and construction are just a few fields that can benefit from adopting a digital transformation strategy to help meet organizational needs.

Automation and digitization of offerings, processes and supply chains can help organizations to increase agility and resilience to better meet the evolving demands of customers, clients, beneficiaries or stakeholders.

What are some tips for rolling out a successful digital transformation strategy?

1. Align your digital transformation strategy with your organizational mission
   
   This is an important one. Deriving your digital transformation strategy from your high level organizational mission or objective means that when met, the goals of your digital transformation strategy will directly meet your overarching goals. Afterall, this is what digital transformation is all about; more effectively and efficiently meeting your objectives.
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2. Communicate the operational benefits of your strategy to all stakeholders
   
   How will digitization benefit staff? How will it increase revenue? How will it meet the overarching goals of your organization? Effectively demonstrating the benefits of your strategy will help you to get buy-in early on from every stakeholder and segment of your business or organization. This buy-in can help to minimize hurdles so that you can efficiently and seamlessly roll out your strategy.
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3. Keep it simple
   
   Overcomplicated systems and processes can impede on operational effectiveness if they mean that employees will struggle to learn and adapt, or understand the benefit of digitization. Keep digital systems and processes centralized to help with oversight and ease of adoption.
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4. Incorporate the right training
   
   Offering the right coaching and training is necessary when transitioning a lot of people to new systems and technologies. Working with digital technologies that can provide support for employees, customers or service users is a great starting point.
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5. Embed new processes into your organizational culture
   
   Whether it’s employees, students, clients or contractors, getting all parties to adapt to new digital technologies and operations can be the difference between a successful digital transformation strategy and one that fails to deliver. Embedding new digital processes into your organizational culture can ensure that new employees, members or service users can get up to speed quickly and effectively.
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6. Be future focused
   
   Looking at any new digital process or technology through the lens of your organization in 5 or 10 years from now is a great place to start. This might mean avoiding technologies that are likely to be superseded by emerging technology in the not-so-distant future as well as adopting environmentally sustainable solutions. While no-one can predict the future, you can help to safeguard against failure by avoiding processes and technologies that are high cost, high risk solutions.

Drawboard helps businesses to digitize processes to become more collaborative and to work better, without paper. Want help with your digital transformation strategy and with going paperless? Talk to someone from our team today.

Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams.

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