To the modern-day business, it can feel as if the IT industry introduces an all-new technical agenda every month. As business IT consultants, we sympathise: not least in the whirlwind that was the last two years, and its revision of the modern workplace.
As such, you’d be forgiven for shuddering at 2022’s most recurring technical phrase: ‘Digital Transformation’. As if businesses hadn’t adapted enough recently, could all this talk of technical renovations be any more ill-judged?
Not necessarily. If anything, you’re more equipped now than ever to tackle your digital transformation challenges. But what are they?
What are the largest barriers to digital transformation?
Arguably the biggest barrier to digital transformation for many companies is strategy. Many businesses fail to see the value in fully embracing digital transformation and thus don’t manage to properly strategise how to best approach transformation. Employees and managers alike get used to existing workflows and systems, so their assessment of the value of transformation can easily be skewed. This affects businesses because outdated systems are not only more easily compromised, but they also tend to be less cost-effective than the alternative.
Which brings us to our next barrier: costs. Many businesses expect digital transformation to be costly, and they are unwilling to allot parts of their valuable budget to introducing new systems and software when the existing ones seem to work fine. However, they fail to realise that digital transformation is more cost-effective in the long term, and that it is not as big an expense as many believe.
Below we have listed the 4 main challenges of digital transformation and explain why you're likely already further into the implementation process as you’d think.
What are the 4 key challenges of digital transformation?
Challenge 1: Laying the Groundwork
Good news! Having introduced your data to the Cloud, set up your users for remote working and moved so many of your solutions off-premises, there’s little you haven’t done already to accommodate your Digital Transformation. Thanks (or perhaps, no thanks!) to the events of the last two years, you’ve likely conducted a full technical inventory in the past 12 months, too.
Incorporating these revolutionary new technologies was your first step towards a major Digital Transformation; and while those changes were born of necessity, your next few will be based entirely on your wider business goals.
Challenge 2: Not extracting the full potential of cloud computing
For many businesses, the Cloud is a simple and streamlined way to manage company data. But with so much of your data now residing in that Cloud, there’s no better time to explore the incredible depth of its available services.
Take Cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure, or Amazon Web Services. These revolutionary new services can virtualise physical solutions such as networks, servers and even desktop devices, delivering them entirely over the Cloud. By being virtual, they’re also entirely flexible, meaning you pay only for the services you use, scale them instantly to the scope of your business and aren’t ever left to tackle the challenges of surplus technologies.
Challenge 3: Change management
It can be difficult to implement change, but it can be even harder to endear your workers to it. Thankfully, this past year has seen one of the modern workplace’s biggest overhauls welcomed by thousands of users worldwide. Remote working has proven consistently popular among its users and is likely to become a modern workplace standard.
Admittedly, a Digital Transformation strategy is about so much more than just implementing remote working. But seeing billions of users adapt to off-prem solutions, Cloud-enabled technologies and all-new approaches to work is encouraging. If your Digital Transformation seeks to embrace Cloud technologies, streamline solutions and introduce all-new ways of working, it appears the modern worker will be more than receptive.
Challenge 4: Thinking you need to start big
You likely foresee your Digital Transformation on an industry-wide scale; but that doesn’t mean it has to be done in one fell swoop. As we mentioned earlier, your Cloud services and storage are entirely flexible, and it’s often advisable to make changes or migrations in small, iterative steps.
But most importantly of all; don’t overlook your opportunities for quick-wins. It’s easy, in the grand scale of your digital transformation, to overlook smaller improvements, but these are some of your most crucial successes. Multiple, smaller victories allow you to test the waters of your transformation, demonstrate progress to your users and shareholders, and perform fact-finding on larger-scale equivalents. They’re perhaps your most vital ingredient to evolution.
Ready to Start?
Almost every major project starts with a strategy, but with so many Cloud options to choose from, it can be hard to find the perfect one for you. You can either tackle implementation by yourself, or you could opt to minimise your digital transformation risks by partnering with a digital transformation service provider.
At Intergence, we provide collaborative consultative services for businesses, providing solutions based not only on your technology, but your bigger business aspirations. We help you mitigate the risks of transformation and ensure a smooth implementation. If you’re ready to talk transformation, we’re ready to make it happen.
