Culture is the real driver of digital transformation

When it comes to digital transformation, there isn’t any specific methodology or plan to follow along for every company. The tools we use and our general approach depends on each company and team, as there are certain needs that will change from one organization to another.

We’ve talked about this with some of our clients because most of the time when they reach us to develop a new platform or tool, they already have some ideas on how to develop the digital transformation. But there are some considerations to have in mind before actually getting into the implementation.

I, as a strategy consultant, and at Axiacore, we believe people are the true drivers of technology. This is why when planning a digital transformation strategy it’s important to let everyone involved know that they are a crucial part of the process and their input needs to define the strategy itself. By people, we refer to any user of the tool, mostly employees and customers.

Harvard Business Review wrote an article on this that we found interesting since they go over some of the most important points of our strategy service process. Here are the five lessons of digital transformation in the article:

1. Figure out your business strategy before you invest in anything: Strategize before defining the tools. Your business objectives are key to identify which combination of tools will be the most suitable one.

2. Leverage insiders: The people within your organization knows best on which processes could be digitized and will provide valuable insight on how to implement the digital transformation.

3. Design customer experience from the outside in: When creating a strategy where the customer is going to be one of the platform users, they are the ones that will tell us how we’re going to implement the strategy. Don’t assume what your customer needs, ask them.

4. Recognize employees’ fear of being replaced: Voluntarily or involuntarily, your employees will reject a solution that leaves them out of the picture. Recognizing this fear and letting them know that as the implementation goes, they will be able to improve on other tasks necessary is going to strenghthen your digital transformation.

5. Bring Silicon Valley start-up culture inside: Silicon Valley start-ups are known for their agile decision making, rapid prototyping and flat structures, make this your culture.