More than ever, digital technology is an important aspect for any business, especially small businesses. The problem, however, arises in the transformation process. Without a well-planned strategy, the whole process could be expensive and useless.
As you plan a digital transformation for your small business, here are 3 key tips to keep in mind to ensure your implementation is successful:
Optimize The Key Processes
This is one of the most important keys to a successful digital transformation. Whether you are choosing a CRM or an ERP system, optimizing the key processes ensures you reduce business risks while maximizing your returns on investment.
First things first, map out your company’s process. Companies have different functions, and this will help you choose the best and most important system for your organization. While doing this, do not rely just on the theoretical bit of your organization’s operations.
Keep in mind that there are employees involved in the process, too, and take the time to understand their role in the whole process. This entire exercise aims to help you identify what counts as waste and issues that need your addressing. With this, you will have an easier time reviewing your business’s technology, usage of data, and what’s missing to make the company more productive.
However, not every process in your organization will need optimization for successful digital transformation. Some functions might be good as they are, and these should remain as they are. Your key focus should be on processes in critical need of digital transformation; that is, processes that create the most customer value and are more visible.
What’s the importance of optimization of the key processes? For starters, you can resolve many issues that might be derailing your company’s progress, like delays, inefficient practices, and high customer complaints. Some of the solutions you can implement to optimize these processes include:
- Automating some tasks
- Map out processes and eliminate steps that add no value to the process and business
- Have clear roles and duties for every employee, allowing each of your employees to understand their responsibilities to the business
- Have an open working environment that encourages collaboration
- Have a system that tracks and measures performance
Cultural Transformations
As long as you are implementing a digital transformation, your organization’s philosophy will change. For this to succeed, you must involve all your employees in the transformation process.
You can use many strategies to go about this, but the Kaizen Strategy is one of the best to implement for an excellent cultural transformation. Kaizen is a Japanese word that stands for “continuous improvement,” which translates to a structured method of improving systems, services, and products continuously.
How do you go about it? You have to create a multidisciplinary team of employees who are part of the process, both directly and indirectly. The team will identify and resolve wasteful sources in the business to make gradual but fast changes that optimize the processes and support these practices with digital solutions.
Integration of Information
Digital transformation leads to increased data collection and usage to ensure both employees and the management make a quick and well-informed decision. However, there needs to be a central location for all the information.
This way, every department can access whatever information it needs because departments may operate separately at the end of the way. Still, they need to run together for the success of the business.
In short, integrating your systems is a key consideration for the success of the digital transformation. The linkage of systems within the company reduces time wastage and errors within the operations.
While integration offers quite the benefit, you also need to think about the usage of the data. Ensure every individual has access to the necessary information to decentralize the making of decisions. Still, you need to protect confidential information.
