A 6-Step Framework to Implement Digital Business Transformation

Imagine a situation wherein your market vanishes overnight and customers don’t buy from you. Isn’t that a scary proposition? However, the solution to such an instance lies at the beginning of your business’ digital transformation. Though most businesses are aware of this, they lag behind when it comes to actually triggering the lever and investing in digital growth strategies. This could be due to internal hurdles (such as the intimidation associated with getting started and maintaining momentum), technical hurdles (falling short of digital skills, cybersecurity, selecting the right tech partner) or a blend of both.

These hurdles are not insurmountable. The secret to a successful implementation of digital transformation lies in a proper framework. Here’s a 6-step framework that can help your business wade through the digital marketing industry growth.

Redefine Your Existing Business Process

Start your digital transformation by establishing a new business process. This could be anything as simple as the optimization of the customer feedback method or something more comprehensive like revamping the entire operations. It is not easy to modify a time-tested process, but if you want your business to undergo a digital transformation, this change is inevitable and you need to be prepared to take some risks. Analyze the internal business data and the markets to hit upon processes with scope for optimization.

Identify Digital Technologies That Suit Your Business Goals

When you start, you are likely to come across a plethora of advanced technologies seeing widespread adoption and rapid growth, but that does not mean you need to implement all of them. Don’t get intimidated with the vast amount of accessible technologies and make an effort to implement all of these in your new business process. Choose the right technologies depending on the process you want to optimize. Identify the key technologies that suit your business goals and implement those effectively.

Identify the Paradigm of Innovation

When you take the initial steps ahead in digital transformation, you might not decipher the ideal fit right on the first attempt. Even if you happen to, you will need a technique to implement the new innovations effortlessly in future. For this, your business has to shift from the conventional managerial hierarchy and increase engagement with employees of all grades, be it high or low. You will also need to redefine the company culture so as to create a dynamic environment where changes and opinions are embraced instead of being suppressed. 

Build an Efficient Team

If you are on the road to implementing innovative digital technologies, the importance of dynamic and skilled team members cannot be stressed enough. Skilled digital marketing professionals are the ones who can transform all your concepts into actionable plans. From building a website to hosting it and optimizing it for search engines and analyzing the results, experts can handle it all. They will have a good expertise in using various tools like domain name search tool, web analytics tools, keyword research tools, and more, which can make things much easier for your business’ digital growth.

As an alternate, you can consider outsourcing the enablement task to third parties skilled in the respective domain. You can benefit through this approach as you can save on the recruitment as well as training expenditures. Further, you can also shift from one strategy to the other. Even in this case, you will require an inhouse team for communicating the revisions and implementing them in your business. Hire new employees depending on your existing team’s abilities.

Sketch a Roadmap

Now, it’s time to sketch the roadmap for execution. Implement everything in different stages. Begin by testing your propositions on a small scale before diving in big. This is even more important for startups that want to drive digital growth through an efficient roadmap. Each stage should end with an achievement that shows a reduction in the risk of execution. Finalizing the vendors and getting approval from the top management are some instances of such milestones.

Decipher Your Key Performance Indicators

Assess the effectiveness of your digital growth strategies. For this, you will have to establish some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This can illustrate your plan’s effectiveness and also guide you through decision-making in future. Have smart objectives with a deadline and achievable figures. This can help in guiding and optimizing the whole process of execution to ensure that the team doesn’t lose.

The only way to drive positive results through digital transformation is with a well-devised strategy. By following the above framework, you can develop an efficient strategy to increase business efficiency, enhance customer experience, and scale your business to greater heights. In the process, stay updated with the latest advancements and revise your strategies based on the market and results.

Disclaimer: The views, suggestions and opinions expressed here are the sole responsibility of the experts. No Forbes India journalist was involved in the writing and production of this article.