January
22,
2019
With great tech comes great responsibility…or something like that. If your business isn’t talking about some type of technology change within the next year or so, it’s coming. The presence of the global population online continues to increase year-over-year. 5G is coming, making your smartphone faster and decreasing annoying buffering times (yay!). “Digital transformations” are happening everywhere from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to Walmart.
New technology is one-size-fits-all, right? Not exactly. Before an organization selects a new tool, it must first determine that the solution is necessary to its business. Let’s say a competitor is using a new shift bid app – does that mean it will work well for your employees? Maybe. Not all tech is the right tech. We consider these three factors to determine the best tool for digital transformation: risk, time, and money. First identify your organization’s needs. Next, consider a tool to meet those needs, then make your case for the solution using our recipe.
Great! The case has been made and approved by the powers that be. New technology is on the way. Your people will easily accept and love the change. Not so fast. Like most change initiatives, any form of digital transformation is in danger of failure. In fact, a Harvard Business Review survey of 400 executives found that only 50% said they’re successfully completing digital transformation projects. With change comes fear and with fear comes resistance. In our experience, there are three common reasons why employees don’t want new technology. Like the rest us, your employees are anchored in the past; if new technology failed before, they definitely remember that negative experience. Strong change management is not a nice-to-have, it’s necessary for your transformation to succeed.
Once you set a strong change management foundation, it’s time to consider training. No matter how intuitive you think it is, learning new technology takes practice, and employees need a safe space for that. Most new tech can be taught in a training environment or system simulation. Use this chart to help you figure out which solution is best for your organization.
The cake has been baked and it’s time to go live. It is critical to keep stakeholders informed as the migration draws near. You need to prepare your users for the changes to come with a series of communication pieces. We’ve put together this time table to inspire your go-live approach.
Last year global businesses spent over $1 trillion on transformation technologies. Digital transformation isn’t going away, and it’s a hefty investment. When it’s time for your organization to make a technology change, don’t be one of the businesses that misses its target.
