Digital Adoption: A vital step in business transformation to achieve higher for your business

Over the course of the last decade, Digital could safely be regarded as the single reason for much of the change that has happened so extensively in our world, in business and society alike. The impact and change caused is unprecedented in how we learn, develop, express ourselves and respond, who and what we prefer and value, and whether we perceive and feel similarly or differently with others for all kind of aspects about our material and immaterial world.

In the business world, business response is not even. Unsurprisingly, some industries such as Financial Services, Retail, Media and Telecommunications are more susceptible to Digital innovation. Their incumbents have made great strides in developing strong Digital focus, in response to customer and market trends and industry dynamics, as well as, confidence in their ability to disrupt their own business models and harness technology to leverage their decision making power, availability of resources and agility and effectiveness of execution. Other industries such as Government and Education are trailing in advancing towards Digital adoption on reflection of a slower pace of implementation of emerging Digital technologies across the range and ability to transform them to business capability that delivers competitive advantage. With popularity of Digital technologies and Digital adoption rate varying among businesses and across industries, innovators and the earliest adopters of many of emerging technologies are the biggest beneficiaries of the differentiating business rewards cultivated from these technologies that either they create or are quick to develop respectively.

The importance of executive ownership or sponsorship in businesses for leading Business Transformation is greater than ever before. This ensures dedicated time and resources that fall within the strategic agenda and objectives of their organisation, communicated clearly amongst senior leadership teams and all key stakeholders within the business, as well as, its shareholders and investors. Digital adoption being a vital step in succeeding Business Transformation today makes Digital leadership as important in concert to drive forward change in an organisation and see it through, while extending talent and expertise related to Digital along the way can increase Digital adoption to new highs for a business providing the required Digital knowledge and skills among its employees coupled with confidence in the use of Digital technology and tools. For many businesses, this has meant reinventing their workplace and redefining the composition of their workforce. For businesses that lead transformational change through Digital how their workforce will evolve cannot be fully determined as innovation continues and digitisation of their business spreads further making existing roles obsolete, while emerging new roles require expertise in new skills and a greater level of competence in them.

Achieving high Digital adoption is transformational for every organisation considering the broad range of business areas that take part and are impacted and the array of quintessential business outcomes that it can create. For example, business areas for the research, design, development, marketing, sale and management of products and services, the build and optimisation of processes and operations, the delivery of Digital customer experience, the communication, collaboration and mobility of the workforce, the structure and governance of the business and the conduct of business. Every key stakeholder of the business normally as a minimum is impacted, enhancing the value of Digital to business, leveraging business outcomes across the range of stakeholder engagements and delivering a gradually improved dividend in the form of superior digital experience to providers/suppliers, customers and employees alike. Organisations that choose to expand their ecosystem towards businesses with Digital orientation and focus on Digital innovation and forming partnerships with them can gain access to new Digital technologies, talent and capabilities. A strategic path with potential to unfold compelling new business opportunities for business leaders that decide in favor to explore and pursue.

The full effect that Digital adoption has on the success of businesses depends on the depth and range of transformational change achieved across its parts. Whether, in the beginning, spreading thin across many areas with focus on few Digital technologies or pivoting one area with multiple Digital technologies and, then, scaling impact, it is organisation-wide transformational change with adoption of a broad range of Digital technologies that mostly is deemed successful. For that, a clear Digital vision, a strategy unique to Digital and central to their business strategy and adjacent requisite capabilities in place can boost Digital innovation and adoption for organisations and maximise Digital impact on their business success. Along the way, their approach to change will need to be highly effective and broad enough to succeed business transformation for their organisations.

Large organisations that are subjected to different regulatory environments and standards usually due to their global presence in multiple geographies and locations and multiple business lines have a different level of complexity to deal with. However, for every business the underlying factors for the successful completion of Digital transformation must clearly be having adequate investment, achieving true alignment to bigger picture requirements and long-term strategic objectives of their organisations and accurate contingency planning coupled with proper prioritisation along the way that ensures sustainable progress end-to-end.

Whether as an innovator for fulfilling your purpose, or for an organisation to develop the means to new strategic ends such as global enablement and internationalisation or safeguard footing in an increasing highly connected world in the markets you operate within, further innovating through and adopting Digital proves to be the cornerstone for many businesses in their success. The pace of innovation due to Digital technologies has increased in recent years and, expectedly, acceleration of Digital adoption in many organisations has intensified. Most importantly, transformational change related to Digital in organisations is no longer limited to the development of technology capabilities, but people, culture and Digitally-oriented business models are at the epicentre of what underpins business success and drives successful execution that also determine the great lengths of Digital Transformation organisations undergo and the level of Digital adoption they reach.

Social norms and trends undoubtedly have greatly reinforced the pace of Digital innovation, with change to the business world as a result of Digital adoption being of remarkable magnitude as seen across most businesses and industries, and the ecosystems and economies that they fall within. Businesses have responded swiftly and decisively to innovation from Digital with many undertaking transformational change through Digital in the last years and among great business rewards developing potential to achieve higher. Where Digital adoption starts and ends for greatly enhancing business success is always a right question to raise since the inception of Digital, however the answer today is unambiguous from business leaders and points to clear business rewards and great upside in the future success of their organisations.

To learn about our consulting services related to Digital or discuss how we can help your business, you can contact us by sending a message through Contact Us or directly using the contact details below.