What challenges do companies face when implementing digital transformation?

Digital Transformation (DX) is just a new "buzzword" for Change Management. I was practicing DX over 20 years ago. Most organisations think with a "digital mindset" and believe it is technology that is the most important when actually it's their people. Think about it! Who is going to adopt and use the technology that is being implemented other than the people yet they are often the last in line to be made aware or trained in it. Technology is so far advanced it rarely goes wrong but as for people 90% of their brain still thinks it's on the savannah so they need to be nurtured and hand-held to be able to make the technology do what it's supposed to do which is to make their work more efficient. People first, process next, then technology.

In my experience, a collective vision and strategy for digital transformation is essential. All stakeholders have to accept change, re-learn and immerse themselves in the strategic plans that lead to true digital transformation.

More often than not the speed associated to change is underestimated. A few early adopters does not mean a successful transition. It is important that one continues gathering key change data points: Are the daily users actually giving near realtime feedback? Have new champions emerged and did you include those champions in your change management processes? Is there clear communication and good level of understanding of the change beyond the core group? The litmus test is always how quickly everday users are adopting the new technology. If they don't like it because it slows down their daily workflow and adds a new layer of tasks there will be a strong undercurrent to resist resulting in a slow adoption rate.

One thing I have found helpful IT professional is to implement a comprehensive change management program at the onset of project. Identify key influencers as well as staff who are quick to vocalize their resistance to any change. Coaching and training these persons and getting them to become part of the process early, can sigificantly help in bringing the key objectives, and benefits of the impending changes in processes, porcedures, and ultimately sytesm to the rest of the staff. That "change management team" can help shift the niddle towards a culture shift and adaptation of the new technology and the changes that come with it.

For a creative approach to digital transformation, I’d cultivate an environment where continuous learning is incentivized, addressing the skills gap through immersive and gamified learning experiences. To counter resistance, I would foster an inclusive environment where collaborative co-creation of change is encouraged, making employees integral architects of transformation. I would leverage advanced AI-driven tools for real-time data quality management, turning data challenges into strategic assets. An organization-wide culture of cybersecurity mindfulness would be developed to mitigate cybersecurity risks, making every employee a vigilant guardian of organizational digital integrity.

Two common challenges often overlooked are the importance of business readiness and a clearly defined user centric adoption strategy. Most digital transformations are still approached from a very heavy IT lens without assessing the potential risks associated with implementing the change and understanding any external factors that could impact the success of the change.? Readiness assessments help you address changes with employees and ultimately their adoption levels. Is UX not at the core of your digital transformation? In an era marked by rapid digital advancement, having a robust and sustainable adoption strategy is no longer optional—it's a business imperative. It will help you maximize your technology investments with its users.

The biggest three challenges of digital transformation, what I think, are: 1. Acceptance of the change. But how better we succeed to make people understand the benefits of the digitalization and how this will change their routine operations w.r.t. process efficiency, performance and quality of the product, values or services will overcome this challenge. 2. Resources: Digitalization brings huge costs to organizations in initial phases. So providing the right and sufficient resources is another challenge. Here the management's determination plays a crucial role. 3. Technical team selection. A team with a vision, assessing the risks, process knowledge and communication throughout the project determines the overall success of the project.

Having worked with traditional sectors Vis-a-vs to Tech or banking sectors. 3 key challenges to overcome: 1. Patience... Time is an obvious issue: You need to give time to your people to upskill, train and apply their skills well. In the meantime, you need to plug the gap and bring in help for your people. 2. Plug the gap... Hiring is an underrated issue: First of all, you need to hire the right people. People who are willing to learn about your industry and help your people. People who are willing to accept the pay you are willing to give VS tech industries. 3. Ambition... Related to investment in transformation, you need to show you are willing to increase investment in people and projects (think CAGR) to match people's expectations.

In my opinion, the implementation of many digital transformations fails because the division of responsibilities is wrong from the very beginning of the project. The ideal situation is that the party that holds an information/knowledge advantage in a certain part is also responsible for that part. Far too often, it is the party that is responsible for designing the solution in terms of organization, processes and other business-related parts that also design or strongly influence large parts of the technology content, despite not always having the right technical knowledge.

Para superar estos desafíos, las empresas deben invertir en el desarrollo de talento interno a través de programas de formación continua y certificaciones. Fomentar una cultura de aprendizaje e innovación y la adopción de metodologías ágiles puede ayudar a adaptarse rápidamente a los cambios tecnológicos. La contratación estratégica de expertos en áreas críticas también puede acelerar el proceso. Las inversiones estratégicas en áreas con alto retorno, como la automatización de procesos y el análisis de datos, son esenciales. Las empresas deben modernizar su infraestructura tecnológica, y formar asociaciones con proveedores de tecnología y consultores que puedan proporcionar acceso a conocimientos especializados y recursos adicionales.

I have seen some organisations adopting 'agile' and 'iterative' lingo without true 'agile' and 'iterative' approaches. Agile and Iterative are more than 'faster ways of working' - they are a paradigm shift in determining the What, Why and How of the projects. To truly benefit from these approaches, leaders need know and trust the process, and accept outcomes and endings that aren't what they 'wrote in the paper' before the project got started. If Agile and Iterative are just lingos to 'embrace transformation' but there is no change in expectation on How and What of the projects, the team members will be further burdened by a schizophrenic project, and likely rage-quit in no time.

One way to manage complexity is to break it into smaller 'bite-sized chunks' and use an agile approach to tackle uncertainty. Experimentation and learning will occur along the way, and changes are inevitable and should be celebrated (not avoided). To do this well, the right culture, mindset, leadership and expectations must be worked on along the journey.

In my experience, this can be ensuring the CxOs and Board members understand the investment in Digital Transformation has its risks, and ROI may take a long time to be realized, Digital Transformation relies on experimentation, many initiatives may fail which will be a good learning experience, but this is the only way the company survive in the long term, also following agile practices and starting with quick wins helps to quickly change course in case initiatives are not achieving their objectives or KPIs

Culture starts right at the top. Such strategic alignments require - enlightened and emboldened leaders & change-makers to calm the sceptics (i.e. board, shareholders, or other senior leaders!) - champions to the process, - fellow believers as co-champions, and - willingness to bear the responsibility for the successes and failures. Definitely not for the faint-hearted, but I have seen such boldness in my past organisations (yes, even the traditional mega-organisations), and the transformation happened progressively and steadily :)

Strategic Alignment Another key challenge was ensuring that digital transformation aligned with our strategic goals. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of technology trends. From my experience, a crystal-clear digital strategy that directly contributes to your business objectives is crucial. We constantly evaluated how each digital initiative moved us closer to our goals, enhancing decision-making and resource allocation.

Para abordar la alineación cultural y estratégica, es fundamental que la alta dirección esté comprometida y lidere con el ejemplo. La transformación digital debe ser vista como una prioridad estratégica, con objetivos claros y alineados con la visión y misión de la empresa. Esto requiere una comunicación constante y transparente sobre los beneficios y expectativas de la transformación digital. Fomentar una cultura de innovación es clave para la transformación digital. Esto implica valorar y recompensar la experimentación y el aprendizaje de los fracasos. Crear equipos multifuncionales y fomentar la colaboración entre departamentos puede romper silos y facilitar una mayor integración y alineación estratégica.

In my experience, this works in a top down approach, with clear goals, strategic objectives which are cascaded to all departments in the organization, there should be clear incentives to employees and clear career paths, personal development plans to ensure employees have clear incitive to engage in Digital Transformation initiatives, also changes in ways of working like adopting agile methodologies, creating squads that compromise both business and technical teams, design thinking... etc.

I totally agree. Addressing security and compliance challenges demands a proactive approach. Companies must invest in advanced cybersecurity solutions, regularly update their security protocols, train employees in cybersecurity best practises, and collaborate with compliance experts to navigate the regulatory landscape effectively. Successful digital transformation requires technological advancement and a robust security and compliance framework to safeguard the company and its stakeholders.

Security and Compliance Given the nature of the financial sector, ensuring robust cybersecurity and regulatory compliance was paramount. This challenge demanded a significant portion of our attention. I found that proactively investing in cybersecurity measures, staying updated on regulatory changes, and having strong internal controls gave us the confidence to navigate this challenge successfully.

In my experience, the is a real challenge as the traditional approach is risk and compliance assessments using manual workforce will greatly slowdown the progress of digital transformation initiatives since it introduces radical changes to the existing business and technical process in an organization, the solution here is automation and AI as much as possible to ensure compliance and risk assessments processing can handle the workloads assigned to them rather than manual reviewing each change and each release, also for change analysis allocating dedicated teams can speed up the process a lot

Digital Transformation is new buzz word for Change Management. Organizations often underestimate the importance of a clear change management plan, leading to resistance and delays. At the end of the change there are people and in between is the process. If we fail in either the project will face challenges. Any change whether digital in nature or not has to keep PEOPLE (employee or customer) at the center for it to be successful.

Une combinaison de tous ces facteurs avec des degrés différents selon les situations ! Il est donc important d'en tenir compte lors de la mise en ?uvre, en particulier en ce qui concerne les compétences de l'équipe qui conduit le changement.

I think the critical aspect of any change management is that people have a clear understanding of why this is happening, what is the reason for the planned change and desired outcome of the change. Humans resist to change by nature, thus you need to get critical stakeholders onboard to become a driving force of execution. The biggest pitfall of implementing any changes is lack of understanding how it will affect current systems and processes. Since people are generally self-centred, they see only how it affects them and not a holistic view of the change. Change is inevitable, your goal is to keep the high performers aligned and retain people that are willing to adapt and grow.

Como parte de este proceso es inevitable desarrollar la comunicación como hilo conductor y diferenciador en todo este proceso. No será posible lograr ningún objetivo si no tenemos una gestión de comunicación efectiva en donde al menos se identifiquen audiencias, mensajes y efectividad de los mismos así como las estrategias necesarias para lograr el involucramiento y compromiso de los distintos equipos. ADKAR será una excelente herramienta para lograr estas metas en este campo tan importante del Change Management.

Sorry LinkedIn, but what a stupid question. Two main gripes here... 1. You don't "implement digital transformation" If anyone out there thinks you do then get in touch and I will explain why (not enough space here). 2. Digital transformation is about changing stuff so, at a fundamental level, the same aspects and challenges need to be considered and addressed as with ANY change ie... - do we know what we want to do (think outcomes) and is there a genuinely valid reason for doing it? - do we understand the impact on all aspects of the organisation (structure, people, customers, processes, data, tech etc)? - are the right people engaged and involved? - do we really know what we're doing, are the right skills and expertise available?

Digital Transformation is the outcome of a series of activities where the focus is not on digitisation and digitalisation, as contradictory to popular believes. Focus on streamlining the process, removing waste, improving the process, agreed on matrices, etc. all the fundamental activities that are non-technology focus before getting support from technology. If you have “wasteful process” technology will add load onto that to waste time and resources. Digital Transformation is a journey where one must be dare to try, dare to fail, and focus in reviewing to make it better, it’s continuous improvement in progress.

Long story short: Lack of the right resources Lack of senior managements vision and phased implementation plan Change in company culture

I agree, I have seen company struggling in digital transformation due to lack of right resource and lack of senior management commitment. Scaling business without digital transformation is almost impossible in healthcare considering the strict and wide range of regulations

The most chanllenging facts are mainly Illusions that we have to face in every single day during a DT trip : 1. [Digital transformation is a 100% technological affair] >>> Which translates later to : DT team is accountable for business units’ performance, more than people from the business unit themselves; 2. [Digital transformation is a Project] >>> And all the company is wondering ? But where is THE PRODUCT ? ? 3. [Since it is digital, we can copy the big firms] >>> And what about the ROI ?