Digital transformation is the connection between business processes and how technology can underpin a company's overall strategy and objectives.

The expression the only thing that is constant is the changes, could not have been more correct than today. In today’s fast changing business environment, change is continuous and is alarmingly rapid. Unless organizations choose transformation, whether proactively or reactively, the gap between their status quo business infrastructure and that necessary to compete and thrive will only continue to widen. History is full of multinational corporations that once were thought invincible, but which are gone today.

Digital Transformation

In today’s fast changing business environment, most organizations across all industries, businesses are transforming digitally. Understanding digital transformation is not about technology, but it is about understanding the connection between business processes and how technology can underpin a company's overall strategy and objectives.

Technology levers social platforms, IoT Applications, Mobility, Cloud, and Analytics are at the forefront. These disruptive technologies when used by enterprises at the right time, at the right place, can improve performance, increase reach and agility, provide better customer experience, and identify new revenue opportunities.

We know today that 7 out of ten digital transformations fail. Despite the fact that 70 of all digital transformations fail, it does not seem as if one is learning. Time and time again, people talk about technology as a miracle without understanding which miracles they should solve. The technology itself cannot solve anything without it being put in the correct context and supported by the business processes. Therefore, I have always claimed that one of the main reasons for not succeeding in change management and digital transformations in particular is a lack of understanding and knowledge in precisely how business processes work.

To succeed in change or a digital transformation, one must understand the basic business processes themselves. Which steps need to be changed in a process, which steps need to be digitized. Therefore, one MUST have knowledge and understanding of how the individual steps in a business process affect each other before one can change them or digitize them. I have seen time and time again various change processes and the digitization project that have gone wrong, precisely for the simple reason that one has not taken the time to, or understood what steps lie in the current work process. How can one change a process or digitize a process without understanding the current steps in a process? You cannot!

Despite the benefits that lies within the knowledge of business processes, it seems extremely hard for most executive to find an appropriate approach to succeed with change management and digitalization.

It is worth understanding that to succeed with a change process or a digitalization project, Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) can come handy in setting the stage for your business transformation. According to leading global research firm Gartner, BPR is an integrated set of management policies and project management procedures that involves:

-         Modelling, analysing, designing, and testing existing processes and systems.

-         Designing new processes and systems

-         Testing, stimulating, and prototyping new designs before implementation.

-         Managing the implementation process

BPR typically involves the analysis of workflows, finding processes that are sub-par or inefficient, and figuring out methods to eliminate them. BPR can enable companies to restructure their organizations by re-evaluating the bottom-up design of their business processes.

BPR can be used as a Digital Transformation Strategy for Enterprises

From 2008 to 2011, I was the Project Management Office Director of the Lindorff Accounting Group. In connection with me leading the digital transformation of the group, we used BPR and Kotter's 8 - step change model in this business transformation. In the Lindorff Accounting Group’s roadmap towards Digital Transformation and operational efficiency, BPR was the keystone to our success.

Here are four key steps in BPR that we followed in Lindorff Accounting Group’s journey towards digital revolution:

1. Streamlining Business Processes

I had my own BPR team of three people, and the only thing this team did was redesign the business processes. The Business Processes is an unexploited goldmine of productivity. While it is ideal to be a digitally agile organization that has no place for cumbersome workflows, businesses are often reluctant to build custom processes that are generally complex and time intensive. As a result, they are stuck in the same rut of difficulty in adopting new technology and time-consuming manual workarounds. The use of process engines can help here, by bringing efficiency and scalability into the entire system. When streamlined, processes can improve document workflow, limit paper processes, take the game digitally and of course, reduce costs.

2. Business Process Automation

While many enterprises are laser-focused on innovation in the form of path-breaking products, they may be better off by incorporating digital tools to transform their existing business processes through Business Process Automation (BPA). This involves deploying a fully automated, flexible process to manage existing and new processes.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Headless Business Process Management (BPM) were the key stone in this context. RPA allowed developers to create scripts that automate data entry such as automatic scanning and reading of invoices.

3. Leveraging Analytics research of today’s business processes

Analytics research involves asking new questions and generating answers to those questions using data. Data analytics helps enterprises gather data from various sources, investigate the past and present, gain insights through advanced reporting, and make the right decisions. Analytics can be used for elementary reporting and business intelligence (Descriptive Analytics) to prescribe the best possible solution or alternatives (Prescriptive Analytics), as well as predict outcomes (Predictive Analytics). It is worthwhile learning from digitally enabled businesses that use advanced analytics like Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, and NLP for various insights.

4. Big Data Processing

Presently, almost all businesses hold a huge amount of data, both structured and unstructured. This data in conjunction with analytical tools can lead to the harvesting of valuable insights and supporting business decisions. Big data is all about combining structured and unstructured data to get fresh insights that businesses did not have access to in the previous years.

BPR is a continuous process that empowers an organization to move beyond traditional operations and embrace Digital Transformation. Early adopters of Digital Transformation Strategies are at an advantage while those lagging behind are struggling in this highly competitive digital world.