Digital Transformation - What is it and how do you measure it?

My previous article describes the best practice of delivering digital excellence for the brand. In this article, let's explore what is digital transformation and most importantly , what it is not and how do you measure success?

Digital Transformation - what it is and it isn’t?

We all understand that the need for transformation comes out of the strategy, thus Digital transformation can be seen as the extension of strategy in the form of realizing them in the daily routine of the business.?

Let's define what is and it is not?

What is the most fundamental need of a successful digital transformation?

A digital savvy executive leader - yes, that is, in my humble opinion, is the most important factor for the brand to have claimed that it defined a good digital strategy and successfully adopted it while this digital strategy is still relevant. A digital savvy leader in the organization will have to move those core blocks to make the strategy work on the ground and it includes:

• A people’s person and an excellent leader

• S/he not just understands what is digital but is able top drive the change to deliver the digital at scale for the organization and with relevance of time.

• Able to use the world of experimentation in the big transformation blocks to constantly evaluate the validity of strategy and its relevance with the time

• Last but not the least, s/he should be able to assess the program execution risks with respect to business model or operations risks to define and drive pathways for transformation

There are other factors which differ from one organizations to other however few of them that are worth mentioning here are:

1. Having a defined roadmap with incremental value realization approach of digital strategy through the transformation body of work. Experimentation approach, with a feedback loop, is quite useful in this regard.
2. A Governance - program governance as well as solution governance. Program Governance - a huge topic but in nutshell keeps the delivery of transformation within the agreed parameters and transparency with reporting and Solution Delivery - ensures a platform based approach with best utilization of solution available and required.

How do you measure success?

The best value of digital transformation can be defined in following ways and organizations, as its applicable to them, may define the measurement criteria:

Success criteria of each initiative of transformation, and as a whole the transformation, should be defined in alignment with the strategy goals and an organization-wide scoring mechanism of these goals. As these measurement? criteria are well accepted and understood, success of the program can transparently be reported.?

Another factor of this reporting would be the source of data for measurement and reporting of each business KPIs. This, I am sure of, that my data friends and colleagues would have a lot to say but having a single source of truth would be as essential as the transformation itself.

In conclusion, transformation programs are usually resource intensive work for a few months / years and thus celebrating any win - small or big, is equally important. Ultimately - the staff of the organization is who actually need to embrace the change and the more enthusiastic and incremental this change adoption becomes, the easier it is for the overall success of the transformation.