The Right People to have at the Table for Digital Transformation

When driving a digital transformation initiative forward, it is important to have the right individuals in the right seats to succeed. Because digital transformation involves capital investment, ensuring the right stakeholders are involved helps achieve the goal of delivering value to both the business and customers. Designing a transformation initiative without that in mind may result in spent capital with little to no return on investment.???

Assembling the Team

A critical factor of digital transformation is to align strategy with execution. Consider investing in the right places and have individuals driving the effort who understand not only how to deliver the changes, but also how to sustain them on a long-term basis. But how can companies identify and engage the right individuals??

Here are three additional tips to get more out of a corporate team and digital transformation:

• Obtain buy-in from senior leadership in the organization. The C-suite can help drive the focus and accountability desired for the rest of the organization to assist and take a transformational program seriously.?
• Provide strong awareness to the benefits the transformation will provide and, more importantly, tie these quantitative and qualitative benefits to organizational goals.
• Consider laying out a plan for stakeholders—including a roadmap of deadlined deliverables and governance to show the progress of the program and the enablement of benefits outlined. Stakeholders are more likely to continue to engage if they can visualize the incremental progress and feel the value.?

Digital transformation efforts involve a technological as well as a cultural shift and can impact several different groups within an organization—from marketing to operations. Ideally, stakeholders should feel ownership over ensuring the success of the transformation. That starts at the top leadership levels and trickles down.?

Logistically, subject matter experts should own and drive the parts of a transformation that most impact their employees and customers. This doesn’t mean each group needs to operate in a silo. For each of these steps, IT development should align with the business needs and desired outcomes. The project team is responsible for making the pieces come together in an efficient and cohesive manner, to enhance the end customer experience.?

The Changemaker

Ideally, the changemaker in an organization would be someone with a long-term strategic mindset who understands the value of calculated risks. In order for a digital transformation to succeed, it may need to be disruptive.?

As mentioned earlier, change can make people uncomfortable. Because of this, corporate culture and communication are critical components that should not be overlooked. Ideally, employees should understand not only what is changing, but also why the changes are being made in order to feel invested in a successful outcome.?

The more confident employees feel about the leaders of change, the more likely they may be to perceive disruptive changes as opportunities as they are rolled out, and the more likely the organization may be able to sustain these changes in the long term.

Another important role of the changemaker is to challenge people to think in new ways. Employees can develop proof of concepts and beta testing. Understand that early failure is “okay”, and if you’re going to fail, it may be ideal to “fail fast.” We can take what we’ve learned and move on. At Verizon Partner Solutions we have hosted? “boot camps” to explore multiple transformational possibilities with team members before deciding which to pursue.?

External Players

Typically, IT organizations sit outside the channel organizations. Establishing a strong, collaborative partnership with your IT service provider can be critical, as they are the key group to enabling a successful digital transformation and deliver the capabilities to fully enable the new environment. Their technical background and awareness of leveraging new technologies can be key to modernizing your customer’s transactional journey.?

The other key external stakeholder can be a proven User Interface Design (UI/X) team. Capabilities can be outlined in requirements, but if the experience is not designed with a customer’s emotional journey and ease of doing business in mind, then the solution may not hit the mark. At times, internal stakeholders may bring their own view of the process to the forefront. Great UI/X Design teams can identify the true expectation and needs of the customer, which may lead to the most desirable solutions!?

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The team behind a digital transformation can make or break its success. Mastering the organizational dynamics and knowing exactly who to count on at every step can help to ensure the company’s investment pays off on time, and in the most effective ways.?