Treat digital transformation as a priority

By Chris Stokel-Walker

Hargrave believes that there’s a tendency among SMEs to view digital transformation as a non-essential project, rather than a business-critical priority.

“This is about future-proofing the business. It’s also part of continuity planning,” he says, referring to tasks such as procuring the right IT equipment to ensure that staff can work at home in an emergency – something that prepared BP Collins particularly well for the Covid lockdowns.

Presenting the importance of digital transformation in such terms can often help to win over sceptical colleagues, who are often those holding the purse?strings.

Clarke acknowledges that “persuading people to part with money when they think things are working already can be hard. Budgetary constraints can be an issue. Fortunately, our CEO is very forward-thinking in this?respect.”

When BP Collins was choosing a provider of a public-private cloud server, it sought out a similarly sized company. It’s an approach that Hargrave would recommend to any firm considering an IT?partner.

“It’s important to match the size of their business to the size of your business,” he says. “There’s no point in going with a company for which you’d be among the smallest 10% of its clients. You need to be an important client to your provider, so you can get that meeting of?minds.”

Clarke adds that it’s important to take the lead in this relationship, rather than being railroaded into accepting a solution that’s poorly suited to your firm’s?needs.

“We identified our own working processes and what was important to us as a business,” she says. “Then they helped us to identify the solution that best met our requirements.”

If he had his time over again, Hargrave would have embraced the digital revolution even sooner. “I think we could probably have started this six months to a year earlier and reaped the benefits of that,” he?says.

Striking when the appetite is there is one way to ensure a smooth digital transformation – so what are you waiting?for?

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