Undertaking digital transformation or business process automation at any level requires a complete commitment. This is much more than just an IT upgrade, and often it will affect every level, every department of your organization, directly or indirectly. To ensure it is a successful endeavor, you want to be aware of the possible obstacles first so that you can do your best to avoid or overcome them.
Careful consideration is needed for successful digital transformation
Whether you decide to digitize just one process or to digitally transform your entire organization, there are many factors you should consider before beginning. This includes whether you should digitize one process at a time or change over every process in one project!
Beehave would like to point out the top 8 obstacles and issues that every company, no matter the size or digital transformation intention, should review:
1. Going in blindly
Everyone agrees that digital transformation is an excellent idea. That is fantastic, but that is just the first step. You should not let enthusiasm for business process automation blind you to proper planning and strategizing. People may talk about technology and digitizing making processes easier so you can spend more time on more complex projects. But easier does not mean quickly or magically. Spend as much time as you need to evaluate and access current processes and create a roadmap for the digitalization journey you decide is most optimal.
2. Unclear goals
Just as it is detrimental to jump in without a plan, so it is to not be specific in what you want to achieve with that plan. You must not only decide how limited or how far-reaching these changes will be, but also what exactly do you want to accomplish. The more measurable these goals are, the better it will be for you to see when you have achieved them. And, as we mentioned before, this is not merely an IT upgrade, so you need to outline and specify how the transformations and business process automations you have in mind will impact everyone involved. Furthermore, to ensure you stay on track to achieve these goals, you should set targets and KPIs where needed to monitor progress.
3. No long-term planning
Sometimes the need for digitizing comes from an urgent requirement to update technologies or processes. That is okay. But just because it is urgent does not mean you should be short-sighted about these changes. You may have evaluated what you need and set your goals to achieve your ideal transformation, but have you considered the long-term impacts? Since you are taking the time and the energy to shift your processes to be more optimal, why not extend these resources to ensure you maintain your agility and adaptability into the future. Advanced technology and processes could become outdated eventually.
4. Reliance on technology only
Technology may be a fundamental building block for a successful digital transformation or business process automation, but it is not the only part. There is no plug-and-play option for a successful transformation that results in maximized operations and increased profitability. You will need to leverage your human capital to help access, strategize, plan, execute, and maintain your business process automation. You may even need to restructure your organization to ensure that the digitizing occurs with optimal impact.
5. Ignoring the customer experience
Let us not forget why we contemplated digital transformation in the first place. It is to streamline and improve operations by automating certain business processes. Behind all of this is ultimately to improve our ability to service our customers, whether it is someone buying a donut or a major corporation seeking legal advice. How much of these transformations will affect the customer experience? Will it make it better? Worse? Will it be so different that you will need to retrain your customers to interact with you? How will that be accepted? Many companies failed in their digital transformation because they only focused on internal changes.
6. No employee engagement
When we say “employee” here, we mean all the way to top management. If every team member affected by these changes does not understand and/or does not accept the upcoming digital transformation, this will add more challenges than you think. If employees do not think that management believes in these plans, they will be less likely to adopt and maintain the new processes and systems. And having them maintain is key. If after going through all the technology changes and the training, people go back to old systems or, worse, do not use any system at all, you will most likely need to go back to the drawing board. An excellent strategy to prevent this is to include employees from the very beginning of the digitization planning process.
Beehave is your partner in digital transformation and business process automation
These are just the main factors involved in preparing and planning for fully effective digital transformation. There are training issues, budgetary considerations, implementation speed, competitor positioning, and more. Beehave is focused on achieving the business process automation that you need to fully optimize your business. Contact us today to discuss your digitizing needs and find out how Beehave’s flexible and customizable solutions can work for your business.