Management support
Digital transformation must be supported and promoted by the top management of the company. This is a prerequisite for the successful implementation of the planned changes. The main task of management is to “sell” (in the good sense of the word) innovations to employees and show how they will affect each of them.
Availability of a competence center
To implement changes at the operational level, it is necessary to create a cross-functional team, consisting of employees of departments who are responsible for certain aspects of the process. Often for this, a separate center of competence is formed, consisting of employees of various profiles - designers of customer experience and designers, marketers, IT representatives, etc. It is important that the members of this team are:
ü open to new ideas;
ü have the required skills;
ü are not afraid to experiment.
Organizational transformation
Traditionally, new business processes are implemented within the framework of the existing organizational structure by the forces of employees who have been working within the framework of existing processes for a long time. There are big risks in this approach, and here's why:
- Any innovation takes time to learn and adapt. As mentioned above, this always causes a certain rejection among employees. Fear for their work, unwillingness to change established practices, unwillingness to learn, fear of new things are traditional attributes of any internal corporate changes.
- The transition to new processes will require more effort on the part of employees. It is necessary to maintain operational efficiency and at the same time move to new operating rules. In fact, employees should "change shoes" on the go, without changing the speed of movement. It can also create a negative background and cause hidden sabotage or overt resentment.
The introduction of new processes by a team working according to the old processes is the same as changing shoes on the go without changing the speed of movement.
Therefore, in some cases, it is more correct to create a new organizational unit or group within an existing unit to work on new digitized processes with digital transformation consulting services. As they migrate to the updated processes, the employees of the “old” organizational units will move to the new department.
Evolutionary integration with legacy systems
Digital transformation of business processes affects a large number of legacy systems that cannot be eliminated at once. Attempts to integrate old systems into new processes are fraught with lengthy projects with vague ROIs. After a few years, it may turn out that what has been done is no longer relevant. To mitigate such risks, it is important to take very small steps and “eat the elephant in pieces”.
Flexible business process management model
The classical theory of optimization and reengineering of business processes in the new realities is complemented by flexible approaches. The description of business processes, divorced from the business processes themselves, is becoming a thing of the past. This description quickly becomes outdated, and it takes a lot of work to keep it up to date. The best way to have an up-to-date version of business processes is to use tools to manage the company's business processes.