Does your company want to stand out from the competition? “A Roadmap” is best way to create a high-level “Digital transformation” strategy that outlines your business goals and digital initiatives to help you pass the competition. A roadmap supports organizations and its owners in numerous ways. It helps them to plan their business, visualise their targets and identify the milestones that they need to achieve. Ultimately, aiding them to get a wider perspective of the current and future situation of the business.
So, how do you build a killer Digital Transformation Roadmap?
1) Business Assessment
A detailed evaluation of the business is essential for forming Digital Transformation strategies. Therefore, keep in mind to always include the following as key components for the initial assessment:
- Strategic goals
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Potential growth opportunities
2) Investigate the industry you are in as well as your competitors
After evaluating your business, it’s essential to comprehend how how you compare to your direct competitors and your industry. Some important questions which you should be asking yourself are:
- Are your competitors focused on their own digital transformation?
- Which digital solution are you working on?
- What new technologies and tools are implemented in your industry?
Competitive analysis helps you realizing the market and identify opportunities to build a thriving business.
3) Ranking digital initiatives
All digital initiatives have diverse scopes, resources and return on investment. Therefore, it is essential to rank initiatives based on its significance, effect, and estimated determination. All in all, begin with a straightforward project with crucial features to test the feasibility of your digital solution.
4) Formation of a “Delivery Plan” and its effect
For every single digital initiative, criteria for measuring results a roadmap must be included. Before you start the development phase, recognize all development and deployment processes and establish standard practices across your organization.
5) Forming a budget plan
Most digital transformation efforts fail due to inadequate budgets. When budgeting, anticipate delays and some unexptected expeditures when implementing new technologies.
6) Developing a resource plan
Technology isn’t the only expense. Forming a team with the correct skills and mindset is essential to implementing your strategy. It is important to assess your current skills and the people you need to realize your digital initiatives and then close any gaps.
Let us analyze which companies are the leading the movement for digital transformation in this day and age?
Finally, now that we’ve talked about the concept of digital transformation, what does it really look like?
WALMART
Witnessing the threat Amazon poses to small retailers, Walmart differentiated itself as a valuable competitor by improving front-end and back-end technologies to increase efficiency. The retail brand has signed a five-year contract with Microsoft to focus on digital advances and technology upgrades that provide the perfect customer experience.
They introduced scannable employee badges to give employees quick access to important business data. Walmart used a virtual reality training simulator to train new and current employees. They also introduced curbside grocery delivery, increasing sales by 37%. Some of Walmart’s ongoing projects use self-driving cars, blockchain technology, and robotics to further enhance the store and customer experience.
STUBHUB
StubHub has decided to focus on cultivating the customer experience. To meet the needs of their customers, they have invested in cloud solutions to improve their online shopping experience. StubHub has optimized the website to reduce load times. Additionally, they have developed a mobile application that provides a seamless shopping experience. The app included a WebVR feature that allowed the user to see a real-time view from the seat. Sales increased due to the mobile app and website renewal experience.
MARRIOTT
Marriott is battling industry turmoil like Airbnb by using digital solutions to create a memorable customer experience. They do so with a mobile application which has brand new features to increase convenience and provide services. Overall, the mobile application allows customers to check in at a hotel, accept service requests, and unlock hotel room doors.
Digital transformation is about business strategy, not technology. It’s about your people, your processes, and your data. Digital transformation doesn’t change overnight.
However, by creating a strategic roadmap and starting with minor changes, you can slowly begin transforming key areas of your business and ultimately reach all your goals. In the digital age, the only way to survive and prosper is to digitize.
