According to a new study from IBM, 60% of 310 CIOs and CTOs in the U.S. and U.K. said their “IT modernization program is not yet ready for the future.” An eye-opening fact in the report is that almost 1 in 4 said their company has just begun modernizing its IT infrastructure. So, where is the big gap, and what can you do to see the benefits of digital transformation in 90 days.
The first challenge here is that digital transformation will look different for every company. Therefore, it can be hard to have a pointed definition for it, but it is essential to understand digital transformation. In general terms, we define digital transformation as integrating digital technology into all business areas, resulting in fundamental changes to how businesses operate and deliver value to customers.
Enterprises can adopt digital transformation as three parallel threads around UX, Data, and Infrastructure in the 12 weeks with a four-week Sprint approach.
Sprint 1 (Weeks 1-4): Re-imagine your business
- a. Identify the changing customer expectations and define the organizational digitization priorities
- b. Evaluate the current decision support systems to support the future business needs
- c. Assess the cyber risks that threaten your organization’s functioning and current infrastructure vulnerability
Sprint 2 (Weeks 5-8): Modernize your IT
- a. Bring Digital User experience to parity with your customer’s real-world experience
- b. Calibrate Data Models to support real-time decision-making
- c. Automate your software delivery pipeline and start moving to the cloud
Sprint 3 (Weeks 9 -12): Accelerate
- a. Launch Digital only offers or builds new digital channels for serving customers.
- b. Build New Data Models and use AI to predict business performance.
- c. Start a cloud-first approach with new infrastructure and application development.
Beyond this, it’s a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment often, and get comfortable with failure. This sometimes means walking away from long-standing business practices that you operated your business in favor of relatively new practices that are still being defined.
In the next 90 days as a business leader, your most important goal should be to discover the “why” of your organization’s digital transformation, which might improve customer experience, reduce friction, increase productivity, or elevate profitability.