What’s preventing your digital success? Here are seven of the most common obstacles we’ve seen across industries and geographies.
Knowing what not to do can often be just as helpful as knowing what to do in times of change. When it comes to unsuccessful digital transformations, few behaviours are more detrimental than these:
- Failure to set goals.
This common behaviour prevents the organization from achieving any kind of meaningful change. What do you want from digital? If it’s just to be like everyone else, then your transformation will surely fail (think of the many iconic retailers that were quick to adopt digital apps yet are still struggling to survive). But if it’s to increase customer engagement, grow new channels of business, support an increasingly multi-generational customer base, or increase the time to market, you’ll be better positioned for success. - Failure to understand where change is occurring.
This one is a bit tricky since it’s often difficult to spot. For example, most executives feel supremely confident that artificial intelligence will soon remake a variety of industries and occupations. But admittedly they still don’t know the specifics, which can complicate their understanding of where change is occurring. Nevertheless, forward-thinking executives always consider how emerging disruptions might affect all aspects of the business. That alone keeps them on their toes and is a step in the right direction. - Failure to understand how digital affects your customers’ journeys.
Related to the above, this is also important enough to stand on its own. If the customer is always right, then a failure to serve them is fatal, especially as the demand for digital rapidly rises. That said, this oversight might also include targeting the wrong or no longer relevant audience. Your company must account for both. To do this, every part of the organization needs to see itself as directly impacting the customer. This mentality extends to teams that might have previously considered themselves internally focused, such as operations. Only then can companies realize the full potential of digital. - Failure to collaborate across ecosystems.
This certainly includes internal departments or business units, which are sometimes at odds, within your organization. But it also includes outside partners, collaborators and untapped relationships. One of the most disruptive things about digital is that business ecosystems have become more complex and interconnected. Therefore, winning digital businesses collaborate better with multiple external partners, a recent Stanford study found, and with the help of open application programming interfaces (API). So, foster open ecosystems. - Failure to incentivize change with the meaningful budget.
To borrow a phrase from a popular business adage, failure to spend is planning to fail. More specifically, the successful digital transformation will never happen on a shoestring or pet project budget. That’s not to say you shouldn’t learn fast with quick and dirty hits. But overall, you’ll need to put your money where your mouth is, and budget, commit and invest significant resources to enact actual change. As always, money talks. And the more you spend with meaning, the better chances your organization will have for success. - Failure to listen to feedback.
Whether by ignoring your team’s analytics, outside benchmarks, and/or customer feedback, this behaviour is lethal. Think of Blockbuster doing nothing as Netflix rose to prominence. Obviously, the market doesn’t always know what’s right. But it collectively and often does. So, listen to the numbers. Listen to your employees. Listen to what the feedback says before making meaningful decisions on where, how and when to digitize your future. - Failure to move fast.
At no point in history has change occurred this fast. Gone are the days of lengthy transitions. To win, you must act now. But you also don’t have to bet the entire house on the desired change. In fact, quick iterations are the proven way to go. This allows you to fail fast and invest in things that hold the most promise and greatest potential for return. While product development cycles used to move in months and years, they now move in weeks to months.