94 per cent of digitally mature businesses plan to address the threat of digital disruption by transforming systems and processes, but 43 per cent of companies see competing departments wanting to own digital as a barrier to effective digital transformation in their organisation, according to a Forrester Consulting study.
The March 2016 commissioned Forrester study, Leading Digital Business Transformation was conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Sugar CRM and Squiz to find how organisations with a mature digital strategy define and manage their “digital business transformation”, which roles drive the digital strategy, and how these firms are tackling the organisational and cultural challenges presented by this business transformation.
“The division of responsibility and core accountability is a major inhibitor to putting in place truly innovative processes, but collaboration is a part of almost every successful innovation. To achieve real change within a business, active participation from key stakeholders across the business must exist. From the CEO and strategy team to marketing and IT, all should come together to support collaborative goals”, says Stephen Morgan, Co-Founder of Squiz.
Clear digital vision from the top aids collaboration
To ensure collaboration in digital across the business, respondents say that CEOs should be the catalyst for digital transformation initiatives. The survey of 410 senior business and technology executives found that 54 per cent of businesses with a mature digital strategy believe that fostering a culture of innovation is a critical enabler of digital business. 41 per cent of organisations identified their CEO as setting the overall digital vision and strategy and 59 per cent strongly agreed that the digital strategy is understood and supported by the CEO.
External partners key to innovation
Collaboration extends outside of the business too; 89 per cent of digitally mature businesses plan to improve partnerships with external companies in order to innovate. 61 per cent plan to create a corporate accelerator to invest in digital startups and 53 per cent will conduct hackathons to promote innovation. By leveraging external influences and creating cross-functional teams, digitally mature businesses understand that they can challenge traditional ways of working.
Digital journey led by customer experience
Customer experience is the “North Star” for the journey, according to the report. More than three-quarters (77 per cent) of mature digital firms have clearly defined the experience they intend to create for their customers, demonstrating the benefits of having a strong customer focus and 69% have introduced an innovation taskforce to identify new sources of value for customers.
Through digital transformation digitally mature businesses are also looking to increase the speed of innovation, and improve time to market. In contrast, the drivers for less mature businesses focus mainly on profitability improvements and cost reduction.
Digital businesses must be customer-obsessed
According to Forrester, success means investing in constantly evolving customer experiences and understanding that digital technologies have become fundamental to deliver delightful experiences to the customer.
“Customers’ expectations of service and experience are increasing across the board, and every business is under pressure to improve their game. Silos of teams and data create discontinuous and disjointed experiences for the customer, and will limit an organization’s success unless these silos are addressed. A modern CRM program provides a platform for all customer-facing staff to share information and work collaboratively across all communication channels, both digital and human channels, to provide the best possible experience,” says SugarCRM’s CEO Larry Augustin.
Digital is typically only associated with delivering a superior customer experience. In order to become digital, organisations also need to leverage digital to enhance employee engagement and drive operational excellence, it notes in the study.
The report continues, saying “Fuel the digital-first mindset in your firm by educating, training, and inspiring employees … Customer journey maps and business capability models can help prioritise scarce resources and better understand how to bring value to customers. Digital leaders should begin to break down functional silos by assigning staff to customer teams pulled from across the organisation. Build a hyper connected leadership team by using shared goals and customer-oriented success metrics for all.”