Top CEO Decisions That Drive Digital Transformation!

Digital transformation is happening at a disrupting pace and no business can afford to lag behind. It is a race that the CEO of every business wants to win. In a joint study conducted by Accenture Interactive and Forrester Consulting, it was found that improving customer experience through digital transformation is the top business priority for companies. This actually comes as a no surprise given the way digital has taken over the lives of people.

While the CEOs acknowledge that early digital transformation is the key to beat the rivals, most organizations are not yet ready to embrace it. There are several decisions that need to be taken before, during and after the adoption and implementation of digital transformation to fructify the efforts.

Here are the decisions that have CEOs talking about.

Determining the Direction of Business

New trends emerge in digital technology every other day, overruling what you are about to implement. CEOs need to think about the long-term business focus and what they want to achieve with the digital transformation. This can be done through the careful analysis of the past data, current market scenario, personal industry experience and estimating future business challenges.

Choosing the Right IT Partner

In order to drive digital transformation smoothly, CEOs have to bring an able IT partner on board. This involves scouring through several proposals, researching on the expertise and experience of the partners, their reputation, service standards and all other parameters that are crucial to the transformation.

Leading the Change

Research shows that 70% of large transformation programmes fail. The primary reasons for this failure are lack of employee engagement, poor or non-existent collaboration between cross-functional teams, inadequate support from the management, lack of accountability and pre-set notions.

Change is not a problem, but resistance to change is. While IT vendors can advise on the right mix of technology, it is the CEOs who really need to take charge of the integration. They have to make employees and other stakeholders understand that how the change aligns with the company’s vision and its long-term impact.

Setting up an Escalation Matrix

CEOs are after all only humans and not supermen! They can’t be everywhere in the system. Moreover, the digital implementation is bound to spring unexpected developments on the way. Hence, an escalation matrix enlisting authorized employees and their approval limits at different layers will ensure that not every decision is spiraled to CEOs. The escalation channel will take care of corrections on its own and keep the progress on track.

Allocating Resources

Every project eats up money, time and efforts. Everything from where the funds will come from to where they should be deployed to which people will be working on the project to which equipment to use fall under the umbrella of resource management. It also calls for realistic planning so that no resource is over-allocated and using tools to measure their productivity. All these combined results into several variables that CEOs need to work out to ensure effective and efficient transformation.

Sustaining the Digital Transformation

A CEO’s job does not end with the successful implementation. In fact, it is the beginning of the digital transformation journey. The sustenance and maintenance of the change are equally crucial. The business needs may change, new technologies may emerge or the existing system may need to be updated – CEOs need to be prepared for every eventuality. In a nutshell, digital transformation is an ongoing, continual process.

A successful digital transformation leads to successful business transformation. So, it is inevitable that CEOs take the charge of the digital strategy of the organization.

About the Author: This article is contributed by Amit Dua – Co-Founder & CEO at SignitySolutions and ValueAppz.