How Does Delay or Drag in Digital Transformation Affect the Business?

Post Summary - Formerly, we took a comprehensive glance at how leaders play a pivotal role in initiating the steps that direct an organizational digital transformation success.

This time we are highlighting the common practices, a business continues that cause delays in digital transformation and hinder the rest of the organization. We have also highlighted several capabilities getting hampered due to wrongly developed projects and possible ways to change the system.

Let us do more than just diving in to understand!

Back in 2010, transiting to digital transformation in all aspects of the business was a rage. After the pandemic and fast-forward to 2022, digital transformation has once again become a key to post-crisis survival.

In an age where innovation moves at a fast pace, businesses are laying the groundwork for digital transformation projects. Still, most of these transformation initiatives fail or are progressing slowly, and one primary reason for this is businesses' delay in executing the right transformation initiatives.

Businesses should understand that disruption can be minimized by taking baby steps to redefine current capabilities with the efficient ones but shouldn't delay their digital transformation journey by continuing the existing infrastructure. 

Delay will undoubtedly make it very difficult to modify existing — business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements.

Other than this, there are certain other outcomes of delaying or dragging digital transformation which are mentioned in the infographic below - Let’s have a look - 

Although, businesses are significantly increasing their digital transformation investments where their end goal is business transformation. 

Data from the PWC survey, 2022, reveals that 60% of senior executives believe that digital transformation is the most important driver for business growth in 2022 and are poised to make technology investments. However, businesses are still delaying their decision when it comes to greenlighting changes. 

But why, what are the reasons behind the delay? Have you ever considered why businesses are carrying on existing infrastructure?

There might be some present conditions leading to delay or drag of DT initiatives...

Three circumstances behind the drag & delay of DT

1. One of the primary reasons is “the fear of failure and internal resistance to change”. 

Businesses and senior officials, especially at SMEs, have to understand that considering digital transformation is important for growth is not going to bring the change they want, and the investments in emerging technologies without having a clear understanding of it will end up pouring millions into "digital transformation" initiatives.

The real change can be brought by kick starting or embarking the digital transformation journey where their end goal should be the overall business transformation by using right digital capabilities. 

The main roadblock to replacing old systems is resistance from the internal capabilities to live, learn & work in a digital society. Employees think they are not mature enough to take such a step and stubbornly refuse to adapt to new and changing realities. Employees are getting over-reliant on the technology they're comfortable with, even if it is outdated.

The reason is that the collective fear of going through a large transformation and adopting new capabilities makes it difficult for them to thrive in today's digital world. 

Businesses can often encounter chalked-up internal inability and resistance that can be undermined by facilitating change rather than hampering it. 

Therefore, change management is at the core of every responsible digital project. If we are prepared for the change, we need to accept the unforeseen circumstances where some jobs could significantly change or become redundant. 

New roles with a range of skills, such as critical thinking, analytic and problem-solving skills, self-management, adaptability and resilience, will replace existing positions to create more value.

Else, if you think resistance can be reduced and are ready to surpass the obstacles of old habits and inefficiencies, it will require a constant commitment where the central to this effort is the retraining of the workforce.

Demonstrating active and visible communication between leadership and all levels of the organization and keeping everyone involved informed of every step is the only possible way to embrace the change. 

But remember the fact that the more efforts you are going to make to facilitate existing change, the higher the delay of change is going to be. Retraining the existing workforce and hiring those already equipped with the latest capabilities is the right way to keep the pace.

Another reason behind the delay of digital transformation could be - 

2. Dragging or conducting digitalization to fast

Businesses that have transformation strategies and plans for adopting digital technology want to see fast results. Even the most risk averse, had to transform their strategy so rapidly. 

These accelerations were recognized by Accenture, where they have laid out some staggering figures in Accentures’ Technology Vision 2021 report. 

According to the research, leading enterprises are outstretching an unprecedented level of digital transformation in just one or two short years, which in reality requires a necessary period to change. 

Some 92% of leaders report their organization is innovating with “an urgency and call to action” and 77% of executives state their technology architecture is becoming “critical to the overall success of their organization”.

Sometimes being forced to evolve and putting pressure on incumbents to act quickly means businesses aren’t getting the best from their new digital strategies. Transitioning too quickly are the rumblings of delaying more.

In addition, to transform the customer experience requires a calm and consistent level of speed and precision which can’t be like what we used to do with traditional approaches. 

Changing things quickly may cause delays and failures, creating unexpected problems in other areas.

3. Depending on resources that lack the adequate expertise

Project success does not hinge primarily on technology. Instead, successful transformational projects depend largely on people.  

In times of digital changes, sometimes a manager has chosen to embody the DT project lacks people management capabilities to replace the current systems. Most project managers do not have strong governance oversight, digital capabilities, or strong communication skills.

The manager appointed leads to basic mistakes, such as initially communicating incorrectly set goals, lack of a clear strategy, and risk management. Often, many of these mistakes might lead to increased lead times for the transition.

Here on the right, are the managerial expertise and skills that change management demands -

Businesses without any right managerial expertise have to seek advice from external experts. External expertise assigns a dedicated team with a dedicated project manager having the years' worth of experience to make sure -  

• To streamline resources at the right pace so that the transformation is not dragged like it was previously.
• Assembling the project team, ensuring ongoing coaching, liaising, cross-communicating, and assigning and accounting for responsibilities.
• To provide the best training to DT drivers to actively identify and manage employee resistance if it occurs.  
• To bring in productivity with guaranteed uninterrupted day-to-day operations.
• To avoid delays and failures to advocate a successful DT transition.

Such capability and subject matter experts might be the necessary change management to ensure successful digital transformation.

Failure to attempt strategies of experienced professionals and technical experts can experience delayed business development. 

The above three circumstances behind the drag and delay of digital transformation are creating half-baked projects or wrongly developed projects, which are often complex, confusing, overwhelming, chaotic, and ultimately hampering three business capabilities.

Three capabilities are getting hampered due to recklessness with digital transformation initiatives

1. IT Infra Maintainability

Businesses probably don't realize how their existing IT hardware and software structure is limiting the maintainability of the ease and rapidity through which a system can be restored to the operational status after a failure occurs. 

This can be deduced from the fact that most businesses end up with a technology stack that can face challenges in day-to-day operations.

Businesses shall perform a full review of the technical architecture, enterprise architecture, analytical capabilities, data stores, data management, security, and other related issues and fundamentals from IT consultants and the business allowing for better utilization of the software & support.

Businesses that underestimate these issues are likely to fail in their DT initiative. At a high level, IT infrastructure maintainability is all about becoming better and more efficient at staying on time and budget with your technical, hardware, software, network, development, and infrastructure initiatives.

2. Organization Scalability 

Lack of organizational scalability is indicated as a challenge due to scaling a wrongly structured project quickly or ineffectively without the proper guidance of the tech supervisor. Here the organization's scalability is hindered by the resources or structure incapable of coping and performing well under an increased or expanding workload or scope. 

Not scaling effectively creates a challenge to maintain or increase efficiency and profitability for an entity anticipating a point of growth.

The current transformation landscape has placed more pressure on businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises with smaller systems following traditional ways in such a rapidly changing external environment. 

Such a system can be scalable if the organizational structure can adapt to the changing needs or patterns, such as 

• Technology architecture, 
• Integrated platforms, 
• Modern ways of working, 
• Sufficient personalization tools facilitate the assessment and facilitation of scalability at every level,
• And approaches to solutions 

that can lead to faster scalability, which involves more than the formal organizational structure as it engages with stakeholders in the business, such as investors. 

For a business to be scalable, it must focus on improving the profitability and efficiency in the process while implementing digital transformation projects since the point of growth means more business and profits. 

Scalability thus begins with the entity developing a set of leaders who run the operations with the required technical know-how and soft skills like communication effectiveness, whether internally to the workforce or externally to clients and investors.

Businesses that do not rapidly scale up lose their grip on the market after an abrupt growth, losing focus during their expansion and hence losing scalability.

3. System Agility 

Wrongly developed projects are the biggest hurdles to adapting to a higher level of agility. The project group leading the change lacking the right skills can become a barrier to handling operations flexibly and responsively and intrigue the probability of driving maximum business value. 

Your organizational capabilities, behaviors, and ways of working are the ones that afford your business the freedom, flexibility, and resilience to achieve its purpose.

If it is affected, your organizational ability will standstill to quickly reconfigure processes, structure, people, strategy, operation, and technology towards more value-creating opportunities.

How can system agility be achieved?

1. Focusing on how flexibly the strategy is executed by targeting the overall business processes optimization and reasonable resource allocation, supported by putting together a strong leadership and an agile team mindset. 

2. Introducing agile methodologies by achieving solid technical practices and efficient communication between the team, collaboration with stakeholders, and the end-users can gain significant benefits in driving the different transformation initiatives.

Also, making your organization support a distributed decision-making process and democratized access to data, software, and tools will streamline business process flow, decisions, and organizational agility.

The teams need to be more heterogeneous and involve people with an agile mindset and diverse backgrounds that span business and technology thinking to speed up performance and increase overall efficiency.

Team members that adopt agile ways of working keep the business moving fast to become operationally agile and efficient.

Overall if the process of change is not applied to improve the above areas can lead to negative results and cause a huge opportunity cost. 

Continuing to follow an unorganized business structure is a threat of a huge opportunity cost for many big and small companies. Here the opportunity cost is defined as failing to heed the digitalization that leaves these firms trailing behind the competition.

It's time to scale up, not to delay

In summary, delaying digital transformation or scaling ineffectively is revealed when you begin to lose key people. Stubbornly refusing to focus on turning to the new and changing realities just because your existing system is clinging to the old ways is not the way to work. Doing nothing or making excuses as opposed to rumors of failure to revise the existing system may seem like a safe move, but it will take you further away from your goals.

Furthermore, the above study identified that barriers and resistance begin from the top and percolate, causing delays or failed transformations. Unsuccessful or slowly progressing transformation initiatives could largely depend on the organization's set-up, the project group, and lack of agility. The company vision and transformation goal can become challenging if not well articulated.

If you run a business that is 'unbound' and isn't confined by yesterday's conventions and issues and is ready to adapt to changing environments, then your business is a real successor of tomorrow. If you believe our advice, there is an alternative to getting potential benefits that were overlooked while building the existing system and save you from facing a huge opportunity cost.  

When you are ready to change and keep adapting, you are well-advised to contact Global Lancer's experts. Because we are the ones who are here to collaborate with businesses that wanna get rid of organizational silos and empower teams closest to practice agility and speed up decision-making processes.

Our solution expertise is equipped with vast knowledge and skills that span software solutions, design thinking, platform, the process to product development, dedication, and collaboration to achieve your IT infra maintainability, organization scalability, and system agility to run a competitive and sustainable business. So, contact us today if you are just starting or want to start again.