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Digital transformation is a top priority for most global enterprises. Yet, initiatives for implementing lasting and effective change often fail to succeed.
Why? Teams flounder due to obstacles such as underfunding, inadequate (or nonexistent) strategic approaches, and legacy infrastructure. These roadblocks cause delays, overspending, and even total failure.
Thankfully, enterprises can prevent setbacks at the source. They just need the correct planning, capabilities, resources, and technological components.
This article serves as a practical playbook for helping enterprise leaders do just that.
It digs into the foundational elements enterprises must develop to drive change and discusses how to prepare enterprise architecture for transformation. It also highlights the industries facing the most significant barriers and explores two examples of digital transformation wins.
Foundational Components For Transformation Success
Strategic readiness empowers enterprises to thrive. Organizations that do the following cultivate a strong foundation for long-term prosperity.
Develop Essential Team Skill Sets
The first step to building a resilient, future-ready organization is fostering the following capabilities.
1. Agile methodologies
Adaptive approaches, iterative development, and overall flexibility facilitate continuous innovation and competitive differentiation.
2. Data analytics and AI
By leveraging analytics and AI, teams can extract deeper insights from data to streamline decision-making and improve efficiency.
3. Cloud computing expertise
Expertise in cloud computing helps enterprises cultivate scalability and flexibility in an increasingly cloud-first world.
4. Cybersecurity proficiency
Robust security systems and practices are essential for safeguarding digital assets, which enables safe and seamless digital transformation.
5. Change management skills
Change management capabilities minimize disruption throughout shifts, facilitate solution adoption, and prevent misalignment.
Engage Critical Leadership To Drive Change
No transformation will effectively take hold without committed leaders properly performing the right tasks. Here are five key leadership roles for successful digital transformations, along with their responsibilities.
- Chief Digital Officer (CDO) or equivalent: CDOs drive the overall transformation vision, ensure alignment, and handle general strategy.
- Chief Information Officer (CIO): Enterprise CIOs oversee technology infrastructure and prepare the enterprise architecture for transformations.
- Chief Technology Officer (CTO): These leaders handle technological management and innovation, integrating digital transformation solutions that enhance capabilities and promote growth.
- Chief Financial Officer (CFO): CFOs manage digital investments by tracking ROI, optimizing resource allocation, and aligning financial decisions with goals.
- Cross-functional leaders: Cross-functional leaders bridge gaps by championing changes, facilitating collaboration, and accelerating implementation across different business units.
Track Progress With Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Organizations generate deeper insights and transparency by monitoring progress with KPI. This pillar of digital transformation enables continuous course correction, better decision-making, and increased efficiency.
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS): measure the impact digital changes have on the customer experience.
- Operational efficiency metrics: reveal improvements or breakdowns in processes, workflows, and outputs.
- Revenue growth and new market penetration: show an initiative’s overall business impacts and contribution to market expansion.
- Time-to-market for new products/services: track innovation speed, go-to-market readiness, and general agility.
- Employee engagement and adoption rates: measure employee and stakeholder buy-in, or acceptance and support of technology rollouts.
- Cost savings and ROI: quantify the financial benefits and value of digital investments.
Enterprise Architecture and Resources Needed for Support
Enterprise architecture serves as a flexible, stable, and future-ready backbone for digital transformation—a clear, actionable blueprint for implementing change. It helps leaders ensure alignment, integration, and resilience throughout shifts.
To execute on that blueprint and implement transformations that stick, enterprises need external support, resources, and ample investment. Harvard Business Review’s 2024 research exemplifies this, as nearly all failed transformations lacked adequate funding.
Here’s how to prepare enterprise architecture for transformation by design.
Engage Digital Transformation Advisors and Services
External advisors provide the strategic guidance, technical expertise, and objective perspectives essential for driving change. Experienced providers, like Advantage Communications Group, offer a competitive edge through expert guidance and tailored performance-boosting solutions.
Adopt Diverse Digital Transformation Platforms
To design enterprise architecture for transformation, IT leaders must adopt adaptable, future-ready solutions. Examples include cloud, integration, and low/no-code platforms. Cultivating a diverse and well-rounded tech stack, which requires an agnostic IT approach, ensures agility and accelerates transformation.
Which Industries Face the Biggest Digital Transformation Hurdles?
The biggest obstacles to digital transformation exist in three industries:
Banking and Financial Services
Financial enterprises face legacy systems and security concerns, which were ranked first and third as barriers to digital transformation in Deloitte’s 2024 survey. This industry also presents ever-changing regulatory complexities, making digital evolution even more difficult for global companies.
Healthcare
Healthcare organizations face stringent data privacy regulations and complex, siloed systems. This context makes information sharing and transformation onerous and time-consuming.
In TEKsystems’ report, respondents ranked “the complexity of the current environment and having a siloed mindset” the top challenge to digital transformation. This highlights the difficulty of implementing meaningful change in the healthcare space.
Government and Public Sector
Government agencies must maintain critical services, meet stringent security standards, and overcome bureaucracy—all while navigating legacy infrastructure. NTT Data research sheds light on how much legacy systems hinder transformation, underscoring the barriers to modernization in this sector. It revealed that “80% of organizations agree that inadequate or outdated technology is holding back organizational progress and innovation efforts.”
Two Examples of Enterprise Digital Transformation Wins
Despite the obstacles to digital transformation, numerous success stories abound. Let’s look at two examples.
Case Study: John Wiley & Sons
This global publishing and educational company was struggling with connectivity issues and escalating costs. They turned to Advantage Communications Group for help. Advantage developed tailored tech solutions for Wiley & Sons to improve operations and increase visibility across all levels.
This company went through Advantage’s four key milestones on the path to modernizing workflows and achieving technological excellence. They broke down their current tech state, developed a future vision, created a strategic plan with steps and timelines, and delivered exceptional outcomes. More specifically, they doubled their bandwidth and reduced their costs by $3 million.
This case underscores the importance of seeking expert assistance, developing a detailed strategic roadmap, and implementing advanced, tailored solutions.
Case Study: Xcel Energy
This energy provider started a technology-driven transition toward more efficient and resilient operations. Xcel collaborated with McKinsey to achieve cost savings, enhance operational excellence, and improve compliance.
They shifted their tech architecture, deployed digital tools at endpoints, embraced automation, and established cloud solutions. Ultimately, they transformed their large-scale operations, achieving a 45-point increase in end-user usability scores.
This example highlights the importance of leveraging forward-thinking technology and cloud-first enterprise architecture for transformations.
Conclusion: Charting a Course for Digital Evolution
Digital transformation demands a clear vision, strong leadership, the right capabilities, and a strategic architectural approach.
Fulfilling these keys to transformation success is much easier with expert support and tailored solutions.
Advantage Communications Group equips multi-location enterprises with all that and more, helping leaders eliminate inefficiencies while navigating digital growth. We guide global organizations through every phase of their digital transformation journey.
Take the first step toward scalable, strategic success by discussing your digital transformation goals and challenges with our dedicated professionals.
Contact our team today to start reaping the benefits of a business transformation.