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7 Digital Transformation Mistakes, and How to Avoid Them

Published Date
Author Brooke Tajer

A recent article on CIO.com highlighted what they call the “7 sins of digital transformation.” In the article, author Isaac Sacolick states “As CIOs prepare for the next wave of digital transformation, they must demonstrate shorter-term business impacts from technology investments and achieve larger innovation goals that evolve the organization’s business model. But perhaps more importantly, they must learn from their previous big digital wins — and avoid repeating all-too-frequent mistakes that cause transformations to fail or lag behind expectations.

So what are these 7 mistakes? The article lists:

  1. Focusing on the technology and not the business outcomes.
  2. Prioritizing everything while ignoring market trends and customer needs.
  3. Neglecting change management from the start.
  4. Expecting IT leaders to know how to lead transformation initiatives.
  5. Assuming self-organizing teams will meet security and compliance requirements.
  6. Investing in AI without a strategy or data governance.
  7. Declaring digital transformation a journey without communicating a roadmap.

Do any of these resonate with your organization? There’s no doubt that digital transformation comes with a lot of challenges – for modernizing legacy systems to implementing new processes, the amount of change that needs to take place can be daunting for many.

So it’s no surprise that Gartner, in its report on expected investment in IT in 2024 highlighted that CIOs are reporting pushback to digital transformation changes.

“Even with the expected regained momentum in 2024, the broader IT spending environment remains slightly constrained by change fatigue,” the Gartner press release states. “Change fatigue could manifest as change resistance — with CIOs hesitating to sign new contracts, commit to long-term initiatives or take on new technology partners. For the new initiatives that do get launched, CIOs require higher levels of risk mitigation and greater certainty of outcomes.”

In his article, Sacolick also references Gartner’s research stating, “The most critical digital transformation outcome is to excel at customer and employee experiences…It’s hard to deliver business outcomes from any technology investment without business executives as partners. Gartner’s data suggests that, without executive partnership, as many as 88% of CIOs are primed to fall short.”

Building a Culture of Change

By building a culture that embraces change, you can alleviate many of the fears that come with digital transformation initiatives (and avoid change fatigue) paving the way for a smooth transition to better, more modern technology and processes.

Here are a few steps you can take now to start building the foundations of a change culture:

  1. Foster Open Communication

Communication is key in any transformative process. It’s important to maintain transparency about the changes being implemented, their benefits and potential challenges. By keeping everyone informed, you can reduce uncertainty and resistance.

  1. Promote a Learning Mindset

Digital transformation often involves learning new skills and technologies. Encourage employees to view this as an opportunity for growth rather than a threat. Provide necessary training and resources to facilitate learning and make it an integral part of your company culture.

  1. Embrace Failure as Part of the Process

Innovation involves taking risks, and not every risk pays off. It’s essential to create a culture where failure is seen as a steppingstone to success, rather than something to be feared. This can help to foster a more innovative and resilient mindset among your employees.

  1. Encourage Collaboration

Digital transformation isn’t a one-department job. It requires collaboration across all departments. Encouraging a collaborative environment can help to break down silos and ensure that everyone feels involved in the process. In addition, this can help ensure the processes and technology being implemented make sense for all of the departments involved.

  1. Lead by Example

Leadership plays a crucial role in setting the tone for change. Leaders who embrace digital transformation and communicate its benefits effectively can help to inspire the rest of the team to follow suit.

At Pima County, for example, they started their digital transformation in IT so they could demonstrate the success of their new technology before rolling it out to the rest of the organization.

“The drudgery of working through mundane, repetitive tasks doesn’t exist just in IT,” Mark Hayes, information technology leader for the county, said. “I think the more we can reduce toil within the departments that we support, the more people are going to buy in and understand the value of what we’re trying to achieve. There’s nothing like success to breed more success, and once other departments see the benefits they’re going to want these tools too.”

  1. Recognize and Reward Efforts

Acknowledging and rewarding the efforts of those who contribute to the digital transformation process can help to motivate others to do the same. This can also help to build a positive association with change.

Building a culture that embraces change isn’t something that happens overnight. It requires ongoing effort and commitment from everyone in the organization. But with the right approach, you can take the fear out of digital transformation and position your business for success in the digital age.