By now, many organisations have integrated digital technologies to improve operational efficiencies, increase transparency, and drive better customer experiences. However, not every business gets digital transformation right. Several obstacles stand in the way of digital maturity such as poor strategy and lack of leadership, evolving customer needs, and meeting legislative data-protection requirements.
As a result, less mature organisations are falling into the trap of focusing on individual technologies rather than overall strategy. In fact, the power of digital technologies lies not in their individual use, but in how they fundamentally change how a business operates and delivers value to its customers.
A successful digital transformation strategy demands a holistic, value-orientated approach that looks at every part of the business to improve the entire customer experience. A digital readiness assessment can help as a starting point for getting this holistic view, as well as highlighting areas of disconnection, and suggesting what will give businesses the biggest return.
The assessment is a two-step process that helps businesses set their digital transformation on the right course:
1. Assess current progress
A digital readiness assessment lets businesses assess their current digital capability and identify areas they could improve on to help them prepare for their own digital transformation journey. It helps organisations benchmark their digital transformation progress and understand where they sit compared to other Australian businesses.
The assessment is based on an organisation’s operations, technologies, cybersecurity processes, and digital capabilities as well as its digital strategies and innovation. It’s a benchmark, which means that a business with strong cybersecurity policies and procedures in place is likely to score higher than one that uses legacy systems that don’t support data integrity or modern analytics, for example. Once the scores are calculated, businesses will receive an overall grade based on where the organisation sits in comparison to other Australian businesses who have taken the assessment.
2. Develop a digital transformation strategy
From there, businesses can harness the results and develop a digital transformation strategy. By reviewing the next steps, businesses can get a clear picture of what their digital transformation should look like and the necessary steps to get there. It’s important to remember that what a digital transformation vision looks like will differ from company to company. Businesses that are in the initial stages of digital maturity should first establish their goals, assess the market, and prepare for a culture change. Then, they can invest in the right technology and adjust based on market trends and conditions.
The digital readiness assessment provides a snapshot of where the business sits right now within the context of the market. The ever-changing digital transformation landscape means that a great score now isn’t guaranteed to be a great score in a few years’ time or even 12 months from now. Konica Minolta recommends taking the digital readiness assessment at least once a year to ensure businesses understand the next steps to take to improve their digital readiness, measure improvements compared to previous benchmarks, and understand how the changes they make can improve digital readiness.
Harnessing the power of digital transformation
Digitalisation is no longer part of the future. It’s here now and businesses mustn’t underestimate its transformative power. However, organisations must understand that digital transformation isn’t just about technology, it’s about developing a clear long-term digital strategy to meet strategic goals and drive innovation.
The first step to assessing digital maturity is measuring an organisation’s preparedness to accommodate the varied aspects of digitalisation as well as the critical capabilities that they should improve to start the digital transformation journey.
Konica Minolta’s free online digital readiness assessment provides businesses with a score out of 100 in terms of readiness as well as a personal assessment from our in-house experts. Our team can help map out a plan for transformation and partner with you in the change process.
