How is Focusing on Digital Transformation Lifecycle Beneficial for Businesses?

Lately, digital transformation in the business world has been all over the news. It has become one of those omnipresent processes that focus on providing organizations with the key to success. But not all businesses seeking digital transformation are getting the expected results. This is because many of them are not following a strategic digital transformation lifecycle process.

Digital transformation often seems like an individual process. However, it is a combination of several phases that comes under the umbrella of a digital cycle involving constant progression. A clear idea of all these activities helps businesses understand where they should begin and what could be the possible outcomes.

Digital transformation is a constantly evolving process. Besides focusing on the strategic approach to follow, it calls for continuous improvements in the existing methods as well. So, the question is – what are the exact phases involved in the successful digital transformation lifecycle, and from where does a business should start? Let’s explore this!

What Exactly Does Digital Transformation Lifecycle Mean?

Before moving forward to understand the digital transformation lifecycle, it’s better to know what digital transformation is in the first place.

So, digital transformation is a process of incorporating digital solutions into the core business models, changing the way they operate. These modifications lead to new business processes, improving the customer experience and organizational culture to a large extent.

“Digital transformation tends to reshape businesses across different industries by recasting the existing operational models and meeting ever-changing market demands.”

– Omji Mehrotra, VP-Delivery

Simply put, it enhances the different areas of your organization for better outcomes. From the way your internal departments function to the digital experiences you provide to customers through your services, digital transformation focuses on all aspects of your business.

However, digital transformation in business is not just a process of shifting from traditional methods. In fact, it promotes businesses to step into the digital age, overcoming the wide array of challenges that might turn up as roadblocks in their growth.

What Is the Digital Transformation Lifecycle?

Do you know, around 84% of all the initiatives in the projects regarding digital transformation fail to deliver the expected value to the businesses? Well, this shows that digital transformation is not easily attainable. As a business owner, you need to follow a strategic approach, that is, a well-planned digital transformation lifecycle, to succeed.

So, a digital transformation lifecycle is basically a constant process of progressive and innovative changes. The entire process advances from one stage to another and helps businesses to bridge the gaps that might make business transformation convoluted.

This digital cycle of transformation consists of a specific set of stages where each progressing stage is connected with the previous one. The primary objective of this lifecycle is to attain continuous excellence with an agile approach, aligning with the global corporate competition, technological disruptions, and changing customer needs.

What Are the Major Trends in the Digital Transformation Industry?

In order to stay agile and accomplish a competitive advantage, businesses need to keep an eye on the latest digital transformation trends in the market. These trends assist organizations to grab new opportunities for enhancing their business operations.

Large-Scale Adoption of Low-Code Platforms

For non-technical businesses, low-code platforms came as a boon, providing them with a development environment to design, build, and deploy software. Basically, it offers a GUI and easy drag-and-drop tools to non-technical users to create tailored solutions without coding.

This type of development approach has lately become popular for its benefits in terms of development costs, scalability, and risk management. Low-code development can further help in:

1. Rapid prototyping
2. Quick software deployment
3. Product delivery

Moving Towards Cloud Migration

One of the key factors that help businesses advance toward the path of digital transformation is data migration from on-premise facilities to the cloud. Organizations across industries are focusing on cloud migration strategies to improve accessibility, strengthen security, and cut off additional data management costs.

Moreover, the inception of 5G has brought internet speeds to an ultimate level, making cloud migration more quicker and feasible. Besides this, the collaboration of SaaS and cloud technologies is also accelerating the digital transformation to a large extent.

Democratization of AI

The global market revenue in the digital transformation industry was projected to be over $731 billion in 2022. And undoubtedly, the discharge of artificial intelligence across industries worldwide played a major role in this growth.

AI and its subfields are constantly reshaping the industrial landscape, helping businesses reach their goals more easily and quickly. With the democratization of AI, the benefits of this technology are becoming accessible to all businesses and every individual within an organization.

Democratization of AI also helps in providing tools that spot recent trends, make informed decisions, and enhance the effectiveness of digital transformation. Apart from this, the sub-domains of AI – machine learning and deep learning prove to be key factors in stepping up the level of business transformation. The digital transformation in Netflix is one of the prominent examples.

What Are the Different Stages in the Digital Transformation Lifecycle?

The entire process of digital transformation can be broken into different phases. Here are the key stages involved in the digital transformation lifecycle:

Define Your Business Goals

Many companies still think of digital transformation as a phenomenon involving the introduction of new digital technologies. They often neglect their business goals as an afterthought. However, the digital transformation lifecycle indeed works the other way around.

The first and foremost step while seeking digital transformation should be defining the business value and goals you are looking to achieve. Now, break this primary objective into little and easily achievable tasks. Only now you can think of the specific digital transformation technology to be implemented in order to attain your business objectives.

Remember, technology is nothing but just a set of specific tools that assist you in accomplishing your primary goals. It itself is not a goal to achieve.

Align Your Team Players

In order to completely transform your business, you must ensure that the entire workforce is on board in the process. The enthusiasm to welcome the change should come from the top. However, changes are not that easy to comprehend. That’s why you need to explain to your workforce how digital transformation will help grow the company as a whole.

Besides this, another myth associated with the digital transformation that frightens a large section of employees is that new technologies (particularly AI robots) are coming after their jobs. In such cases, the companies need to make them understand that the implementation of digital transformation models is not about reducing job positions.

In fact, it is an innovative approach that focuses on enhancing the existing skills of the workforce and helping them acquire new ones. So, it doesn’t matter what your business goals are, you need complete support from the workforce to embrace the changes.

Innovative Planning and Strategy Formation

Now, it’s time to plan and choose the right digital solutions that help implement digital transformation correctly. For this, you need to analyze the current scenario, focus on the areas that need to be improved, and plan the way to digital transformation. In addition, you need to analyze the business’s strengths and weaknesses. This will assist you in identifying the best opportunities.

In this process, you need to keep the changing market aspects and consumer behavior in mind, too. Basically, this phase is the initial version of the digital cycle, offering you valuable insights into what the actual transformation will look like. In case you feel this process to be challenging, you can always outsource your digital transformation project to professionals.

Later, you can implement these digital transformation strategies and solutions business-wide to improve the entire operational efficiency of the company.

Evaluate the Strategy and Outcomes

In order to check whether the transformation is successful or not, you have to consistently check the strategy and outcomes derived from it. As a business owner, you need to figure out the inefficiencies in your process and the areas that must be improved for better functioning.

Apart from this, you need to recheck the tools and techniques used in the process of transformation. In case they are not sufficient to deliver optimal results as expected, you have to modernize them for better efficiency.

This stage is mainly about gathering feedback and evaluating the outcomes critically. You need to tally the results with your business objectives. If they are not the same and your digital transformation strategy has scope for improvement, do make the changes. Ensure that your digital transformation process should follow agile methodology to deliver the best customer experience possible.

Aim for Continuous Improvements

Companies must not stop the digital transformation lifecycle for their businesses after seeing the desired results. In fact, they should constantly work on redefining the transformation strategy and encourage further innovation until the changes become part of their core business process.

Furthermore, they can look for more robust solutions that help scale up the transformation cycle. Also, introducing new features and functionalities that enhance the experience for customers will always offer you a competitive edge. 

How to Make a Digital Transformation Lifecycle Successful?

No doubt successful digital transformation is infrequent. However, businesses that focus on and get the major factors right can significantly make a difference.

Create a Comprehensible Integrated Strategy

Although almost all the companies out there claim that they follow a dedicated digital transformation strategy, however, only two out of five have a strategy that’s integrated. And these businesses having a clear integrated strategy are 81% more likely to achieve success.

Below are the actions to define an apprehensive integrated strategy that promotes digital transformation.

Form a Vision

Define an across-the-board vision in alignment with your business strategy.

Focus on Prioritization

Identify and focus on prioritized business use cases

Choose Specific Tech and Data

Ensure flexible technologies and data platforms

Instill Culture in People and Infrastructure

Improve the existing processes, adopt new ways of working, and instill culture within the organization.

Craft a Roadmap and Implement a Plan

Develop a roadmap and implement the strategy.

Make Leadership Commitment from the Top to the Middle Management

In order to ensure effective monitoring and implementation of the digital transformation lifecycle, it is crucial to demonstrate instances of visible commitment to leadership. As a business owner, this commitment should come from the top management to the middle level.

This process helps in motivating and empowering the middle management for the changes. Besides this, it also creates a sense of engagement and excitement within the organization regarding the transformation.

Place the Suitable People for the Right Positions

Not everyone can do everything, but everyone can do something that helps bring significant changes. For a successful digital transformation lifecycle, it is important to appoint the right people for specific tasks and roles.

These people must have a perfect mix of both digital expertise and organizational skills. With the appointment of high-caliber talent, the chances of successful digital transformation increase by 47%.

Inculcate an Agile Approach and Mindset within the Organization

Whenever there is a buzz about digital transformation, the inclusion of the agile methodology is normal. The agile approach empowers your digital transformation management and makes it possible to adopt the changes efficiently.

Experts suggest that companies following an agile mindset can expect 4x improvements in their digital transformation projects. Agility is important to cope with the setbacks and roadblocks within a digital transformation lifecycle. For this, businesses often form distributed agile teams to run different business operations and embed agility during digital transformation.

Analyze and Evaluate Your Transformation Progress

Only implementing solutions does not help you pass through the finish line until you monitor your progress. Businesses that keep a tab on their digital transformation progress – from start to finish – are more likely to succeed.

For this, companies need to define a set of explicit metrics that aligns with their business goals. Effective monitoring can result in 75% of successful digital transformations. Besides this, it also helps enhance dynamic adjustments of finance by 50% for businesses.

How Can Appventurez Help Businesses Embrace Digital Transformation?

Every company has its own set of goals and objectives and there is no specific digital transformation approach that goes well with each of them. Therefore, it is crucial to formulate a definite strategy at the beginning of your digital transformation lifecycle to stay innovative and improve operational efficiency.

But businesses are paying attention to the wrong things, making the success rate for digital transformation projects below 16%. They must understand that digital transformation is not just about using newfangled technologies. In fact, it is about 80% focusing on soft skills and just 20% on implementing digital technologies. However, with no expertise in this field, it is easier said than done.

Appventurez is a professional software development company that provides innovative end-to-end solutions and digital transformation consulting services for businesses across different industries. We offer comprehensive assistance to formulate agile-based strategies, helping you overcome the roadblocks in your journey of digital transformation.