Introduction
Digital Transformation is bringing about a radical shift in the way you run your business, deliver services or manage your customers. The objective of digital transformation is to gain long term value, competitive edge, and substantial growth to the business over a period of time.
Introducing new system and technologies, automation etc. are actually parts of the digitization exercise and enterprises confuse this to be digital transformation. Digitization is just enabling businesses to automate processes or replacing manual processes with new IT systems to stay relevant whereas digital transformation has a larger objective and mission.
The TOPS Approach
Total Optimization of Process and Systems is a step by step systematic approach to execution of a Digital Transformation project.
The TOPS approach to digital transformation takes into consideration the 3 I’s of any transformation project viz.
- Intelligent Business Process
- Integrated Risk Management
- Increase User Adoption
The 5 steps for successfully rolling out a Digital Transformation Project are –
1) Process Discovery
Clear understanding of the current state is the first step. An entire end to end flow of the current AS-IS process is required for the area which is considered for the digital transformation. As far as possible the AS-IS process should be visually depicted – “A picture is worth a thousand words”.
2) Process Improvement
Processes need to be analysed subjectively and objectively through the GQM method – Goal, Question and Metrices. Try and find the Goal, answer to questions and various metrices for the process. These would help in detailed evaluation and come up with improvement methodologies. “ If you cannot measure it you cannot improve it “
3) Risk & Control
A risk and control structure will be setup to keep track of incidents, events, trigger action plan and look at deviations and take timely remediation of the same. Many enterprises try to overlook this aspect as part of the transformation.
4) Process Adoption
Your initiatives will be as successful as how well they are adopted. Enabling team members, by providing proper learning and training tools digitally, DIY (Do It Yourself) mode of training, gamification, certification etc. required to improve the adoption rate.
5) Process Measurement
Digital transformation is a continuous process and should not be treated as a one-time activity. Process monitoring and measurement need to be carried out at regular intervals to evaluate the results of change and continuously surface new improvement opportunities.
