Digital transformation is a fundamental strategy that in order to achieve long-term success, must be interwoven into every aspect of an organization. A key element of digital transformation is understanding the potential of your technology. When confronted with challenges like knowledge gaps, existing investments, competing priorities and a lack of resources, many business owners find themselves reluctant to replace legacy systems.
Such challenges may have CEOs asking, “How much faster can we do things the same way?” But to truly transform digitally, one should instead be asking, “What is our technology really capable of and how can we adapt our business and procedures to make the most of our technology investments?”
In a world where technologies change rapidly and customer needs evolve, it is essential that companies modernize their business technology and infrastructure to stay competitive. This guide offers five primary steps to choosing your business technology and successfully staying ahead of the competition.
1. Know the Technical Needs of Your Organization
Before you begin your evolution toward digital transformation, it’s important to be aware of your digital starting point. As CEO, you must know your company’s current technical level. The first step is knowing what needs to be modernized or improved. To transform, you have to determine what specific operations and key stakeholders will be impacted and what kind of budget is necessary to move forward. This way, managerial staff can provide strategic direction, while others can help implement the project. With clear, strategic direction, you find a much steadier path with every step you take on your digital journey.
2. IT Strategy
Whether you’re migrating to the cloud, investing in new software or improving your security posture, a sound IT strategy is a necessary component to achieving business goals and initiatives. Building a digital roadmap to achieve short- and long-term goals increases your chances of investing wisely in the types of business technology necessary to meet the demands of your organization.
3. Measure Your ROI
Digital transformation is a long-established process that costs you time, dedication and money. You can’t judge the success or failure of digital transformation if you miss out on the ROI evaluation. The best way to measure ROI on digital transformation is to track specific metrics related to business outcomes such as customer value, productivity and employee engagement.
4. Well-Rounded Infrastructure
When it comes to technology, there are four core areas to consider for a well-rounded infrastructure:
- Voice. Hybrid working models are the new normal and organizations are turning to unified communications to keep distributed teams connected and collaborative. It is no longer a nice-to-have investment but a key pillar to transformation and business success.
- Network. A superior network is the foundation of any solution. Staying connected is more important than ever before. Intelligent, secure IT infrastructures to untether your business and unleash productivity are critical objectives when choosing business technology. Your network transformation should support all your assets, including systems, applications and people.
- Cloud. Build a better network with cloud and be prepared for the future. The cloud fuels growth and powers other digital transformation tools like artificial intelligence (AI), big data and machine learning (ML). Due to its scalable nature, cloud solutions provide the flexibility required to optimize your workloads through public, private, hybrid and multi-cloud options.
- Security. Today, every business is vulnerable to attack, no matter its size. The consequences of being unprepared can be catastrophic. A sound security strategy provides unified and reliable protection of your assets from potential threats in a demanding and evolving threat landscape.
5. Consult the Business Technology Experts
It never hurts to ask for help, especially when trying to stay ahead of the competition. A digital technology plan must be tightly integrated with core business goals and strategic objectives. Technologies change rapidly, and new offerings evolve regularly. You need a partner to assist you and your business during transformation so you can focus on the bigger picture.
IT Experience Tailored to Fit Your Needs
Enterprise? Mid-Market? Emerging business? No problem. Technology is changing faster by the day. As your trusted advisor, ATC eliminates the need to hire or become a niched technology expert, allowing you to focus on your core stakeholders, both internal and external. We accelerate digital transformations with deep, segment-specific expertise.
Choosing your business technology has never been easier. ATC’s best practices and years of experience working with companies—large and small—empowers us to advise clients on how to scale with technology. Contact us today and start your journey on the path to digital transformation. Positive outcomes await.
