Creating a company that embraces digitalisation

. 2 min read

By Arjun Sondhi As the world becomes increasingly digitalised, companies need to anticipate the huge changes that are likely to occur and adapt to survive. Business leaders are anticipating huge changes to the way in which we conduct business and expect the pressure to adapt to intensify. However, a large number of business executives are worried about their company’s inability to change fast enough to thrive in an increasingly digital world. In order to survive in this ‘new world’ business leaders need to create and communicate a compelling digital strategy, as well as utilising the new digital offerings to make changes to existing organisational processes and systems. Moving a business into digital, demands a great investment into employee support and cultural change. We have identified the key steps for companies to address as they look to stay ahead of the competition and take advantage of the various opportunities a digital business creates: Development of new structures: Digitalisation of a business requires a great investment in the development of new structures and systems to be able to cope with the new demands. Companies should be looking to keep the organisational structure fluid and agile in order to rapidly respond to the dynamic nature of the digital economy. Communication of strategy: Once you have developed the structures to cope with digitalisation it is essential that you effectively communicate the message to your employees. The digital transformation begins with the creation of a sense of purpose and the successful communication of a compelling digital strategy by the leadership team. Innovation teams: Your company understands the goal but now the implementation of the transformation is of great importance. The leading companies, when creating a digital culture, bring together cross-functional teams that possess creativity and a wide variety of opinions. By encouraging people to think differently it will inspire innovation within the organisation. Creative culture: Innovating within a digital world requires experimentation and analysis. Within every area of the business, companies must adopt a mindset of agility and experimentation. As a company becomes more digital they should be listening to customer feedback and monitoring market changes, whilst developing rapid responses to remain ahead of the competition. Rethinking IT: Companies need to modernize and update their IT infrastructure in order to keep up with the digitalisation of the market. In order to gain speed, agility and scalability they need to adopt a cloud and an API based infrastructure. Companies need to also rethink the role of IT within an organisation. As more products become increasingly digital based, businesses should be looking to collaborate IT with product development. Conclusion: A large number of companies find themselves falling further behind the competition- due to a previous ignorance for the future of industry. In order to catch up, these companies will need to prioritise where they focus their digitalisation efforts- is it organisational structure, customer engagement or product development? These changes will all require strong leadership; sound digital knowledge and heavy investment into new technology. It is likely that large traditional organisations will face resistance- however it is down to the leadership to demonstrate a clear vision and emphasise the need to become agile, in an increasingly disruptive world. Arjun Sondhi is the Creative Director at BMC Global Services.