Adopting an evidence-based approach for digital transformation

Digital transformation has the potential to revolutionise your business, but it needs an evidence-based approach if it’s to offer a meaningful return on investment (ROI).

The ROI that comes from digital transformation needs to be clearly demonstrable within the business case, and should also be measurable once the implementation period has finished.

Starting with business intelligence

With modern business intelligence tools, you can:

• measure the ROI following the roll-out of process automation (what did that investment deliver in terms of real-world benefits to the business?); and
• identify processes that are paper heavy and prioritise digitalisation in those areas.

Up to 40% of employee time is spent trying to find the information they need, therefore any benefits that follow process automation and bridging of the paper/digital divide should quickly become clear.

There are plenty of common digital pitfalls you’ll encounter during transformation, but by focussing on the evidence, you’ll be taking a considered approach to your strategy.

It’s equally important to look beyond the ROI gained from digitising and managing content. Digital transformation is also used to improve communications with employees and customers, thus meeting their technological expectations.

This is why it’s important to think ‘business first’ - not ‘digital first’. For instance, simply rolling out a suite of apps or automated processes may not benefit the customer experience or raise employee satisfaction.

Evaluating KPIs across the business

Digital transformation will touch every area of your business; all departments and their team members should benefit and enjoy their own ROI, post roll-out.

This can be measured by using those same business intelligence tools to evaluate the digital transformation programme against key performance indicators (KPIs) across the business.

These may include:

• Finance: income states, profit analysis, key financial ratios, cash flow analysis
• Sales: Customer profitability, product profitability, sales plan versus forecast, pipeline analysis
• Production: Capacity management, inventory, product cost, wastage, supply chain management
• Purchasing: Inventory turnover, supply performance analysis
• Marketing: Marketing analysis, customer relationship management (CRM)
• Customer Service: On-time delivery, complaints, returns and claims, cost of service relationship

Thanks to advances in business intelligence, this type of data can usually be viewed in real-time.

Stakeholders can also gain a holistic view of the entire company’s content infrastructure and communications by digging into the required level of detail as and when required.

Ensuring a successful outcome

Once teamed up with an MPS provider, you’ll be able to add further certainty to a successful outcome and ensure a healthy ROI following digital transformation.

The future will be digitally-dominated, but by taking an evidence-based approach to digital transformation, you’ll avoid being left behind by competitors and ensure profitability never takes a hit.