Your complete guide to digital transformation, including what it is, why it matters, how to get started and how to do it right.
Digital transformation is a constant. What was once modern can quickly become old school. This makes it vital for decision makers in every organization to understand how to recognize the need for, implement, and manage digital transformation projects.
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Digital transformation is the replacement of manual, paper-based and asynchronous business processes with modern, cloud-enabled digital processes.
When the idea of digitally transforming business processes first entered the scene, the term was essentially synonymous with “going paperless.”
Today, however, many organizations are well beyond the conversion of paper to electronic documents, yet their digital transformation journeys are far from over.
Because technology continues to evolve, the digital transformation journey is never really complete. There will always be incremental improvements to be made, new solutions to try and disruptive challenges to overcome.
Different organizations follow different journeys toward and through their own digital transformations as they work to adopt and implement the technologies that meet their own unique needs. These enhancements will expand their information management ecosystems and improve their operational processes.
> Read more | Ten real-world examples of digital transformation
Digital transformation is dependent on the technologies that support it, but it is not comprised of the technologies alone. A true digital transformation encompasses four primary areas within an organization: Tools, processes, people and offerings.
Updated tools, in the form of new solutions and advanced technology implementations, are applied to old processes and able to complete them more quickly and accurately than when it was paper-based and/or manual. In some cases, the technology render some processes redundant and unnecessary.
Entire business processes can be automated with a digital transformation strategy. While these changes can drive efficiencies in workflows, they can sometimes also impact the work that people do within the organization. Organizations need to consider how their digital transformations will modify all aspects of their operations, organizational structures and budget allocation.
Read more: The Forrester Wave™: Digital Process Automation Software, Q4 2023 report
Although some aspects of certain jobs may become casualties of digitization, the World Economic Forum found in its Future of Jobs Report, 2023 that organizations don't expect technology to displace jobs. Of 28 types of technology adoptions, only two were identified as job displacers: Humanoid and nonhumanoid robots (drones, for example).
The large share of organizations surveyed predict technology will create jobs, with net job creation impacts of:
Leadership can prepare their workforces for the changes digital transformation will bring to the workplace by understanding and communicating how employees’ time will be reallocated and what new value their contributions will bring to the organization.
The benefits of digital transformation mean little if organizations don’t use their newfound time and human capital to improve the products, services and experiences they offer employees, partners and customers. The intent of digital transformation is to provide humans with the freedom to perform uniquely human tasks, like creative problem solving, developing new ways of connecting with the people they serve, and bringing innovative new offerings to market.
Digital transformation is important because it grants organizations the agility to accelerate, pivot and thrive in environments of innovation and uncertainty.
> Learn more | Forrester study: Prepare for the next business stress test
Noridian Healthcare Solutions, a healthcare administration company and early adopter of a strong digital transformation strategy, was able to shift nearly seamlessly into an entirely remote work environment when the pandemic hit. In just three days, it shut down its in-person operations.
Noridian began its digital transformation journey by implementing Hyland's OnBase platform in 2002. That early move away from manual and paper-based processes (and continued evolution) positioned it to react quickly and effectively to the changes necessitated by COVID-19.
> Learn more | How to fortify your remote workforce management approach
> Read more | Noridian Healthcare Solutions
Digital transformation initiatives succeed when there is a holistic approach to standardize the way information and content is managed, used and shared across the organization.
That means even the most transformative technologies won’t move the needle without the support of an outcome-based strategy.
“Just because you’re implementing AI or RPA doesn’t mean you’re doing digital transformation,” says Valt Vesikallio, senior vice president of global services at Hyland. “That’s just another IT project.”
Effective digital transformation is dependent on a uniquely tailored combination of the following advanced (and still advancing) technologies:
Gain control over incoming information, no matter where it’s located or what format it comes in. Capture content right at the source and organize it — and the data it contains — into a single system with minimal human interaction.
Manage content and digital assets organization-wide. Simplify how users interact with the information they need by keeping it organized and accessible, so they can focus on getting their jobs done rather than managing folders and files.
Provide secure, scalable access to the information your people need, when and where they need it. When IT leaders were surveyed about the biggest advantages of cloud-based enterprise solutions, they cited benefits that directly relate to the advantages of digital transformation, including disaster recovery, data availability, cost savings, incident response, security expertise, geographical disbursement and expert access.
Make your business processes better, not just faster, with smart process automation. Technologies like intelligent document processing (IDP), robotic process automation (RPA) and hyperautomation optimize your structured processes while delivering meaningful exceptions to the right people.
Artificial intelligence (AI) uses supporting technologies like machine learning and intelligent data analytics to drastically boost organizational productivity, uncover hidden insights and inform your business strategies.
Improve the customer experience by embracing powerful tools for customer communication.
Enable sharing and collaboration without sacrificing control with simple, secure, easy-to-use ways of sharing information.
Effectively manage customer relationships, documents and processes with smart case management tools. Get a complete view of all the related, relevant information in a case while ensuring continuity, increasing productivity and optimizing collaboration.
A single platform to manage date relationships, documents and processes can support the dynamic and often unpredictable processes involved in real-world operations.
Quickly find the exact information you need, when you need it, even within the massive volume of content at your organization. High-powered and intuitive enterprise search capabilities allow you to access cross-system results, seamlessly and immediately.
Automate the secure retention and destruction of documents and records from the beginning of the content lifecycle to the end. Reduce security and compliance risks with intelligent, automated and federated information governance.
Digital transformation thrives in organizations where modernization is prioritized, mistakes are seen as catalysts for growth, and the business is committed from the top down.
“When I’ve seen digital transformation go well, executives have been deeply involved,” says Vesikallio. “They provide clarity to the business case, remove barriers and play a key role in change management. Because a successful digital transformation involves just that — transformation — organizations and industries that are traditionally slower to adapt may face greater hurdles than those that have historically prioritized innovation and customer experience."
Here are three common digital transformation challenges to look out for:
Approaching digital transformation without a business-aligned strategy or without big-picture drivers is a recipe for failure. Combat it by asking tough questions throughout the planning and implementation processes, like:
Successful digital transformations start small.
Trying to transform everything at once can be chaotic and more disruptive than helpful.
Try beginning with a process that should quickly and easily show ROI. Examples include:
The initial success and tangible ROI can make the entire vision much easier to sell to stakeholders.
"People” often come up as the leading roadblock to successful digital transformation initiatives. Organizations that successfully overcome this challenge say the key to solving it is to get all relevant players' buy-in on the strategy of the transformation.
> Learn more | 70% of IT project implementations are not successful. Yours can be.
When you’ve been on your digital transformation journey for a significant amount of time but still feel like you have a long way to go, how can you measure your progress?
Look at how your organization interacts with its information. Here are three things to look for:
When you have fully transformed, content will start to drive itself throughout the enterprise. Once captured into a central repository, it will find its way to the appropriate personnel, wherever they might be, with specific business criteria automatically pushing it through its journey.
At this stage, any predictable queries should be answered by technology. This includes questions like, “Who should this document go to for approval?” or “Is there a related document already in our systems?”
A milestone on the digital transformation journey is when systems send notifications to the appropriate staff or audience when something has changed, such as someone submitting a form. Moreover, as someone needs to review or act on a piece of content, that content should find its way to that user — through notifications that give them all they need to complete the task at hand, including all related content.
Digital information, meaning information stored in a computer rather than a filing cabinet, does not equal digital transformation.
Consider an old, handwritten contract that’s scanned, labeled correctly and stored as a PDF in a digital folder with other contracts from the same year. You can read it on your computer or other device, but you can’t extract the text, use it to find related contracts, or share it with a colleague without downloading the PDF and emailing it to them. The contract is available digitally, yes, but that’s about it.
A sign of a digitally transformative process is the accessibility and usability of information across formats and in different contexts. The solutions you use to foster your digital transformation should put context around content and utilize tools that make that content useful beyond storage in a repository.
Feeling good about your digital transformation initiatives?
We hope so! But no matter what, your transformation is never really complete.
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