Did you know that 75% of the digital transformation initiatives are stuck in the pilot phase? Yes, you read that right but did you know why this large percentage of digital transformation initiatives are stuck and not able to scale? There are many reasons for it. It could be a lack of interest and engagement from key stakeholders or resistance to change from employees.
To make your digital transformation journey a success, you need to gain buy-in from key stakeholders. In this article, you will learn how you can get buy-in from key stakeholders for your digital transformation journey and what challenges you might encounter along the way.
4 Common Hurdles In Getting Buy-In From Stakeholders
Here are four common obstacles businesses encounter when getting buy-in from key stakeholders.
1. Resistance to change
The first obstacle that your digital transformation initiative might bump into would be resistance to change. Employees might oppose your digital transformation initiatives as they fear that they have learned new technology from scratch and adapted to it. If you are implementing automation, it could create a sense of fear in their minds regarding job security. They will start to look at automation as their enemy. You need to make them realize the benefits of digital transformation and how it can benefit them.
2. Reskilling existing talent
When you implement a new system in your organziation, you will also have to train your employees to take full advantage of it. They will have to learn new skills in order to make the most of the new system. Organizing training programs and skill development programs might require time and money. Once the training is complete, it is hard to gauge its effectiveness and what new skills your employees have learned and how effective the training program has been.
3. Transforming organization structure
For some, digital transformation can be a massive shift. You might have to change your mindset, approach and even the organization structure in order to digitally transform your organization. This is easier said than done. This requires a lot of planning and flawless execution to achieve the desired outcomes.
4. Process improvements
Let’s say, your organisation won’t have to change the entire organization but have to introduce new processes to achieve better results. The goal of digital transformation is to respond and adapt to change quickly and efficiently and you need processes to support it if you want to achieve that goal. If you are using your existing processes, it won’t deliver the results you are expecting. You will have to improve your existing processes or introduce newer and better processes.
How to Get Digital Transformation Buy-In From Top Stakeholders?
Here are five ways you can get buy-in from top stakeholders for your digital transformation initiatives.
Provide Job Security
Have you ever wondered why employees tend to resist change? Why they don’t like automation and artificial intelligence? Because of job security. These tools and technologies directly impact their job security. Put yourself in the shoes of an employee who is entering data, a task that can easily be automated via technology. Wouldn’t you be insecure about your job when you hear and see those tools and technologies being implemented?
Instead of making employees fear technology, you should focus on providing them with job security. Once they feel their jobs are secure, they will be more tolerant toward newer change initiatives and technology implementations. You will have to deal with less resistance when implementing those changes.
Wearing Different Hats
Digital transformation is all about integrating processes and systems together and digitizing manual processes for optimal productivity and efficiency. This is where you have to define new roles for employees whose tasks have been automated. Divert employees towards more strategic and meaningful tasks that deliver value to the business.
Yes, it will be a shift from repetitive and mundane tasks to more analytical tasks that require problem-solving. Your digital transformation team and employees should be willing to wear multiple hats. Take feedback from employees and incorporate their feedback to improve the process just like an app development company does from its users.
Rethinking Talent Requirements
If you want to analyze data, you don’t have to be a data scientist for that. If you have basic knowledge of data analytics along with hands-on experience and knowledge of the process, you can be at the forefront of your digital journey. Upskilling and reskilling your existing workforce can help you achieve continuous improvement as well as sustained growth and business development.
Encourage cross-functional collaboration, employee engagement and technology adoption This will allow them to learn new things and look at things from a unique perspective. More importantly, it will develop their problem-solving skills and help them make data-driven decisions.
Foster Collaboration Among IT and Operations Team
The success and failure of your digital transformation initiatives depend on numerous factors and one of them is a collaboration between your IT and operations team. If these two teams are not on the same page with one another as they usually are not due to differences in their goals, it will create friction which would lead to more issues.
Your operations team might be more inclined towards enhancing the productivity of your plant while IT teams are responsible for minimizing cybersecurity risks and ensuring business continuity by sustaining enterprise platforms. Create a digital transformation team that includes members from both departments. Ask them to outline initiatives, collaborate on implementation and achieve desired outcomes.
Expedite Learning and Experimentation
If you want to succeed in today’s highly competitive digital world, you need to focus on developing an agile and nimble organization. This will allow you to respond to changes in a much better way, learn from your mistakes and apply those lessons in future. Develop a culture that revolves around continuous learning and gives your employees freedom to try new ideas and conduct new experiments without worrying about failure. This is how you can come up with innovative new products.
What steps do you take to get buy-in for digital transformation from stakeholders? Share it with us in the comments section below.
