A digital transformation is made up of four key aspects:
- Vision: Why the organisation is undergoing a digital transformation
- Strategy: How is the organization going to transform, high level values, principles and priorities
- Missions: What is going to transform, which products and services need digital transformation
- Resources: Who is going to execute the transformation.
Before committing to a digital transformation, an organisation needs to understand where they are on their digital journey and where they want to go. The first phase is the assessment: understanding what the current digital strategy is. An organisation may not have a defined digital strategy, however they may very well have an organic strategy that has not been defined, but has grown from necessity, whichever the case organic or defined it needs to be assessed. The current direction should be projected into the future to establish where the organization will be on the current course in, 1, 2, even 5 years.
Next the organisation needs to define there digital vision:
- Where they want to be, what strategic digital direction do they want to take?
- Define their vision of what good looks like in concrete terms?
- how they want to change or augment their business model?
- how these changes will provide value to the customers and employees?
understanding the value added of this digital vision will establish the why to transform.
Digital transformation visions are living and breathing entities, they do not exist in a frictionless vacuum, as markets/industries evolve and situations change your organisations vison may, and in all likelihood will need to change with the landscape, this is normal especially in large organisations where a digital transformation my be a multi year program rather than an simple project.
In short a digital vision helps the executive team acknowledge the fact that a digital transformation is necessary. It establishes where the organisation is, and where it needs to be to remain relevant and competitive.
