Adapting to digital within your business takes more than just installing a new CRM or launching a new website for your customers. It takes an underlying thought process from everyone involved. Depending on the business, some will find it easier than others to benefit from digital. Digital Transformation provides the opportunity for your business to grow but you must have the right culture to take advantage.

Below are some key points in a business which shows how ready you are for Digital Transformation.

What Drives Change?

Most businesses say they are open to change, but in my experience it is when you come down to individual departments that you start to see problems. The most common response I get from departments when talking about change is a general sentiment of "we are open to change, but we don't need to change, if only 'that' department over there would do their job properly then our problems would be solved". The it's not us it's them mentality.

I like to think a good gauge of how open a business is to change is to review your last 5 medium to large changes in the business and how they came about. Did they come out of necessity to solve a problem or were they experiments on ways to improve a current task or process? If you only change as a last resort to solve a problem then you are misusing the power of change and not using change as an improvement mechanism for your company. If you are experimenting with new ideas for change then you have the correct culture of change for digital.

Digital Transformation requires change and a top down directive of change does not always work, staff at all levels need to buy into the process to get the maximum benefit.

Do you Listen to your Customers?

Do you find yourself saying things like "our customers do/don't do this" or "our customers work this way"? If you know all your customers well enough to make general statements like that then great, but can you back any of this up? If it is because this was your experience dealing with a single customer, or worse still it is because you were told by someone else when you first started at the company, then be ready to challenge these assumptions.

Customers are (usually) people, no 2 people are exactly the same and people change. Digital Transformation asks you to look at your customers needs & wants and requires you to analyse and measure them. Digital Transformation can give you the tools to analyse your customers in detail greater detail than you have ever had before so you must be willing to use that information.

Are you Open?

I don't mean extending the business working hours (although in some instances that is an option), I mean how open are you with information within your business, is your culture one of Mushroom Management where you keep things on a need to know basis, or is your culture one of empowering staff with information to make their own decisions?

Digital Transformation can provide your business a wealth of important information, too much for one person or department to handle and information that will help you make decisions on a daily basis, if you are willing to share that information (with appropriate level of controls if needed) then your staff will be empowered to make decisions quickly and accurately without having to wait for a management report at the end of the month!

There is Still Time

However you answered the above questions, you can always benefit from Digital Transformation, it will just be your starting point that changes. If you are worried that you cannot answer 100% yes to all of the above then start thinking about what changes you can make within your business today to improve things.

As always, if you would like some advice then Contact Me.

This post was originally posted at https://digitalforleaders.com/do-you-have-the-culture-for-digital-transformation/