Digital transformation takes patience. It won’t be an automatic success. To plan appropriately, you need to talk with your team to know where your business inefficiencies are today. You need to have an understanding of the persisting issues that can harm your business. Of course, there’s going to be operational, marketing, and finance issues.  But whatever it is, you need to uncover it in your business and resolve it early before it gets worse and become irreparable.

We’re not only talking about days of “training” or “workshop” here. It doesn’t even have to be as hard as that, but there should small, consistent efforts to get there. For example, you need to improve the culture of the people around technology. It doesn’t matter if you have the latest technology. If your people aren’t prepared for it, it will be a difficult and confusing transition. As such,  make sure that there’s a “consolidation stage” where people meet technology to improve the processes.

Digital Transformation is a destination to reach, but don’t put a timescale on it. The reality is, try as you might, technology will continue to evolve and advance. Instead of playing “catch-up,” focus on your own journey and the pace of your transformation. Your technology doesn’t even have to be the most recent. It just has to be right for you.

It’s about keeping the entire process simple. It shouldn’t be overly complicated, with too many steps to follow.  Break it down. Make it easier for you to digest and execute.  Yes, it might be time-consuming, but what matters is you’re getting there. You may be taking it slow, but it’s not about the speed but the quality of transformation.

Digital transformation is an investment. It’s a risk because, at some point, you need to get your systems from scratch. And that becomes the initial start of the journey. And transformation then becomes, “where do you go from here?” Whether you implement a brand new system or a brand new workflow or move everything to the cloud, it won’t matter if you don’t know what’s going to be the return. There must be an understanding of what you’ve got and what you’re going to get once you leverage it. For example, just because a vendor told you that a particular system would make you faster and more efficient, doesn’t mean you should stop there. You need to know just how your businesses will improve by going from version one to version two. What else can you do with upgraded version? How can it further enhance your business?

There will really be times when you’ll need to take a step back, look at the big picture, and upgrade the technology as you see fit to your end goal. However, this is an integral part of the journey because digital transformation can’t happen unless you know where your business is going. Don’t rush it because there’s no point in having a technology that you don’t know how to use. It’s the same as having a plan but not knowing how to execute it.

Be patient. Build your digital architecture slowly but surely to maximise the results.