As you know, digitizing a business isn’t just about adding a few more software programs. It requires implementing a comprehensive strategy. But many questions remain: How do you go about it? Where do you start? How do you get employees and management on board? Here are the first three steps—which we believe are essential—for digitizing your business processes.
Step #1 – Consider business needs and set priorities
The digital transformation of businesses affects the entire company. It is not a matter of carrying out individual projects, but of initiating a profound transformation of the organization, business processes, and work methods. For this transformation to be a true success, it is necessary to reflect on the initial need: Who initiated the project? What was the issue that prompted you to take action? Is this request general or specific? What other processes are involved?
First, you need to analyze your internal organization and map out your processes (BPA, or Business Process Analysis). Next, you should take stock of the tools already in use within the company. Do they cover all your needs? Are they underutilized? Can they be replaced by simpler tools? Can they be used by other departments? Is additional training needed to make better use of them? Or should you deploy new solutions that better meet the company’s needs?
This step helps identify the actual challenges faced by the various departments on a daily basis and prioritize them. As a result, work methods and processes will evolve alongside the company’s transformation to make it more efficient and agile.
Step #2 – Forget the specifications!
When people think of software deployment, they think of requirements specifications. At DAMAaaS, we recommend that you forget about them. In fact, we’re convinced that drafting requirements specifications actually acts as a barrier to Digitization of Your Processes. In fact, the requirements specification is often drafted by a single person or a small working group and takes a long time to produce, even though a process is collaborative by nature and the company’s structure evolves rapidly. Furthermore, this type of document is neither flexible nor agile; it does not evolve in step with changing needs. Finally, since requirements documents are often drafted by technical staff, they do not necessarily reflect the needs of business units, which would have phrased them differently. We therefore recommend a Co-development (or co-engineering) between IT, Business Units, and Service Providers so that we can start from scratch and develop a solution that suits you and meets your actual needs.
This methodology allows you to build your workflows, modify them, and adapt them in real time by asking yourself the right questions. Very often, this collaborative approach reveals possibilities you might not have considered when drafting your requirements. More agile and more efficient, this is the methodology we believe is best suited to support you in your digital transformation: it lies at the heart ofthe “Design Thinking” philosophy that has been gaining traction in recent years among the most innovative companies.
Step #3 – Choose an agile solution
Digital transformation goes hand in hand with agility. Today, IT teams are tasked with delivering to business units competitive, agile services tailored to their needs. This therefore means implement innovative and intuitive solutions, while keeping value chain costs under control. As a CIO, you are increasingly interested in development approaches that enable iteration and accelerate application delivery (such as DevOps).
To effectively meet the needs of your business units, opt for a custom solution that can adapt to your diverse requirements and be deployed quickly using agile methodologies and minimal coding. Solutions such as DAMAaaS implemented in just a few days and can be tailored to the services you need through an intuitive method of visually representing workflows.
