December 16, 2024
Ensuring lasting change for the better through governance
Previous parts of this series explore some key challenges that businesses face in digitalisation efforts, particularly the planning and strategising stages. Ensuring a seamless transformation process means open, ongoing communication with all those impacted, which is why it’s vital to develop a comprehensive and Collaborative Governance Strategy.
Effective change management requires a robust governance structure that unites all stakeholders. The challenge faced by IT management is fostering a culture of governance that ensures consistent and active participation. Current application management processes primarily focus on operational and administrative systems.
A comprehensive governance model is essential to keep systems of record applications operating smoothly while supporting business functions and workflow. However, governance for innovation and differentiation systems may vary, thereby affecting change management, architecture, funding, development methods, business involvement, and planning horizons.
Identifying sustainable business differentiators is a key component of governance. When developing a strategy for each layer and its interactions, governance considerations must be addressed across budgeting, maintenance and support, selection criteria, stakeholders and ownership, architectural standards, plus pricing and deployment models.
Gartner's ITScore model emphasises differentiated processes aligned with transformation scale with collaboration between business and application organisations for innovation and experimentation.
The final but equally important ingredient in delivering successful transformation – people. After all, technology is only half the equation when you still need skilled users to operate and innovate.
Businesses often mistake technology as a catchall solution, thinking digital transformation can solve other internal issues like performance and culture. While digital tech can play a pivotal role in driving change, it’s ultimately up to your people to ensure digitalisation goes smoothly.
The Importance of Talent and Leadership
A critical resource for ensuring successful and seamless digital transformation is the talent that will use digital tech solutions in their daily workflows. However, tech talent also refers to the leadership teams that manage integration and change across the business.
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”
Source: Warren G. Bennis
Conclusion
An important factor in driving successful digital transformation is attracting and developing tech-savvy executives while improving the overall integration of tech talent into the organisation. This is better and more efficient than simply getting new tech talent in the door. Failing to find the right tech talent is a perennial obstacle to improving companies' digital performance. It's not just about frontline talent, as tech-savvy executives play an equally, if not more important role in today's tech-driven business environment.
Furthermore, it's harder to attract and reskill tech-savvy executives compared to frontline technical talent. By integrating new hires in digital roles directly into the business rather than the IT function, businesses can ensure tech talent is embedded across all departments. This includes high-quality product and design managers whose role is key to strengthening a company's capabilities for developing software or solutions—an important differentiator for seamless and successful digital transformation.
Next time, we’ll conclude this series with a look at digital twins, the AI-powered solution that can simplify digital transformation and minimise the risks that come with such a costly and time-consuming process.
Let's connect