4 Keys of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation has been a buzz word for a long time. I saw it first hand during my time at Adobe as we hit the narrative of the need for businesses to shift strategies to the mobile/cross-device consumer. It’s all well and good for marketers, sales folks, designers, and executives to pound on this, but it’s the infrastructure owners who are on the front lines. This was one of the themes from the VMware vForum online conference on October 16th (available on demand). I wasn’t able to make it to VMworld this year, so was excited to be able to tune into the broadcast to learn more from some of the brightest minds on trends in infrastructure. It can be overwhelming for these leaders to decide which tech to invest in and which path to take, but it can also provide the foundation for the future. Chris Wolf, VP and CTO of the global field and industry at VMWare said “start small, these are hard skills to hire for, so try to develop from within.”‍ Building on what Chris had to say about digital transformation, here are 4 steps on how to achieve digital transformation.

1. Analyze where you currently stand
2. Choose your OKR (Outcome and key result)
3. Get buy-in
4. Evaluate and optimize

Analyze where you currently stand

It can be tempting to look around, see everyone else making changes digitally and jump directly into some quick changes without having thought out strategy. Your long term digital transformation will start with seeing where you currently stand. Working at Adobe for 7 years, I saw first hand a digital transformation that has been shown as an example for many other large companies. CEO of Adobe, Shantanu Narayen had this to say. “Our product cycles were too slow to keep up with the pace of innovation our engineers wanted to deliver,” Narayen explained. “We didn’t have a direct customer relationship to understand which features would add the most value. And we weren’t attracting the next generation of new users.” “Moving to a cloud-based subscription model put the customer experience front and center,” he said, “delivering a continuous stream of innovation to customers.”‍ When I started at Adobe the flagship product was Creative Suite 6 (including Photoshop, Premiere, etc…). The revenue stream was sporadic and updates weren’t as frequent. The company had frequent all-hands meetings for employees to bring all hands on deck to the digital transformation. They were transparent and took in all the information possible along the way. The company did loads of research and planning prior to making the leap and that belief in the vision and research helped push the company through the move.

Choose your OKR

OKR (Objectives and key results) are a big reason for the success of many tech companies including Google. Taken from rework.google.com John Doerr, one of Google’s early investors and a current Board of Directors member, learned about OKRs from Andy Grove while at Intel. Doerr explained that when he joined Intel, the company was transitioning from a memory company to a microprocessor company, and Grove and the management team needed a way to help employees focus on a set of priorities in order to make a successful transition. OKRs helped them communicate those priorities, maintain alignment, and make that switch. Infrastructure, without it a company would crumble. You can’t just decide upon a goal or theme for your business without having some tangible goals. Setting OKRs at company and org level can help to ensure buy-in and accountability on the path to digital transformation. OKRs may involve an annual goal to have certain processes automated or moved to the Cloud. Smaller quarterly goals can help lead the team along the way.

Get Buy-In

Digital transformation is a heavy lift. Whether you are moving your business to the Cloud, shifting to a SaaS or freemium model, or adding infrastructure, it can take time, money, and a lot of people to make it happen. It’s crucial to get buy-in from the most affected orgs and even company-wide if your culture calls for it. I appreciated from the beginning the approach Adobe took to getting buy-in from teams. For a company of around 20k people, it definitely felt more like a startup. Keys to getting buy-in can start small and spread as a commitment to the plan grows. If you are leading the transformation you will want to have a clear vision and steps for the process. Have a plan for commitments from your infrastructure teams, have a hiring plan, and have the energy needed to push the company through. As a leader of digital transformation, you need to create a culture and vision that shows your company as more than just a production house. Your vision needs to show how the company fits into a digital and automated future. It can start with just a simple statement that is visual As an example of transformation vision, at Zight (formerly CloudApp) we are leaders in the Collaboration 2.0 movement. According to the State of Collaboration report from Zight (formerly CloudApp), more than 1 in 2 office workers prefer to communicate visually with more than 57% of Gen Z working remotely each week. At Zight (formerly CloudApp), we are enabling that visual collaboration through the creation of instantly shareable screenshots, videos, image snippets, screen recordings and GIFs. Passing that vision onto your teams can encourage a strong culture for transformation and help the team push through the harder moments that lie ahead.

Evaluate and Optimize

It can be easy to do that first all-hands where you tell your team that you are taking steps towards digital transformation. Your people will be key to implementing new systems and infrastructure. Teams involved in digital transformation should have frequent check-ins with OKRs to ensure the vision is being executed on. As you start the process, priorities may change and adjustments may need to be made, but the overall vision and strategy should remain the same. Consistency with evaluation and optimization where needed is crucial for pushing digital transformation forward. On top of infrastructure and moves to the cloud, you may also consider other transformation tools to lead you into the modern workplace. Tools like Zight (formerly CloudApp) with its screen recorder, snipping tool, and GIF creator enables instant visual business communication and has proven to be a strong keystone for customer support, marketing, engineering, sales, and other orgs.

Some Examples

There are some great companies out there who have led strong digital transformation changes. I mentioned Adobe above. There are also several other great companies who centered their digital transformation around their customers. Adobe, BestBuy, Intuit, SunTrust, and Chegg were all highlighted in Shantanu Narayen’s keynote at Adobe Summit 2019. You can find their transformation stories here.

Summary

Pushing a strategy towards digital transformation can help ensure your company is ready for the modern workplace. The future of work is digital and the move will ensure you are able to continue serving your customers in the best possible way.