Digitalization: Framework for Digitalization in the Organization Framework for Digitalization in the Organization: Digitalization

In this digital age, organizations are faced with the responsibility of ensuring that they stay current with the use of digital media. Failure to do that places them at a high risk of failure and lack of a competitive edge. This text outlines a strategy that organizations could use to make themselves current with the use of digital technology.

Bringing an Organization Current with the use of Digital Media

Successful organizations usually have a clear direction, vision, and roadmap defining the way they plan to operate in the future. Failure to have these three instruments places an organization at a high risk of failing to create continuous shareholder value. One of the elements that can be used to assess an organization's sense of direction in this age is its digital strategy. An organization that lacks a clear digital strategy creates an untenable situation for itself because in this digital age, IT is interwoven into the very fabric of markets, business and societies. Clear and effective digital solutions provide organizations with an opportunity to improve how they compete within their respective industries. A perfect example of an organization that failed because of failing to stay at par with digital technology is Kodak. This text is focused on developing a holistic outline that organizations such as Kodak could use to jumpstart their digital journeys and capitalize on their digital opportunities.

Why a Holistic Approach?

Adopting digital changes without a comprehensive and holistic approach places an organization at a high risk of generating fewer improvements, and also making changes that end up being counterproductive (Symoom, 2015). For this reason, it is prudent that an organization considers these two basic questions before embarking on the development of their digital strategy: i) are we doing the right thing, and ii) are we doing things right? Investing in digital technology to be able to do things right without necessarily considering whether what you are doing is the right thing places the organization at a high risk of failure (Symoom, 2015). This text advances a six-step framework that organizations could use to develop a comprehensive and holistic strategy for digitalizing their operations.

Step 1: Conduction of an Environmental Scan

It is prudent that an organization understands the specific environment within which it operates; that is, the political, legal, environmental, technological, social and economic factors that influence its business operations (Symoom, 2015). This could be achieved through the conduction of a PESTEL analysis. Such a scan places the organization in a better position to: i) assess its position in the industry vis-a-vis other organizations; ii) understand how the macro environment within which it operates is evolving, and iii) identify opportunities and threats, which digital technology could be used to capitalize on or minimize (Symoom, 2015). When an organization understands its macro environment, it is able to reshape its strategy or realign its organizational capacity to align effectively with that environment.

Step 2: Determining whether or not the Corporate Strategy aligns with Business Environment

A strategy can be defined simply as the path that a firm uses to deliver services and commodities that meet the specific needs of its target market (Crossan, Fry, Killing & Rouse, 2008). In a bid to develop an effective strategy for improvement, the productivity improvement leader needs to determine whether the organization's corporate strategy aligns effectively with its business environment (Crossan et al., 2008). If the answer is 'yes', it implies that the organization, with its current capability, is able to deliver on the corporate strategy. In the case of our organization, however, the answer is more likely to be 'no' given the ineffectiveness of the current digital strategy. Insight on how the corporate strategy aligns with the business environment, what could be done to increase the degree of alignment, and how the organization stands to benefit could be crucial in demonstrating to employees the need to develop a digital strategy for the organization.

Step 3: Benchmarking

This step, like step 2 above, is geared at determining whether digitalization is indeed necessary, and whether it would have any significant effect on the organization's overall productivity. This is crucial in order to ensure that resources are not wasted on a strategy that will eventually have a very negligible effect on productivity. Steps 1 and 2 are geared at determining whether the current digital strategy is indeed ineffective and needs to be changed.

In this step, the productivity leader is interested in determining where their organization's productivity ranks vis-a-vis other organizations in the industry. This they could...

The organization needs to identify gaps inherent in i) the customer experience, ii) products and services, and iii) the organization's operations.
Identifying Gaps in Customer Experience: customers are the most important stakeholders of an organization (Cognizant White Paper, 2014). It is the duty of every organization to ensure that its customers are kept satisfied at all times. For this reason, it is prudent that an organization identifies the gaps inherent in the area of customer experience; that is, what the customer expects or would love to see vis-a-vis what the organization delivers (Cognizant White Paper, 2014). An organization could use surveys conducted physically or online to obtain customers' views on whether they would prefer to make their purchases online as opposed to physically, what they think about the organization's digital marketing strategy and online presence, what marketing tools or platforms the organization needs to use to improve the customer's digital experience, what digital channels they love to use most for their online purchases, and what the organization needs to do similarly or differently from other organizations to improve customer experience using digital media. Understanding the specific needs of customers is crucial for the development of an effective digital strategy.

Identifying Gaps in Products and Service Offerings: there is need to determine how digital one's product and service offerings are in relation to those of competitors. For instance, a toothbrush manufacturing company could digitalize its product by developing a smart toothbrush with sensors capable of scanning the user's teeth for potential dental problems, and indicating the need for them to schedule an appointment. For a company like Kodak, digitalization could involve developing a film capable of catching pictures in motion to complement still picture film technology. This will, however, require the company to first consult with its customers to determine what their needs are, and whether the digitalized products would effectively address those specific needs.

Identifying Gaps in the Organization's Internal Operations: a third aspect that needs to be analyzed for potential gaps is the organization's internal operations; that is how digital technology is used for internal communication within the organization. The organization needs to obtain buy-in from employees on what needs to be done to improve the use of digital media within the organization. Mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones could facilitate digital communication between employees and their superiors, as well as with other employees. However, it is prudent that employees are consulted on what specific devices would be most appropriate to their needs, and which forms of digital media (Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and MySpace) they would prefer most. It would also be prudent to take into account the views of older employees who may not prefer the use of such digital media. This would ensure that employees are allowed to own the digitalization process, and that they do not feel left out (Gray, 2012).

Step 5: Definition of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): definition of KPIs helps an organization assess the effectiveness of its strategy or action plan. The most commonly-used KPIs are sales and gross profit margin (Symoom, 2015). For a digital-based project such as this, a key KPI would be the number of likes an ad campaign or the organization's official page is able to generate on Facebook. The number of likes could be an effective indicator of the effectiveness of the digital strategy adopted in terms of addressing customer needs and preferences.

Step 6: Adoption of Digital Technology that Responds to the Identified Gaps: once gaps have been effectively identified and KPIs determined, the next step is then to adopt digital technology that addresses the identified gaps within the confines of the organization's culture. The organizational culture influences answers to such questions as:

i) Should the technology have mobile capabilities? To what extent should these go?

ii) Who owns this technology?

iii) Would employees be given access to the technology from their personal devices?

iv) Will the technology be hosted in a cloud?

Conclusion

Digital technology is fast changing the way businesses operate and compete with each other. For this reason, organizations that are slow to…