Digital Technology – it’s not a new challenge…

2PM Services’ Senior Change Manager, Margaret Thompson, shares her insight into what digital technology means in the collaborative world of change management.

… but in today’s world, digital transformation is a much-used term that brings with it many definitions of what it ‘actually’ means. One meaning that resonates with me from my experience, is adapting an organisation’s strategy and structure to capture opportunities enabled by digital technology.

Research shows us that digital technology is applied to almost every part of a company’s value chain.  Organisations must align their thought as to what ‘digital’ means to their customers, services, functions, and how it will fit into the overall business operating model.

It is no wonder that organisations often struggle to grasp what digital transformation means for them, in terms of which opportunities to pursue and which initiatives to prioritise. It has become increasingly difficult for a company to translate its digital transformation into an integrated whole of business action plan.

Digital transformation initiatives mean that solutions are no longer designed by technical experts in isolation. Digital initiatives are more likely to succeed in creating change when methodologies monitor and maintain consistent strategic alignment and incorporate multiple groups’ perspectives into the entire end-to-end value creation design. It demands a heavy focus towards both the customer and internal user experience – to drive adoption – with less focus on the transition of new processes. 

Change management will be used to help organisations to adapt to automation.  Developing a sound understanding of the impact on the organisations broader operating model and culture is vital to effectively facilitating peoples’ transition and ultimate adoption to digital ways of working.  

This will mean restructuring teams and re-imaging roles within the team to increase production.  It is about utilising the power of digital, to improve processes and fundamentally the way we work and think. This in turn will have an impact on people, which we need to manage.

As well as new areas to focus on, change management in the digital age also brings new models, methodologies, and tools for change implementation.  These models, compared to traditional models, are focused more on fast continuous change, rather than one big-time change.  This form of change requires strategic responses that hold certain characteristics, styles, and distinctive approaches that organisations need to equip themselves with.