Digital Transformation: 5 Key Challenges and 25 Essential Keywords
.svg)
There are a thousand ways to define digital transformation. Here are 25 keywords from 25 specialists: Marketing, Communications and Digital Directors, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, consultants and digital specialists.
A real source of inspiration for leading a successful digital transformation!
A transformation that requires preparation
The phrase “digital transformation” (or “digital transition”) covers many different aspects.
Far from being purely technological, for a company it is a genuine metamorphosis (read the interview with Benoît Anger)! It brings changes, often irreversible, that involve many players (sometimes new ones) and new challenges to take on. It sometimes forces the organisation to disrupt itself (read the interview with Nicolas Bordas) in order to identify new opportunities to seize and build the future (read the interview with Guy Mamou-Mani).
But you do not launch into a digital transformation “just like that”. Above all, you have to work on the vision (read the interview with Fred Cavazza), namely:
- why carry out this digital transformation?
- and what for (to what end)?
- how should the brand be positioned in this new paradigm?
- what commitment(s) (read the interview with Marjolaine Grondin) should the company then make?
All of them questions that need to be thought through upfront. The vision sets a course and provides an anchor point for rallying the whole company behind this transformation. The company has to help every employee become acculturated (read the interview with Cédric Deniaud). In other words, move gradually from an analogue culture to a digital culture, so that the company can accelerate. Accelerate to catch up on any ground it may have lost to changes in its sector, but also and above all to find its own cruising speed in the race against its competitors.
Putting the Customer First
With digital transformation, the world speeds up. Yet this change has to be supported, and you have to take the time needed to make sure you have brought employees, and also customers, on board.
The aim? To take as many people as possible through this digital shift. And for that, one method reigns supreme: evangelisation (read the interview with Pierre-Philippe Cormeraie). That means talking, meeting people, making sure new talent is present internally, explaining to customers what is changing…
Because while digital transformation has an internal component, it also concerns the company’s relationship with its customers (read the interview with Frédéric Fougerat). In its transformation, the company has to pay them particular attention, in order to keep serving their needs as well as possible. It is by listening to them that it makes sure its services really match them, that it can give rise to innovations and so keep a step ahead.
In this new context, the environment is twofold (both physical and digital). It then becomes necessary to build in a “ phygital (read the interview with Marie-Christine Lanne)” vision in order to design a seamless customer experience.
The UX (read the interview with Jérôme Wallut), that is, the user experience, is obviously not to be overlooked! And for that, you often have to call on the new possibilities technology brings (in terms of personalisation, for example).
Technology in the service of ethics
Digital transformation necessarily runs through new technologies and through the adoption of certain digital tools. Internal communication is the perfect illustration! Yesterday, the intranet dominated, with entirely top-down information and no possible interaction. Today, the enterprise social network and collaborative platforms such as Talkspirit are supplanting the intranet, allowing more responsiveness, more agility, time savings and information sharing.
Because digital transformation is inseparable from the idea of “community” (read the interview with Marie Dollé). You only have to look at how some players have managed to bring people together around a brand (Leroy Merlin with “Les Bricoleurs”, for example) or around a concept, and so take the digital turn.
On the technology side, there is Tech For Good (read the interview with Thomas Cottinet)! It brings home the range of technologies that can be put to work for a successful digital transformation: platformisation, AI, data, blockchain (read the interview with Sébastien Bourguignon)… All of it geared to the general interest.
Because on top of the many challenges it has to meet, digital transformation must also be ethical (read the interview with Myriam Gorlier). That means caring about its social, societal and environmental consequences. Ethics is a value shared by companies (as the PACTE Law clearly shows), by customers (who ask more and more questions about the products they buy), and by employees (who need more and more meaning).
People above all
At the centre of digital transformation is the individual (read the interview with Vincent Montet)! Indeed, every employee feels its impact directly in their working life: new tools, new ways of working, new players… They sometimes resist the changes imposed on them, if those changes have not sufficiently taken their existing uses and practices into account.
Because a digital transformation is not carried out alone: it is necessarily collaborative (read the interview with Emmanuel Vivier). You then have to find internal resources, people able to understand this upheaval, accept it and take others with them. Those people are the “initiative carriers” (read the interview with Arnaud Rayrole) who will make change easier for their colleagues.
Because without people (read the interview with Nelly Brossard), technology will not be enough for a successful transformation. You have to be able to take people with you, through change management… A real management challenge!
Supporting people well
Indeed, digital transformation is above all a management matter (read the interview with Fabienne Billat). Indeed, it forces you to rethink the company as a whole: its structure and the way it works. People work more in networks, with a flatter, less siloed hierarchy…
Management therefore has to adapt constantly to the new challenges digital brings, which calls for a lot of agility (read the interview with Jonathan Chan). But change cannot be decreed. It has to be brought in step by step, by keeping watch on best practices, for example. The point? To open up employees’ curiosity so that they can see the changes happening in other companies.
Some people have the chance to be entrepreneurial inside their own organisation: that is intrapreneurship (read the interview with Sandrine Delage). They then draw on start-up best practices (test & learn, for example) to build the methods to apply in their company.
Another way of helping employees acclimatise is of course training (read the interview with Arnault Châtel). With fast technological change, there is nothing better for absorbing it and rolling it out in the company! With an employee supported by their manager, open to agility and trained in new technologies. On course for a genuine transmutation (read the interview with Merete Buljo) of the company?
Turning employees into players in the company
The last ingredient of a successful transformation: trust (read the interview with Magali Noe). Because without it, shifting the lines is difficult. Even if the technological component of digital transformation remains important, it is surrounded by new social, societal and environmental concerns. Because the fundamental building block of any change (and of the company!) remains, above all, people. Everyone moves at their own pace, and needs meaning in order to move in a common direction.
Might the watchword of transformation then be inclusion (read the interview with Aurélien Gohier)? Making sure that every employee feels part of a shared adventure… without ostracising those who need more time to adapt to change.
Conclusion
At Talkspirit, publisher of THE complete platform for communication and collaboration that makes team work easier, 100% made in France, we have more than 20 years of experience in remote work and in the evolution of working practices. Our experts are ready to answer your questions! And also to support the evolution of working practices in your organisation, alongside you. Contact us to tell us about your project!
Want to learn more about the challenges and stakes of digital transformation? Download our white paper: "Digitalisation: French SMEs at a Crossroads".
Access the White Paper
In this 98-page document, you will find: the stakes and challenges of digital transformation, what it means for each business function, and expert views on the post-COVID challenges. [BONUS: several expert views on the challenges facing SMEs after COVID]
–
Authors: Laure Marchal, Benoît Renoul
