Digital transition: a future that quickly became a reality
Digital transformation, hitherto a head start for businesses, has become an element of survival, especially for vocational training ! This digitalization of businesses is now on the rise., propelled by the current crisis and the challenges it has raised...
Businesses must now meet new needs : the need to be on all fronts to maintain contact with its employees, as well as with customers, and especially to re-engage them; consumer habits that have changed abruptly; a purchasing process that has become highly digitized, etc.
Les newly decided strategic and organizational changes reveal that managers brushed aside their later reticence to make way for a wind of innovation. But if digital technology is decided by managers today, it is none the less apprehended by the rest of the employees!
Are the main forces of companies all equally at ease with the digital transition decided in an emergency? Are they aware of their human potential in this world that is constantly digitizing?
Digital transformation: past (or almost) prejudices
#1 “The digital transition, a mainly technological challenge”
Tools and software to dematerialize processes as much as possible and streamline processes. Automated practices thanks to artificial intelligence. Omnichannel communication (chatbot, Live chat, Mailing, social networks,...) to meet new business challenges. Big data to analyze data, and much more.
Organizations see digital technology as an opportunity to metamorphose or an opportunity to maintain their business, if not to grow. But deploying technological tools is not enough, you have to think about your development! The challenge these implementations represent is strategic.
#2 “Only top management is concerned with digital transformation”
Of course, the launch of a digital transition strategy only becomes effective after management approval. However, this transformation is only likely to succeed if it is designed for (and in the most idyllic cases with) the driving forces of the company.
Digital technology only creates value if it is put at the service of all employees, in line with their well-established practices. Transformation is only likely to succeed if it is thought out and makes sense at all levels of the company.
#3 “The digital transition does not succeed for companies with Digital Natives”
The common imagination would like generations accustomed to digital technology since childhood to make the most of this digital maturity in business and that the oldest employees feel overwhelmed.
Key skills related to technologies would then be an asset to successfully carry out a digital transition in the company.
Digital transformation: making sure you don't lose anyone along the way
#1 Keep your mission in mind
Digital transformation is taking place at all scales. Have a human-centered approach - think “customers and collaborators” - enhanced by technology. Businesses that have taken the plunge have understood that digital technology is a way to meet customer needs, and internally to optimize the workforce and the effectiveness of teams.
#2 Overcoming everyone's apprehensions
Prejudices can lead to apprehension. Paying attention to internal collaborators means projecting elements to them to dispel their fears about organizational and technological upheavals.
So what are these elements? Confidence in a management that makes strategic choices to take the company as far as possible. The choice of digital technology that is for everyone, far from being a culture in itself that one would look at from afar, or an obligation purely based on superfluous trends.
Overcoming the apprehensions of your employees allows them to have more visibility on the potential of such a transformation and to grow together.
And as with all learning, giving an answer is not enough. The logic must be explained! Giving meaning to change means first of all understanding the difficulties that the induced transformations will overcome, and then how. These difficulties go beyond technological barriers, age criteria,...
#3 Empowering people to understand change
Everything takes time. To succeed in a digital transformation plan, you must take the time to support all employees.
The objective is for them to be equipped and to appropriate digital technology, keeping in mind
- Of contemporary actors having taken the step and having succeeded in their bet
- The digital technologies so that all employees leave with the same bases
- Of human practices to be recognized and valued in the professional field
- Of digital practices already established, so as not to fear digital
#4 Move forward collectively
The aim? Demonstrating that digital technology is not pure persistence, is not “zeitgeist”, or even a strange culture. Highlight that any technological innovation that first meets a well-identified need is built around the resolution of a problem.
By revealing the difficulties (which we sometimes no longer see as they are part of the order of things), we collectively give ourselves a really effective and rewarding gateway to understanding the contributions and mechanisms of digital tools.
Digital transformation: act now
Highly concerned by the current challenges of digitizing its businesses, RATP trusted us to help its employees take ownership of digital technology. So why not you?
Optimize the functioning of your company and equip your employees with tools for reflection and concrete actions.
