Business leaders have recognized the importance of harnessing digital technology to improve their processes and customer experience. No less than 82% of CEOs surveyed by Gartner’s most recent CEO survey said they had a digital transformation or an initiative to make their company more digital underway.

Every business is different and has a unique technology stack, as well as a unique culture. This means that there is no one-size fits all in terms of how companies should go about to become digitally transformed. 

With that in mind, successful digital transformations do have certain elements in common. Three of the most important efforts a successful digital transformation requires are (1) nurturing an agile culture (2) getting the right tools and eliminating technical debt and (3) empowering your business with actionable data.

(1) Nurture an agile culture

Creating great digital experiences is difficult. This is because software consumer requirements change regularly and often. How can development teams create an experience based on user requirements that change on a weekly basis?

This is a problem unique to the fast-paced consumer tendencies of the 21^st century. Some companies have found an answer to this problem and thrived in this new reality. Others have failed to adapt. Businesses that can adapt quickly and consistently have adopted a culture that embraces change, experimentation and agility.

Becoming a digitally transformed business means staying ahead of the curve to create amazing digital experiences. This is only possible if you nurture an agile culture.

(2) Get the right tools & eliminate technical debt

How can you expect to harness the power of the cutting edge of what technology has to offer if your technology stack is outdated and riddled with technical debt?

Businesses that do not invest in their technology will have IT teams that live under the “Tyranny of the Urgent”. This means that your team is consistently putting out fires as they arise, resolving bugs and deploying time-critical system upgrades. In this world, bugs are put into production and new systems are built on top of old and faulty systems.

This is no environment for a business to create a culture of agile innovation and seamless customer experiences. To become digitally transformed, businesses have to eliminate technical debt and invest in 21^st century tools.

(3) Empower your business with actionable data

Getting the right technology stack will also provide businesses with unprecedented access to data about their customers.

Digitally transformed businesses harness the power of this data by making it available to the right business users, and by providing business users with actionable insights into the business. In addition, creating great digital experiences requires intimate knowledge of the customer. The more customer data you have, the more you can tailor your products to fit their needs.

Over the next several weeks, we will be publishing a deep dive into each of these three critical efforts that make up successful digital transformations. Digital transformations are complex processes and there is no step-by-step manual, but familiarizing yourself with these concepts is a good start to understand how you can get started.