Research by the Gartner Group reveals that digital technologies already generate nearly 20% of corporate revenues, and this could reach 41% by 2020.
According to Sopra Banking Software every business and bank should be enthusiastic about implementing digital transformation, either to retain their place as leader, appeal to new customers, modernise their partners’ tools, or quite simply to adapt to key innovation.
But, the changes brought on by digital transformation deeply affect how operational services work, and thus require a specific approach.
Sopra Steria, Sopra Banking Software’s parent company, provides a strategic guide for business decision makers on the new best practices for optimum results in digital transformation. In its white paper ‘How to succeed and accelerate your digital transformation project’ you will find keys to articulate and combine strategy and execution for this human-centred technological transformation.
MAIN POINTS:
- Steering collaborative projects towards digital transformation
- Management needs to take a people-centred approach - introducing change into businesses needs special focus
- Maintaining excellence and consistency in a context of rapid change
- Speed and immediacy: transforming quickly and reducing response times for customers and users
- Integrating new concepts and avoiding digital divide
The white paper develops 3 main themes in digital transformation:
1. How to define a digital transformation strategy
2. How to structure your Information system (IS) and IS projects
3. Security enhancement and the use of management 3.0.
1. MANAGING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
1.1. Defining a strategy
The first task is therefore to define, in line with corporate strategy, a strategy to address these digital impacts, in terms of (new) business objectives. What are the challenges? What are the risks? Do digital technologies provide opportunities to completely overhaul business models?
All transformation projects are likely to change a company’s procedures, customer interactions, management methods, organisational structures, strategies, and even values. Businesses need to consider the following when planning digital transformation projects:
1. Customer experience: offering new ways of connecting with a company’s products and services. These experiences can impose constraints on companies.
2. New relationships between a company and its ecosystem generate limitations and opportunities which must be incorporated in the digital transformation strategy.
3. Collaboration, along with mobility, means employees can connect with the company whenever they want. It creates favourable conditions for employee development and optimised staffing.
4. Offering new applications across a broad range of business sectors.
5. Taking cognition into account opens many applications for increased operational efficiency.
1.2. Digital transformation project implementation
Once a digital transformation strategy has been established and projects identified, they can be simultaneously implemented with the digital platform. We discuss which navigational model, management style, and team structure should be implemented for digital transformational success.
2. DRIVING TRANSFORMATION THROUGH DIGITAL PROJECTS
For a successful digital transformation project, businesses need to shift into adventure mode; because innovation is uncertain this could well mean the end of the traditional business cases we know!
Digital transformation requires a very different approach for managing uncertainty and systematic implementation. As Ingrid Creten, Head of Change and Communication at
KBC BANK, said:
“
Innovation generates resistance. So, as we have built a new way of thinking, we have also sought to foster acceptance for change.”
2.1. New mindset needed
This new mindset includes:
- The ability to accept failure to move forward more quickly
- Guaranteeing security for information systems, which are increasingly open
- Full integration of front and back-offices, each of which develops at a different pace
- Incorporating partners in increasingly multi-supplier services
2.2. Six rules to bear in mind
The following six rules are crucial for steering a successful business project:
1. Accept uncertainty
2. Manage the complexity of digital transformation
3. Nurture talent while executing transformation
4. Implement change putting people at the heart of the system
5. Manage interfaces and overlaps in different themes and sites
6. Diffuse a digital culture
2.3. Digital information system
Company information systems become a paradox in digital transformation: The new digital system needs to be agile, responsive, and positioned for the short term, whereas the traditional company system long-term oriented. The solution to this problem, as discussed in detail in the whitepaper, is introducing a digital IS that includes a system of record, a system of automation, a system of engagement, and a system of mediation.
2.4. Digital booster platform
Speed is one of the most crucial aspects of a digital transformation platform. The Digital Booster Platform is the digital platform that accelerates the project, driving a constant connection between the business and its partners. With agility key to driving digital transformation projects, IT infrastructure is a key component in digital transformation approaches.
3. SECURITY ENHANCEMENT
How can we supervise security?
The IS is much more open, data is unstructured and increasingly less compartmentalised and arrives in even greater volumes. There is also a larger and more diverse user population and older applications sit alongside new technologies. With this in mind, digital transformation will not be a success unless digital trust accompanies it. Security issues are being dealt with through constant vigilance and the highest level of professionalism.
As we can see, digital transformation is not just about technology; it drastically changes how our business operates. The digital transformation process is only possible with a holistic iterative approach, where having fun is all part of the adventure!
That’s why Sopra Banking Software is working hand-in- hand with Sopra Steria in order to offer the most digital end-to- end solution to financial institutions.
The whitepaper can be
downloaded from Sopra Banking’s website.
