Written by Liquid
Success when it comes to digital transformations can pay massive dividends to businesses. Most professionals agree that digital transformations are harder than traditional change efforts to pull off. However, effective transformations can increase businesses' efficiency, productivity, and footprint.
Digital Technology is Changing
Technology is always changing and advancing, providing companies with new tools to use as they expand and become more efficient. As these digital technologies reshape industries, many businesses find themselves pursuing large-scale efforts to help them benefit from the latest trends, applications, and technologies. Whether they are doing this to keep up with competitors, they are looking to improve their performance, or they are looking to sustain the gains their business has seen, using digital transformation initiatives can pay off.
Choosing the Right Initiatives Helps Businesses Succeed
Many departments within companies can benefit from digital transformation initiatives. Numerous practices can help these initiatives become more successful, including characteristics that fall into the categories of capability building, empowering workers, upgrading tools, improving communication, and leadership. Each of these categories comes with suggestions on how companies can improve their chances of making digital changes to their business successfully.
Digital Transformations Can be Hard
Studies out there have found that less than 30% of transformations are successful, with digital transformations having an even lower success rate. The goal of these transformations is to help organizations have sustained improved performance. In some cases, even companies with successful digital transformations that improved performance have found that the improvements were not sustained over time.
Success rates can also vary by company size. That said, organizations with fewer than 100 employees are much more likely to report successful digital transformation over larger companies. Due to this, small and medium businesses should look into digital transformation initiatives before growing larger and having decreased chances of success.
More About Digital Transformations
Whether efforts to change have succeeded or not, there are a few shared traits of successful digital transformations that companies should be aware of. First, businesses tend to look inward when making changes. Digitizing an organization's operations model is a common reason and moving financial systems into the digital world is another. With the right tools, moving financial systems into the digital world can be done smoothly and successfully. Digital transformations can sometimes be wide in scope and focusing on specific departments can be a good start.
How Financial Departments Can Benefit
The reasons financial departments can benefit from digital transformations are extensive. Being able to electronically keep track of Accounts payable and Accounts Receivable gives companies a better overall view using the accurate information put into the systems. Transforming the financial aspects of your business into the digital realm can also provide benefits when it comes to marketing, financial outlook, avoiding double payments, minimizing online financial fraud, and more.
Achieving Success
Research has pointed to numerous factors that can improve the chances of transformation succeeding. It is essential to have digital-savvy leaders in place or leaders willing to make it a priority to learn how they can navigate the new digital landscape. Building in capabilities for the workforce of the future, and having that as a priority, also increases the likelihood of success.
Outside of this, companies that empower people to work in new ways and are willing to educate their teams on how the new technology works see an increased likelihood of success.
Many companies start by giving their day-to-day tools a digital upgrade. Starting with the simple things and gradually transitioning to more complicated systems can be a fantastic place to start. When it comes to digital financial upgrades, make sure to train the appropriate people before they start utilizing the new systems. Making sure your team understands how the systems work is an important element of successful transitions. In addition, frequent communication relating to both the digital and traditional methods can increase the likelihood of success.
Building on Capabilities
Developing talents and skills while also hiring staff members that are tech savvy can be fundamental for transformations. In some cases, this can involve redefining individuals' roles and responsibilities. Businesses making transformations should adjust their staff's responsibilities and roles to align more with the goals of the transformation. This clarification can help keep things organized and transitioning smoothly. This practice can improve success rates significantly.
Having a team member who can bridge potential gaps between the digital parts of the business and the traditional parts can also help. People involved in integrating new technologies can help foster stronger capabilities among their colleagues. Whether you are hiring a new person to fill this role or utilizing a person already in the company, make sure they have the time and capacity to help with the transition on the level necessary.
Winning Transformations Can Cost Money and Time
Businesses that provide more funding for transformations, and offer a more robust approach to educating talent, have a higher likelihood of success. The success of transformation is more than three times higher when respondents say their organizations have invested the right amount in digital talent and education.
By scaling up workforce planning and talent development, success is also increased. Studies have also found that organizations with innovative recruiting campaigns can see more success in transformations. Utilizing systems that provide straightforward and easy-to-use tools can also help, and Liquid provides many benefits to financial department teams. With increased efficiency and less time spent on repetitive tasks, team members often see their morale increase as they have more time to take on other tasks.
When Successful the Benefits Are Immense
When it comes to financial departments, payroll management tools can bring immense benefits, and these benefits can often be seen immediately. Other digital transformations can include using collaborative suites, communication tools, CRM tools, CMS tools, cloud storage, project management tools, recruitment management tools, and digital accounting tools. While many businesses start with one department or type of tool when making their transition, financial departments that were previously using manual accounting systems often see some of the largest benefits.
Many financial departments have not adopted new changes, as their systems are comfortable to them. That said, many companies that have transitioned to digital tools like Liquid have reported the change as being massively beneficial. Look at available tools, how to make digital transformations successful, and determine if it a transition is the right choice for you. The benefits can be immense.
