As the COVID-19 crisis, hopefully, winds down over the next year, companies are now faced with a new challenge: anticipating and preparing for the “next” normal.

A recent study by Accenture, Accenture Tech Vision 2021, surveyed over 6,200 business and technology leaders to find out what trends, challenges and opportunities were on their mind heading into 2021. Here is some of what they found out:

• 63% of executives reported the pace of digital transformation for their organization is accelerating.
• 99% agree that to be agile and resilient, their organizations need to fast forward their digital transformation with cloud at its core
• 83% agreed that their organization's business and technology strategies are becoming inseparable, even indistinguishable
• 88% believe technology democratization is becoming critical in their ability to ignite innovation across their organization
• And the list goes on…..

As rapid digital transformation is becoming a top priority for organizations around the world, we wanted to sit down with transformation expert, Anindya Karmarker, to get his advice on how to future-proof digital transformation. In addition to being a speaker at our upcoming Scalable RPA & Intelligent Automation Live virtual event taking place March 30-April 1, Anidya is also Head - Digital Transformation, Aditya Birla Finance, a 150+ year old Indian multinational conglomerate that operates in 34 countries and has more than 120,000 employees.

The following summarizes 3 of the best practices he shares.

Define a Business Problem First 

It’s no secret that companies are highly incentivized to adopt bleeding-edge technology before they might actually know what to do with it. Though staying ahead of the competition and being the first to implement these tools is an exciting proposition, if the technology is not being applied to the right business problem at the right time or it doesn’t fit into the organization’s larger IT strategy, it will eventually fail to deliver long-term business value. 

“It's very important to define the problem before you start applying any digital or technology solutions. Most often we define the problem in a very narrow sense. However, it's important to look at the problem in a much broader sense and consider how it touches many aspects of the business and the organization,” Anindya told us. 

He went on to say, “when there is a shiny new technology out there, there is a huge amount of pressure on organizations or businesses to adopt it right away. And then you start looking at the technology and then start working from the technology backwards rather than starting with the business challenge you’re trying to solve.”

Embrace Metrics & KPIs

Everyone knows that you can’t change what you can’t measure. However, determining what exactly one should be measuring and then using those insights to make better decisions can be incredibly difficult. The current reality for many companies, though, is that, in order for a new technology to be embraced and, ultimately, scalable across the enterprise, transformation leaders must prove both its near-term and long-term value.  

Anindya advised, “you may desire to do something but it has to be viable at the same time. And viability is not only about costs. It’s also in terms of time. How long is it going to take? Are you going to start doing something that won’t deliver value for two years? Then who knows what's going to happen after two years? So how viable it is, given today's state of the business, how much it costs and really does it bring a huge impact or create a huge value in terms of what the business needs today and that kind of a viability assessment has to be done.”

Develop a Holistic View of Transformation, then Break it Down

Digital transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It takes careful planning, deep collaboration and a unified vision for enterprise success. In addition, the most successful digital transformations recognize and capitalize on interconnectedness. 

However, when it comes to operationalizing digital technology and actioning your vision, so to speak, a step-by-step process typically works best. Anindya explains, “What I would say is that it's important to take a holistic view, and by holistic, I don't really mean that you look at the whole organization at the same time but maybe look at just one piece of it, end-to-end. And take a wholistic view of that piece and see how you can transform that. Because transformation has to be done step by step, one at a time. You cannot transform everything together at once, it doesn't work. It will fail. You will lose money and nothing will come out of it. So I would say that transformation should not be done in bits and pieces. You basically need to take a full view of what you're trying to do.”

Want to learn more about Anindya Karmarker’s approach to scaling digital transformation? Then you won’t want to miss his presentation, “Applying Tried & True Business Principles To Digital Transformation,” on April 1, 2021. To reserve your spot in just a matter of seconds by registering to attend the Scalable RPA & Intelligent Automation Live virtual event taking place March 30-April 1 HERE.

Want content and event updates in real-time? BECOME AN INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION NETWORK (IAN) MEMBER