Digital transformation is more than just a buzzword.

For almost two years now, organizations have had to rapidly adjust to a digital-first economy and a remote workforce. This meant modifying operations in order to accommodate changing needs, and accelerating long-term projects, to name just a few. But the organizational triage triggered by the pandemic is shifting focus, as businesses step back and take a closer look at their websites and ad-hoc digital solutions to determine long-term viability. More than just surviving, it’s about thriving–in a marketplace that is changing at ever-increasing speeds.

Are your business legacy processes and capabilities getting in the way of growth? Is your current website, along with client portals, back office systems (digital infrastructure) built for scale and sustainability? Have you developed a competitive digital advantage?  In other words, does your current digital infrastructure implement processes and technologies that not only connect meaningfully with end users, but also make your business adaptable, agile and resilient? 

We’re talking about digital transformation: the chance to reimagine how you do business in the digital age. It’s more than just the sum of sales, marketing and customer service. It’s more than digitizing your data and digitalizing your services. With digital technology on your side, you can create (or modify) business processes, branding, workplace culture, customer experiences and more, to meet ever-changing business requirements.

It’s about understanding and leveraging the potential of your technology investments to drive customer trust and loyalty.

 In other words, today’s world is about a customer-first approach. 

What’s the significance of facilitated and moderated transformation workshops in building for the digital age?

Transformation strategy workshops are essential to building and/or digital infrastructure, and a crucial component to true digital transformation. Decision makers, key stakeholders, users, information architects and other team leads are brought together to collectively focus on specific topics. They address and cover all phases of end user interactions with your company, your products and services–and take a highly structured and collaborative approach to improving the totality of your business so that it ultimately can provide relevant, meaningful and best-in-class experiences to your end users. Time is well spent gathering data, identifying/solving problems, ideating, and determining the best solutions. The outcome? Designing exceptional experiences in intuitive and user-friendly ways that put end users first to help them accomplish their goals.

I already know my company’s technical capabilities, business requirements and customer needs. Why do I need workshops?

The integration of technology assets with business strategies and customer needs to deliver first-rate products and services is often where businesses fall short. Transformation agents/professionals are, more often than not, given a list of business and technical requirements, along with assumptions/conjectures regarding customer needs and told, “I’d like the website or product to look like XYZ company’s. Oh, and can we launch in three weeks’ time?” Referencing XYZ when the true voice of your customer/end user hasn’t been heard doesn’t make good sense. It’s about weaving your technology in your industry with your business goals for your customer to deliver products, services and experiences that resonate with and enhance the lives of your end users. The more meaningful and impactful your ‘brand experience,’ the more value-add it has to your bottom line. All of these touchpoints are covered during workshops.

What is the cost of NOT having transformation workshops?

You’ll never hear “penny wise, pound foolish” ruminations after participating in well-run workshops. Everyone gets on the same page, milestones are set, and goals are clarified. The workshops have a therapeutic effect–with exercises and outcomes that actually make everyone feel better connected. In the long run this will save time and cut costs. When end users are considered during the initial phases of a project, less resources (if any) are spent reworking or troubleshooting down the line. If you ask developers what they spend most (well, at least half) of their time on, the answer is “a rework that could’ve been avoided.” This is exactly what we want to steer clear of. It’s about doing it right the first time. 

In summary, the data-led and well-organized approach of workshops provides the opportunity to get all your key players facing in the right (and same) direction with a clear understanding of the starting point, the desired outcome and a roadmap of how you’ll get there. Guesswork is eliminated. Duplications of effort are avoided. You’ll have both an outcome AND a process.  

If you’d like to learn more, contact one of our transformation workshop moderators.  (email us at [email protected] or contact us through our contact page), 

Ignite your journey in this ever-changing marketplace with WDG. When it comes to the elements that drive digital transformation we can serve as your trusted, well-traveled roadmap.

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