How to Transform From Grommets to Successful Leaders of the Digital Wave?

Whenever there is a new wave sweeping the industry, and everyone is in a frenzy of riding it, they look up to their leaders for guidance to surf it the right way. What they often forget is – the wave is as new to the leaders as it is to them. Whether the wave is smooth or choppy actually depends a lot on the surfing skills. Even the leaders are grommets for these huge waves. For them to sync up, they first need to accurately analyze the wave’s might and strategize a way to win it over.

Going digital is the current hot trend across every industry. A right adoption strategy determines whether you receive a warm embrace or burn your hands while taking it in. Simply ‘winging it’ won’t work. The leaders need to take a deep breath, lay out a detailed plan, and then proceed fully armored to be able to make it to the shore. They need to ponder before they pick their weapon for avoiding complete process disruption.

In the event of any change, small or big, leaders shoulder the maximum responsibility for effectuating it correctly. In addition to a standard change management process, digital transformation calls for the incorporation of some niche nuances that will prevent your strategy from turning into a nonsense.

Software quality assurance and digital testing are integral to any enterprise’s modern, digital transformation journey. When irrelevance is turning out to be the biggest pet-peeve of organizations, taking the digital road is now mandatory to counteract its possibility.

Competing with the startups

The low barrier to entry in tech market has allowed the proliferation of digital startups. The established players and bigwigs are facing some serious competition from these new entrants. Being the millennials of the IT world, they are at par with the ongoing trends and developments. The rise of such agile, advanced, trend-savvy companies has accelerated the need for incumbents to devise their digital transformation plan. It is easier for the startups as all their processes are digitally optimized from the beginning itself. The actual agony is for the larger, established incumbents who need to redesign their processes from the very core to align with the changing digital demands.

Testing the waters and preparing for change

A pre-sharpened axe makes cutting the tree easy and convenient. When the search is still ongoing for a robust way to digital transformation, trial-and-error remains the best way forward.  The employees need to be given a heads up for the upcoming modification, so they stay prepared and do not get flustered. Instead of bamboozling the employees with a sudden change, take a slow and steady transformational approach. The management should first deploy the change at a smaller level to understand the mood and the challenges. This will enable them to lay out a more streamlined tactic.

The most crucial factor that not only drives digital transformation, but also projects the trajectory ahead is the vision, rather, a shared vision. The top leaders have to realize that going digital is something that is to be done at each tier of the organizational structure. By sharing their vision of a digitalized future with the employees facilitate the change and derives better acceptance from the employees. Leaders being the change managers, and employees being the change effectors, the collaboration between the two is indispensable.

To be, or not to be Agile?

The purpose of digital transformation is to enhance business value and increase ROI. A digital enterprise achieves this purpose through agility. However, even if the desired destination is Agile, the journey should be a non-agile one. Rushing the process and speeding may otherwise cause a fatal accident, halting the journey indefinitely by demotivating employees and inviting resistance to change.

Agile methodology itself includes small, iterative sprints. Once the bases are covered by digital assurance, these agile sprints will come into a flow of their own. Until then, it is necessary that leaders take well-thought steps.

The manual value of digital

Contrary to popular belief, digital does not take over the job of manual professionals. It actually facilitates tedious processes and assists manual developers and testers in releasing a sophisticated, glitch-proof product. With Agile and DevOps methodologies ruling over the SDLCs and automation becoming the norm, more importance is attributed to human professionals.

For the actualization of desired digital transformation, leaders must not sideline the criticality of manual resources as they are the ones bringing creativity and making significant difference in the end product’s quality.

Crowning the customer as king

Customers should be at the center of an organization’s digital transformation strategy with main focus on the customer experience and user satisfaction. The customers being the harbinger of projected revenues and profits, leaders need to weave their action plan around them. The customer demands should decide the timelines, speed, and objectives of an organization’s digital transformation journey.

Keeping a track of the metrics

Metrics make performance tracking simple. Establishing relevant, quantifiable KPIs to measure growth and success is even more necessary as organizations are evolving digitally. Setting up these digital KPIs require direct involvement of the top management. These KPIs are important as they check the company’s progress as well as keep an eye out for potential revenue sources. The digital business model typically affects all verticals within an organizational framework, right from the business objectives and process models to the services and market approach. Analysis of these KPIs allow organizations to identify both their weak and strong areas. With these quantifiable metrics, they can easily optimize the aspects that need the most attention.

Suiting up the digital leader

Clarity of purpose, opportunistic approach, forward thinking, and risk-taking ability are some of the defining factors that are essential for a successful digital transformation leadership.

Digital transformation is the need for the hour. As it has become mainstream, it decides the viability of an enterprise by the level of their digital evolution.

Cigniti’s Digital Assurance solutions address the multifaceted needs of digital testing. We strive to do this by conducting comprehensive testing across your digital value chain and the entire digital ecosystem.
Connect with our Digital QA team to leverage our core digital testing services – Continuous Testing, Omni-Channel Testing, Customer Experience, Cyber Security QA, and Analytics Validation.

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