How to supercharge your digital transformation journey

Digital transformation is a journey, not an immediate shift from one state to another. That said, the desired destination is the same for every business, regardless of size or industry. It’s a place where you’re moving faster, making better decisions, and competing in the digital era. 

CIOs are pivotal in driving this digital transformation forward, bringing the very best tools and technologies to enable change. Recent ServiceNow research points to the key traits that are differentiating top-performing CIOs today, with C-suite relationships and a customer mindset front and center.

From a technology perspective, the most successful CIOs are those who are building consensus and action around automating and integrating work processes. They have introduced digital workflows to drive outcomes, including increased efficiency, better financial performance, and enhanced productivity and employee performance, as well as rapid innovation. 

Find out how these five businesses have introduced digital workflows as part of their transformation journeys to make work, work better in 2019 and to future-proof for 2020 and beyond.

1.  Start an exceptional employee experience with onboarding 

I see time and again one key process that’s common to every business where truly enterprise-wide digital transformation comes into its own: employee onboarding.

It’s a shining example of how much an employee can touch so many parts of an organization in such a short space of time: facilities, IT, HR, finance, and more. It’s also a critical aspect of work that can make–or break–the employee experience right from day one.

The team at service provider Automize was all too aware of the importance of this experience. Through an end-to-end workflow, the company has tied together all the conversations, processes, and approvals required behind the scenes, to make onboarding seamless and pain-free for every new recruit.

For Automize, it’s been about delivering a next-generation employee experience, with a seamless process that encompasses all aspects of onboarding, including requesting new equipment, arranging a key, creating a new user, and much more.  
The company is now in a position to use the same central platform to power a consumer-style service that benefits not only employees, but that can be offered to Automize’s customers to improve their own processes.

2.  Take security from mitigation to prevention

As the third largest fintech company in the world, Finastra knows that agility, innovation, integration, and security are critical. And that means removing friction from financial transactions and creating a truly seamless operation.

But, not surprisingly, it’s easier said than done. I know Finastra wasn’t alone in operating multiple different departments and locations around the world, all with different policies and procedures. A lack of consistency brings huge inefficiencies, with workflows that are difficult, if not impossible, to direct. 

Embarking on a digital transformation journey, Finastra has brought together all systems, policies, and processes into one platform for the first time. The company took the opportunity to create a digital workflow that would not only enable the automated assignment of tasks, but also provide robust reporting structures to ensure action has been taken. 

The vulnerability response time is an estimated 25% faster and the cybersecurity, IT, process, and other internal teams have been able to save an estimated 5,278 hours annually. The headline result? Estimated savings of $350K annually.

3.   Create a step-change in customer experience

As an infrastructure operator, supplier of value-added services, and technology integrator, Orange Business Services (OBS) knows that data sits at the heart of digital transformation for businesses. And, as an organization, they’re all about working closely with their customers to manage their digital transformation journeys. 

The IT team at OBS is central to this. They are laser-focused on bring reliability, availability, simplicity, and customization to every customer.

One way they have done this is by creating digital workflows that cleverly bring together the expansive and varied services it offers to customers into one interface for an effortless, consistent experience for the customer. 

The impact? Customers can use the portal to follow the journey of any incidents from when they were raised right through to resolution, without having to contact Orange Business Services directly. Even more importantly, the approach has almost eliminated the need for customers to make a direct call, resulting in a reduction of 3,000+ calls received every month.

4.  Focus on services, not technology

As the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services, National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is focused on making the skies a safe and efficient environment for flying–for an industry that is very close to my heart, might I add.

Unfortunately, some years ago, lengthy delays at UK airports put NATS in the spotlight, with aging technology found to be the root cause of these major disruptions.

To overcome this, NATS has shifted to a zero-incident culture. And the result is a greater ability to predict and prevent technical issues from occurring before they manifest.

A single pane of glass view of all their services’ status (using intelligent workflows to bring all data together) is enabling NATS to spot anomalies and identify the root cause of engineering incidents before they become service impacting incidents. For example, incidents that affect the work of air traffic controllers and the passenger travel experience–and let’s face it, nobody wants that.  

As a result, it is expected that resolution time for P1 incidents–those that result in the inability to provide service to air traffic controllers–will be reduced to less than five minutes from a possible event occurring. Bidding farewell to those painful plane delays.

5.  Take back control of IT operations 

A lack of real control, insight, or understanding of its IT infrastructure and applications was proving a challenge at private utility company, Thames Water. As the company’s managing director of IT operations management has said, in essence they were letting their suppliers “mark their own homework.”

So Thames Water flipped its IT and operations model on its head. From allowing multiple suppliers to manage and report on every aspect of IT support and operations on its behalf, the company took back control. 
 
A full command center for IT operations and support, underpinned by digital workflows, gives the team ownership of all their tools, data, governance, and processes. Most importantly, Thames Water is now defining how its suppliers work, managing their performance, and tracking key business metrics.

Forward-thinking businesses are supercharging their digital transformation journeys and seeing the benefits. Through workflow digitization, they are achieving operational efficiency and faster speed to market, innovating in products and services, attracting new customers, and engaging the best talent. 

The benefits of digital transformation are tangible and there for the taking. So what’s stopping you?