How to Develop a Custom Digital Transformation Strategy that Sticks

While many companies have already made the move towards digital transformation successfully, others continue to struggle when it comes to their digital transformation initiatives. Following DX playbooks does not work because they do not account for the nuances of individual businesses. 

In addition to that, legacy system dependencies, siloed data environments and industry-specific workflows bring their own challenges, which can be hard to beat. Take for example, mid-sized businesses. Constraints crop up for them alongside opportunities. 

While they must become agile to stay afloat, they simply cannot give up on mission-critical infrastructure and workflows overnight. Moreover, off-the-shelf software only adds to the complexity of their predicament rather than curbing it.

This is why it is critical to have a custom digital transformation strategy in place. It brings about meaningful change by grounding it in your core business functions, thus making room for its goals and people. 

In this guide, we will walk you through the process of crafting your own digital transformation roadmap so you can automate your business’s core processes and resolve its central pain points as a result. Let’s begin!

What Are Digital Transformation Solutions? 

These are the tools you need for a successful transition from legacy systems to advanced, modernized ones that reduce the time taken to finish key business processes. 

Definition and Types of DX Solutions

By definition, digital transformation solutions encompass all kinds of technologies and strategies that support the digitization of your business so it can reap the benefits of well-integrated and automated processes. 

These tools pose a significant performance boost as far as your business is concerned. They include:

• Software Solutions: Think custom platforms, SaaS tools and microservices that you will need to use for the transition
• Infrastructure Modernization: This will cover cloud migration and hybrid cloud services along with containerized environments
• Automation Tools: Because your business needs process automation tools such as RPA as well as well-defined workflow engines
• Data & Intelligence: From analytic dashboards and data lakes to AI and ML integrations, these can help you centralize and make sense of your data
• Customer Experience Enhancements: Including mobile apps, chatbots and self-service portals so your customers have a touchpoint at every step of the journey

While these tools are not a must, Gartner suggests including some key components in your digital transformation strategy to ensure it works at an accelerated pace. These include a concrete strategy, a technological foundation, a strong culture initiative and a viable strategy. 

Off-The-Shelf vs. Custom Digital Solutions

Off-the-shelf DX tools are fast and easy to deploy. So if that is all that matters to your business, you can opt for them but expect certain limitations. Flexibility, scalability and integration are not their strong points, which means they may run out of use pretty quickly. Especially if your business has complex regulatory needs or an intricate internal system. In such cases, the stunting of long-term ROI is inevitable. 

On the flipside, custom solutions are built around your business’s unique processes. That means your company can reap multiple benefits even if implementation takes longer. These benefits include: 

• Seamless integration with other software
• Modular scalability so you are never held back
• Greater data privacy and performance controls
• Lower long-term cost of ownership 

As long as the tools you choose align with your IT transformation roadmap, you can be sure you are on the right path. 

Step-By-Step Framework For Custom Digital Transformation

Not only do you need pre-defined business objectives to design a framework for digital transformation that works, you also need strategic clarity. Collaboration across departments and a deep understanding of your organization’s technical landscape go hand-in-hand. 

Sounds challenging? Our 7-step framework can simplify it thanks to its scalable and actionable roadmap that breaks the mold of templates to meet your business’s specific needs. 

Step 1: Evaluate pain points and prioritize meaningful goals

Points of friction exist across your operations and the first step is to identify them. These could be anything - from delays induced by manual workflows to compliance issues. Pay close attention to how outdated systems handle customer service as they might make it sluggish. Hosting cross-departmental discovery sessions can help you speed up the process and ensure every single pain point comes under the scanner. 

Once you have a list of all the inefficiencies though, it makes sense to align them with your broad-level business goals such as increasing customer satisfaction, improving margins and reducing operational delays among others. 

A word of advice? Ensure you prioritize initiatives that are easy to implement and offer a high ROI potential. This ensures your framework moves in the right direction. 

Step 2: Audit existing infrastructure and data

Implementing a digital transformation solution can wait. First, you have to review your current tech stack. Analyze every piece of software your organization depends on. Check if different departments are using different tools to complete the same tasks. 

Legacy systems pose an integration challenge with modern platforms, which can be a problem if your business is still dependent on them for critical functions. Other bottlenecks can take the shape of duplicate data, outdated interfaces and isolated databases. 

Conducting an in-depth audit can help you lay the groundwork for legacy system modernization. You will have a clearer picture of what you need to retain, rebuild and replace. 

Fun fact - around 74% of manufacturers are still dependent on legacy systems to carry out basic business processes. 

Step 3: Define objectives and set success metrics

How do you know if your digital transformation efforts are effective? By ensuring your roadmap is closely tied to tangible KPIs that can highlight its impact on day-to-day operations and overall business growth. Some examples include: 

• Amount of time saved per task
• Reduction in volume of manual work
• User adoption rates
• Integration compatibility and performance scores

Tracking the above metrics is essential - but so is linking your digital transformation objectives to other strategic, measurable outcomes such as market expansion rate, revenue per employee and customer retention. These keep your IT transformation roadmap on the path of ROI success, which in turn, keeps stakeholders invested. 

Step 4: Identify custom vs. configurable needs

This is one of the most crucial steps to digital transformation so be mindful and carefully select systems that need to be custom-built and those can be configured from your existing arsenal. 

Custom digital transformation is the best way to go provided your business has:

• Highly specialized or regulated processes
• Multiple internal systems with deep integrations
• Off-the-shelf tools with glaring gaps and limitations

You can opt for configurable tools such as modular custom ERP software and low-code platforms for simple standardized processes such as invoice generation. Avoiding overengineering will ensure your tech stack remains simple, flexible and efficient. 

Step 5: Build a cross-functional task force

Your digital transformation strategy is incomplete without the cooperation of cross-disciplinary teams. Since you cannot get all of them to participate, build a taskforce composed of leaders from different departments including operations, finance, IT and other frontline teams. 

Encourage them to offer their unique perspectives. IT can help you figure out how feasible and scalable your proposed solutions are, while operations can detect key automation opportunities. On the other hand, central stakeholders can set budget constraints and performance goals. 

This fruitful collaboration can lead to a sense of shared ownership of the new system, which can result in faster adoption. Moreover, it will ensure your new system reflects how your people actually work, thus further boosting user confidence. 

Step 6: Map technology stack with modular roadmap

Now that your system modernization strategy is perfectly aligned, it’s time to draw a detailed IT transformation roadmap. We suggest adopting a modular approach so implementation can be conducted in phases. This ensures everything goes as planned without overwhelming your teams. 

Start by upgrading the foundation itself. This includes shifting to a cloud-based infrastructure or having a unified data platform. Once that is set up, you can direct your focus towards the implementation of incremental solutions like customer-facing applications, business process automation tools, analytics dashboards etc. 

Make sure that every new module you introduce is capable of seamlessly integrating with others in your tech stack. This not only serves as an efficiency boost but it also future-proofs your investment while preventing vendor lock-ins. Using scalable tools lets you celebrate quick wins as your company grows. 

Step 7: Partner with a development team for custom builds

Not all companies can afford to build an internal development team. You can always partner with an external vendor to get relevant, high-quality solutions at an accelerated pace. Identify potential partners who excel in custom software development and have a proven track record in enterprise modernization solutions and system integration. 

Evaluate potential vendors against this checklist: 

• They should be able to translate your goals into technical specifications
• They should have a knack for building custom platforms that are scalable and secure
• Their solutions should easily integrate with your current tech stack
• They should offer long-term maintenance and iteration

If the debate between developing custom vs. integrating existing tools troubles you, remember this - opt for custom tools if you have complex workflows, fragmented data and compliance issues. However, if speed and budget are top priority over functionality alignment, simply enhance existing tools. 

Key Areas to Digitally Transform for Business Growth

Not every aspect of your business requires digital transformation. You have to identify and prioritize sectors that do. This is key to realizing measurable impact. Having worked with many clients over the last 20 years, we can confidently tell you that 4 major domains, when upgraded, will consistently deliver strong returns, especially for mid-sized businesses. 

1. Workflow automation

Nothing kills productivity (and efficiency) as fast as manual work overload. Escape from the painful cycles of document routing, compliance reporting and other repetitive tasks is possible with specific business process automation tools. 

Implementing robotic process automation, low-code platforms or intelligent document processing can drastically bring down instances of human error and delays. The result? More speed. More accuracy. We suggest starting with high-volume, rule-based tasks and then making your way into dynamic workflows. 

2. Customer experience and self-service tools

If you know your customers well enough, and we are sure you do, you know they want instant access and seamless service above all else. They demand intuitive interfaces so accessing your services or products becomes second-nature to them rather than a challenge. 

So if you want to maintain a competitive edge, investing in technology such as chatbots, self-service portals, mobile apps and knowledge bases will go a long way in securing your relevance. It will keep your customer happy while reducing support costs. That’s the very definition of win-win and it’s possible with custom-built solutions. 

3. Business intelligence and analytics 

As a user of legacy systems, you know the challenges fragmented data locked-in silos brings. It makes valuable data inaccessible, rendering you unable to draw actionable insights. That’s why a centralized data source is an integral part of modern digital transformation solutions. 

Real-time dashboards and predictive analytics capabilities support the making of informed decisions. Meanwhile the ability to integrate operations, sales and customer data allows you to discover key patterns so you can forecast trends and drive your business in the right direction. 

4. Operational efficiency and internal tools

Legacy system modernization can benefit your employees in more ways than one. When the internal systems they use are upgraded, you can expect gains in the form of reduced redundancy, streamlined workflows and freedom from outmoded tools such as spreadsheets or other inefficient workarounds.

However, for you to reap these benefits, you have to overhaul everything - from inventory systems and internal communication platforms to field service apps. Replacing them with custom tools will help you scale-up while dodging the bullet of regulatory and operational complexities by streamlining both. 

If you are a mid-sized business with fragmented systems, you should opt for Vestra Inet’s custom software development services. Enabling modernization of legacy workflows will be your key to a deeply integrated network of ERP, CRM and other platforms that prove to be scalable in the future. 

Case Study: Custom Software as the Foundation for DX Success

When a mid-sized kitchen hardware company came to us with issues such as manual data entry, manual invoicing, complex product catalogue and outdated warehouse management techniques, we knew there was only way to ensure complete visibility to prevent shipment delays and rising cost:

Custom software. 

We built it from scratch. From developing a full-fledged custom ERP system for them to adding useful features such as inventory management, product cataloguing, purchase order management, work order management and automated invoicing - Vestra Inet created a 360-degree system that resolved all their pain points. 

Read the full story here→

Measuring ROI Of Your Transformation Framework

A display of anecdotal wins might curry some favor for your digital transformation strategy, but if you truly want to demonstrate its value, stakeholders need a report on performance metrics. It will help you justify why this investment makes sense and why it should continue. Here’s what you should measure:

1. Time-to-deployment and process efficiency

Keeping tabs on how quickly your digital initiatives take off and the speed at which they execute previously slower tasks is a strong point to start. A reduction in delay of various processes such as onboarding, approvals and fulfilment is a good indicator of ROI. 

2. Automation rate of manual tasks 

Replacing labor-intensive processes with automation tools is a victory whose impact you can gauge by calculating the hours saved along with the percentage of tasks transitioned. You can also assess it by figuring out the reduction in human error rate. 

3. Integration scorecard and user adoption

Have a rating system in place to know how well your new system integrates with your current tech stack including systems such as CRMs or accounting platforms. A high integration score doesn’t just show alignment with your IT transformation roadmap, but also indicates a better return on investment. 

You should also keep an eye on cross-department adoption rates by tracking log-in rates, usage patterns and feedback surveys. 

Final Thoughts: Start With Intentional Customization, Not Templates

You always have the option to choose off-the-shelf transformation frameworks, but the resulting transformation will only be half-done. You’ll find yourself hounding real impact like a mirage in a desert. Instead of wasting time this way, design a strategy that reflects your business’s unique goals, pain points and growth trajectory. Then use custom tools to approach the transformation in an agile and scalable manner. 

Need some help creating custom tools? You can turn to Vestra Inet. We can build personalized, resilient solutions for you that streamline your workflows while being easy to implement and adopt. Contact us to get intentionally built and innovative custom solutions. 

FAQs

1. What are digital transformation solutions?

Digital transformation solutions include a plethora of elements such as software, automation, infrastructure and customer-facing tools that help businesses digitize their processes. 

2. How can I create a custom digital transformation roadmap?

The first step involves auditing your current systems. Post that, it is critical to chalk out priority areas for improvement and defining key success metrics. Then you can pick a tech vendor to help you.

3. What are common challenges in digital transformation? 

Lack of cross-team collaboration, resistance to change, budget constraints, and legacy system integration issues fall under the umbrella of challenges. 

4. Is custom software necessary for transformation? 

Yes and no. While it’s not necessary for all businesses, those with complex workflows or legacy system-induced bottlenecks are better off with custom software - especially if they want higher ROI. 

5. How long does a typical digital transformation take?

Approximately 6-18 months though timelines can vary.