In today’s digital age, we need to completely change how we think, how we interact with customers, partners and stakeholders and how our business works. Holistically. From the inside out. Expectations across all three audiences have changed and even when we effectively align our business strategy to these expectations, the gap continues to grow between the strategy and the execution of the strategy.

Why is this? Obviously, there are many arguments to be made, but I contend that it is caused by an incorrectly aligned set of requirements needed to implement a digital transformation that truly rebuilds an organization.

I see it all the time … People, Process, Technology.

It’s in nearly every presentation I’ve seen over the past five years. You usually find it right around slide three. Now the underlying concept is a correct, but what is often misconstrued is the order with which we need to implement these changes. I believe to be most effective in transforming organizations, we need to “blow the whole thing up” and START with Process.

When we begin with Process, and build Technology to support that process, we truly liberate the People and free them from the monotony of simply executing, allowing them to shift some of their focus on the “why.” More time can be provided to organizational changes that drive adoption of the tools and processes, which leads to a broader collaboration on continuous improvement initiatives in an organization, leading to new capabilities, offerings and solutions, as well as a stronger engagement with the customer.

What I find to be the greatest cause of this misalignment is the confusion between digital strategy and digital transformation. I often see these terms used interchangeably, but they are two very different things.

Digital Strategy is the “what” and Digital Transformation is the “how” in the overall scheme that takes us from the old way of doing things to the new way. A well-defined and executed Digital Transformation Initiative takes the digital strategy and implements the necessary change to reinvent the business. There are four things we need to bake into this effort.

1. Shift focus to the customer.
   Becoming “customer experience” centric means you have a measured understanding of the needs of the customer.
2. Adopt to the adapting landscape.
   Rethink your processes to ensure you are creating the ability to be agile and responsive.
3. Build a foundation that supports.
   Align best-in-class technology usage to these processes to ensure efficiency and productivity.
4. Always be improving.
   Develop and grow a team that is focused on change planning and improvement… AND MEASURE. Use Goals, Metrics and KPI’s.

When these four target areas of change are in sync, we continue to create an enhanced level of discipline, attention and organizational growth. We drive the innovation necessary to not only compete in, but thrive in, today’s ever-changing business landscape.