How Organisations Should Maintain Their Digital Momentum 

It’s no longer enough to execute digital transformation at the speed of business. You need digital acceleration in order to keep up your digital momentum.  

Many executive teams have managed to deliver results over the past decade without adopting the latest technology trends but organisations that are still operating with legacy technology and analogue processes will have a hard time meeting customers’ expectation. The pandemic has forced most of the businesses to go digital.  

While this has been an incredibly challenging time for many, it has also provided organisations with a unique opportunity to reimagine processes and ways of working and fundamentally accelerate the digital transformation as well as keep up the digital momentum. Organisations that are thriving in their digital acceleration practice few key actions to prevent digital backsliding.  

Focus on Action 

As organisations are enhancing the digital capabilities, they are also changing the processes and policies that may get in the way of supporting any digital acceleration. Organisations that are doing well in digital understand that technology alone will not be able to make the difference and they believe that improving the process-related operations along with the technology is the finest digital strategy.  

Unleash The Power of People 

Organisations know they need to help their people maximise their potential and at the same time build business resilience. Digital thriving organisations will empower their people with digital tools, broader decision-making capabilities, time and incentives to make sure the digital momentum is not lost. This will be shared widely within the organisations so others can benefit. It is essential to provide the people with the time and a safe environment to experiment and accelerate digital change.  

Broaden The Scope of Transformation  

A comprehensive, end-to-end approach to digital transformation will enable organisations to fully interact with customers digitally across all aspects of on organisation’s operations. This shows that organisations are mobbing beyond a point-solutions approach that solves only part of a process. It will also be necessary to leverage existing technologies and tools or even to implement new ones as in order to keep the digital momentum going.  

Empower Business Technologist  

In every digitally connected organisation, there are business leaders who possess technology insight in a digital business and own relevant aspects of technology infrastructure. They sit outside of technology but able to customise or build technology solutions along with the business. These business technologists are the force multipliers who advocate for technology initiatives within business units and functions, provide expertise to select and manage application.  

  Figure 1: Three Steps to Prevent Digital Backsliding by Gartner (2021) 

With the pandemic having accelerated digital transitions, organisations need to take advantage of what they've created and the customers they've attracted. They should be able to keep and retain as well as use all they’ve learned to continue to deliver personalised and engaging experience.  

To sustain momentum, leaders must institutionalize their new digital ways of working using systems, processes and practices and (re)commit to execute digitalization at speed.