Digital technologies are forcing an unprecedented pace of change for business. They are not only changing the way we communicate but are also causing us to reshape our business models.To determine whether your business is on track to becoming an effective digital business, you need to ask the five following questions:
1. Do you proactively monitor the industry changes that are affecting your business?
Use web based tools to help track the impact that converged technologies are having on all aspects of your business, such as customer behaviors, new suppliers, technology trends etc. This approach will give you a holistic perspective of your industry and enable you to identify strategic options ahead of your competition.
2. Do you encourage collaborative behaviors within your organization?
It is crucial that your company provides the tools and environment that enable the sharing of knowledge and information in order to tap into one of its most valuable attributes – the tacit knowledge (the accumulated skills, experience and know-how) of your employees.
3. Do you regularly engage with communities external to your company?
It is essential to adopt a digital mindset and rethink how your business can more effectively engage (interact, listen, learn and co-create) with the rapidly growing collective knowledge base outside of your company in order to understand changing customer requirements, generate new ideas and gain important feedback.
4. Do you disrupt your business model?
Traditional business models, tools and methodologies do not adapt well to the opportunities and threats encountered in today’s digital world. First you need to understand how the individual elements of your existing model work together and then take full advantage of digital technologies to create a disruptive new business model – before your competition does it for you!
5. Do you inspire your employees to bring innovation into the workplace?
You need to encourage your employees to leverage the mobile and social technologies that they use in their everyday lives to generate innovative ideas that will enhance, simplify and accelerate the business processes within your company.
Have you answered “yes” to all the above questions? If so, yours is one of the few businesses with the foresight to understand that adopting a new mindset is essential in today’s fast paced digital environment. If you answered “no”, it’s not too late to follow the five steps above and begin the process of transforming your traditional organization into a truly digital one!