5 basic steps for digital transformation in business

5 years ago, when the concept of digital transformation was just emerging in Vietnam, only a small portion of businesses were interested. However, after significant disruptions like Covid-19, businesses have been forced to view it as an essential activity in their journey of development and acceleration.

Some businesses still think digital transformation is about digitizing everything or that it’s entirely the responsibility of the platform provider. A Gartner survey once pointed out 9 mistakes businesses make in digital transformation, emphasizing the technology-centric mindset.

Gartner recommends that instead of focusing on technology, managers should review organizational design, and build and standardize tools, technologies, processes, and forms. “Target unmet needs — the needs of the market and customers that the industry has never served before,” advised Raskino, a Gartner expert.

Mr. Le Viet Thang, Founder and CEO of 1Office, at the event on November 28 in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: The Danh.

Implementing this viewpoint, at a recent event on digital transformation solutions, Mr. Le Viet Thang, Founder and CEO of 1Office, stated that the digital transformation journey in a business should be carried out in 5 steps.

Prepare Data

First, according to Mr. Thang, businesses must clearly define their goals or the scope of their problem, specifically, which area do they want to digitally transform? Human resource management, work management, or customer and process management?

“Once defined, businesses should prepare sample data and must clean the data thoroughly because data is the new oil, a type of resource,” said Mr. Thang.

Choose a Technology Platform

In the next step, based on their needs and existing data, businesses begin to establish criteria for selecting suitable management platforms.

At this step, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam, former CEO of FPT and current Founder of Funix University, noted that the mindset must come first, and the software second. “This is the mindset of being able to see the company in terms of numbers before considering buying software,” he said.

According to Mr. Nam, once this is understood, using software becomes very effective. Otherwise, businesses will face a rather common problem: having the opportunity to grow but choosing to stop.

Additionally, during the process of selecting a technology platform, Mr. Thang believes that businesses need to actively communicate internally and prepare employees’ mindsets to create a psychological buffer. “Many digital transformation efforts fail because employees resist, feeling that the change disrupts their daily habits,” he said.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nam, former CEO of FPT and current Founder of Funix University, at the event on November 28 in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: The Danh.

Digitize Data

Businesses must digitize data on personnel, customers, processes, tasks, etc.

Digitize Policies and Processes

After digitizing data, businesses will digitize policies and processes, including: digitizing internal processes, digitizing HR regulations, digitizing sales policies, etc.

Sharing his experience with this process, Mr. Phan Hai, Head of IT at Tin Holdings, said that if a business wants to digitize a process, it must first have a process.

This means company documents must be available before they can be digitized. For example, to have personnel information, you must first have a personnel information sheet before you can digitize it and upload it to the software.

Build a Reporting System

Once everything is digitized, it’s time to build a reporting system. This system can include reports on personnel progress, sales figures, marketing, etc. Note that the process of building and improving reports needs to be repeated continuously.

Mr. Pham Hai Van, Co-founder of BB Capital, estimates that previously in Vietnam, as many as 60-70% of CEOs made decisions based on intuition, lacking statistical report data. But with technology solutions, having complete data helps improve efficiency, steers the business quickly in the right direction, and creates a competitive advantage.

Also according to Mr. Van, for businesses that are currently transforming or have not yet transformed, now is the most suitable time. “From a mindset perspective, if you don’t digitally transform now, your competitors will apply technology to their management and operations, creating a greater competitive advantage with more minimal costs,” he said, adding that this would be a very big risk.

Source: https://vnexpress.net/