An organization’s success relies heavily on its leadership and their ability to drive change through innovative revolutions at a fundamental level. Bringing about holistic digital transformation is one such endeavour that requires crucial participation from everyone in the leadership, especially the CEO, given its degree of disruption and the sheer magnitude of change that comes with it.

So, what do seasoned professionals recommend to a CEO when it comes to adopting a digital transformation strategy? Let’s dive in.

What is digital transformation?

Firstly, we must get ourselves acquainted with the term “digital transformation”. Put simply, it is the process of leveraging modern technology to create new business processes as well as modify existing ones and achieve a complete overhaul not only of workflows but also company culture and customer experience.

Digital transformation is thus defined as the process of reimagining business processes in the digital age with the help of cutting-edge technology.

What is the role of a CEO in facilitating digital transformation?

Now, to bring about digital transformation, leaders must adopt an approach of reimagining processes with a bi-modal strategy, wherein one side of the think-tank focuses on predictability and the other one focuses on exploring new realms.

It is crucial at this juncture of defining a digital transformation strategy for the leadership, particularly the CEO to strike a balance between both these modes.

• Mode 1: This mode is optimized for areas that are more predictable and well-understood. It focuses on exploiting what is known, while renovating the legacy environment into a state that is fit for a digital world.
• Mode 2: This mode involves experimenting to solve new problems and optimizing any areas of uncertainty. These initiatives often begin with a hypothesis that is tested and adapted during a process involving short iterations, potentially adopting a minimum viable product (MVP) approach.

Both modes are important to drive sustainable value as well organizational change to remain relevant even in disruptive times.

What are the top priorities of a CEO when defining a digital transformation strategy?

The CEO’s role is not only critical for most digital transformations but also fundamentally different depends on the CEO’s ambition for it along with the organization’s readiness to carry it out. Here are the CEO’s top five priorities while defining a digital transformation strategy:

• Strategy- It is imminent for a CEO to define a digital transformation strategy, essentially a plan of action, in order to reposition the organization deftly in the digital economy. This roadmap allows CEOs to address pain points and offer solutions that trickle down the organizational hierarchy and can be implemented to achieve a competitive edge.
• Agility- To accelerate digital transformation, CEOs must think of agility as a culture and equip themselves with the ability to quickly pivot in uncertain circumstances. With agility, they can modify their business models in progressive measured steps and can manage risk as well as costs in a more efficient manner.
• People- As you know, people are always at the heart of all business processes. Be it citizen-led innovation or simply executing predefined strategies, without people, no organization can endeavour to transform digitally.
• Data & Technology- If people are the carpenters of the digital transformation journey, data and technology are their tools. By leveraging concise data coupled with modern technology, the CEO can bring about rapid digital transformation.
• Adoption- Once the people are appointed are the technology is deployed, it is important for the CEO to keep track of the progress made at various levels throughout the digital transformation journey with the help of key performance indicators (KPIs) and other means of tracking.

This holds true for a CEO and a CIO. I have heard many say that a CIO is his department’s CEO. I know it sounds a little off when I set out to write a blog titled ‘CEO’s guide to achieving digital transformation’. But hey, a CEO can’t be omnipresent now, can he. I will be speaking at length about this topic in a fireside chat very soon. Stay tuned for that!

What is Nitor Infotech’s approach towards bringing about digital transformation for its customers?

We, at Nitor Infotech work closely with the customer’s leadership team, especially the CEO and aim to bring about a change in their mindset that facilitates holistic digital transformation.

For this, we have built a unique Magic Triangle Framework that focuses on the aspects mentioned above. You can read more about our framework here.

With these dimensions mapped cohesively, CEOs can work towards being the driving force of ensuring adoption and progress of the transformation strategy.

Reach out to us at Nitor Infotech to further your digital transformation journey and read our case study to see how we chalked out a digital transformation roadmap for a manufacturing company and helped the track their progress with 60+ KPIs.