As technology continues to amaze us, it is equally becoming more competitive in its mesmerising innovation. Technology and development are relatable to all walks of life and its increasing prominence in our daily lives has made it crucial for the realm of business and industry to develop in parallel to technology. Therefore, transforming digitally is vital for the success and relevance of any organization and business and should continuously work towards digital innovation. The following is criteria that organizations need to assessed for readiness of digital transformation:

● organizational culture
● business model
● business process
● systematic management

Organizational Culture

One of the most valuable assets to any organization is its workforce, and organizational culture needs to be evaluated before integrating any digitalization. Annacone stressed that ‘full, long-term digital transformation requires redefining organizational mindsets, processes, and talent & capabilities for the digital world. Best-in-class corporations recognize digital requires agile workflows, a bias toward testing and learning, decentralized decision-making, and a greater reliance on business ecosystems’. Companies need to prioritise the digital competence of employees and drive their motivation for its implementation and integration setting the foundation for digital transformation.

Business Model

Organizations need to evaluate their business model and the maturity of the company’s architecture before any digitalization and witness its revolutionary consequences. Specifically, companies should analyse the efficiency of IT, its correspondence between strategies and to what extent it is involved in the business. Annacone highlighted these specific examples of digital as Netflix’ business model reinvented video distribution, Apple’s innovation of music delivery (I-Tunes), and Uber’s reconstruction of the taxi industry. These characteristics should be assessed to establish the degree of readiness for digital transformation.

^[1] Annacone Andrew, The 4 Types of Digital Transformation, 2019. Retrieved from:  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-types-digital-transformation-andrew-annacone

^[1] Stoianova and Lezina and Ivanova, The framework for assessing company’s digital transformation readiness, 2020

Business Process

Some businesses are dependent on their unique business processes, and as they can be easily mimicked or even improved, continuous digitization is crucial for readiness and success of organizations. Elements such as analytics, APIs, data management and quality, offer valuable new ways to reinvent processes with the purpose of reducing costs and increasing quality. He also suggests that due to these transformations being focused around specific areas of the business, they are often successfully led by a CIO or CDO. Moreover, organizations need to assess the automation, standardization and how their processes are integrated within the company or consumer which will show how prepared a company is for change.

Systematic Management

It is more than common knowledge the significance of leadership in any circumstance and that includes organizations, but more specifically their competence in decision making in accordance to any digital change. Management needs to be reviewed in terms of the company’s consistency of objectives, quality of change management and feedback. Evaluating the speed and completeness of management when implementing change within organizations in general, not necessarily in the context of digital, can portray the effectiveness and therefore the value of readiness. Additionally, the quality of feedback in the management system within the company and between contractors also indicates preparedness for digital transformation.

In summary, the need for organizations to survive the saturated markets lies in their ability to continue digitally evolving. There needs to take place evaluations of these criteria: organizational culture, business model and process and systematic management within companies to effectively assess the readiness of digital transformation.

^[1] Annacone, The 4 Types of Digital Transformation, 2019

^[1] Annacone, The 4 Types of Digital Transformation, 2019

^[1] Lezina et al, Assessment the Company’s Readiness for Digital Transformation: Clarifying the Issue, 2019

^[1] Stoianova and Lezina and Ivanova, The framework for assessing company’s digital transformation readiness, 2020

^[1] Lezina et al, Assessment the Company’s Readiness for Digital Transformation: Clarifying the Issue, 2019