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The Pursuit of Digital Transformation: Here are 10 Tools to Help

November 19th, 2019 (Updated 06/20/2023) | 7 min. read

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Tools and Canvases That Will Help You to Transformation Your Organization.

The book Starting with Why written by Simon Sinek is a good source for those who really want to build meaningful business and in general, successfully compete against other established players on the market. Let’s be honest: the business landscape is changing and if you want to be a part of the profitable world in 10-15 years from now it is time to consider the transformation. I have prepared an overview of tools and canvases that can support you in your journey. For detailed overview of some tools you can look through the previous articles published on our platform. All tools are placed in the logical order, however, any of them can be used independently. 

Tool #1: Innovation focus 

For supporting a sustainable growth you will need to create an innovation portfolio that consists of several products and markets where you sell those products. You can push incremental innovations for your core business to become better in what you are doing. As an example, Coca-Cola turned 130 year old brand into fresh and relevant for young people by introducing Cherry Coke or Coke with Lime. For B2B businesses the incremental innovation can be a step towards capturing new target groups with updated product features or services. The adjacent innovation happen in the companies that use their successful products in different markets, e.g. Amazon that from book seller extended its business to cloud services while powering its own ecommerce needs and to AmazonFresh with fresh groceries delivery. In B2B it could be extending your business into the vertical market and offer more products that serves different customers. Finally, transformational innovation offers new products for the new markets that may have nothing to do with your core product. There are plenty of examples when original equipment manufacturer released their own consulting software to improve production process for other industries. Where will you put your focus for now? Nagji, B. & Tuff, G. give you a first hint on focus distribution. 

 managing_your_innovation_nagji, B_Tuff, G

Tool #2: From idea to established product. 

No matter what type of innovation you choose to focus on, there is a need to have a clear understanding what it will take to bring a success story to your innovation portfolio. In case you decide for a product innovation, below is the way to go. First, you verify the problem and solution fit where you confirm with quick tests that problem exists and your solution really solves it. Then you try to nail concrete niche on the market and find product-market fit where you identify the set of companies/customers that absolutely need your solution. Once this step has been achieved, prepare your sales forces to scale it further. 

corporate_start_up_path
Source: https://thecorporatestartupbook.com/

Tool #3: Create a clear vision alone (or together) aka Change Management cheat sheet 

I do understand that in big organizations the initiative to change something may take some time. However, your top management wants something concise and easy understandable. Why not preparing one pager where you can show an overview why change is needed or even better – schedule a short 45 minute short workshop to fill the sheet below. The framework that can help you strategize with your top management. Put this on the wall and keep your focus on it until you are ready to review it.  

Innovation_Thesis_Worksheet
Source: https://thecorporatestartupbook.com/

Tool #4: Quick business model assessment 

The canvas that will help you to access your business in 20 minutes. This tool is great for preparing a quick overview of your current business to define an action plan and areas for changes. If you want more details on how to use it check our article “The best tool to analyse your digital transformation strategy”. 

Business_Model_Canvas
By Business Model Alchemist – http://www.businessmodelalchemist.com/tools, CC BY-SA 1.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11892574

Tool #5: Quick snapshot of your innovative product/idea 

If you want to have an overview of an innovative product or an idea, use Lean canvas. This canvas is good for your initial innovation products because they start with problem/solution fit which you need to verify before growing your project further. I would suggest to use if always first before business model canvas for new businesses and projects. And of course this is applicable to B2B businesses because it is time to build products that really solve the problem of your target customer in a best possible way. 

lean_canvas
Source: https://canvanizer.com/new/lean-canvas

Tool #6: Collect problem/solution fit evidence 

Once you know what type of change you want to drive in your organization, talk to your colleagues who are involved in the processes and conduct a research. I would highly recommend the book “The Mom Test” written by Rob Fitzpatrick. You will ask “What it has to do with my B2B world?. Well, I can assure you that the research around change in your organization is not about asking people whether they like the idea but actually to understand the real “Pain” that you will resolve with your transformation project. For tracking the results you could also use “Experiment canvas” 

experiment_canvas

Tool #7: Check the problem ecosystem 

In case you don’t know whom to address in your organization use the stakeholder map to get a complete overview of the “target customers”. For more guidelines on how to build such map you can check this video below. 

Tool #8: Get to know your target customer 

Once the target customer is defined in broader sense you want to get know the people that will work with your innovative solution. The best to use 3 different tools that will help you to dig deeper into the needs of the users whether it is an internal project or a project for the customers that buy from your company. 

Empathy map is used for finding the pains of the user and getting a better understanding how the outside world affecting the user. You can check SolutionsIQ guidelines on how to use this map.

Think_Feel_Say_Do_Map

As an alternative you can use the Persona map that I have described in details in the article “How to pursue the change in your organization”. 

persona_canvas

Finally to finalize your research on your target customer to understand how to form your innovative project, you can use customer journey map. The CMNTY blog offers a comprehensive overview of how the Customer Journey could be build. 

Tool #9: Describe the need of your target customer in a professional way 

In the article “How to find a good software vendor?” I have suggested to use high level user stories as the way to record your colleague’s requirements. You can find good guidance how to write your user story in this article and also the best practices how to write user stories here. And thanks to Spanish IT enthusiasts there is also the User Story Canvas which you can use to structure your work. In this article you can find complete guide how to use the User Story canvas. 

user_story_conversation_canvas

Tool #10: Prepare the convincing story for a needed change  

Finally, when you know how and who will help you with the organizational change and what should be done to help all users and your company to excel, you can create a battle card and go and win people to follow you in this transformation journey. We shared more insights how to use battle cards in the article “How to pursue the change in your organization”. 

There are many ways and tools that can help you to become better in what you are doing. And in case you are still not sure how to drive change in your pricing department just let us know and we will help you to understand how Pricefx can support you on your digital journey. 

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