«  View More Posts

Manage

How to Pursue Digital Transformation in Your Organization

November 5th, 2019 (Updated 06/20/2023) | 5 min. read

By

Steps to Pursuing Digital Change 

Organizational change is hard. No one argues with that. Moreover, it can be even harder if you are trying to drive the transformation without any organizational support.  

Oftentimes, companies begin a digital project with a clear timelines and deadlines. The change is driven by top management and is not very well prepared. As a resultbudgets overrun, while not even 50% of the processes are implemented. What’s more, whoever recommended the digital project loses credibility, the company misses out on money, and nothing has really happened. Hardly a digital transformation, is it?  

Thankfully, there is a way of doing it properly. It can be less dramatic and less painful if the change is driven and supported by the broader circle of middle management and operational colleagues. If you have chosen the right vendor (check our previous article) and involved them in the evaluation process, it will be easier to push the transformation further. However, if you don’t have a broader group on board of the “change boat with you, it will be a challenging journey with many bumps. 

So, how do you push for change? If you already have an idea, but it is yet an innovative/radical solution, there are several steps you can take. 

Start Changing – Here Are The Steps You Need to Take:

Step 1: Ask yourself, are you really passionate about this project? 

Check if you want to go forward with your idea and make sure you are excited about it. Imagine yourself leading this project for the next two years, how do you feel about it? It may sound strange, but your emotional involvement in this project is essential. Knowing that something should be different in your organization won’t ignite a change, but having a feeling about it definitely will. 

Step 2: List the stakeholders that you need to address.  

You will need to draw a stakeholder map and define who is crucial for the decision making and who is vital for introducing the innovation to your company. For example, to roll out the new pricing software you, as Head of Pricing, will need to talk with all parties that are involved in your processes. A new tool will always bring the need to change the established procedures. Thus, it would help if you convinced the following departments: 

  • Marketing 
  • Purchasing 
  • Sales 
  • IT 

Those would be your internal stakeholders.   

Besides, you may have external service providers, partners, suppliers that are not in your organization structure but have a direct influence on the pricing. If you list all the people who are directly or indirectly affected by the change, it will give you a good picture of what would it take to get approval and acceptance in your organization. 

Step 3: Understand the audience that you need to convince.  

To prepare your project pitch and further successful project implementation, you need to know who stands behind the title. In this case, you may consider persona tool for better preparation. 

A persona is a description of your target audience that lists their fundamental values, demographic profile, interests and any other type of information that may help you to connect with them and have a further active collaboration on the project. Below, you can find the canvas template from the company Design Better Business with a Sales Manager persona in B2B business.  

Step 4: Prepare a good case for innovation 

The best way to convince your audience that your transformation project is a good idea is to prepare some clear facts, data points, and anticipate any critical questions that your stakeholders may ask you. For this step, a useful tool could be a battle card. 

Battle cards are short, sales-ready documents that provide sales teams with an understanding of a specific competitor’s marketing strategy, key sales messagesproduct information, and tactical value propositions to use when selling against your competitors1. It is a cheat sheet” that helps you be efficient in your conversations. 

There is no one methodology for how to do it, but the best practice would include these nine blocks (developed by Forte Consulting Group). We have changed and adapted these blocks to the pricing project framework. 

For practical reasons, let’s imagine that you will need to convince your colleagues that Pricefx is the right company to choose. For illustration purposes, we assume you have a B2B business and sell packaging. Here is the battle card for Pricefx as a potential software vendor. 

List_Case_Innovation_Blocks_examples

Step 5: Prepare the pitch with a secret sauce. 

You will maybe have only 10 minutes to convince your target audience that they should pursue your suggested change. Consider these critical elements of a good pitch:  

  1. Check who will be sitting in the room to build a story that connects with the target audience. 
  2. Combine feedback from your colleagues and solid facts to show the need within your company. 
  3. Underline the clear profit from implementing software to improve the existing processes. 
  4. Present how your competitors are already doing what you plan to do and how you can be better. 
  5. Show how you will implement the tool, and what the steps will be, what resources you need, and how much will it cost. 
  6. Finish your presentation with a question. 

Convincing your organization to make a change is not an easy task, but if you do it step by step and use the right tools, you will be able to prove that your project yields tangible results. For more information on PriceFX or to make contact, click here.