7 Digital Transformation Resolutions For 2022
Happy New Year!
It’s the season of resolutions, and today I want to talk about some digital transformation resolutions to think about for your company in 2022.
These are the things you probably know you should be more focused on, but aren’t—the corporate equivalent of quitting smoking or starting a workout regimen.
Below is a "resolution menu" drawn from the priorities I see at some of the large enterprises I work with in my digital transformation consulting practice.
#1 WIN MORE CUSTOMER LOVE
What can your company do to deserve and earn more customer love?
Most businesses recognize their customers are important, but are also aware of areas where they’re creating customer pain or letting their customers down that aren’t being addressed.
Maybe it’s a confusing website interface, or a policy you have for refunds and exchanges. Perhaps you have some employees that aren’t especially friendly to your customers.
Sometimes those things seem like they’d be a big hassle to try to fix, so they are brushed under the rug, but a new year is a time to look in the mirror and commit to the needed improvements.
#2 GAIN BETTER CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
Connected to the goal of increasing customer love, in the new year, we all should be asking the question, do we really understand our customers? Do we understand their needs and their points of pain?
Do we understand why they choose us to do business, when they do, and why they choose not to do business with us when they don’t?
My unscientific gauge is that many companies understand their customers at about a six out of ten. I know this because we often get brought in to do customer research that reveals major new insights that were previously not on the radar.
For example, most of you reading this article probably receive Google Analytics reports or other similar types of data about usage of your digital platforms.
But is that data really telling you what you need to know? Or is it just telling you how many pages have been viewed? That’s nice to know, but is it really helping you understand the questions that are important?
In this new year, consider asking yourself, what do I need to know about my customers?
And if your current metrics aren’t giving you that, dig deeper to enhance your metrics to tell you what you need to know (check out the book for more about how to do that).
#3 ELIMINATE TECHNICAL DEBT
Technical debt is the combination of all those choices you made to get something done quickly but in the interest of speed it wasn’t done in the best way, and now it’s creating problems.
Maybe your technical debt is creating limitations on your scalability or performance.
Or it could be holding you back from delivering the new capabilities you need to win in the market. In a study by Accenture, 70% of executive surveys indicated that technical debt is a major impediment to innovation.
If you have customer data in six different places and you pull it together with spit and bailing wire to create reports, but you really can’t analyze the data in the way that would really enable you to personalize the experience for the customer, that’s the impact of your technical debt.
But this is the time of year where we make resolutions. Everybody says they want to lose weight, but no one wants to diet. Paying back that technical debt isn’t fun either but it’s what you need to do to be the lean, mean, best version of yourself.
#4 DEFINE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Is it really clear who’s in charge of what within your organization?
Digital cuts across so many areas of a business, and sometimes those roles and responsibilities become murky, and are shared among different groups.
Things can often fall between the cracks for that reason.
These are not necessarily fun conversations to have, but take the time to make sure it’s clear who’s in charge of what, and who’s being held accountable for what, to make sure that important aspects of your digital business aren’t being overlooked.
#5 DECIDE ON PRIORITIES
Businesses are often running in many directions instead of prioritizing and focusing on the things that are most important. It can be politically easier to try to do everything—to do everyone’s priority—rather than make the tough decisions. The problem is, when you do that, the quality of everything usually suffers.
Make a resolution to stop trying to do everything, and do what you know the business needs. Prioritize the things that are going to have the biggest impact for your customer and for your business.
#6 EMBRACE WEB 3.0 & BLOCKCHAIN
Web 3.0 is a huge buzzword right now, and one aspect that every business needs to be thinking about in 2022 is blockchain. Most people know that blockchain is the technology behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It has been a very transformational thing, particularly for Elon Musk or anyone else who bought bitcoin when it was only $5!
While it clearly presents a major speculation opportunity, it’s much more than that. Blockchain has the potential to be important in almost every industry.
And blockchain is not only for currencies. It can be applied to anything that has a supply chain associated with it. If you’re not clear on blockchain, check out Shelly Palmer’s recent book, Blockchain - Cryptocurrency, NFTs & Smart Contracts: An executive guide to the world of decentralized finance. That book is a great primer to help understand the basics of blockchain. My company is also providing free briefings on the topic, message me if you’d like to learn more.
Don’t let yourself be caught behind the curve when blockchain based solutions start to overtake your industry and you haven’t been a part of the conversation.
#7 EVALUATE THE FUTURE OF WORK
We’re all living through this era of “the great resignation.” For many companies, that means they have no choice but to rethink labor because they simply can't hire enough employees.
The future of work has several characteristics which look quite different from the past. Traditionally, a huge percentage of work has been done by employees.
The companies that are proving to be the most successful in the digital world, however are using the gig economy and other extended ecosystems to hire. Uber drivers and DoorDashers are great examples of this.
In 2022 all companies should at least be considering if there is a way to embrace this trend in a major way.
Additionally, every company should have a long term automation vision. Ultimately, what work in your company should be done by humans? What parts should be done by AI? What parts should be done by robotics?
Many companies are already moving in these directions, but other companies are still in the traditional mindset about the role of the human in work, and one meaningful resolution for 2022 is to commit to developing a future-oriented strategy.
So there are seven digital transformation resolutions for your company to consider in 2022. In the spirit of resolution #5 (Prioritize), I encourage you to pick a few to focus on.
And one last thought. Studies show that over 80% of all New Years resolutions are abandoned by Groundhog day. Don't make these resolutions typical in that regard, commit for the year and I predict massive benefits.