Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution
- Rising customer expectations and competitive pressures have accelerated the pace at which organizations are turning to digital transformation to drive revenue or cut costs.
- Many digital strategies are not put into action, and instead sit on the shelf. A digital strategy that is not translated into specific projects and initiatives will provide no value to the organization.
- Executing a digital strategy is easier said than done: IT often lacks the necessary framework to create a roadmap, or fails to understand how new applications can enable the vision outlined in the strategy.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- A digital strategy needs a clear roadmap to succeed. Too many digital strategies are lofty statements of objective with no clear avenue for actual execution: create a digital strategy application roadmap to avoid this pitfall.
- Understand the art of execution. Application capabilities are rapidly evolving: IT must stand ready to educate the business on how new applications can be used to pursue the digital strategy.
Impact and Result
- IT must work with the business to parse specific technology drivers from the digital strategy, distill strategic requirements, and create a prescriptive roadmap of initiatives that will close the gaps between the current state and the target state outlined in the digital strategy. Doing so well is a path to the CIO’s office.
- To better serve the organization, IT leaders must stay abreast of key application capabilities and trends. Exciting new developments such as artificial intelligence, IoT, and machine learning have opened up new avenues for process digitization, but IT leaders need to make a concerted effort to understand what modern applications bring to the table for technology enablement of the digital strategy.
- Taking an agile approach to application roadmap development will help to provide a clear path forward for tackling digital strategy execution, while also allowing for flexibility to update and iterate as the internal and external environment changes.
Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution Research & Tools
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should have a structured approach to translating your digital strategy to specific application initiatives, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.Besides the small introduction, subscribers and consulting clients within this management domain have access to:
- Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution – Phases 1-3
1. Parse digital strategy drivers
Parse specific technology drivers out of the formal enterprise digital strategy.
- Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution – Phase 1: Parse Your Digital Strategy for Critical Technology Drivers
2. Map drivers to enabling technologies
Review and understand potential enabling applications.
- Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution – Phase 2: Map Your Drivers to Enabling Applications
3. Create the application roadmap to support the digital strategy
Use the drivers and an understanding of enabling applications to put together an execution roadmap that will support the digital strategy.
- Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution – Phase 3: Create an Application Roadmap That Supports the Digital Strategy
- Digital Strategy Roadmap Tool
- Application Roadmap Presentation Template
- Digital Strategy Communication and Execution Plan Template
Workshop: Succeed With Digital Strategy Execution
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
1 Validate the Digital Strategy
The Purpose
Review and validate the formal enterprise digital strategy.
Key Benefits Achieved
Confirmation of the goals, objectives, and direction of the organization’s digital strategy.
Activities
1.1 Review the initial digital strategy.
1.2 Determine gaps.
1.3 Refine digital strategy scope and vision.
1.4 Finalize digital strategy and validate with stakeholders.
Outputs
Validated digital strategy
2 Parse Critical Technology Drivers
The Purpose
Enumerate relevant technology drivers from the digital strategy.
Key Benefits Achieved
List of technology drivers to pursue based on goals articulated in the digital strategy.
Activities
2.1 Identify affected process domains.
2.2 Brainstorm impacts of digital strategy on technology enablement.
2.3 Distill critical technology drivers.
2.4 Identify KPIs for each driver.
Outputs
Affected process domains (based on APQC)
Critical technology drivers for the digital strategy
3 Map Drivers to Enabling Applications
The Purpose
Relate your digital strategy drivers to specific, actionable application areas.
Key Benefits Achieved
Understand the interplay between the digital strategy and impacted application domains.
Activities
3.1 Build and review current application inventory for digital.
3.2 Execute fit-gap analysis between drivers and current state inventory.
3.3 Pair technology drivers to specific enabling application categories.
Outputs
Current-state application inventory
Fit-gap analysis
4 Understand Applications
The Purpose
Understand how different applications support the digital strategy.
Understand the art of the possible.
Key Benefits Achieved
Knowledge of how applications are evolving from a features and capabilities perspective, and how this pertains to digital strategy enablement.
Activities
4.1 Application spotlight: customer experience.
4.2 Application spotlight: content and collaboration.
4.3 Application spotlight: business intelligence.
4.4 Application spotlight: enterprise resource planning.
Outputs
Application spotlights
5 Build the Digital Application Roadmap
The Purpose
Create a concrete, actionable roadmap of application and technology initiatives to move the digital strategy forward.
Key Benefits Achieved
Clear, concise articulation of application roadmap for supporting digital that can be communicated to the business.
Activities
5.1 Build list of enabling projects and applications.
5.2 Create prioritization criteria.
5.3 Build the digital strategy application roadmap.
5.4 Socialize the roadmap.
5.5 Delineate responsibility for roadmap execution.
Outputs
Application roadmap for the digital strategy
RACI chart for digital strategy roadmap execution