Jun 19, 2024

The concept of digital transformation is heavily used. But is it really an accurate way to describe the change that is taking place in many organizations today? In this blog post we question the idea of a complete and revolutionary make-over of your digital tech landscape. Instead, we urge for a continuous evolution.

Stop the Transformation! Digital Evolution is The Way Forward

The wording digital transformation suggests that an analog organization, just like a caterpillar, will go through a pupa stage and then reappear as a transformed, unstoppable, AI-powered digital butterfly. But today, no organization could be classified as analog. Most businesses have an impressive tech stack and are very much digital. In fact, if they weren’t they would no longer exist.

Why Digital Transformation is Just Wrong

Today’s successful companies have not gone through a major transformation just for the sake of it. Instead, they have continuously evolved as they adapt to customer, business and technology changes. The most forward-thinking companies have actively accelerated this evolution when they have experienced business threats or identified opportunities to advance their market position. This could be introducing new business models, sales channels, the use of new technology or more efficient ways of working.

Unlike biological evolution, where a new species is born with the refined traits from its ancestors, many companies still carry all their previous development stages in the same body (both long and short beaks at the same time). Often, we meet businesses with a tech stack that includes a mix of old and new components that only partly support the current business model and imply huge limitations for business operations. Plus, a non-optimized technology stack makes it impossible to keep up with change such as new innovations, new customer behavior, international competition, and new regulations.

Very few businesses can switch everything out at once. And there’s no reason they should. Instead, use external help to review and challenge the current and future business needs.

The Better Option: Technical Evolution

Get your technical evolution process going with a digital audit. This way you’ll get an external perspective on your customer journey, how you deliver on your customer promise and whether you have the optimal technology, process and data setup to maximize business value. You’ll get answers to questions like:

Do we have the right tools, processes and competences in place to achieve our business objectives – today and in the future?
Do we need to replace or implement new tools for PIM, e-commerce, MDM, OMS, POS, CDP, CXP, CRM or other?
Which parts of our technology stack can we keep and optimize, and where do we need to add new tools?
Which parts of our technology stack can we develop internally, what should we buy out-of-the-box and where do we need a partner to support?
And most importantly – where should we start and why there?

This is where most businesses need external help. Even if you have the smartest CTO and a team of excellent internal developers, the task of handling all these questions and making informed decisions is too complex to manage internally. Lack of time is one reason. But there’s also a lack of knowledge about the system landscape. With an external partner you can get valuable insights into how different systems overlap and how they complement each other. Which systems are good, cost-efficient, scalable and user-friendly. What technology provides the most flexible yet stable architecture. And not to forget, what you can learn from other businesses in your industry for best practices and inspiration.

This is where Avensia can help. We’ve got the business and technology experts to help you assess your current set-up and recommend the best way forward to achieve your business objectives. Explore our digital audits offering and contact us to discuss your needs.