It’s a hard fact to accept, but the reason why so many companies fail at digital transformation is because of their employees and leadership. Mike Perk, who runs a digital transformation advisory agency says that people are naturally change-averse, and need to be taken on a four-step journey before they will embrace digital enhancements in your company.

Four key areas businesses should focus on:

Create a vision: As a leader you need to give your staff a reason to believe by helping them see how digital transformation could improve their work lives.

Establish innovation micro-hubs within your company: Find people who are passionate about digital transformation and let them work together in hubs. To encourage innovation, it’s important not to apply the same restrictive corporate rules to these hubs that should be allowed to fail as they search for the right solution.

Invest in upskilling staff: Perk explains that you can’t just send staff on a course and expect
them to change how they work or use new systems. Businesses should give their innovation hubs a decent budget to experiment with and should invest in sustained, continuous training for staff.

Be a digital leader: The traditional hierarchical structures breed excellent managers who run and maintain the status quo, but very few true leaders who challenge it. To be a digital leader, you have to lead by example and show your staff how they can adapt to using new technology without feeling threatened by it.