When CIOs and innovation leaders speak about digital transformation, their success stories are rooted in the empowerment of the front-line worker. Successful IT leaders know that digital transformation is not about tools, and you can’t buy your way into a digital transformation with tablets and IOT devices. Instead, the heart of a successful digital transformation for your business comes only when you are able to empower and elevate the role of IT in the business.
“Digital transformation” has been a buzzword in all types of businesses for several years now. The goal of a successful transformation touts a promise for businesses to move faster, deliver more successful products to market, and build their bottom line. In order to achieve that, many businesses think they can simply buy their way into it. They think they can buy mobile devices and deliver paper processes the same way, only online. Businesses imagine they can hire additional software developers and become their own technology providers.
The truth is, however, that businesses who achieve success in the new world understand that a digital transformation cannot be purchased. Instead, it takes a culture change that re-positions your IT department from that of order taker/deliverer to that of a strategic partner. It takes a strategic vision communicated well enough from the top down that your business knows exactly which strategic projects to focus on in-house, and which projects to partner on with outside agencies.
Digital transformation means you may have more software developers, but those developers will be working on fewer projects that deliver more impact. It means that you will be embracing mobile devices – but that the processes you used to use will need to be revamped and re-envisioned to be effective in the new world. It means individuals who were previously ensuring compliance with those processes can instead begin learning from the data and analytics devices are collecting in real-time.
It means culture has to change, or you will be limiting the capacity of your business’s success. Every individual and each department will need to get better at communicating with each other, leveraging new information to make better decisions, and most of all – adapt.
The lessons learned from IT’s digital transformation are the roadmap for elevating and transforming the safety organization within the business. A strategic partnership with IT will allow the safety organization to transform, innovate, and create that cultural change that will drive improved business processes, improved efficiency, and improved safety outcomes.
Creating a generative culture change has proven to deliver more effective and collaborative businesses, which in turn directly impacts the bottom line. That culture change is at the heart of the digital transformation. And that cultural change is what has to happen to transform the safety industry, as well.
A business that is unwilling to elevate the role of IT, or safety organization, to strategic business partner will not achieve a digital transformation. The core principle of digital transformation is that in order for businesses to innovate and continue to outpace their competitors, the business must embrace and elevate the technology organization in a way that dictates true partnership with top business leaders. And that’s true of the safety organization, as well, in order to achieve next-generation success.
Find out what other lessons the safety organization can learn from IT’s digital transformation in the next installment of this blog series: The Map to a Safer Workplace is Written in Code.
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Diana Nolting serves as Director of Product at Anvl. Before joining Anvl, Diana served as Product Manager at Bluelock, an industry-leading Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service provider where she had a front-row seat to see the magnitude of change and possibility that digital transformation can bring to the business, particularly when cloud technologies are applied to solve business problems. At Anvl, Diana is responsible for driving the product strategy and vision, ensuring both continue to evolve and innovate to serve needs of the safety industry and deliver continuous value.
