How Can I Jump Start My Digital Transformation (Dx) Project?
Digital Transformation (Dx) may seem daunting, but with the right planning and execution, a Dx project will reap many benefits for your business.
Digital Transformation (Dx) may seem daunting, but with the right planning and execution, a Dx project will reap many benefits for your business.
According to a survey of businesses regarding Digital Transformation (Dx), 40% of respondents reported improved operational efficiency, 35% reported that it was easier to meet changing customer expectations, 26% said Dx improved product quality, and 24% said Dx reduced product development costs.
If you keep up with business and technology publications, you have probably heard the phrase ‘Digital Transformation’. So, what exactly IS Digital Transformation? It is the process of incorporating digital technology into workflow, activities and business tasks, creating new ways of working or modifying current processes and culture to create a more effective, streamlined and fact-based environment where business users, team members, managers and all employees can thrive and where customer focus can be clarified with clear, accessible information and direction.
Digital Transformation is all the rage but support for digital transformation may be in short supply. When a business begins to look at this type of initiative, they may not understand the depth and breadth of the required changes. The business will have to look at existing technology and determine the need for upgrades and changes. Organizations will also have to look at data literacy of business users and try to find ways to streamline, automate and apply technology to workflow and processes and tasks. If the business is to succeed in the digital transformation arena, it must take a step-by-step approach to build the technology and the foundation and to change the business culture to support data-driven decisions and collaboration.
If you follow technology publications and predictions, you know that Citizen Data Scientists are the big news for business. By transforming business users into Citizen Data Scientists, the business can leverage the professional skills and knowledge of an individual team member and combine that knowledge with data analytics to get the best answers, forecast and predict, solve problems and identify business opportunities.
If your business is struggling to manage big data and data from disparate sources, your team should focus on several key areas. First, you will want to review your datawarehouse (DWH) capabilities. If those capabilities are not cutting-edge, you should consider a review and re-engineering of this area of your infrastructure to be sure your growing data needs can be satisfied so that your team is not overwhelmed or swamped with information.
Identify Citizen Data Scientists and Provide the Support They Need to Succeed
When your business decides to begin a Citizen Data Scientist initiative, it faces numerous challenges but the resulting benefits the enterprise will reap from this program are undeniable. With the right preparation, every business can successfully enable this type of initiative and provide augmented analytics to improve collaboration, data literacy and digital transformation in the organization.
When a business chooses to follow the guidance of Gartner and embrace the Citizen Data Scientist initiative to transform business users and provide analytical tools for all team members, it must approach the initiative with appropriate planning.
When you are trying to implement a data democratization initiative and give your business users access to analytics, you can run into roadblocks with analytical tools and solutions that are too difficult for the average skills of a business user. It is impossible to achieve your goals and ensure that every user is comfortable with data analytics and fact-based decision-making if you don’t give your users a tool that they can use as easily as they use Google or other familiar search mechanisms.
Citizen Data Scientists…the predicted future of the organization! Gartner and other technology research firms have predicted the rise of Citizen Data Scientists as a way to complement and optimize data scientists and to democratize data and improve data literacy across the enterprise.