The road to the digital revolution in industry: Uncovering the 4 key steps

Where to start digital transformation to create a unique customer experience and what tasks does the company need to solve at each stage? We share a diagram of the four stages of digital transformation, which helps to understand the what and why.

Customer experience is not just about interviews, sticky notes and prototype testing sessions. The source of customer experience in the digital age is the data a company collects.

Data optimises the business process and enables the creation of more focused and relevant offers for people. It is for the sake of collecting customer data and optimising the workflow that the mess called "digital transformation" is created.

• Stage 1: Start of digital transformation

  One day, a client contacts a industrial automation solutions partner with a request to develop a mobile application. They soon learned that the client had developed as many as four such apps and none of them were useful for their customers. As it turned out, most of the scenarios in the mobile app ended with an invitation to "bring paper documents to their managers".

  The problem was not in the performance of the mobile app, but in the fact that the company had not passed the first stage of the digital transformation, i.e. the automation of work processes and the elimination of the paper-based workflow. In the first stage, teams are also empowered to work in the digital ecosystem: training, staff assessment, retraining and introduction of a new culture.

• Stage 2: Optimisation through the transition to digital solutions

  Buying digital solutions and switching to platform standards should help streamline business processes. At this stage, the company abandons inefficient business processes; invests in innovations that will form the basis of the emerging digital ecosystem and redefines its business model.

  At this stage, the company needs to completely rethink the workspace: everything around it must be designed for active, fast and barrier-free teamwork. The company's workflow at this stage looks like a fast cooperation of micro-teams.

• Stage 3: Data monetisation

  Whatever you do, always ask yourself the question: "What's in it for me? If the answer is "nothing", then don't do it. The customer experience data you collect should provide you with valuable information. Don't be too lazy to formulate and write down why you need data on a particular customer action.

  The main task of the stage is to collect, evaluate and show the financial value of the data collected for the business process. At this point, your team should be speaking the "language of the case".

• Stage 4: Trusted digital ecosystem

  Metrics are implemented, algorithms are developed to collect customer experience data, success stories help change the culture of the company. At this stage, customers begin to feel the holistic care of the company. The customer is in an ecosystem of digital solutions that anticipate their wishes, provide a service that exceeds their expectations and "think" for the customer on the most difficult issues, turning routine procedures into an interactive, fast and seamless omnichannel journey.

  This stage belongs entirely to the designers - creators of new experiences and opportunities. Product owners lead the work of micro-teams and create a wealth of new data-driven solutions.

Do you want to learn more about the basic stages of industrial digital transformation? Eight steps to initiate digital transformation in industrial companies y subscribe to our newslettera monthly newsletter with technical content that will help you to obtain useful and up-to-date information on efficiency and operational performance of industrial organisations.