Digital Transformation quickly became one of the most popular buzzwords of the COVID era as leaders struggled to navigate the applications, virtualized experiences and new practices required to fully enable and manage a remote workforce. Yet, even as many organizations have returned to on-site or hybrid operations, the need for defining, executing, and leveling how a business adapts to today’s digital reality has never been more important.
At its simplest, Jean - Luc Robert, CEO of Kyriba, sees Digital Transformation to achieving new business outcomes with a new combination of people, processes, and data. As the CEO of a leading cloud-based finance and IT solution company, Jean -Luc values transformation projects that move the company forward with a compelling ROI, enabled by hyper-automation and composable technology that unlock a holistic view of data from across the enterprise to drive strategy with precision and confidence.Â
The CEO leads the company to achieve a more competitive and profitable future state and is supported by visionary executives who collectively enable various parts of the CEO’s plan. For example, transformation projects that are driven by the Chief Financial Officer focus on bottom-line improvements to cash flow and the balance sheet, whereas Chief Revenue Officers prioritize top-line growth initiatives to enable sales teams with new processes and Revenue generation programs. Meanwhile, CIOs often approach digitization with a focus on data unification, recomposing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and complementary applications to form intelligent information platforms.Â
Regardless of who within the C-Suite is driving change, to make digital transformation successful, executives and their teams must deliver. Here are some things Jean-Luc Robert encourages every business leader to consider as they embark upon a digital transformation journey for their organization:Â
CFOs will be the first to share that any business project must deliver a compelling ROI. The days of only requiring the CRO and teams to present a positive net present value (NPV) or meeting a prescribed internal rate of return (IRR) hurdle rate are gone; every project put before the CIO must offer a positive top and/or bottom-line impact. Successful projects will demonstrate higher order improvement featuring a strong business case, resilient to the most thorough critique and analysis by treasury, financial planning and analysis, and budget teams.
CFOs and CIOs are developing closer relationships as the enablers of digital transformation projects. As the pandemic quickly pointed out, siloed legacy systems don’t have the agility to manage change with speed and accuracy. To improve outcomes for the future state of the company, they are investing in automation, connectivity between internal and external systems, and real-time data processing from across the enterprise to make more informed and scalable decisions.Â
These larger organizational demands are more accessible because of a business case that is developed by value engineering teams, specialized task forces that evaluate how projects can deliver ROI, accelerate cash flow, and increase liquidity to the company overall and in specific capacities. In addition, value engineering teams will quantify the benefits of a transformation project against comparative industry benchmarks. If your organization doesn’t feature value engineering (VE) as a business function, external consultancies offer the service, as do select software providers.
