It can often feel like the world is changing at the speed of light. To attract and retain customers, businesses must keep up with the way the world is evolving.
Right now, the largest evolution across the globe is technology. We’ve been pushed into a period of digital transformation due to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations all over the world have needed to quickly develop innovative solutions to pressing challenges.
Yet some businesses are struggling. Oftentimes, there are big barriers standing in the way of enacting much-needed change. Whether it’s ancient and outdated systems, cumbersome technology, or simply following the status quo, there are lots of issues that can hinder organizations from deploying rapid digitization when it is needed.
Now more than ever, businesses need to be flexible, agile, and adaptable. Don't let these roadblocks stand in the way of your organization’s digitization goals.
Paper processes keep slowing you down.
Is paper still a part of your processes? Needing to print, sign, scan, fax, or mail is frustrating for all parties involved.
Not to mention the issues involved with paper processes: they stifle efficiency, negatively impact productivity, and can even pose a security risk.
Paper forms, whether physically on paper or created through a PDF, can be difficult to edit, update, and share. They create major bottlenecks in processes, since you often can’t track paper forms through the lifecycle of the process. If forms have to pass through multiple people, it could take weeks for the process to be finalized. The issues attached to paper go on and on, and they all poorly impact business processes.
There’s also an issue with the availability of technology. Your customers or clients might not be able to easily access the tools needed to complete paper forms. They may be missing a printer or scanner, or be unable to access a PDF editor. This results in a poor customer experience and could impact the reputation of your business as being difficult to work with or unable to adapt to a digital world.
Learn More: A Bid for the Paperless Office: How Paper is Holding You Back
Creating a new workflow takes weeks of work.
Do you struggle to get new processes or workflows planned, created, and launched? If it takes upwards of months to get business processes finalized and working, there’s an issue that needs to be fixed.
The culprit could be your technology. In this case, your digital agility might be suffering. Digital agility describes the ease with which an organization can rapidly enable, update, change, or adapt their processes through technology.
You may be working with a tool that is too complicated, causing development of a new process to take much longer than necessary. The struggle could also be due to needing external help to facilitate the new workflow, such as IT. You may also run into data silos, which can hinder your access to data or ability to build workflows across tools.
It’s important to keep the idea of using appropriate technology in mind. Your tools should enable you to work quickly and efficiently, without bogging your team down with complicated steps or a need for lots of technical experience. You shouldn’t need a PhD in technology to put together a workflow or business process.
Did you know? Formstack makes it quick and easy to build flexible, powerful workflows in just minutes.
Employees are highly resistant to change.
Executing digital transformations includes more than just choosing the right technology. It’s people who truly make digitization efforts succeed or fail.
If there’s a high resistance to change within your department or organization, this can quickly derail any efforts to make much needed improvements to processes. Whether it’s a lack of trust in leadership, a desire to stay comfortable, or a misunderstanding about the need for change, many ways of thinking can lead to a resistance to change.
Change management can be difficult, but it’s an important part to launching successful digital transformations. Here’s a quick look at how to better manage change to ensure everyone is on board with whatever new process, project, or change is ahead:
- Explain why the change is happening
- Provide opportunities for people to ask questions
- Lay out a plan early and provide updates often
- Allow for feedback and ideas throughout the process
- Provide exact details on how the change will bring improvements
Need more help with change management? Use these change management tips to tackle every change in a positive way.
You’re constantly submitting help tickets to IT.
Few things can deter progress on a project more than not having the skills, access, or capabilities to do what you need to get done. Having to ask IT for help to set up, create, edit, or launch a project can quickly set you back on deadlines and cause you to miss hitting important milestones.
Luckily, technology can play a huge role in helping you avoid this annoying roadblock. The rise of no-code tools enables any team to take technology into their own hands, without having to knock on IT’s door for help.
No-code tools help organizations around the world streamline processes, speed up systems, and digitize what matters. Whether you need to build a web page or a digital workflow, no-code tools give all teams the power to do so. Consider investing in some of these tools to help minimize the pressure on your IT team and speed up projects on your to-do list.
Read Next: Why No-Code Apps are the Future of Work
Digitize What Matters Now
Once you have these common roadblocks cleared, you’ll be able to tackle any digital transformation initiative. It may take time to get to where you need to be, but once you’ve overcome the barriers above, the possibilities and opportunities are endless.
Looking for a digital transformation roadmap to guide your next project? This digital transformation checklist provides all the steps for successful digitization.
