Digital Transformation has become a buzzword, one of those cool and important sounding change processes you hear about from the corporate sector that must surely be the next big strategic initiative we need to embrace to leap into the future.
But what is Digital Transformation? How do you do it? And is it really something the non-profit sector needs to be concerned about? After all, we’re already up to our eyeballs just trying to survive the day-to-day business of managing supporter and funder relationships, processing income, and getting email communications out the door.
Let me take a moment to share with you why Digital Transformation is worth your time.
In this digitally disrupted world of streaming services and peer-to-peer online marketplaces, Digital Transformation (DX) is a pathway to delivering experiences for supporters that meet and exceed their expectations, building engagement and brand loyalty. It’s a way to improve efficiency and automation to release the higher value potential in your staff. It’s a way to transition to digital-first delivery, e.g. online fundraising, which can deliver much better ROI than traditional channels, or to virtualise your business operations, as we’ve all experienced with the transition to Zoom during the pandemic.
In 2021 I led a pilot project on behalf of an international NGO, working with one of their regional offices in the Global South. We ran an experiment to explore what “DX” means for the organisation, and establish whether a standardised practice could be developed to enable them to roll-out this change process across their entire network.
Over this 3 part series I will share my reflection on what was done, what was learned, what went well, what could have been done differently - and what the next steps might be.
PART ONE: What is Digital Transformation?
Digital Transformation (DX), like other technology buzzwords such as Agile or Big Data, has the potential to mean anything you want it to. It runs the risk of being the kind of generic terminology to which everyone who reads it applies their own interpretation, with no two interpretations being quite alike.
However, DX does have a specific definition, even if it can still seem a bit slippery…
The Enterprisers Project defines it as:
“...the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business resulting in fundamental changes to how businesses operate and how they deliver value to customers. Beyond that, it's a cultural change that requires organizations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment often, and get comfortable with failure.”
And CIO.com adds that it:
“...marks a rethinking of how an organization uses technology, people, and processes in pursuit of new business models and new revenue streams, driven by changes in customer expectations around products and services.”
Fundamentally then, DX is about leveraging the possibilities offered by technology to improve existing business operations, and to expand into new opportunities, all with a spirit of experimentation and a “permission to fail” attitude.
Critically, it is both a practical and a cultural endeavour. Simply implementing a bunch of shiny new tools is not going to transform your organisation, and at worst could become a very expensive exercise in making all the same old mistakes, just a bit faster than before.
Practical and Cultural:
By now you’re maybe saying to yourself: “we’ve implemented technology before, isn’t this what we’ve always been doing?”, and the answer is, well, quite possibly… For example, if your organisation has transitioned from spreadsheets to CRM, or from an old outdated CRM to a modern enterprise-level system (like Salesforce or MS Dynamics), and in doing that project you’ve carefully audited your business processes and adapted your ways of working to maximise the potential of the new tool, then yes, you’ve achieved one practical part of a digital transformation.
Perhaps you’ve gone further than that and instituted a product management approach to your new CRM, with an ethos of continuous improvement, delivered with an agile mindset and methodology, based on the needs of your end users and supporters, while making the changes in job roles that this requires; perhaps you’ve set up a programme of digital literacy and started to change the expectations you have of your staff in terms of understanding technology, right up to senior leadership level, if so, then yes, you’ve started to deliver on the cultural element of a digital transformation.
Perhaps you’ve gone further still and considered your full ecosystem of tools and how they can be leveraged together to fundamentally change the way your organisation operates, including operational systems like HR and Finance; perhaps you’ve started to become a fully integrated digital organisation; perhaps you’re genuinely using data in an intelligent way to inform business decisions, if so, well then you may have just arrived at your goal.
Keeping your Edge:
Even then, as the archetypal modern, digital-first non-profit, your DX journey is not complete. It’s only possible to remain in this state by being ready to continuously update and change your systems as and when needed to take advantage of the never-ending change in the world of technology. For example, do you have a “product lifecycle” policy, where all products are reviewed against the market on a regular basis, with a commitment to transition when something new comes along that can transform your business? Or do you wait until the current system is collapsing before making a move?
Do you maintain a culture of experimentation and prototyping of new tools to assess their possibilities? Do you have technical architects, software engineers and developers on the payroll, and do you value and support them with salaries that respect their specialist technical abilities without requiring them to become line managers? Or do you at least have solid, well-integrated relationships with external agencies providing these skills? Does your organisation see data as “the new oil”?
If not, there is still room to improve!
Choose your Focus:
Ok, that probably sounds like alot, and you may be thinking that this all now seems massively daunting and complex. How exactly do we get from where we are today into this promised land? And do we really have to aspire to this vision of being an ultra-modern, digital NGO?
Well no, in the end your organisation’s DX journey will be defined by what is right for you, your staff, and your supporters. There is no need to bite off more than you can chew, and if you engage in a solid DX process you’ll be able to set yourself a clear vision and a step by step pathway to getting to where your organisation needs to be to succeed.
DX can cover any aspect of an organisation’s operations, so rather than attempting to do it all at once, a better first step is to try and define where best to place your vision and focus to get the maximum impact. When thinking this through you can consider your organisation's business purpose and market strategy, the internal ways of working and staff experience, or the expectations of your audience in a digital era.
A DX process often starts with a focus in one of these areas, but to be really successful you will need to consider the interaction between the different elements and find a balance:
Since Digital Transformation is at its heart a cultural process, it’s super important to make time to prepare the ground by bringing everyone onto the same page about what it means, and how it will work for each team and individual. Like any change management process there needs to be constant and inclusive communication, transparency, training, and consultation. All this will help to create a fertile soil for new ways of working to emerge, and to be accepted with enthusiasm rather than feared and shunned.
Survive and Thrive:
Does this mean it’s time to throw those still profitable direct mail campaigns into the dustbin? No, of course not… you will always need to meet your supporters where they are (and keep an eye on the bottom line!). Every organisation is different, and has different audience profiles with different expectations - yet technology can bring efficiencies to even the most traditional of engagement channels.
However, inevitably, as the global population shifts to being increasingly digital first (both digital natives and digital immigrants), expectations will eventually change and certain more traditional revenue streams will dry up. It’s a question of staying sufficiently ahead of the curve to thrive.
Every organisation, no matter the size and no matter the level of digital maturity, can benefit from working through a DX process and making steps to create change.
So, where to begin? As a first step, one thing that you could do today is to look at your organisation’s digital engagement strategy and start thinking about where your DX focus should be. Where could this mindset have the most impact on achieving your goals? And if you don’t have a digital engagement strategy, maybe it’s time to start a conversation with your SMT about this topic, sharing with them some of the opportunities that DX could bring.
The next article in this series will walk you through the 4-step process that was followed to deliver digital transformation for my nonprofit partner, a rapidly growing organisation in the Global South with limited funding and staff resources.
If you’re interested in discussing digital transformation at your organisation, D1VERG3NT Consulting and Digital Leadership Ltd are working together in this area and we’d be happy to have a conversation with you. Just get in touch!
Cover images courtesy of Gratisography
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