A version of this article first appeared on EideBailly.com.

Gartner categorizes technology investment into run, grow, and transform segments, with over 87% of IT spend on ‘run’ and ‘grow’ and less than 13% on ‘transform.’ Technology addresses challenges like competitive pressure, hiring, retention, and value-chain demands.

A small to medium-sized organization typically has over 120 business applications and services, and large ones have up to four times more. This often results from incremental improvements rather than a focus on transformation, which can significantly accelerate business growth despite its high risk and reward. Success in transformation requires developing a strategic vision and execution plan.

Developing a Strategic Vision and Implementation Plan

When it comes to digital transformation, being intentional is key to understanding where you are, where you want to go, and how you’ll arrive there. This requires input from across your organization — not just key stakeholders.

To run an effective strategy workshop, we recommend that you spend one full day with members of your organization collaborating on a three-step process.

• Step One – Understand Your Current Environment: The first step to developing your strategy is understanding the current environment. This means looking closely at what’s happening in your industry, seeing who you’re competing against, figuring out how innovation comes into play, identifying the challenges your organization faces, noticing what’s working well and what’s not, and determining what people are excited about.
• Step Two – Focus on Top Opportunities: This step isn’t about identifying limitations or solving problems but about what’s possible. Focus on exploring opportunities rather than pinpointing limitations or addressing problems by reflecting on where you envision your organization in the next three to six years, identifying the top opportunities available, and visualizing the overarching big picture this creates.
  Step Three – Develop an Action Plan: Once your team has identified transformational items and brainstormed, refined, and prioritized those opportunities, identify what process and technology improvements are needed to achieve your goals.

Barriers to Success in Digital Transformation

A study from HBR revealed that half of executives’ top ten barriers to a successful digital transformation in their organizations can be attributed to organizational cultural or procedural issues. This highlights the importance of planning for change management and creating a culture of innovation.

Our survey of executives found that out of these top ten barriers, the most significant are:

• Legacy systems
• Inability to experiment quickly
• Lack of corporate vision for digital
• Inability to work across silos
• Risk-averse culture
• Inadequate collaboration between IT and lines of business

To overcome these barriers, organizations must take a holistic approach to digital transformation. Aligning your entire organization around a strategic vision and execution plan can help.

Vision and Strategy Workshop

If you’d like help creating a plan to lay the groundwork for digital transformation, we can help. Our team facilitates vision and strategy workshops to support your digital transformation initiatives, help with the development and implementation of business process improvements, and support your plan’s execution.

At Eide Bailly, we’ve helped hundreds of organizations transform their people, processes, and technology to achieve digital-focused success.

Watch our helpful webinar, “The Business Case for Slowing Down to Go Faster,” to learn more about how we’ve helped our clients build digital futures.