Enterprise Digital transformation is now a top priority for businesses around the world. No matter how strong your strategy, your technological investment will fall flat without the right culture driving it. No matter how much you spend, if your team doesn't strive to stay ahead of the curve then your company, business strategy and business models could fall behind. The perfect marriage of technology and culture is essential for any business - from start-up to large enterprise - looking to scale.
With a poor tech culture, you won’t just lose employee productivity, but you might lose the people who make your company special. Employees might get frustrated that not having access to top technology is hampering their career progression, or struggle with legacy systems that are inefficient and detrimental to their working day.
There is no better time to ask the question - is your technology culture furthering or impeding your Digital Transformation goals? We hope to help answer that question by detailing three signs that you have the right balance of technology and culture.
Successful enterprise Digital transformation requires a transformation in the capacities of your employees. A lack of willingness to learn new things and upgrade skill sets isn't conducive to innovation and growth through merging technology and culture. How can your business move away from its legacy technology if you will not empower employees to learn the next generation of tools?
Openness to upskilling amongst your employees comes with a range of benefits:
For all companies, investing in employee development is essential and benefits both individuals and the wider organization. A learning culture will help your organization be more flexible, develop faster, and benefit from more complex technology. Meanwhile, employees will see their capacities broaden, opening more opportunities for them.
Similarly, this learning culture requires engagement from both the employer and the employees. If the employer is engaged but the employee is not, employees will not gain value from capacity-building and data-driven programs organised for them. Meanwhile, if the opposite is true, employees will become frustrated at absent opportunities for career opportunities. Balancing technology and culture is essential at both ends of the stick for true enterprise digital transformation.
There is no better lens to look at a company's culture than how employees interact with each other. The most interesting interactions are not intradepartmental but interdepartmental. These interactions reveal the extent to which everyone pushes toward a shared vision.
There are a range of facets that define effective collaboration:
Nowhere is a collaborative interdepartmental company culture more important than envisioning and realising successful enterprise digital transformation.
Collaborative tech culture means that all departments can get on board with tools that are consistent and compatible with each other.
Strong collaboration involving your IT department ensures that staff do not feel that new technology is imposed on them from above. Instead new technology has been procured with the needs of the employees in mind.
The technology of today is quickly surpassed by the technology of tomorrow. The best technology cultures always look for ways to improve because keeping ahead of the curve means being more productive and delivering better for customers than competitors.
Improving the effectiveness of technological systems is more than just procuring the latest tech. It is also about utilizing the tech that currently populates your systems in the best way possible.
IT teams in an evolutionary tech culture will be motivated to constantly seek measures that get the most out of your systems. Meanwhile, all employees should be open to changing the way they operate according to recommendations.
Striving to be better is vital to the collaboration of technology and culture at all levels of your business. Leadership must be comfortable making sizable investments in next-generation solutions for your field. On the other hand, all employees cannot be satisfied with treading water.
Great technology culture means that employees are provided with the tools and resources to succeed and actively collaborate. Training and development opportunities should allow them to gain the most value from this technology, and participation should be actively encouraged and rewarded.
The three facets of model tech culture described in this blog are crucial first steps on your journey toward achieving industry-leading technological systems.
How can your business transition to new technology if you don't give employees the skills needed to use it?
Forbes - The Critical Role of Culture in Technology Transformation