Advanced technology solutions have revolutionized how organizations function internally, with disruptive digital tools streamlining business operations for cost efficiency. Digital operations incorporates agility, automation, and intelligence into existing operational models (or creates new models) to achieve process excellence. Enterprises are taking advantage of virtual assistants, low code environments, and Artificial Intelligence to turbocharge their existing business processes. When it comes to business improvement, digital operations maturity is a key area for digital transformation.
60% of company boards worldwide are looking to improve operational excellence through digital business – Gartner’s Global 2021 Board of Directors Survey
While the drive toward digital innovation is clear, implementing such aggressive transformation can be a massive undertaking. A DigitalOps toolkit can make it easier for organizations to leverage digital technologies to enhance operations. What exactly is DigitalOps and how can I build a toolkit? In this blog, we will define this concept and explain how you can create your very own DigitalOps toolkit to improve enterprise digital maturity.
Key Enablers of Digital Operations Maturity
Digital operations maturity is a good indicator of how challenging it will be for an organization to implement an effective digital strategy for operational excellence. An organization’s digital operations maturity depends on several key enablers, each of which will directly impact the ease with which you can implement DigitalOps. Evaluate these enablers when assessing your organization’s current state of digital maturity, and shift company resources accordingly.
Roadblocks to Digital Operational Excellence
While you may have the critical enablers that increase digital maturity, there are several barriers that can hamper your digital operations improvement.
- Absence of a clear strategy: Without a clear vision and roadmap of how your digital operations will improve business models, most digital tools become underutilized and ineffective.
- Poor planning: Incorporating and embracing digital tools takes time. Without a specific plan and timelines, business inertia can deter proper implementation and adoption.
- Organizational silos: Independent silos and separate business segments often duplicate efforts and work counterproductive to each other. Combining efforts and teams across departmental lines will provide for more efficiencies and better support the use of centralized digital systems.
- Lack of leadership buy-in: Building a culture of innovation requires a top-down approach. Without leadership buy in, digital initiatives will surely die on the vine.
- Outdated systems: Obsolete enterprise systems and legacy IT infrastructure frustrates employees and deters usage. G2’s State of Software Happiness Report 2019 observed that 50%1 of workers were unhappy because of the software tools they used at work. Applications and technical solutions with a bad digital experience will not be embraced.
What is DigitalOps
Digital operations (or DigitalOps) provides the central processes and mechanisms that manage and distribute organizational systems and resources. It is a set of methods that employ digital technologies to increase organizational agility. These digital tools can enable quick and flexible change across operational processes to drive automation, simplification, and value. Future-ready organizations allocate most of their resources to developing and digitizing core business functions for highly efficient operations.
“Digital Operations is the ‘process’ center of your digital transformation, providing the orchestration of systems and other resources. It encompasses a holistic set of methods and enabling technologies associated with how the firm delivers value via a digital platform in real-time.” – Gartner
Benefits of DigitalOps
- Reduced operational cost: Businesses have witnessed between 15% – 50%2 in savings across workflows by adopting DigitalOps. Digital maturity models are much better positioned than legacy systems to locate inefficiencies across the value chain by studying organizational data.
- Increased operational efficiency: Automation drastically improves system efficiency. The agile environment of DigitalOps streamlines both technology and people collaboration, leading to enhanced productivity.
- Better customer lifetime value: DigitalOps aligns organizational resources and functions to create seamless online experiences for customers, helping improve engagement, retention, and total lifetime value.
- Improved change management: Organizational change management cannot function in a siloed manner – it is important to consider all areas within the organization that are likely to be impacted by the change. DigitalOps leverages emerging technologies such as Digital Twins to help organizations manage people, processes, and technology while implementing a systematic change plan.
Organizations implementing successful digital transformation initiatives are highly likely to incorporate advanced digital technologies in business operations with 1.8x more likely to alter standard operating procedures to enable this – McKinsey
A DigitalOps Toolkit is Your Technology Treasure Chest
In its simplest definition, a DigitalOps toolkit is a collection of intelligent technologies that can help an organization radically improve enterprise processes. You can customize the technologies in your toolkit to meet your specific goals and/or business requirements. A DigitalOps toolkit addresses three critical aspects:
- Process Orchestration: Digital tools add an orchestration layer to automation and handle company-wide project management tasks. This helps improve efficiency across data collection, information distribution, and human labor.
- Process Automation: Anything that can be automated should be. Hyperautomation tackles complex business problems with fewer errors, at faster speeds, and with minimal cost.
- Business Intelligence: DigitalOps leverages Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Natural Language Processing algorithms to help systems become more cognitive. Thanks to these technologies, bots today not only automate but also make human-like decisions.
The DigitalOps Technology Stack
Your DigitalOps toolkit could include any combination of these technologies –
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
- Process Mining & Discovery
- Intelligent Business Process Management System (iBPMS)
- Integration Platform as a Service (iPaas)
- Low-Code Platforms
- Decision Management Suites (DMS)
- Business Rules Engine (BRE)
- Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning (AI & ML)
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
- Replaces human labor on repetitive and low-value tasks
- Reduces costs
- Lowers operational risk
- Enhances customer experience
Process Mining & Discovery
- Extracts data from user logs to evaluate process functionality
- Ensures continuous process monitoring
- Optimizes operations
- Simplifies compliance and audits
Intelligent Business Process Management System (iBPMS)
- Embeds advanced technologies in traditional business process management software
- Optimizes business processes
- Facilitates better human collaboration
- Enables data-driven decision making
Integration Platform as a Service (iPaas)
- Integrates on-premise and cloud-based applications, services, processes, and data
- Creates better integrated applications
- Streamlines enterprise workflows
- Ensures superior data visibility and synchronicity
Low-Code Platforms
- Creates easy-to-use, visual coding environments
- Facilitates rapid application development
- Ensures low-to-no scope for errors
- Garners time and cost savings
Decision Management Suites (DMS)
- Helps build decision-centric business applications
- Integrates easily with business process management tools
- Provides better analytics support
- Creates actionable insights for informed decision making
Business Rules Engine (BRE)
- Executes decision-based processes with pre-defined business rules
- Automates complex business workflows
- Ensures time and cost savings
- Increases compliance
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning (AI & ML)
- Streamlines complex business processes
- Utilizes both structured and unstructured enterprise data to make accurate decisions
- Reduces complexity in automation of repetitive tasks
- Helps achieve cost efficiency
Creating an Organizational Mindset for DigitalOps
Achieving digital maturity might seem challenging, but a strong culture of innovation along with the right strategy and plan can help you leverage a DigitalOps toolkit to reap maximum benefits of digitalization.
- Achieve executive buy-in: Present the benefits of a digital operations strategy to leadership and explain how legacy systems will hamper business progress without some level of digital transformation.
- Set a long-term strategy: Business inertia and the complexity of technology can limit the pace of digitalization. Firms that utilize emerging technologies have increased net income by 80%3 over those that don’t, so set a timeline and stick to it.
- Select your tools: Use tools that make sense for your company according to the unique nature of your business needs. Chatbots can be highly effective as service-based assistants, while RPA and data ingestion work better for back-end platforms.
- Innovate: Once you have your tools in place, take advantage of newer insights to uncover innovative ways to optimize operations and maximize efficiency.
- Partner with an industry expert: Custom tech stacks and platform integrations are complex, and IT investments can stretch your current resources thin. Achieve a quicker return on your investments by partnering with a technology expert while you focus on business-critical functions.
Build Your DigitalOps Toolkit with Bridgenext
At Bridgenext, we understand the relevance of digital enablement and take a holistic approach to business operations improvement with our comprehensive digital consulting and implementation services. Gain all the benefits of DigitalOps without the stress, time constraints, and cost overruns involved in setting up advanced technology systems and tools that boost operational efficiency.
Did you know, digitalizing business operations can help you increase total production efficiency by up to 20%?
Bridgenext’s expertise in advanced technologies helps us design human-centric, adaptive solutions that fuel operational efficiencies, innovation, and growth. We can help you implement DigitalOps toolkits that offer enhanced scalability and flexibility, improved pace of innovation, faster time-to-market, and increased ROI.
Contact us today if you wish to drive digital operations maturity and achieve higher economies of scale.
References
www.userlane.com/enterprise-legacy-systems/
boxfish.global/blog/post10/
financesonline.com/technology-statistics/
