Magazin
Authors

Alexander Götte
Project Manager at h&z

Dr. Christiane Nieß
Project Manager at h&z
Digital Transformation – with Optimum Support
Down-to-earth and visionary: Midsize companies need pragmatic digital solutions and innovative concepts in order to position themselves best for the digital age. h&z supports them with head, heart and hand.
As our experience shows, change isn’t simple. For the digital transformation in particular we require a great deal of knowledge about the technologies to be used. It’s also important to provide close support in implementing the proposals for better operative processes, perfect customer experiences, or entirely new business models. Beautiful and abstract visions or concepts alone don’t help manage the company. It’s the implementation that makes a transformation successful.

Digital strategy: Transformation begins in the mind (head)
Digital transformation is a top priority for the management of German companies of any size. However, most transformation projects begin with a discovery phase that involves clarifying the following points:
- Can tools or processes help the company increase its productivity or sales?
- Does my process chain profit at all from new developments such as robotics or artificial intelligence?
- Are virtual reality or block chains just expensive games, or do they have concrete applications for me?
If a company can answer these starting questions affirmatively, it should pursue digitalization in an organized manner. It is important thereby to ensure that the company goals remain in view and that implementation doesn’t exceed internal competencies. In order to make innovative ideas possible at all, however, there must be no boundaries set for ideas on the topic of “digital strategy.” Finally, the concepts must then be tested using prototypes to ensure a good fit between technologies and the company.

Digital transformation: Involve customers and employees (heart)
If the digital transformation proves to be useful for the company, we make sure that employees and customers also support this step. Motivation is the key. Questions include:
- How do I prepare my customers and employees for the transition to digital?
- Is my customer base ready to use innovative technologies?
- How does the organizational structure need to change to make the transformation successful?
- What abilities and competencies will be most important in the future?
Let’s take the larger topic of the “Smart Factory” as an example. As a multifaceted element of the “Industry 4.0” future project, the Smart Factory represents a future scenario in which production lines and logistics systems communicate with one another in order to organize themselves and replace human intervention in the manufacturing chain. In such an environment it is essential that employees are supported in growing into the new areas of activity that arise and that a corresponding digital mindset is propagated throughout the company. Customers also need to be able to work with technologies such as delivery tracking using QR codes.

Digital applications: Implementation and first results (hand)
What finally counts is implementation with answers to concrete questions, a functional perspective, and fast and noticeable results in particular. Five critical success factors lead to noticeable results:
- A clear vision, consistent communication regarding the change, and a sense of urgency shared by everyone involved
- A growing team culture and breaking away from silo mentality through agile project methods, guarded by a high tolerance for error
- The example of managers who continuously live the change
- A specific awareness and proactive handling of resistance among employees
- Sustainably anchoring the change in the company culture
Since no company can afford to throw away an investment of this magnitude, it is important for us to support the implementation phase with our knowledge from previous projects and our functional expertise in operative areas. We stand by our client firms through their digital transformation. Only by combining brilliant ideas (head), the enthusiasm of employees and customers (heart), and continuous implementation support (hand) can a digital transformation be successful.
More information on digital transformation can be found here.