Business Transformation in 2022: The

Guide for Successful Implementation

Years of research on business transformation have shown that the success rate for these
efforts is consistently low: less than 30% succeed. 

Read next blog post

The Secrets of Effective Leadership In 2022 and Beyond

Years of research on business transformation have shown that the success rate for
these efforts is consistently low: less than 30% succeed. 

Moreover, only 16%  of respondents say their organizations’ digital transformations

have successfully improved performance and also equipped them to sustain changes
in the long term. An additional 7% say that performance improved but that those
improvements were not sustained.

Often, lack of employee communication, engagement, and alignment with the new
goals are the main reasons for such a high failure rate. 

📚Check out our article on the Drivers of Employee Engagement to Start Implementing
Today!

In this blog, we will go over some of the best practices for implementing business
transformation successfully in 2022.

The Definition of Business Transformation

Business transformation is all about identifying techniques, new processes, and
technologies that aren’t being used to their maximum capacity. It requires understanding
how alternate solutions can be applied to further gain market share, increase revenue
and customer satisfaction or reduce operating costs. 

Organizations undertake business transformations to create additional value. This may

mean unlocking the potential of employees, harnessing intellectual property and
proprietary technology for additional purposes, or becoming more efficient to maximize
the company’s potential.

The goal of every business transformation project should be to ensure that the best
processes and systems are being implemented within an organization.  

For many organizations, this is not a simple process, particularly within the
organizations that have a mindset that fears change. Therefore, how you deal and
communicate with employees dictates how successful the transformation will be.

6 Main Dimensions of Business Transformation

It is very important for organizations to focus on the main business capabilities that
have a direct impact on how successful business transformation will be. 

In reality, only a small number of total capabilities play a critical role in helping the
organization find new ways to differentiate, gain a competitive advantage and compete.
Focusing on those critical capabilities can help deliver greater value and help the
organization realize its business transformation ambition. 

The Deloitte Capability Hexagon provides a comprehensive approach to defining and

designing enterprise capabilities across six dimensions: 
  Mission. The purpose of a capability, how it will operate, and what value it will
deliver. The mission is derived directly from—and supports—the company’s
strategy. 
 Insights. The decision flow, information, and analytics drive informed and
timely decision-making. 
 Integration. Clear roles, decision rights, and policies that facilitate integration
within and across other capabilities, functions, and partnerships. 
 Processes. An integrated and efficient set of processes designed to achieve the
desired outcomes. 
 Technology. The software, hardware, and tools required to enable the
capability. 
 Talent. The competencies, skills, talent infrastructure, and workforce planning
enable an optimal talent base to execute the capability. This broader viewpoint
allows organizations to frame and link execution to the value defined in the
transformation ambition.

14 Steps to Succeed in Business Transformation

As many business transformation initiatives fail, we have put together the 14 main
steps organizations should follow before and during their business transformation
efforts. 

One of the most important drivers of a successful business transformation strategy is

employee engagement. Younger generations such as Gen Z and Millennials are having a
big impact on DX initiatives in every organization. 

Let's take a look into the steps for a successful digital transformation strategy. 

1. Evaluate your existing business situation

Before going into a business transformation project to tackle challenges, you need a
clear view of how extensive those challenges really are.

Depending on the scope of your business transformation project, it may be necessary to

evaluate all of the current workflows, procedures, policies, and practices used by the
various functions, business units, divisions, or departments you’re looking to transform. 

Only after you have a clear picture of your current processes and bottlenecks, you can
better understand how new technologies and processes can eliminate the biggest
business challenges. 

2. Get executive buy-in

Because of their complexity and the resources needed, business transformation

initiatives can be a hard sell to upper management. But because the C-Suite plays a
pivotal role in defining the company culture, core values, and goals, it is crucial to prove
the long-term benefits of the business transformation. 
Once they are convinced about the benefits, they are much more likely to be a powerful
ally in communicating the role of business transformation in setting and reaching
organizational goals across the organization.  

3. Get employees’ buy-in

After you get the executive buy-in, the next crucial step is to get your employees’ buy-
in. In order for employees to collaborate in the process and align with your business
goals, they need to understand the benefits of your business transformation efforts. 

Employees need to understand why those changes are good for them and for the
business. Only then you can expect employees to work towards the same goals. 

Proper internal communication is extremely important here. Employees need to feel

informed and well aware of how the changes will influence their jobs and lives. 

4. Engage all employees in daily conversations

In order for business transformation to succeed, employees need to understand what is

going on in the organization before, during, and after the changes are being
implemented. 

The best way to do so is by engaging your whole workplace in daily company

conversations. This doesn’t mean sending a newsletter announcement to all of your
employees. This means creating dialogues and two-way conversations where employees
can freely express themselves and share their thoughts. 

Even though this may seem easy to achieve, many organizations are struggling to create
such a culture, and the biggest culprit for that is the use of wrong internal
communication technology such as emails.
On the other side, the implementation of new employee communication technologies
that ensure easy access to important information and support two-way employee
communication can make your business transformation efforts more streamlined and
successful.

5. Focus on your communication strategy

As cited in Purchase Control article, 

“Digital technologies are powerful tools, but they require human intelligence—and
enthusiasm—to be used effectively. Without informed and engaged team members
across the organization and a long-term digital roadmap built on supporting company
ambitions in the digital world, even the most ambitious digital transformation strategy
will fail.”

Therefore, from its inception, any business transformation project should be founded
on clear and constant communication between the project team, management at all
levels, and the organization as a whole. 

Efficient communication ensures everyone is in the loop and it helps employees

understand their specific roles and the availability of resources to help them achieve
their goals.

In addition, continuous communication helps build a spirit of collaboration, encourages

employees’ voice, and ensures everyone has the information they need to address any
frustrations, roadblocks, or other challenges that may occur.
Therefore, clear communication is critical during business transformation. Moreover,
statistics say that in organizations that follow this practice, successful transformation is
more than three times more likely.

6. Build an efficient change management process

Business transformation means changes within the organization. Therefore, effective

change management is crucial during these projects. 

Effective change management allows you to track, measure, and analyze the changes
being implemented and understand how they are affecting the whole workplace. 

Remember that the teams responsible for change implementation have to be very good
communicators. Leading a successful change without ensuring that the right
information reaches the right employees at the right time is impossible. 

💡 Also, take a look at these 5 change management models to consider. 

7. Set clear short and long-term goals

Setting clear goals and communicating them to the employees is very important during
business transformation. Employees need to understand the goals they are supposed
to achieve and how they're going to achieve them.

Set smaller short-term goals to motivate your employees, and a few long-term goals or
milestones to celebrate with the whole organization. 

8. Foster a sense of urgency

Without a sense of urgency, it is hard to motivate and engage employees and other
stakeholders to take action and participate in the transformation process. 
Therefore, for business transformation projects to get implemented, senior leaders
should foster a sense of urgency for making those changes. This is the practice where
good leadership communication is crucial.

9. Eliminate fear in the workplace

Business transformation efforts within organizations can develop emotions of

uncertainty and fear. This may cause employees to take their frustrations out on each
other. Here, internal communicators and managers have the responsibility to overcome
difficulties and resolve conflicts.

A research shows that only 38% of people like to leave their comfort zone. The other
62%, however, are not comfortable with changes. 

In addition, many employees think that business transformation projects may eliminate
the need for their skills and expertise. This mainly happens during digital transformation
efforts where people are convinced that new technology will replace them. 

However, according to research, 67.8% of companies report that technology disruption

has had a neutral-to-positive impact on job creation. 37.3% report a net increase in job
creation because of it. 

Therefore, with the proper employee communication strategy, employers need to ensure
that their employees feel safe. 

10. Enable cross-departmental collaboration

Business transformation is the process in which many different departments contribute

and, therefore, they must be able to collaborate and communicate with ease. 

Having everyone on board and informed before and during your business
transformation process may be a challenge. This is especially true for large
organizations with various offices and departments across the world. Therefore, global
and interdepartmental communication has to become a priority. 

In order to achieve such cross-departmental synergy, you must make sure that your
organization has the right communication technology in place.

11. Choose carefully the communication channels you're about to

implement

If you are a part of a large organization, you are probably using multiple internal
communication channels. Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, document sharing, and
projects management solutions... you name them!

These are all various means of communication within an organization. The complexity
of this communication ecosystem makes it hard to ensure that all the employees get the
information they need to successfully follow the new business transformation
initiatives. 

Haiilo, our employee communication solution, is designed to help companies eliminate

this growing challenge. It connects all of your communication channels into a single
platform where employees can instantly access, share or comment on important
updates. 

12. Be agile and encourage new ideas

Organizations that are not agile are almost destined to fail in their business
transformation efforts. 

Companies that are most advanced in their transformation efforts managed to turn their
company culture into an internal accelerator of innovation and transformation. 
What's more, over 47% of executives say that they are investing in building a culture of
innovation at their companies. 

However, it can be extremely hard to embed new behaviors within organizations. To

achieve that, employees need to feel free to share their voice and their ideas. 

It is the leaders’ and other internal communicators’ job to drive those behaviors through
efficient, consistent, and continuous communication with employees. 

13. Close the skill gap at your organization

Closing the skill gap before and during business transformation efforts is something that
most organizations struggle with. 

According to research, 90% of jobs are seen to require digital skills in the future. On the
contrary, 44% of workers aged between 16 and 74 in Europe do not have basic digital
skills.

Therefore, investment in people and new skill development is crucial for business
transformation. 

Being aware of this challenge, 52% of companies are planning to invest in upgrading
employees' skills.

14. Measure your employees’ engagement

By now, you have probably understood how important effective business

communication is for successful business transformation. 

However, a communication strategy without goals may not bring so much value to your
organization. Communicators need to understand the effectiveness and outcomes of
internal messages delivered to employees. 

They need to understand and measure which messages are the most effective, which
channels are the best to deliver those messages, and which employees engage more than
the others. 

Tracking such data is very powerful when it comes to understanding your employees’
alignment and engagement with your business transformation efforts. 

In the past, such numbers were very hard to track. Today, however, internal comms
tools like Haiilo track your employees’ engagement with internal content in real-time. 

5 Main Types of Business Transformation

Business transformation can mean a lot of things. However, there are 5 main categories
of business transformation:
  Business process transformation: This type of business transformation focuses
on how things are done within an organization. It usually involves optimization
and automation of repetitive processes and procedures. 
 Information/data/digital transformation: This type of business transformation
focuses on implementing and using new technology to unlock additional
business value. 
 Organizational transformation: Organizational transformation is a type of
business transformation that focuses on the company’s biggest asset — its
people. The goal of organizational transformation is to optimize how various
departments are staffed and structured. Some of the main objectives include
breaking down silos, flattening the organization, enabling better collaboration
and people management.
 Management transformation: Organizational hierarchies aren’t always the best
for facilitating rapid decision-making and reacting to new company initiatives.
Therefore, management transformation is one of the solutions to eliminate this
challenge. This process, however, requires socialization, easy access to
information, establishing clear communication channels, and overall
transparency in organizational functions.
 Cultural transformation: this type of transformation is probably the hardest
business transformation to achieve. As organizational cultures tend to evolve
organically over many years, they take much longer than any other type of
transformation. A cultural transformation usually requires employees to embed
new behaviors and a new way of working. 

6 Interesting Facts About Business Transformation

The importance of digital business transformation is undeniable. With the emergence of
remote and hybrid work, it is even more crucial for organizations to adopt new
workplace technologies in order to enable employee success and drive better employee
experience. 

Let's take a look into some of the most powerful statistics about digital transformation
strategy:

 Executives say the top benefits of digital transformation are improved

operational efficiency (40%), faster time to market (36%), and the ability to
meet customer expectations (35%).
 The top industries for digital-first business strategies are services (95%),
financial services (93%), and healthcare (92%).
 71% of digitally mature companies say they can attract new talent based on their
use of data, compared to 10% of early-stage digital companies.
 45% of executives don’t think their company has the right technology to
implement a digital business transformation.
 Digital-first companies are 64% more likely to achieve their business goals than
their peers. 
 Digital transformation and a focus on customer experience can generate a 20-
30% increase in customer satisfaction and economic gains of 20-50%.
Employee Communication Plays a Crucial Role in
Business Transformation
As mentioned earlier in this blog, employee engagement and communication are some
of the most important prerequisites for successful business transformation efforts. 

Therefore, organizations now must consider implementing new communication

technologies to help leaders and employees prepare for the change and work towards
the same goals. 

With employee communications solutions such as Haiilo, organizations are able to:

 Easily reach all employees with relevant information and updates

 Reach all employees regardless of their location
 Create and share more personalized content to drive employee engagement
 Make all the content easily shareable within and outside the organization
 Support two-way conversations within the workplace
 Achieve a complete organizational and strategic alignment
 Help employees keep important documents, messages, and conversations in one
place
 Enable employees to have instant access to information on their mobile phones
 Better filter and prioritize content delivery to prevent information overload

Schedule a Haiilo demo  yourself to see how it can help you drive more digital
transformation success.