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Digital transformation in business is not just a simple transition from paper letters to email service. It's about using technology to enhance customer services, work procedures, supply chains, relationships and interactions with partners, human resource management, and even overall business process control at the top management level.

Digital transformation provides organizations with the opportunity to reimagine how their business is conducted through new digital processes and tools. To realize the full potential of digital technologies, the organization must be prepared for a complete business transformation and needs its own digital transformation strategy that allows the business to transition to a digital society.

However, as with any change management initiative, there are challenges that companies will face during the transformation processes, ranging from people-centered issues, structural problems, technical barriers, and everything in between.

Here are the top 9 challenges to consider when undertaking digital transformation projects.

Lack of change management strategy

Organizations with a mature change management strategy are six times more likely to achieve or exceed digital transformation goals, and its absence condemns any digitization project to failure. Success can be ensured by an effective change management strategy that involves project planning by identifying the root causes of issues and building trust and consensus relationships with all stakeholders, especially employees.

Complex software and technology

Complex solutions and the need for integration are equally intimidating elements. This is also a challenge for organizations undergoing digital transformation. Difficulties can arise from the evolution of implementation and data integration, as well as from the end-user experience perspective. Organizations should consider this when in the early stages of a transformation project and seek out the most intuitive and integrated systems.

Driving adoption of new tools and processes

New processes and technologies often present challenges in the form of resistance to change from employees who feel that the way they currently do things will be altered. For new implementations and processes, organizations must provide comprehensive integration training as well as ongoing support for employee performance to help them become productive and proficient with a better tool, helping them understand the value of these new processes.

Continuously evolving customer needs and requirements

Due to technology and competition between organizations, the world is always evolving. Consider what a customer wants, the needs, and requirements of customers change as society develops.

Digital transformation is not an easy project, and achieving intense transformation efforts can take years. The evolution of customer issues and requirements will take place. It is necessary to plan research and prediction activities, to use agile development methods, to adapt the final objective to new digital technologies or requirements.

Lack of a digital transformation strategy

What is the reason for replacing old systems or manual processes? Is there a plan to implement advanced and complex solutions? Are we ready to migrate data and procedures correctly from existing systems to new ones?

All of these are questions that should be answered before implementing a digital transformation process. There is no successful transformation project without a predetermined strategy. Find out where the organization and the services offered can be improved, which processes and procedures need improvement, and why digital solutions are needed, and start from there.

Lack of adequate IT skills

To succeed in digital transformation efforts, you will need a qualified and high-performing IT team. And this is difficult to ensure – especially in the situation of a shortage of qualified IT specialists. A study shows that about 54% of organizations said they were unable to achieve their digital transformation goals due to a lack of technically skilled employees.

The challenge given includes a lack of skill sets in cybersecurity, application architecture, software integrations, data analysis, and data migration. Organizations lacking IT professionals can address this challenge by outsourcing this work to external consultants and digital transformation experts to help reduce implementation and migration gaps.

Security concerns

A repellent that many organizations in data-sensitive industries have is concerns about privacy and cybersecurity. And that's true. Most digital transformation efforts involve leaving behind on-premise solutions to move to cloud solutions, as well as integrating all of a company's data into a single centralized system.

Of course, this leads to an increased cyber security threat. Security incidents can target system vulnerabilities, poor settings, and unsuspecting users. Make sure you have a plan in place to proactively mitigate these threats before they arise. Mandatory for digital transformation projects is the need to identify weaknesses in cybersecurity and data protection.

Budget constraints

Digital transformation is not a cheap investment. For organizations with an overall transformation strategy that does not foresee all necessary activities, the emergence or expansion of the scope can add new efforts or completion terms – all increasing the cost of the transformation project.

Understand what your long-term objectives are and what return on investment you intend to achieve from the transformation process. This will help you understand clearly what expenses are too high and what space you have to ensure your budget.

Cultural attitude

Organizations with old systems and manual processes often have an older mentality. Things change slowly, automation is viewed with disdain, and new technologies are difficult to adopt. A huge challenge of digital transformation is a cultural one. Everyone – from leadership to new employees – must be on the same action wavelength. Everyone should be prepared to make major changes in their daily lives and not be afraid to learn new things.