Digital Readiness: A Transformation Opportunity

Digital readiness is defined as the level of readiness of a company’s workforce to transition into a digitized environment that is enabled by technology and software. Implementing a technology transformation not only includes a company’s investment in IT properties but rather includes three significant components: culture, process, and technology.  

Workers are a significant unit of any business. As companies operate to realign their goals and secure their infrastructure with technology, the transition starts at the individual level. The path to digital transformation becomes easy when employees quickly adapt to evolving technologies. Active employee engagement is significant in this journey.  

Key Concepts That Determine Digital Readiness  

Meeting emerging digital transition needs is highly critical for growth and producers need to reconfigure software and technology to opt for this challenge.  

The need to meet the uncertainty of the digital revolution has never been so approaching at the individual and organizational level, failing which companies become solely obsolete. Some of the key concepts for digital readiness are: 

Digitization: Digitization is the process of converting analog information into a digital format that can be easily stored, accessed, and manipulated by computers or other digital devices. This process involves the use of scanning or imaging technologies to capture analog data, such as text, images, or sound, and convert it into a digital form that can be stored as computer-readable files.  

It is widely used in various fields, including business, education, medicine, entertainment, and more, to enable faster and more efficient access to information, as well as to preserve important historical and cultural materials for future generations. 

Digitalization: Digitalization is the integration of digital technologies to optimize business processes. This involves the use of digital technologies such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and big data to enhance efficiency, productivity, and innovation in various sectors.  

Digital factory and applications are used to improve communication, collaboration, and customer engagement. The goal of digitalization is to create a more interconnected, efficient, and effective society that is better equipped to address the challenges and opportunities of the digital age. 

Digital Transformation: It focuses on managing risk, improving efficiency, and identifying fresh avenues for monetization. It surpasses the area of common roles and responsibilities. An emerging digital culture empowers the production unit to shift away from heavy accounting ledgers to spreadsheets for highly streamlined business mechanisms.  

A cultural dimension and an individual dimension- are the two digital transformation dimensions. The former operates at the organizational level. These are either infrastructural or functional changes within the working unit. For instance, a shift towards the biometric system or cloud computation from access cards.  

The latter is where the real potential and power of digital transformation lies. Employees across all departments must be digitally equipped to enact as an active contributors. Relevant training sessions and sufficient skill improvement workshops are impactful beginning points.  

Digital Acumen: Digital acumen refers to the knowledge, skills, and understanding of digital technologies and their application in various aspects of life, including work, education, and communication. It encompasses the ability to use digital tools and platforms effectively, as well as to navigate the complexities of the digital world, including issues related to privacy, security, and digital citizenship. 

Steps to Build a Digital-Ready Workforce  

1. A digital transformation strategy as per the business context and wider objectives: Before beginning your digital transformation journey, know about the objective, destination, context, and means of the strategy. It helps companies to determine a shared vision, and accurately compute the ROI.  
2. A competency framework depending upon the business requirements of today and tomorrow: Subject matter experts help organizations to understand their requirements. They can provide an extensive list of competencies, sub-categories, and information about digital tools which need to be analysed using a futuristic lens.  
3. Using digital readiness assessment to assess the workforce competencies: At this stage, a reliable and valid digital readiness assessment tool can be used to determine skill gaps and proficiency levels. This assessment tool provides the gaps in the behavior, knowledge, and aptitude of an individual which is a deterrent in a manner in the way of her/him reaching the digital objective quickly.  
4. Identifying the digital readiness of every worker and starting the training process: The digital readiness assessment framework further helps every worker on the road to training and development depending upon their digital readiness level.  
5. Compute the ROI through business outcomes: Digital transformation is a gradual process. Hence, it is crucial to develop a roadmap with crucial milestones for the ease of computing ROI and helping employees to stay confident throughout the process. The digital maturity journey is not certain. It is suggested to have predefined checkpoints and success metrics to track the success level of the digital readiness plan. Also, compute the ROI throughout the digital readiness plan to make changes and keep innovating when required.  

Conclusion 

The successful digital transformation began at the individual level and demands a human-centric strategy. It needs consistent efforts from organizations and individuals to develop new avenues where people can connect with technology to begin a new culture of learning.  

Maybe the end goal of your company’s digital transformation journey is different, but the roadmap will transect between technology and human experience.