Digital Transformation – Why you need a current state review
I hear many business owners talking about the need for digital transformation and the benefits of becoming a digitally enabled business. Though, far too often businesses will start their digital transformation journey without assessing their current state, often leading to the costly purchase of systems that are not right for the current or future business.
Before starting any digital transformation journey, I always advise my clients to complete a current state review and to take stock of the current business and capabilities. I am a firm believer of:
“How can you determine where you want to go, and what direction to take, if you don’t know where you are starting?”
A current state review involves reviewing current customers and suppliers and the digital capabilities the business currently possesses. That includes reviewing current systems, integrations, available data, employee capabilities; basically, anything and everything that is used to make your business what it currently is.
By fully understanding and documenting your current state, it provides an agreed baseline and foundation of information to be able to make informed decisions. The output from a current state review can be used as the foundation for a digital strategy, or useful as a business description for software selection tenders.
I find it wonderful to see how many business owners learn new things about their own business from a current state review. Over the last decade I have completed numerous current state reviews for businesses across multiple sectors and can honestly say that when presenting the current state report to business leaders, there has not been a single instance when they haven’t learnt at least one new thing about their current business.
At Ballards, we have expert real-life experience of assisting our clients with their digital transformation journey. That includes assisting with current state reviews and creating a digital strategy via our Virtual CIO service, through to system selection, procurement assistance and project management services.
For more information, please contact Sean Devlin on 01905 794 504, email sean.devlin@ballardsllp.com or visit our IT & Digital Transformation page.
