Many nonprofits and social enterprises during the pandemic invested in digital transformations that are not moving the needle. The answer is often the need to rewire the organization so teams can better harness technology to continuously create great donor experiences and/or improve program outcomes. As you revisit the investments made in digital, consider these three key factors:
3 Key Factors to consider in any Digital Transformation Project.
- Digital Capabilities – Has your organization’s operating model now moved people away from functional silos – bringing people from operations, communications, and technology together to continuously improve programs and services or lower costs through automation? Any digital transformation project has three key variables for building capacity – Talent, Technology and Data.
Talent
Do we have the right skills to both re/imagine as well as implement new experiences or cost-saving measures? Do we have a good mix of competent practitioners and new learners (internal & external, staff & volunteer)?
Technology
Easier to use technology & scaling of flexible technology solutions
Data
Easier to consume data / knowledge across the organization
In addition to improving “digital” capacity, a secondary benefit we have seen from teams making the shift is improved “spend transparency”. No longer are departmental budget silo’s making it hard to determine how much was spent. Integrated teams have integrated budgets that make it very clear what is being spent on hardware, software, change management, training, communications, outside expertise, etc.
- Clear Goals – Does your organization have clear links between their KPIs (key performance indicators) and the analysis of potential digital transformation projects? Teams need clear goals to focus innovation and prioritize ideas. Are they to focus on:
- New Donor / Customer Acquisition?
- Reduction in Churn? Donor Retention?
- Reduction in Cost to Serve/Operate?
- Improved Turnaround Times?
While it can be challenging to estimate how much improvement could be achieved, do set bold goals to motivate teams / inspire change. So much digital benchmarking data is now available that it is easy to create S.M.A.R.T (specific, measured, achievable, realistic and time-bound) goals at the start of each project. GoogleAds for example generates estimated reach for any paid advertising campaign and can be a valuable testing tool / Qualtrics and other programs provide key insights to help develop predictive models. A general rule of thumb is any digital transformation project should generate significant value within 6 – 36 months, depending on the upfront resources required to fund the transformation.
- Journey Maps – Does your organization have a current customer/donor journey or process maps (how customers interact with your organization across all channels)? These focus a team on reviewing processes (like welcoming new customers/orientation or registering for a program online), to identify what potential improvements could be considered. If your team lacks experience on what might be possible with digital, it allows them to easily engage volunteer expertise and articulate clear goals/outcomes.
Teams often ask why they need current journey maps vs. focusing on future / desired maps.
Why create a current customer journey map?
A) Where are we now? – Does the entire senior team have factual data to base decisions on and a shared viewpoint of the current state of digital capabilities? Often this is a barrier to ensuring teams understand and agree on what is immediately possible and what will be needed to realize their long-term vision. Do you have the resources/skills required? Can you easily scale? Is critical data easily reported/shared promptly to support decision-making? Once teams have a clear digital footprint / shared facts about where they are, they are better able to make realistic plans about what is possible over what time period.
B) Identify Gaps / Synergies – Not having current maps can mean teams miss key aspects of the change management that might be needed or potential digital gaps/synergies. Often digital transformations raise synergistic “opportunities” as data or technology can be reused across multiple solutions.
C) Integrate Customer Feedback – If your customer doesn’t want to use the digital solution you’ve proposed it isn’t going to transform your business. Similarly, if a proposed change doesn’t solve a customer’s key pain point it will have been designed poorly. Having a clear map of the current process will enable teams to gain a deeper understanding of behaviours and emotional needs, uncover any issues or identify new needs/technology solutions customers might not even know about, and (key for many community platforms), even co-create with customers/donors. This focus on meeting customer needs is often cited as critical as it leads to greater adoption of programs/services, easier usage/experiences, a focus on higher value-added features, and better financial performance.
Is your Digital Transformation not moving the needle?
Feel free to connect to find out more about our expertise in digital transformation projects. Using external experts can often significantly speed up time-to-market and reduce costs by helping deploy skilled experts to your business in a matter of days – and then they leave when they are no longer needed. At brand.re/wire we design our projects to help you build up your own capabilities so our support diminishes as your capabilities expand. We provide free digital upskilling courses online for our clients as well as offering one-on-one consulting to address your specific needs and group training sessions.
Check out our 2023 interview with 4D – https://www.brandrewire.ca/is-your-marcom-stack-held-together-with-band-aids-or-adhesive-tape-will-it-meet-your-needs-as-you-grow/