JULY 2022CIOAPPLICATIONSEUROPE.COM 19to be aligned to your organization capacity. Start small with external partners and fail fast or decide to scale up based on the outcome. Sustainable digital transformation programs should be funded by the value they deliver in the business rather than by risky cost cutting or increased technical debt on core IT applications.Multi-purpose technologies that can enable several initiatives should come on top of your list. Adjust your risk appetite to the size of the opportunity, with no compromise on compliance.This leads to the last step which is about the speed of your digital transformation. Looking at technology across industries, I see a pattern in the development of new technologies where overinvestment is often followed by failures before disruption leads to new market dynamics. I believe that digital transformation is no exception to that. The burst of the "dot coms" bubble happened 20 years ago, and the most successful companies in the world are now on internet.The third step is then to carefully manage the timing of your digital transformation. It needs to be fast enough to accelerate your business but also adjusted to the pace of adoption in your company. Agile methodology with its focus on value flow and quality is of great help to get this right. This is not only valid for internal teams working on your digital initiatives, but also for your partnership with external vendors. The procurement function needs to be brought along in this journey. Agility needs to be built in our contracts allowing to share rewards, but also risks across companies. Three years SaaS contracts without possibility to exit when results don't follow are over. Prices need to be based on usage.In summary, successful digitalization should:1. Serve a transformation purpose aligned to your company strategy and agreed with the Executive Committee.2. Focus their technology choices and be executed by a multidisciplinary team including representatives of the users.3. Apply Agile principles to adjust its timing with the investment capacity of the company, maturity of the technology market, user adoption and business outcome delivered. Once the digital transformation purpose is defined and you've agreed on business measures of success with the sponsors, it will serve as an input to choose which initiatives will be launched
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