Should You Invest in a Digital Transformation Office?

Undertaking a digital transformation journey is easier said than done. Efforts to transform an organization often face significant challenges, including integration of legacy platforms with modern technology stacks, the skill sets required for implementation, and an organizational structure that can communicate and embrace change. According to a 2020 study by the Boston Group, 72% of digital transformations fail, falling short of their objectives, and are often met with radical consequences after. 

With so much at stake when it comes to transforming an organization, Adecco Group’s Sabine Laute suggests that a dedicated transformation office could be a viable solution.

“If you embrace such a huge transformation in a global organization, you need to have a team that orchestrates and directs all transformation initiatives that are running and will be started,” she tells us during her chat on the Coding Over Cocktails podcast.

So how much should you be investing into a dedicated digital transformation office? 

According to Laute, one of the ways a dedicated digital transformation office helps is by eliminating functional silos inside organizations.

“If you have a huge organization and if you want to start a global transformation, it's super important to have someone in the center, in a global transformation office, that enables the organization to overcome functional silos, and making aware and managing the impact of the initiatives that haven't gone down the organization,” says Laute.

With the digital transformation office comes a transformation team, who initiates organizational change. Laute says that it’s crucial that everyone inside the organization stand behind the transformation team if they truly want to see changes happening.

“You need to have an environment where these people, the transformation lead and the transformation team, are allowed and are not afraid to speak up. These people shouldn't be biased, not just following what the executive board says, but really [being] able to challenge and to speak up. And they should have the freedom to call out if something is going in the wrong direction, may it be content or behavioral-wise,” she explains.

And while clearly there can be technology-related challenges, Laute tells us that digital transformation is also a people problem, and calls for a change in culture and mindset in order to find success. The cultural shift, she explains, is truly where everything starts to come together in order to get the transformation going.

“Digital [transformation] is not only technology. You need to change behaviors and you need to change processes. And most of the time, you change your target operating model, right?”

Laute explains that investing in leadership programs upon building your transformation office can help leaders and managers deal with the cultural and behavioral changes that come with digital transformation. 

“Leaders need to be able to deal with all of that. And this is not done by reading articles or listening to keynotes. I think it's super important to really invest in a leadership program that helps leaders to deal with discomfort and to be comfortable with constantly changing an unclear environment,” she says.

Above all else, Laute believes that the CEOs are expected to play a huge role in supporting the digital transformation office and lead the transformation to success, as they are able to view and evaluate every unit and function inside the organization.

“The CEO has one goal, and this is making a success for the whole organization. [The CEO] is able to oversee all functions and is the one who should really be the one telling the story about the purpose, about the vision, and to guide the organization towards this purpose.”

Learn more about building a digital transformation office from this episode.