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Finding the right consultancy for a smart transformation
The digital era offers incredible opportunities to transform business processes for the better.
But how do you get it right?
How do you engage in the right transformation, minimize risks, and maximize outcomes?
Digital transformation is a unique beast with hidden pitfalls and hidden opportunities. Luckily, expert consulting can help—especially if you lack expert resources on staff, as our clients often do.
Here’s everything we’ve learned in 30+ years of digital transformation consulting.
1. What is digital transformation?
Digital transformation is the process of redesigning business operations to deliver more value through technology. It’s a broad term that can cover anything from an email migration to the introduction of AI.
Since so many things fall under digital transformation, our clients have a wide variety of strategic purposes for such projects. Common goals include:
- Creating new growth opportunities
- Reducing cost and human error
- Giving employees and customers 100% accurate data in every touchpoint
- Creating a better customer experience
Digital transformation projects come in all shapes and sizes. But the key to digital transformation is that it never stops. The healthiest organizations adopt a continuous view of transformation. They pursue one limited, highly achievable project after another.
But how do you define your goals and your path forward with digital transformation?
Global enterprises may have the experts on staff to assist with this. For the rest of us, digital transformation consulting is the answer.
2. Benefits of digital transformation consulting
Digital transformation comes with numerous benefits, especially when you engage an expert consultancy. With the right partner and the right strategy, you get:
- Increased efficiency. Outdated processes and technology often create invisible waste. Digital transformation uncovers and addresses these issues.
- Decreased cost. If you’re using legacy software for a process—or no software at all—then you’re spending more than you need to on that process. Digital transformation uses robust technology to reduce these costs.
- Better customer experience. If you’re hard to do business with, it may be time to transform your customer experience. Technologies like ecommerce, customer portals, and AI chatbots can empower customers to solve their problems more easily. This builds loyalty and helps differentiate your company from the competition.
- Better business data. How can you make strategic decisions without accurate data? Digital transformation empowers you to replace ambiguity with hard data from new technologies. This makes it easier to choose the right course of action.
- Revenue and profit growth. When you transform customer experience and internal operations, you attack profitability from two directions. Aligning with customer expectations can increase revenue, while transforming operations can reduce costs. Put these two together, and you have growing profits.
Clearly, digital transformation offers incredible gains to companies that pursue it.
But how do you pursue it? Should you keep things in-house or engage a consultancy?
Spoiler alert: Consulting is the most economical way to get the biggest impact from transformation while minimizing the risks.
A good consulting firm knows what’s working in digital transformation (and what isn’t). They stay on top of evolving trends. With many projects under their belts, they can advise on the right path forward in your unique situation.
Here at Corsica Technologies, we bring 30+ years’ experience to the table when it comes to transformation strategy. Our team offers several benefits that you can’t get if you do digital transformation strictly in-house.
- Access to experts. If your team has their hands full with day-to-day operations, it’s tough to stay on top of emerging trends in digital transformation. Consulting offers an outside perspective that’s dialed in to opportunities you may not know about.
- A proven process. A successful digital transformation lives (or dies) by the process you engage for the project. It’s essential to uncover every stone and account for the downstream impacts of every change. You could cut your teeth on your own transformation, but it’s more beneficial to engage experts (like the Corsica team) who’ve implemented many transformations. In fact, the right consulting firm should come with a proven process that they can apply to your situation, tweaking as necessary. That’s one of our passions here at Corsica.
- A roadmap for continuous evolution. Digital transformation is never finished—because everything from customer needs, to technology, to cybersecurity never stops evolving! When you work with a consultancy, you get a roadmap that looks beyond your initial transformation project. This ensures that you embed transformation into your organization’s lifeblood, staying ahead of new trends and always meeting customer expectations.
Here at Corsica Technologies, we’ve helped hundreds of clients achieve the transformations that matter most.
Learn how the Honor Flight Network replaced manual paperwork with an automated system. This transformation made it easier than ever for veterans to travel to Washington, D.C., to visit the monuments dedicated to their sacrifice.
3. Digital transformation trends
Here at Corsica Technologies, we’re seeing significant new trends in digital transformation when we consult with clients. All companies are trying to get better at what they do, and technology is a key enabler in that endeavor.
Here are the top trends we’re seeing.
A) Adopting AI… while taking care to strengthen cybersecurity
From Microsoft Copilot to ChatGPT, AI is here to stay. The question is how organizations can use these tools to increase efficiency, differentiate from the competition, and improve outcomes.
While AI is powerful, it’s not a simple matter of launching a tool and seeing results. Two primary concerns come up with this digital transformation trend.
- Data readiness. Most organizations keep their data in siloes due to legacy processes and systems. This makes it challenging to leverage AI comprehensively, as the tool needs access to all business data—and that data must be structured properly. For many organizations, the first step is to cleanse and organize their business data before embarking on their AI journey. This is one of the first things we examine in a consulting engagement.
- Cybersecurity. Believe it or not, tools like ChatGPT can create cybersecurity issues. Long story short, anything entered in a ChatGPT prompt can emerge in an output for any user. This is one of the biggest reasons we recommend that Microsoft customers use Copilot rather than ChatGPT—because Copilot protects customer data in a way that ChatGPT doesn’t.
Large global enterprises may have the resources on hand to deal with these challenges in-house. For the rest of us, it usually makes more sense to engage in AI strategy consulting to ensure your organization is prepared (and to get the most out of AI).
B) Fixing data integration issues for good (especially EDI)
Lack of data integration causes significant issues in today’s fast-paced business environment. In fact, integration is one of the biggest trends we see in digital transformation. These issues hurt, no matter what part of the organization they affect.
But there’s one area that’s especially problematic. It’s EDI integration.
EDI technology processes essential documents like purchase orders, invoices, advance shipment notices, and more. In numerous industries, EDI is the lifeblood of a company and its relationships with trading partners. When EDI integration breaks down, the operational impact is immediate—and painful.
Our clients come to us to get leaner, more reliable performance through EDI. Though EDI is an older technology, this essential integration is a dominant trend in digital transformation.
C) Transforming customer experience with digital technology
Across numerous industries, customers want efficient, seamless experiences when they interact with a supplier. Gone are the days when picking up the phone was an acceptable way to get things done. Self-service, efficiency, and transparency are the name of the game.
What does that mean in terms of technology?
The answer depends on your industry and your customers, but here are some initiatives we see frequently as we consult with clients.
- AI chatbots for customer experience. If a customer can get intelligent answers to a question without having to pick up the phone, they gain back valuable time in their day.
- Self-service portals and ecommerce. The more control you can give the customer, the better their experience—and digital technology is a key piece of that experience. Web portals and ecommerce place the customer in the driver’s seat, which is where they want to be.
- A better EDI experience. This is related to B) above, but it’s worth noting that functional EDI technology directly impacts customer experience. Ultimately, EDI errors and exceptions can create friction for buyers. In the worst case, buyers may switch to the competition.
These are only a few prominent trends that we’re seeing. Get the full picture here: Top 6 Digital Transformation Trends.
4. Digital transformation risks and challenges
No doubt about it, digital transformation comes with risks—and even the best strategy can encounter challenges. Here’s what we see with our clients, plus how we minimize risks and overcome challenges.
Risks associated with digital transformation
1. Lack of buy-in from all stakeholders
Some transformation projects affect only one part of an organization, but most projects touch several parts—if not the entire company.
If you don’t include all stakeholders, there’s a risk that some people won’t adopt new technologies and processes. It’s tough to get people to change if 1) they don’t see what’s in it for them, and 2) they don’t feel like they had a seat at the table.
The solution is to build an early coalition of stakeholders—then keep everyone involved, every step of the way.
This is why we use a proven process for cross-functional collaboration here at Corsica. Our goal is to get everyone involved, speaking up, and contributing to the final outcome in a healthy way.
2. Strategy that works today, but not tomorrow
Here’s a curious thing in digital transformation—almost a contradiction:
The best companies view transformation as a continuous exercise.
Yet a transformation project that isn’t future-proofed can cause more harm than good down the road.
It’s a tough thing to get right—which is one reason to engage a digital transformation consulting company. Here at Corsica, we help you lay a durable foundation that doesn’t stay static, but rather empowers future transformation. And we do it without creating technical debt, which is so important in this environment of continuous change.
3. Bandwagon strategy may not be right for you
Digital transformation can create a herd mentality. But the trends that dominate TED Talks and LinkedIn may not be right for every organization.
Here’s a great example. As cloud technology gained prominence in the 2000s and 2010s, many leaders in business and IT believed the cloud was right for every use case. This led to migrating all on-premises systems to the cloud.
Sadly, the cloud isn’t right for every system. Sometimes it’s actually more expensive than hosting things locally. In these cases, on premises may actually be the right approach—which leads to the growing trend of cloud repatriation or reverse migration.
So how do you know if you’re pursuing real value or chasing a buzzword in digital transformation?
Consulting can bridge the gap. Here at Corsica, our experts bring an outside perspective, auditing your real needs and cutting through the hype. We’re passionate about helping companies find the solution that really is best for them—regardless of what’s trendy.