Digitalisation Roadmap for SMEs

Digitalisation projects are vital, complicated and fraught with hurdles. Costs can skyrocket and targets can be missed. What can SMEs do to exploit the immense benefits of digitalisation in spite of these challenges? Our digitalisation roadmap supports you with tips, experiences and “hands-on” implementation ideas on the really important success factors.

The 7 steps at a glance

Step 1: added value through digitization

Step 2: define requirements

Step 3: evaluate solutions

Step 4: Rapid Prototyping

Step 5: Change Management

Step 6: Step-By-Step Implementation

Step 7: Continuous Improvement

Step 1: Added value through digitization

The need for digitalisation is sometimes difficult for SMEs to grasp. Everything revolves around the question: What added value is created?

Before a company implements digitization measures, for example in the form of the implementation of a Consultant Software , it must be clear that at least one interested group (customers, employees, etc.) derives added value from the change. What is needed is: a target image that carries added value. What potential for improvement do I most often encounter?

• Processes run faster.
  Example: A customer receives the answer to a question in less time than before.
  
  
• Processes run automatically from
  Example: Automatic Dispatch of invoices replaces manual work steps.
  
  
• Processes run standardized from
  Example: The project structure for a new project is created on the basis of a template, not from one’s own memory.
  
  
• Media disruptions are reduced
  Example: Billable services are entered, charged and sent in one system. Before: Entering in Excel, charging in Word, dispatching in Outlook.
  
  
• Knowledge is made visible and searchable
  Example: Distributed know-how is brought together and thus made applicable to a wide range of people.

How does a company arrive at a view of its own potential for improvement?  

• List all recurring business cases (examples: lead requests service, lead buys, recurring invoice is created, customer queries budget status)
• Evaluate current process quality in terms of hours, error susceptibility, speed, and reproducibility. Award school grades, with the highest grade awarded to processes that are cost-effective, error-free, fast, and reproducible.
• The grades awarded show you where optimization potential could lie.

Now you have a first, rough look at the potential in your company. Perhaps you can already anticipate temporal and monetary effects.

Important questions in this step are:

1. Can we formulate the benefits of the identified optimization potentials?
2. Does the optimization potential serve the customer’s benefit?
3. Can we distinguish essential optimizations from “nice-to-have”?

Step 2: Define requirements

Once the added value has been recognised, requirements must be defined in the next step. But beware: do not formulate requirements in too detailed a way in digitisation projects. Instead, leave room for solutions that you are not yet familiar with. Requirements that are already formulated as concrete solutions will miss the target. My tips for good requirements:

• Be aware that requirements are constantly changing. During a project and afterwards.
• Be open to solutions from service providers and manufacturers who support you in digitization. Requirements are not a finished concept.
• Divide your requirements into categories such as “must have” and “nice to have”. Consider carefully whether a “must have” is really essential and whether you can really do without a “nice to have”.
• Avoid specifications if possible. Start prototyping early instead. More on this in one of my next posts.

Step 3: Evaluate solutions

With the requirements in mind, we are now on the lookout. The following “tools” will help you create a list of potential solutionsCreate

• Ask your professional network for experience in the subject area. Who uses a CRM or ERP for similar purposes? Who has a cloud storage in use and can report? Employee also often have valuable experience to offer from previous positions.
• When it comes to software: reputable comparison platforms can help to provide an overview. As always on the Internet, a degree of caution should be exercised when it comes to reviews.
• The search engine of your choice will offer many options. Are the best solutions always at the top? Not necessarily.

Three sources available to all seekers. What’s next?

Express

You are looking for 3-5 relevant options from your sources. Do one or two stand out? Get in direct contact with the company. The type and speed of the response say a lot about a company. Have the product demonstrate and/or try it out. Bring your requirements to the demo appointment. This way you will receive valuable answers quickly.

Detailed

Put your requirements and the solutions found on a matrix. Try to use the product information to evaluate roughly (!) who can meet what. With the potential winners, you then proceed as in the Express variant. No matter

how you proceed, digitization is a challenge that can be mastered by good teams. The people on the supplier side are often just as important as the actual product or serviceservice Evaluate both.

Step 4: Rapid prototyping

The next step in the digitalization roadmap is prototyping. After you’ve filtered out 3-5 relevant options from the flood of potential solutions, you need to make a decision.

The aim is to find the best solution for your needs while respecting your budget.

The way: not so easy at all

At Vertec, we have had very good experiences with the Rapid Prototyping method for years. “Without producing a lot of paper or talking abstractly about the exact requirements, the provider creates and the customer creates customer prototypes of the future solution, using the software product itself.” Claudio Pietra explains in his blog article worth reading “Prototyping instead of specifications “.

The advantages of the method:

• You quickly develop a feel for the product and the supplier
• Unavoidable misunderstandings come to light early – misinvestments are avoided
• Requirements can be reviewed and updated on the basis of the prototype
• You get to know the product and configuration options at an early stage

Get into rapid prototyping as early as possible with the most promising solution. Spare yourself years of digitization projects that do not meet your requirements in the end.

Step 5: Change management

What should not be missing in any digitalization roadmap? Change management. Digitalization is practically always change. Change brings enormous opportunities, but also risks, such as:

• The feeling of being overwhelmed, especially in combination with the “day-to-day business”
• The feeling of loss of control as processes are fixed and no longer flexible
• Lack of understanding: “Do we really need this? It has worked so far.”

If these understandable reactions are not actively followed up, the worst-case scenario will lead to rejection and even sabotage of the urgently needed digitalization. Now, I am not a proven expert in change management. However, from experience, the following points will help you company lay a good foundation for changes in your company.

• If you cannot convey the meaning of the change, the chances of success are poor.
• Be aware that the success of any initiative depends heavily on acceptance within the team.
• Resistance will come in any case, be prepared.
• Communication, communication, communication.
• Reactions are hardly predictable. Always keep your eyes and ears open and bring them with you an agile mindset.

Step 6: Step-by-Step Implementation

The penultimate part of my digitalization roadmap deals with a topic that is surprising to many leading players. Digitalization can and should be implemented gradually. It does not have to be the all-inclusive overall solution that solves every last problem. Here, too, the oft-quoted Pareto principle can help us tackle the really important problems.

What 20% of digitization work do we use to kill 80% of our problems? Or, on a more positive note: what 20% do we use to exploit 80% of optimization potential?

In every project, there is a risk that the ordering party wants “too much”. Another feature, another process, another new idea. Of course, you have to work agile in order to be able to change course during the project. However, if the project becomes ever larger, longer and more expensive, the chances of success decrease.

My tips for your next digitization project:

• Focus on the really important requirements and implement them in the first stage.
• Implement all other requirements when the core of the solution is complete and up and running. Perpetual delay is not only expensive, it also affects the motivation of the project.
• Consult with the provider beforehand whether the requirements to be implemented in a second stage can then really be implemented in the desired form.
• Consider where the “economic optimum” is to be found. In the overall view, is it really worthwhile to digitize the measures/processes that are seldom carried out and whose digitization would produce disproportionate costs?
• Celebrate milestones achieved. Design a roadmap that looks internally and externally at future milestones.

Step 7: Continuous Improvement

There are no lasting solutions. Of course, this also applies to the possibilities of support provided by your digital tools. Without going deeper into the subject of continuous improvement, here are a couple of points:

• Regularly check your processes and their implementation and support by digital tools for opportunities for improvement.
• Get feedback from your employees over and over again and empower and motivate your employees to continuously strive for and implement improvement.
• Always get feedback from your customers on how their needs and requirements can be better, more efficiently and more successfully supported in their interests.
• Stay up-to-date on the evolution of your digital tools, which of course does not only mean security updates.
• Where your own ability to adapt your digital tools to keep pace with the improvements is limited, you can get professional support.

There is still a lot to say about all the stages of our digitization roadmap. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the digitization steps.