NOT a Technical Challenge
In my last week’s post I talked about some of the assumptions that businesses had to rethink during Covid times … and while that hurt in the short term, we are now beginning to see that a lot of good did come out of those painful decisions.
So, let’s dive deeper and examine a few of the assumptions that had to be shattered … especially those related to Digital Transformation.
Assumption #1 – Digital Transformation is a Technical Challenge
This assumption feels true, right?
If the transformation is ‘digital’ then why is it not ‘technical’??
Because Technology, in and of itself, does not really do much for a business.
The Business itself needs to change using the Technology as a tool or a medium for change.
And that is very very hard.
Implementing a Technology is the easy part.
Using that Technology to change specific areas of business – operations, customer experience, business models, employee engagement, or anything else – is as challenging as it gets.
But that is what drives the business results.
Technology just enables the options.
It is up to the company’s leadership to actually execute on those options and drive meaningful business results.
If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you drive Digital Transformation in your company by improving customer experience, communication, and visibility, talk to us.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
Rethinking
The pandemic has shocked each of us into rethinking our priorities and our assumptions at a personal level … and the same is true for businesses.
Many companies had to rethink the “right” way to do business and many companies had to completely change the way they operate overnight.
As much as that hurt, we are now beginning to see that not everything was bad … a lot of good did come out of those painful decisions.
Many of the assumptions that we had to rethink, were actually long overdue to be “rethought”.
And when we had no options but to adapt, things happened quickly.
Technology that we were so resistant to learning, suddenly became something we couldn’t live without.
Business processes that we thought would never be approved, were never even questioned.
Innovations that were too tough to try, suddenly became easy to implement.
Business models that customers would never accept, became the norm overnight.
Why?
These changes were long overdue.
The trauma of the pandemic just escalated the adoption.
It has also forced many businesses to drive positive changes.
Business leaders now have the opportunity to double down and continue the process of shattering assumptions.
Rethink assumptions on how to identify opportunities.
Rethink assumptions on what your customers want.
Rethink assumptions that affect your decision making.
Rethink assumptions on how your organization should do business.
Not every assumption is wrong, of course.
Not every assumption should be rejected.
But they need to be reassessed.
In my upcoming posts I will examine a few assumptions about Digital Transformation that many business leaders make.
Stay tuned!
Meanwhile, if you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you drive Digital Transformation in your company by improving communication and visibility, talk to us.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
4 tactics that drive transformation
If we want to make a change in our lives … create a transformation … we must first believe in it … we all know this, right?
And we also know this is easier said than done … right? … thousands and thousands of books and blogs have been written on this topic alone.
But what if you are trying to drive a change in your organization?
Now you must drive change in not just yourself but in a whole GROUP OF PEOPLE …
And that can get VERY hairy … 😊
Maybe you are leading a digital transformation project in your company.
Maybe you are implementing a new software platform.
Maybe you are in charge of creating a new business process.
Or fixing a broken process …
Changing the way things are done around here …
And you are all charged and excited and fired up …
Until …
Nobody moves …
Nothing gets done as planned …
Deadlines missed …
Budget wasted …
What’s going on here?
Your team does not believe in the change that you are driving.
So what do you do to inspire belief?
Here are four things that you can do to trigger a strong commitment to change:
- Focus on the WHY – not on the WHAT: Spend less time talking about the details of the change (the What) and instead focus on why the change is the right change in light of the factors that matter most to them.
- Use different methods: Different people get motivated by different methods. Try many different methods such as awards, audits, reporting, communication, assistance, etc. Do not assume that others are like you.
- Just talk: Nothing beats a good old pern-to-person conversation. Sometimes you just have to talk to an individual to find out what inspires them.
- Monitor and adapt: For each team member, monitor the effects and side-effects of the methods you have adopted, and change and adapt as needed.
If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you drive Digital Transformation in your company by improving communication and visibility, talk to us.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
Believing in Change
If you are trying to ignite any kind of change in your company and think it is crazy hard to do it … relax, you are right. Studies show that 67% of well-formulated strategies failed due to poor execution, which means that 2 out of 3 corporate programs fail.
And if you are trying to drive Digital Transformation in your company … sorry, the news gets worse (but you probably knew that already).
A report by the Boston Consulting Group states that 70% of digital transformation programs fall short of their objectives—and other studies report failure rates as high as 84%
Why is it so bad? What goes wrong?
In one word – BELIEF
Research shows that the biggest difference between change that succeeds and change that fails is the strength of managers’ commitment to it.
Henry Ford famously said that “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you are right,”.
Well, turns out Ford was right 😊
In this day of advanced Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, it turns out that the one thing that moves the needle forward in any corporate change management activity in general, and digital transformation in particular, is making people believe in the value of their projects.
There are many different types of beliefs that come into play, here are a few examples:
- how attractive the possible outcomes are believed to be
- how much the change is believed to close a gap between the current and the desired state
- how well the change will actually remedy a problem
- how much the individual believes in his or her own capacity to perform that behavior
- what the individual thinks that others will feel about a given behavior
So, when you drive a Digital Transformation change in your company, how do you get your team to believe in it?
That’s our topic for next week 😊
If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you drive Digital Transformation in your company by improving communication and visibility, talk to us.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
June has ended.. what does it mean?
It’s halfway through the year!!
Which means it is time for your mid-year check-in with the goals that you set in January.. remember those goals?
Maybe you shelved those goals or put them on hold temporarily.. and slowly they have gathered so much dust that they might wither and die if you didn’t do something about it..
So this would be the perfect time to bring them out, dust them off and take a careful look to see where you stand with each of them.
Maybe some you can already check off the list..
Maybe some need to go back to the shelf and wait for the right time..
Some might need more work, or a change of strategy..
And maybe you’ve accomplished a few that you had not even planned (back to office anyone?)..
And if your goal to grow your sales is turning out to be tougher than you expected due to the current conditions, know that you are not alone. We are all together in this fight.
Having worked with thousands of small and growing businesses to implement or improve their lead-to-close workflow, we at ConvergeHub have built up a knowledgebase of what works and what doesn’t. We can sit with you, understand your business process and make recommendations.
Implementing the right technology and improving just one or two critical areas of your organization can provide a huge boost to your revenue numbers.
If you would like to know more about how ConvergeHub can help you close more sales by improving your lead-to-close workflow, talk to us.
ConvergeHub is an enterprise-grade customer relationship management software that helps businesses build long-term relationships with their customers and prospects. It is easy to implement, can be quickly customized to suit any business, needs very little training and will quickly get your business on the path to 10X growth.
Set up some time with us to brainstorm ideas on how you can use ConvergeHub to build meaningful relationships with your prospects and customers from the first contact to purchase.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
The story of buying technology: how one company did it – Part 2
This is a story about how one organization went about using a software platform to grow … there is a lesson for all of us here … click here to watch it on my LinkedIn post.
In this video I tell the story of an organization that wanted to use technology to grow quickly. So, they put in a lot of effort to make sure that they select the software platform that was just right for their company.
And what happens then?
Are they able to use the platform and grow their business?
What lesson do they learn?
How about your organization?
What process do you implement to select the product?
And once the product is selected and purchased, how do you use it?
Do you document your existing processes and see if you need to change them?
Do you attend user training sessions or watch training videos?
Do you create schedules and timelines to use the product?
Do you monitor progress?
The latest and the best cutting-edge technology is only as good as the way it is being used.
If your organization would like to implement technology that can adapt to your business needs and help you grow faster, talk to us.
ConvergeHub is an enterprise-grade Customer Relationship Management software that helps businesses build long-term relationships with their customers and prospects. It is easy to implement, can be quickly customized to suit any business, needs very little training, and will quickly get your business on the path to 10X growth.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
The story of buying technology: how one company did it – Part 1
I recorded a video on the process of buying technology … watch it above or you can click here to watch it on my LinkedIn post.
In this video I tell the story of an organization that wanted to use technology to grow quickly. What do they do? How do they select the product? And how do they implement it?
How does your company implement new technology?
Are you methodical about it? Do you have a structured selection process?
Do you select the product that has the features that you need?
Do you select the company whose sales rep does the most consistent follow up?
Do you minimize risk and select the largest company with the most well-known product?
Do you toss a coin? 😊
And what happens after you make that decision?
If your organization would like to implement technology that can adapt to your business needs and help you grow faster, talk to us.
ConvergeHub is an enterprise-grade Customer Relationship Management software that helps businesses build long-term relationships with their customers and prospects. It is easy to implement, can be quickly customized to suit any business, needs very little training, and will quickly get your business on the path to 10X growth.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
360-degree Customer View: Treasure or Clutter?
If you are in sales or marketing or customer service or CX or any department that has anything to do with customers at all, you must have heard the term ‘360-degree customer view’.
360-degree customer view is the concept of aggregating customer data from different touchpoints that customers have used to interact with the company – could be while purchasing a product or getting support or even interacting with chatbots.
And this involves collecting customer data from every possible source.
Website visits
Emails
Phone calls
Texts
Chats
Invoices sent
Payments received
Support tickets
Testimonials
It could be in the form of …
Structured data
Unstructured data
Master data
Behavioral data
Consent data
Transactional data
Sensitive encrypted data
… and the list is endless
And since we are getting better and better at this kind of tech … we are collecting oceans of data.
That’s a good thing, right?
Maybe …
Or maybe not …
The right answer is It depends …
It depends on how you are using the data.
It depends on context.
It depends on whether you have the data readily easily available to you when you need it.
Without that context, the data is nothing better than the big pile of clutter you have in the corner of your closet (or maybe in the garage? 😊)
So, before you start collecting data and think of it as the solution to all your problems … stop and think …
How do you plan to use the data?
When will this data be useful?
Is the data time sensitive?
How will you access this data when you need it?
Your next step should depend on the answers to these questions.
If your organization is committed to seeing a 360-degree view of your customers and making decisions based on that data, ConvergeHub can help you do that. Get in touch with us to know more.
ConvergeHub is an enterprise-grade Customer Relationship Management software that helps businesses build long-term relationships with their customers and prospects. It is easy to implement, can be quickly customized to suit any business, needs very little training, and will quickly get your business on the path to 10X growth.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
Disruption: Slow and Steady
If you are a business owner or a business leader in your organization wondering whether your company should start moving towards digital transformation… whether it can reap the benefits of new technologies… let me tell you this…
It is not a question of IF
It is not even a question of WHEN
It is a question of HOW
Every company will have to implement advanced digital technologies if it wants to stay relevant … that is not even the question anymore.
But HOW should it go about doing it?
And even more importantly, how can they do it without disturbing the day to day working of the organization… making sure that there is no impact to their customers or revenue goals?
One option is to disrupt on a grand scale… take the decision and dive right into it… set up a separate unit responsible for the change… appoint a Chief Digital Officer… and drive the revolution from top down.
Another option is also to disrupt… but slowly.
Evolution rather than revolution.
Take the long-term view.
Do small pilots.
Proof of concepts.
Figure out all the use cases and start changing them one by one.
Then slowly scale up the change.
And this journey can look very different depending on the type of organization and the type of technology being implemented.
There is no right or wrong approach… both strategies work well depending on how well they are implemented.
Our team at ConvergeHub has experienced these journeys hundreds of times with our customers when they implemented ConvergeHub’s CRM software in their organization.
If you would like to brainstorm on the different approaches you can take to implement CRM technology in your organization, talk to us.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
Business as (un)usual
In the past two years, the pandemic has shaken us to our very core … it has forced us to take a hard look inside ourselves .. and the impact it had on all of humanity is like nothing we have ever experienced before.
Before March 2020, when the pandemic hit, we were all comfortable and happily numb to the world around us … buying cheaper, bigger, better, faster products and services, with no consideration for what those companies who manufactured this products or services did or stood for.
But now… we pause and think.
The grief and trauma we have seen during the pandemic, the fragility of life that we have experienced, the introspection that we have gone through.. have collectively made us more human.
Now, when we purchase a product or service from a business, we expect more than just that product or service. We expect that business to reflect our values.
More and more, the buying population is inclined to reward (or punish) businesses based on the social position that they take.
So, what does this mean for businesses and brands in this new and (hopefully) post-pandemic age?
It means that it is more important than ever for businesses to develop a close relationship with their customers.
Being in regular touch with their customers, knowing their customers’ values and what they stand for, and being open to standing up for their beliefs will help organizations remain socially relevant in today’s human-centric environment.
If your organization is committed to remaining in close touch with its customers, ConvergeHub can help you do that. Get in touch with us to know more.
ConvergeHub is an enterprise-grade Customer Relationship Management software that helps businesses build long-term relationships with their customers and prospects. It is easy to implement, can be quickly customized to suit any business, needs very little training, and will quickly get your business on the path to 10X growth.
Or, if you like to check it out yourself, go ahead and create a free ConvergeHub account here.
