Process-Led Digital Transformation: Value-Driven and Data-Based

Organizations are eager to harness the power of digital technologies and achieve a significant boost in their performance. However, many businesses struggle to meet their high expectations through their digitalization initiatives, falling short of delivering the expected value.

To achieve a successful digital transformation, a value-driven approach guided by data-based decisions is essential. This approach must work towards a well-defined business case, with the value of the transformation delivered through the introduction of new or enhanced business processes. Simply put, digitalization only delivers business benefits when it improves existing processes or introduces new ones that provide additional value. Appropriate process management is, therefore, crucial in guiding transformation initiatives to target and realize value effectively.

To optimize the time-to-value, businesses must make fast, well-informed decisions based on current and future process performance and conformance. Achieving this requires a data-based approach that delivers the necessary information at pace and with the required quality.

Unfortunately, many businesses tend to focus on getting their technologies to work, often proud of a successful Proof of Concept (POC) that delivers little or no value. They tend to automate and improve isolated functions, missing their transformation goals and falling short of delivering fully on the business case.

The right approach to digital transformation is one that leverages the discipline of process management as a value-switch and uses process-related data effectively. The transformation approach should be digitalized, using appropriate process management software such as process modeling, simulation, and process mining tools as accelerators.