Nitro Blog

5 Things About Digital Transformation Every IT Leader Should Understand

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Digital transformation is no longer just the CIO’s pet project—it’s the lifeblood of your company’s competitive advantage in the coming years. As an IT leader, you can champion digital transformation by enacting these five key tenets today.

Digital transformation isn’t just a buzzword. In fact, 89 percent of organizations are in the midst of it today. It’s a process that companies take seriously and are trying to thoughtfully implement. Innovations such as PDF productivity solutions and eSigning are powerful, cost effective alternatives to printing and legacy paper processes. So why do only 34 percent of these firms report positive outcomes?

Digital transformation is no longer just the CIO’s pet project—it’s the lifeblood of your company’s competitive advantage in the coming years. As an IT leader, you can champion digital transformation by enacting these five key tenets today:

1. Eradicate Paper

Paper-based processes are efficiency’s greatest enemy. According to market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), companies lose 20 to 30 percent in revenue every year because of resources wasted on paper-based processes. It’s no surprise why: printing, signing by hand, and scanning documents back into a digital format is highly time-consuming.

Paper-based processes are also opaque to the point of actually putting your company at risk. You have no ability to track who made changes and when they made them. In the event of an audit, you can’t provide any sort of version control records. Moreover, when you print documents with confidential, sensitive, or proprietary information, you have no way to know if they were left in a copy machine or a public place after a meeting. And who will ensure that they were disposed of properly?

Additionally, there is the environmental impact: People created half a billion tons of paper in 2016, which accounts for a quarter of all landfill waste. Eradicating paper means shrinking your footprint, lowering risk, and boosting productivity.

2. Eliminate Bottlenecks

You most likely remember the TV game show The Weakest Link, with the stern Brit Anne Robinson hosting. Who could forget her tagline, “You are the weakest link. Goodbye!”

In some cases, the weakest link at your company is one of the many employees who don’t have access to productivity tools such as a PDF editor. As a result, other workers can’t accomplish tasks, which creates a bottleneck. In a recent survey, many CIOs expressed the need to reduce friction, regain lost time, and minimize wasted resources, a desire that cries out for an integrated document system.

What is the answer? Give your employees access to an easy-to-use PDF productivity and eSigning solution that embraces digital transformation and enables them to work more efficiently and avoid costly, time-consuming, paper-based processes.

3. Try Before You Buy

Investing in the right PDF productivity and eSigning solution can increase efficiencies across the board and ensure digital inclusion across all teams, a priority for CIOs in 2019. But what does the right software look like? It helps people do their jobs faster and more efficiently, and it’s scalable so that the maximum number of employees can benefit.

With digital transformation, one of the most difficult realities for an IT leader is getting the right buy-in on changes and new processes. This can be especially hard if you can’t try the productivity tool out before you buy. Look for a PDF productivity solution that lets you test drive all of the features—flexible Windows PDF tools; simple, intuitive interface; unlimited electronic signatures—before you decide to buy.

4. Tread Smartly with Bimodal IT

Several years ago, the research and advisory firm Gartner introduced the concept of bimodal IT to help CIOs maintain normal business operations while embracing digital transformation. According to this model the IT department is split into two teams:

  1. One half focuses on predictable, well-understood areas, such as back-office tasks
  2. The other half is exploratory and experimental, tasked with the goal of finding new ways to improve efficiency.

When Gartner researchers initially published the idea, it made sense, as it allowed organizations to bridge gaps in talent, processes, and technology. However, it has become clear that back-office areas, such as document management, are where efficiencies need to be discovered and a more holistic approach makes better sense. The data your company already has can help your IT team make those processes more efficient.

5. Expect More of Your Software

Effective digital transformation requires more than a download-and-install solution, as Zebra Technologies discovered when it acquired a division of Motorola Solutions in 2014 and needed a single PDF Productivity solution to effectively combine multiple employee processes and merge the best aspects of each organization. Nitro helped the company manage this transition with customized, user-friendly training materials, site analytics, and a helpdesk integration.

Zebra’s successful adoption of Nitro set the company on a clear path to a measurable and scalable model of success. In the absence of comprehensive guidance from a technology vendor, your company may find itself with employees who don’t understand the product, are resistant to the change, and may even go rogue and revert back to paper-based processes.

Too often, our reliance on legacy products is based on outdated policies or decisions made by managers who are now long-gone. Every organization faces a unique set of challenges and needs a unique productivity solution to meet them.
Want to learn more about bringing about digital transformation at your company? Read our Fulfilling the Promise of the Digital Workplace e-book today.