Digital culture is not a new one. Everyone understands that digital transformation is part of life. An important point that many people forget is this: digital transformation will fall apart without the right company culture.
We always need innovation and transformation with the right culture. PwC conveyed that 75% of change initiatives will fail due to a lack of digital culture. Crowd Companies stated that 57% of leaders experiment with culture, and innovation is the hardest.
Digital transformation contains everything from cyber security to AI. Companies are starting to be sensitive to this, and it's on an upward trend. IDC estimates global spending on digital transformation to reach $2.8 trillion by 2025.
In simple terms, digital culture is how technology and the internet shape ways of interacting. When you dive deeper, you will know that digital culture is more than communication.
What is Digital Culture?
Digital culture is the mother of all digital organisational transformation. The first step to implementing within the company is educating the team about digitisation. They use this technology to communicate, collaborate, and provide customer support. Digital culture is a product of endless persuasive technologies. It concerns many topics but comes to the relationship between humans and technology. Here are some examples:
- Repetitive processes automation
- Inclusive online environment creation
- Customer experience service
- The genuine connection between employees
- The use of digital communication tools to increase productivity
- Digital Marketing Implementation
Developing a culture and innovation management is a way of surviving in a competitive market. Leaders, managers, or supervisors must also provide examples of digital transformation in the workplace.
Why Digital Culture is Important
In short, the digital culture encourages teams to keep growing. They accelerate innovation and adaptation. More than that, here are the reasons:
1. Faster adaptability
Digital culture is customer-centric. When a customer needs change, companies must follow them to win the market. It's like helping to pivot. Digital culture allows leaders to establish new priorities. It also influences how the team responds to cases.
2. Increased collaboration and innovation
We can save time preparing for meetings with technology. Companies can use video conferencing or project management tools. Plus, it boosts innovation.
3. Transparency
Transparency and remote teams are like an enemy. When you lose clarity on remote teams, then you lose it. The virtual workplace enables effective connection and communication. Because of this, teams need communication and collaboration tools that prioritise effectiveness and transparency.
4. Destroying hierarchies and accelerating work
Hierarchies are like old things in digital companies. Companies should start letting employees make their decisions. They can make decisions more quickly and become responsible with their opinion.
5. Attract new-age talent and retain the current workforce
Millennials and Gen Z are starting to lose interest in the 9-5 culture. They want to be part of a digital culture with a collaborative and autonomous workplace. They assess that the digital workplace can improve employee engagement.
3 steps to overcome digital culture barriers
McKinsey, in an article, mentioned that the main obstacle to transformation is the lack of a strong culture. So how do you align digital culture and strategy? You can follow these three steps to break through the digital culture barriers.
1. Support from the top
Smooth organisational transformation requires support from the CEO and other executives. Companies should put CEOs and executives as a coach. Moreover, the chosen leader should have a bold vision to increase credibility in employees' eyes.
2. Removing silos
Silos hinder collaboration between teams. Digital organisations eliminate silos between departments and create cross-functional teams to collaborate. The team will be self-organising and non-hierarchical.
3. Breaking through risk aversion
Not taking risks is the biggest mistake in agile companies. Companies with high DQ embrace leaders who are open to the initiative. It doesn't mean you have to take any risks. The amount of risk depends on the investment at stake.
How to build a Digital Culture in your company
Companies can implement many ways to start building a digital culture. But there are three main points, namely Agility, Autonomy and Openness. The steps you apply must meet team conditions. Here is a simple guide to building a digital culture in your company.
1. Live the company values
The most effective way to implement digital culture is through leaders' examples. Companies must provide certain boundaries to keep employees on track. Then what about the existing values? Companies can maintain these values and add new, more digital values.
Using specific tools can help employees to find innovations. Employees have autonomy over their ideas. These two things will lead to openness in the workplace.
Decision-making should be based on data. It will increase employee confidence in management.
2. Set the right goals and communications
Management and leadership are two essential roles when implementing digital culture. Both of these are capable of triggering employees to provide initiatives. Management can continuously communicate the vision, KPI, mission and strategy to employees. They also define relevant goals and metrics projects. Companies must learn to listen to employee suggestions and feedback and deal with them.
3. Building leadership within the company
Some companies might require a CDO (Chief Digital Officer). They are figures who use few rules but have broad guidelines. They also apply servant leadership, giving employees empowerment and space to learn from mistakes.
4. Employees engagement
One of the challenges in implementing digital culture is unsuccessful adaptation. A failed adaptation process will reduce the percentage of employee retention. When not applied correctly, digital culture will give birth to innovation fatigue. To avoid this, companies must pay special attention when introducing new technologies.
Organisations may need to Identify enthusiastic employees. Agile and innovative employees will become ambassadors to spread a positive attitude to the organisation. When recruiting, companies must consider the candidate's ability to think innovatively.
5. Success measurement and progress monitoring
Regular meetings are a suitable activity to monitor progress. In this session, management can hear the team's opinion and provide feedback. These meetings will make the team more personally responsible for their work. Companies must also make progress transparently.
6. Using adequate tools
Digital culture with digital tools is possible. Companies must provide the right tools to support productivity. You can use a tool with three primary collaboration and productivity functions: communication, project board, and notes. Remember to provide training regarding these tools so that the transformation process runs smoothly.
A project management tool using VirtualSpace is also a good idea to foster a digital culture.
Final Thought
Implementing digital culture may be a long process. It takes dedication between the company and its team. Sometimes some obstacles need to be resolved. But if done smoothly, the company will be more effective. Plus, the team is the readiest for change, learning new things and dealing with them.
