Why Short-Term Success Can Undermine Long-Term Transformation.
At the very beginning of absolutely every leadership team, one can see the importance of hitting the ground running. With the use of a new AI chatbot, reply times to customers are reduced. Thanks to automation, a lot of repetitive jobs are removed from the workflow. A new dashboard facilitates work, which previously took days to finish.
However, the problem occurs when quick wins start to take over the place of strategy.
When the Accelerated Speed of Work Affects the Strategy of the Company
The success of this type of project is negatively affected when companies try to invest in stand-alone digital products. Each specific initiative may operate successfully; as a whole, however, its sum equals to a form of chaos (the very opposite of efficiency) which occurs because of the multitude of initiatives that is launched with no inter-department cooperation and no central management. For instance, it is a common situation for businesses to introduce completely different AI tools into finance, marketing, and customer support with no common governance mechanism. Each of the departments we mentioned performs its own part of the assignments successfully, but the organization fails when it comes to including all the data into a common system, measuring its value, and forecasting new problems that may arise.
The key thing is to always keep in mind all possible benefits an organization may get from quick wins.
Quick wins are useful, helping measure the level of effectiveness of every single process. The thing is that all companies should be aware of the necessity of implementing their own digital strategy.
You might also be interested in: The “Quick Win” Trap
Besides, using quick wins and advanced technologies is not enough if a company does not have a well-planned strategy. Every leader should consider several questions before approving a new solution. First of all, he/she should think whether the freshly designed tool corresponds to the corporation’s objectives. Secondly, it would be great to find out whether a newly-made product has the potential to integrate into the existing systems.
In the end, the importance of digitization is determined by the value obtained over a period of time. Once again, it is about management and discipline.
