As part of our ongoing ‘Ask the Experts’ series, we have brought together some of the Fashion industry’s leading Digital Transformation specialists to answer your most pressing questions. Today, we ask the team: what practical advice would you have for those tackling a leadership decision to pause or even scale-back on their organisation’s digital transformation efforts?
Here’s what they had to say.
There could be a number of reasons why leadership decides to pause or scale back on your digitisation efforts: it could be a lack of funding, a reaction to poor market conditions, or perhaps it’s a “back to basics” effort post-covid.
Sometimes, leadership hasn’t seen the benefits they expected from the DPC efforts and typically, this is because the programme goals have been set incorrectly or with false assumptions. I’ve heard leaders who were expecting to “eliminate all physical samples” or “100% digital design, no exceptions!” But just like the real world, digital efforts are rarely binary, black and white. The goals should be about optimising the business process and providing value, not hitting arbitrary targets.
Digitisation is about process change supported by technology capabilities. If your leadership has been given a false narrative, it’s time to redefine expectations, focus on solving business problems with DPC capabilities and making sure that there’s a new business process in place to support them. Is the goal to “digitise” or is it to “reduce time to market while making better, earlier decisions so that we can better differentiate ourselves in-store and online?” I have a feeling that it’s the latter.
If so, then the Digital Transformation programme should likely become a Business Transformation programme, and all business functions, including the digital team, should be working together to create the new, evolved business model.
In summary, be sure to set realistic goals, define measurable benefits, and focus on achieving value for your organisation, not just hitting targets!
Digital connects us to the world: we bank; we communicate; we learn; we share; we teach; we play; we buy; and we are entertained digitally. As consumers, we expect “buy now, free returns”; we want brands to absorb the burden of our planet’s care, we want choice and we want personalised experiences that allow us to connect with the brand. And as employees, we want digital platforms at work that are as simple as our smartphone apps to operate. We want real time information to de-risk our decisions and activities.
For leaders that are reconsidering digital: DON’T SCALE BACK! NEVER PAUSE! The pace of technology’s evolution has never been faster than it is right now and to stay ahead of your competitors, you need to remain focused on, and engaged with, digital. If you don’t, you will lose your consumers and your brightest employees to the competition!
For those of you leading digital initiatives and coming up against leadership resistance, maybe you need to re-prioritise and understand systems and workflow dependencies better. Ask yourself: “can we really embrace so much change at once? Have we really embedded new ways of working? Have we taken enough time to understand the internal and external opportunities? Have we best aligned the opportunity with behaviours? Do we need to slow things down? Do we need to look to external resources to come in and help us be more impactful?”
Digital is here: embrace it, plan it and slow it down if necessary. Don’t pause or scale back. Instead, change the journey and drop what’s not working!
Find Craig here.
This is a tough one, because a lot of it depends on the previous efforts in digital transformation: what has been achieved so far? What parts of the process has the digital transformation been aimed at?
In general, I would say that a good, hard look at the use case is needed before making any decision. Is there an area of the company where using digital tools has a significant benefit? Has the effort so far been too piecemeal, dispersed, or unfocused? Is there a way to hone in on the most important result? An example would be several teams working on different seasonal projects as opposed to one team focusing on a core benefit to the company.
Once that has been figured out, one can consider how to achieve a high level of quality. Perhaps having one excellent employee working on the topic full-time, is better than three employees splitting the task between their “real” work.
Lastly, we all know how difficult it is to measure ROI when it comes to digital transformation. It’s important to collate as much information as possible, not just compare apples with apples and also take into consideration what other factors, besides the financial one, are being changed by the digital transformation. For example, an important goal for the company might be sustainability, and so it makes sense to invest in tools that help employees make better decisions about fabrics early on in the process, or replace physical prototypes where possible with 3D simulations, or create photorealistic renderings of alternative colourways for the wholesale phase.
Look, it’s understandable that organisations are questioning the adoption of new technologies. But, I think we can all agree that things are getting more and more digital, and that brings big advantages for those who adapt and disadvantages for those who don’t.
Find Sophie here.
The industry is unfortunately ripe with examples of organisations that have scaled back or completely halted their digital transformation efforts. What’s astounding is that many of these organisations were once considered leaders in this space. Sadly, very often, it’s because the leadership failed to understand what’s at stake and didn’t consider Digital Transformation as a core business priority as their company faces headwinds and they need to make drastic decisions about what to cut and what to save.
My thoughts on why now is the time to invest more than ever are as follows:
- The use cases are out there, proving that Digital Product Creation not only saves time and money, but opens up new business and brand engagement models and therefore new revenue opportunities.
- When executed correctly, Digital Transformation efforts should pay for themselves within 2-3 years. If you’re still not seeing an upside after 3 years, you haven’t committed enough and are drowning in Pilot Paralysis.
- Your consumer’s expectations are changing, and there is nothing you can do about it. As new generations of customers with growing purchasing power take over, if you don’t cater to their evolving needs (which are increasingly digital and experiential), you will be left behind.
- Today’s consumers expect more than nice products. They want a bespoke product experience that is tailored to their preferences, and Digital is the best way to bring it to them.
- The companies who get it and invest in a well thought-out digital strategy during a downturn, will be positioned for unprecedented growth once the economy picks up again, as the consumer will choose to spend their money with brands that can quickly and sustainably respond to their needs.
My final advice is to listen to your customer, ask the hard questions, evaluate the cost of inaction and be ready to face the music if you decide that Digital is not the future!
Find Safir here.
What a difficult position to be in…
To start, practising accountability is your best friend. Even if your organisation is not one that prioritises accountability, it can be your secret weapon to solve or get ahead of issues. It’s easy to minimise shortcomings in favour of glorifying wins. It’s even ok to glorify the wins but analyse the losses and problems with the same energy (even if you only keep those thoughts in your own head). You should always have an idea of what you could have done better (or differently) when the waypoints of your digital journey lead to a dead end. We can also think of this in a “5 whys” framework. With an objective understanding of your wins and losses, you are better positioned to plan a successful course forward. If you turn a blind eye to your stumbles, the past will become prologue and championing digital will be a difficult position to maintain.
Next, it is critical to understand the goals and/or narratives guiding your leaders’ decision making. Then, make your arguments favouring the goals of your leaders. For example, if you see digital as a great win because it allows the team to visualise more options, but your leaders want a more streamlined development process, “more options” is not a great selling point. The benefits used to make your arguments should serve the goals of leadership. Remember, YOUR enthusiasm for digital doesn’t automatically translate to KPIs leadership will appreciate.
Wherever possible, speak of solutions. I am a problem solver, so my brain is hardwired to spot problems. However, identifying the problems consistently can paint a picture of dissent. I’ve learned to identify the problem (even if only to myself) but always speak in terms of solutions. If you only identify problems with your leaders’ plans to scale-back digital, you may find yourself dismissed as disagreeable. If you can instead present solutions where digital is a salve or remedy, you have the advantage of being supportive and agreeable. I’ll end with this: there is power in being informed. Stay up to date with the latest trends, challenges, and solutions in industry so that you’re always ahead of the game. At events like PI Apparel, take advantage of 1:1 meetings with other delegates where you’ll be reminded that you are not alone, even if you are a lone ranger at your company.
