40 Experts Share Their Digital Transformation Tips for 2022

Planning your digital transformation strategy for 2022? We thought so. Therefore, we rounded up a bunch of experts to share their tips on digital transformation to shape your 2022 strategy.

Check out the tips and be ready to supercharge the processes and technologies at your company. Let’s dive in!

Tips On Internal Communication

Brian Nagele

Brian is the CEO at Restaurant Clicks.

“The number one thing that helped us transition to a virtual office is cross team communication. We found that there was something lost by not being able to socialize with our colleagues at the water cooler, or have a brainstorm in the halls, and so we looked for a way to bring that back. The solution we came to was to use Slack for many of our day to day work communication. With this chat app we can set up specific channels for teams, training sessions, or projects, as well as have a space where colleagues can message each other privately for help or to catch up. The best part about using Slack has to be the “Everyone” channel that we created. This area gives all of our employees, from management to site maintenance a place to collaborate, socialize, and most importantly, share memes together. Having a space where our team can feel social and relaxed has been great for company morale and has improved our workflow by inspiring more collaboration than when we did not have a social space.”

David Rowland

David is the Head of Marketing at EcoOnline

With digital transformation, testing new systems extensively does not only help the company determine if it’s functions are aligned to your business goals, it also helps foresee possible glitches and appropriate remedies. Let employees test it for some time and make sure to ask for feedback for they will be using these systems, too. You can also invite customers to take part in the testing because inputs regarding new digital innovations for your company will be important indicators on whether it will work best for you.

Julian Goldie

Julian is the CEO at Goldie Agency

“It’s crucial to start with your core operations and work your way out to the rest of your company. However, there will always be some gaps in expertise across multiple teams when you first start, and not every employee will be a digital native. As a result, investing in education and training is critical. Begin with the board of directors and work your way down through the ranks of your organization. You’ll be able to implement more process-improving technologies after everyone has the necessary knowledge, I am convinced.”

Tips on Choosing the Right Technology

Vaclav Vincalek

Vaclav is the CEO of PCIS

“Digital transformation is a very promising, if overdue trend. After all, starting with the question of what technology to use is like putting the cart before the horse. Instead, companies need to use technology to advance their business strategy.

Does the enterprise want to be disruptive? Excellent. Then they may need to change their business model, take advantage of data to grow in a targeted manner. For this, they will need all sorts of technology. Only the ambitions of the company will dictate the sophistication of the technology stack.

As we can see, data-driven companies, like Uber or Netflix, put AI and machine learning at the center of their efforts. Mature companies (enterprise or otherwise) which are ready to die will continue with business as usual. Companies innovate, survive — and maybe, get to thrive.”

Steve Covate

Steve is the Vice President of Sales at Qtrac

“When beginning a digital transformation, a company needs to select technology that:

• Provides customers a personalized, frictionless way to wait for service, and a business platform for multi-channel, tailored engagement.
• Creates a more enjoyable environment for customers and employees to connect, by bringing easy-to-use technology in the store.
• Puts customers in charge of their wait time, increasing satisfaction, sales and boosting loyalty.
• Identifies customer needs prior to service. This will empower staff to be more productive and give better service.
• Delivers valuable insights such as peak traffic times, service times and provides opportunities for customer follow-up and upsells.”

Jennifer Harder

Jennifer is the CEO of Jennifer Harder Mortgage Brokers

“My advice is to select technology that is compatible with your business’s objectives.Numerous systems, applications, and network resources must be investigated and analyzed before recommending a DX program to senior management. A corporate transformation program is not a trial-and-error endeavor. You need to conduct due diligence in advance to ensure that the optimal option is executed. It is critical to install technology that assists the business in meeting its objectives, providing the most significant possible experience for employees and customers, and adapting to current and future business requirements.”

Robert Offley

Robert is the CEO at Centrilogic

“The cloud has made digital transformation goals more attainable than ever, making it simpler for businesses of all sizes to compete and keep up with ongoing advances in technology. The cloud is by no means the only component of digital transformation, but it certainly is an essential piece. By leveraging cloud-based systems and infrastructure, you expedite your digital transformation process and open up a world of new opportunities, allowing you to know more with more precise, timely data; stay nimble; and do more with optimization and greater flexibility.”

Jeremy Gardner

Jeremy is the CEO of MadeMan

“One tip to digitally transform your business is to move to the cloud. Moving your infrastructure and applications to the cloud will speed up your business processes and allow for more seamless integration. Adopting cloud based platforms enhances your businesses’ agility and performance. The sooner you transition your business to the cloud, the better prepared your business will be for the future.”

Yosun Allen

Yosun is the CEO of Yosun UV Printer

“Make the most of your tech stack and keep it up to date.

Before you start planning, conduct an inventory of your company’s IT stack and resources after everyone is on board. This phase will help you discover your strengths and shortcomings, as well as your organization’s technical capabilities and system deficiencies. By tracking down all of the tools you’ve purchased, you’ll be able to see how you might improve your strategy’s effectiveness. In most situations, businesses will have to replace their existing systems with more advanced technology. Digital transformation entails not just reaching out to more consumers, but also investing in technology that will benefit staff in the long run.”

Tips on Getting Employees On Board With Digital Transformation

Justin Lake

Justin is the CEO at Skyllful

“When embarking on a new digital transformation initiative, a surefire way to achieve high adoption rates is to use technology to teach technology. When introducing new technologies meant to make workers’ jobs easier, there can be a lot of friction, so the key is to reduce this.

First and foremost, designing training lessons for the devices or platforms the end-user has access to will allow them to learn at their own pace and get hands-on experience in an authentic setting. You then want to design the training with the employee’s workflow in mind mirroring common practices they will use to complete their jobs. Finally, taking a microlearning approach can help prevent cognitive overload, so breaking up the training into small digestible segments can lead to better long-term knowledge retention.”

Wayne Connors

Wayne is the Managing Director at ACCL

“Organizations should create a workforce transition plan as part of their digital transformation initiative to confront cultural barriers. Traditional incumbents have a strong organizational culture and can face resistance to implementing new workflows. This plan should include communicating to employees the digital transformation strategy, objectives, and timing. It also should consist of identified skill gaps. Once identified, organizations can create opportunities to upskill existing employees to meet future needs. Adaptivity is critical to transformational efforts; creating an adaptive organization starts with talent that can quickly reskill or upskill, shifting focus as the needs of the organization dictate.”

Isabella Zhou

Isabella is the Marketing Lead at Trustana

“Talent-related roadblocks are the number one operational and cultural digital transformation challenge. Business leaders investing in digital transformation objectives want talent with a blend of business skills and highly technical acumen, but it’s a difficult middle ground to locate. This leads organizations to a “build or buy” dilemma — whether to go outside the organization or develop from within. We suggest doing both. The digital transformation process isn’t plug-and-play. It has everything to do with who manages and executes the change program; an organization-wide program must also have the right talent across the organization.”

Teri Shern

Teri is the Co-Founder at ConexBoxes

“Many businesses have had to go through some level of digital transformation as a result of the pandemic (ourselves included). While in some cases these changes may be temporary, other employers may have seen the benefits of digital transformation and are now looking to implement more permanent changes. One thing that we’ve done (and something I strongly advise other businesses do) is we’ve utilized a digital adoption platform (DAP) to help our employees learn to use the new software we’ve incorporated into our business. A great aspect of using a DAP is that your employees can learn to use the software as they do their work. Tips and advice can pop up, to help them as they go. It’s also extremely effective because it involves little to no human intervention — saving you a lot of time.”

Jacob Udodov

Jacob is the CEO of Bordio

“Consider humans first, then technology. It wasn’t enough to give your staff new online technologies to use. You must ensure that your team has the skills and knowledge to use the most up-to-date digital infrastructure. Potential resistance to change, like with any disruptive endeavor, must be considered. That’s why it’s critical to gain top-level management support and enlist the help of your employees. How will you get the talent you require and ensure that current employees are proficient users? Bridging the technological skills gap should be classified as a short and mid-term goals for many businesses. Your company is vying for a tiny pool of in-demand talent, and the need to adapt rapidly is critical. Outside collaboration and partnerships can assist in moving projects forward and provide quick access to talent. Developing in-house training programs and recruiting should be a goal at the same time.”

Natalia Brzezinska

Natalia is the Marketing Manager at PhotoAid

“Integrating new technologies into business processes is similar to entering a high-speed motorway. Vertigo is a pervasive feeling experienced by leaders and their employees after embracing digital transformation in their company. To assuage this feeling, it is essential to train, train, train. As a business leader, you need to support your employees through many training and awareness activities during a business transformation. They will become the new users of this technology, so proper knowledge will ensure their comfort with AI systems and their eagerness to start using them. From a cultural perspective, acceptance of technology equals success.”

Tips on the User Experience

Catherine Vanvonno

Catherine is the CEO at 20Four7VADigital

“User experience should be at the forefront of digital transformation if you are in a customer-centric industry. You should meet the requirements and demands of the digital transformation but don’t forget about how it should make the customer experience improved and more efficient. Be adaptable. Technology is always changing and that will always be constant. It’s die or adapt so it is better to embrace a culture of being alright with dynamic changes. Let your organization be agile in accepting new technology and then implementing it quickly but efficiently.”

James Green

James is the Owner of Build a Head

“Throughout the digital transformation process, it is imperative to focus your efforts on enhancing the user experience. It should all be about the user. Luckily, we live in a world where the virtual consumer is at an all time high, and targeted marketing opportunities are easy. Spend your efforts on making the virtual consumer’s experience to your product easy and natural.”

John Simmons

John is the Deliverability Expert at InboxAlly

“Give more customization and personalization. General is out. If you want to truly transform your business in the digital landscape, be open to giving your customers the chance to personalize or customize the products or services they’re availing. This helps the customers feel like they’re a part of your brand. You make them feel like there’s always something for them.”

Stewart McGrenary

Stewart is the Director at Freedom Mobiles

“Some experts are calling 2021/2022 the biggest years of digital transformation. The ultimate goal of digital transformation is consumer experience. In order to meet the demands of the digital age, as a business, you must focus on your consumer and the user journey. Outline the complete customer journey, from beginning to end, and then conclude how going digital can make each touchpoint an enhanced and more efficient experience.”

Adam Fard

Adam is the Founder of Adam Fard UX Agency

“Delivering a positive customer experience is all about being able to address such inquiries quickly and without having to go through a maze of different interrogations.I feel that making appropriate use of data and analytic tools is critical for quickly obtaining the correct answers. A solid two-way relationship between marketing and information technology will assist organisations in developing such intelligence.”Both IT and marketing must consider the data that has been siloed and bring it all together in order to employ analytics to better understand client requirements.And to do so, you must consider the customer’s experience across all of their interactions, which includes invoicing, finance, and support.”

Tips on Finding the Right Talent

Perry Zheng

Perry is the CEO of Cash Flow Portal

“Many businesses nowadays hire a digital marketing consultant, one of the critical reasons for their failure to use digital transformation. Simply trusting a consultant is not worth the money as they take too much time to develop the appropriate strategies. Focus on investing in bringing in a digital transformation specialist. These individuals are fully equipped with the right tools and knowledge to take your company to the next level. I made the same investment two years ago. My digital transformation specialist came up with solutions and strategies that have only made my company perform better in this digitized market. Make sure that the digital transformation specialist has an abundance of experience in key areas of your business.”

John Turley

John is the Senior Digital Transformation Consultant at Adaptavist

“Organizations looking to adapt their culture and company to ‘the new normal’ require leaders who can transform their own perspectives to align with the future they wish to create. From there, these leaders can model a new set of behaviors that others can glean from to adopt new, innovative ways of thinking and foster a culture of innovation.

As such, an environment that supports workers’ deciding for themselves how to achieve team and company goals and encourages them to share their ideas will begin to motivate them to act in the best interest of the company. When employees feel confident to share their thoughts, it can help an organization see the world in new ways and break away from tunnel vision.

Additionally, research shows that cooperating — that is, working together in ways that produce a value equal to the sum of the parts — places less psychological demands on an individual mindset than collaborating. This is why so many teams, especially ones working in hybrid work environments, seem to find collaborative work mysteriously tricky. The outcome of developing mindset and culture is increased collaboration. This is where tools play a major role as well — how we use platforms like Trello, Slack, MSFT Teams and now Zoom can have a significant impact on how well we collaborate on a day-to-day basis.”

Tips on Getting Setup For Success

Romy Malviya

Romy is the Founder of Pulpstream

“Digital Transformation can mean different things to different people but to provide an impactful experience, any digital transformation initiative should improve the interaction experience for one of their constituents — Employees, Partners, or Customers. One of the best ways to create an impact is by finding out which processes one of the constituents is dealing with that are burdensome and ripe for improvement. Take that process, map it out for an efficient way to run it, and then choose a platform to streamline it preferably without writing any code. That’s digital transformation.”

Guneet Bedi

Guneet is the Vice President of Relayr

“The term “digital transformation” has become a buzzword. Many think that by simply plugging in an IoT device and flipping a switch, you can solve all your problems. While technology is critical, the most successful transformations use it as an enabler, not a strategy.

Instead, approach your transformation through a business lens: What are your pain points? Are there areas within your ecosystem where you can add more value?

Determining your desired business outcomes from the start will provide you with a roadmap for your digital transformation. From there, you can plan out incremental goals along the way, build your implementation teams, bring in expert partners, and identify the technology architecture needed to support your efforts.”

Tamar Milstein

Tamar is the CMO at Model9

“Enterprises with legacy platforms as their core systems may find themselves in a longer digital transformation journey than originally expected,” said Tamar Milstein, CMO of Model9. “To achieve true digital transformation, companies must change their focus from applications to data. They need to build a comprehensive, data-focused strategy to ensure they can maximize the value of their existing data. Once they’ve determined the key data sources — could be both mainframe and cloud — they need to create a unified data infrastructure that allows them to combine their historical and up-to-the-minute data for AI- or BI-based analysis to derive actionable insights that will help them grow their business and remain competitive.”

Elizabeth Lombardo

Elizabeth is a Keynote Speaker Super Star

“One tip I have for a successful digital transformation is to define the vision for the result. Many businesses struggle to effectively utilize new technology and close the digital divide because they lack a clear idea of their end goal. They have short-term objectives but no long-term strategy. Minor process modifications and improvements result, but the company is continuously playing catch-up and exposed to disruption from more agile competitors.

You’ll need a clear vision of where you want to go, as well as specific, measurable goals and objectives. The value you want to deliver your clients and consumers, the technologies that will help you reach those goals, and how you monitor performance along the way are all part of the transformation.

Any mention of evolution and transformation is meaningless unless you understand your company’s current status and have a clear vision. After you’ve established a baseline, think about the short-, mid-, and long-term goals that will help you get closer to your vision and bridge the digital divide.”

Ray Blakney

Ray is the CEO of Live Lingua

“If your company is just starting on its digital transformation journey, the first thing to do is an audit of all the business systems you have in place. This audit should be a written document with a clear description, including SOP’s if you have the time, of everything each of the parts of your business is doing. Once you have them all, you then need to rank them in order of importance for your business. In this context, ‘importance’ normally means the impact it has on your bottom line.”

Avinash Misra

Avinash is the CEO at Skan

“Successful digital transformation in 2022 is going to be twofold. First and foremost, before organizations can prepare for 2022, they first need to understand where they came from and where they are. Transformation happened so quickly in the last 18 months that many companies don’t know where they truly are and that’s imperative for planning a successful next year. Once that baseline understanding is there, organizations should utilize data-driven insights to guide their digital transformation strategies. With a data-driven approach to digital transformation, organizations are able to measure the impact of their digital transformation implementations to ensure they’ve reached their business goals, and know how to make adjustments for the future.”

Nick Rushton

Nick is the Director at Zephyr

“The majority of digital transformation projects fail. The main reason for this is because people usually try to apply too many new systems and ways of working in one go and with not enough regard to “business as usual” practices. Test and learn, by making small incremental changes over time and measuring their effects. This approach will also allow team members to gain confidence in and ownership over the project rather than feeling it is something that is being applied to them.”

Tips on Bringing Together the Different Components of Digital Transformation

Mike Chappell

Mike is the Founder at Formspal

“One piece of advice I have for digital transformation is to make sure your approach is straightforward. Digital transformation isn’t something that happens only in the marketing department. It needs to happen across the board in the company. This necessitates the development of a clear strategic vision. Ask yourself these three essential questions to help you define your strategy setting:-How can you utilize technology to speed up your critical operations and current income streams? Consider using sensors, automation, or robots to enhance productivity and efficiency.How can you utilize technology to break into a new market and a new income stream with it? You may want to add new innovative features to your product. How can you utilize technology to break into new markets and enter a brand-new industry? Use data to uncover new consumer requirements and issues, then tailor your solutions to suit those demands.Make the most of your relationships, innovations, and automation. Remember to incorporate cybersecurity and data privacy procedures in your plans.”

Teo Vanyo

Teo is the CEO at Stealth Agents

“Data and AI should be integrated into all processes.We’ve entered a new era of technical advancement. New technology was developed and deployed in prior decades to perform a specific job until it needed to be improved or replaced. New technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), constantly learn and utilize data to become more efficient and effective.The genuine opportunity for businesses to obtain greater efficiencies is to integrate these technologies into their business processes. AI can be connected with other company software to analyze data and make minute-by-minute and day-by-day choices. This pushes the limits of automation. AI that has been operationalized can now handle more advanced repetitive jobs. The breadth of what automation can accomplish is significantly greater, enabling a more powerful transformation and exciting edge cases.”

Hutch Ashoo

Hutch is the CEO at Pillar Wealth Management

“My number one piece of advice for a successful digital transition is to make it a collaborative endeavor.

Digital change cannot occur in isolation. Ascertain that digital transformation has a beneficial impact on every aspect of your business. Before embarking on a technology spending spree, business and IT teams must interact and agree on a shared vision, and technology must have an influence on more than just the technology-focused sections of the organization.”

Krish Ramineni

Krish is the CEO of Fireflies

“At Fireflies we scaled our team from 10 to 80 people over the past year. In order to scale we’ve had to automate several digital processes. These are the 3 key ones that helped:

• Eliminate data silos: Tools like Segment help us create a single source of customer data that we can dive into and visualize the life cycle of our customers. This allows our customer facing teams & marketing to better sell and support our users.
• Using AI to monitor uptime of critical systems: Anytime a core system is down, we get automated alerts. If a system is performing subpar, anomaly detection can help identify when things are off.
• Automated knowledge management: we record and transcribe all our meetings using Fireflies. Teammates can search back to particular parts of calls and review what was discussed. We don’t have to do onboarding training from scratch for each new hire.”

Brian Pagano

Brian is the Chief Catalyst at Axway

“Most people get the digital part, but forget about “transformation, which is not a handful of projects, but rather approaching your market in a new way or operating internally in a new way. To be digitally transformed entails having near real-time analytics, making more money from more bits flowing through the system, and being able to adjust to rapidly changing market conditions.

Transformation is almost always a challenging process. We, as humans, inherently resist change and organizations resist change too. Many companies simply treated transformation like any other project and inevitably fail. This is about changing the identity of an organization. New diagrams and new vocabulary are simply not sufficient. People in charge need to lead by example, reward the behaviors that contribute to the desired state. The group needs a clear, customer-focused mission statement so everyone knows if what they are working on today contributes to the right outcome. Trying to transform without knowing what you’re transforming into, without knowing what success looks like, is nearly impossible.”

Kim Moran

Kim is the Head of Insights at UCB

“Digital transformation requires that we change the way we work, including a shift in mindset to overcome common barriers that stifle our progress. Data and technology can only get us so far, but purposeful application of technological innovations, data and science can enable the industry to uncover new insights across the care continuum to deliver tailored solutions to patients resulting in better outcomes, faster and push beyond what has been previously possible. Additionally, we need to enable an industry-wide culture where every single person feels that this transformation is their responsibility. I am a firm believer that growth is born from change, and so much has changed in the landscape recently. At UCB, our digital transformation initiatives are allowing us to create new, and modify existing, business processes as well as culture and patient and stakeholder experiences, to meet dynamic business and market requirements.”

Adrian Zidaritz

Adrian is an AI Researcher at aibluedot

“Digital transformation is presumably all about technology, namely the redesign of business processes around data and AI. But to accomplish this transformation successfully, a new culture of transformation has to emerge. Secondly, within that culture, other non-technological initiatives have to be taken, for example the design of new business processes to support the transformation and the proper team to manage those processes. Digital transformation has so far not been very successful and it is these non-technological issues that have been the main cause of the failures.”

David Winkler

David is the Vice President of Docufree

“Don’t put the “technology cart” in front of the “process horse.” Organizations must have a process-first mindset followed by technology enablement when approaching successful DX. The difference in productivity gains and outcomes achieved can be significant if organizations try to short-cut by putting technology first — and then being at the mercy of potentially unfilled vendor promises. Companies are tired of making upfront payments for complex business software. They do not want to pay large fees to consultants to try to configure the software, only to be disappointed that the end result doesn’t meet expectations for their DX needs.”

Nicholas Rosenfeld

Nicholas is the CEO at Making a Will

Digital transformation entails far more than the installation of new software. It entails:

• Cultural transformations
• Innovative business practices
• Embracing new technologies
• Transitioning to more agile, customer-centric, and data-driven business models

As a result, you must have a well-defined transformation story — this is perhaps one of the most critical digital transformation tips.

Paula Glynn

Paula is the Director at Pixelstorm

“Digital transformation is a key consideration. Businesses must adapt to changing technologies, the needs of the market, and other environmental factors to ensure survival. There are lots of things you can do to prepare for digital transformation. Here are some tips:

• Figure out who your customers are/what you offer them.
• Invest in new technology and new skills.
• Form a digital transformation board to oversee and manage all changes.
• Collaborate with other partners through partnerships or acquisitions to provide additional value for clients.
• Learn about potential future developments that might change how your company operates.
• Implement organizational changes to meet the digital transformation challenge.
• Develop a strategy for dealing with disruption in your market that takes into account future technologies/market changes.
• Balance spend allocation.”

Tips On Securing Data

Tudor Armand Ciuleanu

Tudor is the CEO of RebelDot

“I would advise you to take a serious, hard look into securing your information and files in the digital world. Cybersecurity is a major topic for individuals and companies right now, and it’s for good reason. Hackers are extremely active and smart right now and can access your personal information if you are not protected. It’s important to protect your company’s, client’s, and employee’s information or else you face the risk of some serious repercussions.”

Olivia Tan

Olivia is the Co-Founder at CocoFax

“The best digital transformation strategy that companies in my niche should focus on, is to improve cybersecurity of E-commerce systems & financial technologies. Security is often considered important but not taken as a priority. This could lead to breaches in the system. Given that the digital world is vast, many viruses and cyber incidents are likely to happen and this is something that a CIO or executive cannot ignore.

A likely reason these security problems are prevalent in some business systems is because of hesitancy to hire Chief Information Security Officers (CISO). Companies should make sure all information and data within the company are kept and secured properly. You wouldn’t want a security breach which disrupts a number of your business operations.

One way to guarantee this is to change your passwords every month. Teach your employees to change their passwords. Make sure they know how to create strong passwords. Remind your team to turn this into a habit. To further strengthen your security, you can also utilize the Dashlane software.”

Does your business need a digital transformation strategy for your business in 2022? Are you not sure?

Either way, reach out to us for a free consultation!