Digital transformation projects have a pretty dire record, with precious few delivering the results expected of them.  Given the paucity of success, there has been no shortage of guides to try and help organizations through the whole affair.  The latest of these was published recently by Accenture, who identify a number of external factors that they believe organizations need to address in order to make the most of digital technologies.

The authors identify digital exemplars as Industry X.o businesses, who are able to utilize digital technologies to become more efficient, create new products and personalized customer experiences, and new business models.  The paper identifies five key areas related to transformation that Accenture believe are crucial to success:

• Talent readiness – are your existing and future workforce equipped with the skills they require to utilize the latest technologies?
• Value potential – is there a clearly defined value proposition in place for the implementation of digital transformation?
• Ecosystem maturity – no technology exists in isolation, and an ecosystem is crucial in setting standards and protocols for the technology, and for ensuring interoperability.  Does a sufficient ecosystem exist around the technology you’re hoping to implement?
• Capital adequacy – any large scale change will require capital investment, whilst merger and acquisition data from the field is also an indicator of its vibrancy.
• Adoption intensity – the last factor has a number of sub-elements to it, including the number of use cases for the technology, especially those that have made it to market, the estimated growth in spending on the technology, and the number of companies making that spend.

These five factors have been built into a tool developed by Accenture, known as the Digital Dividends Diagnostic, which measures the advancement of a given technology against each of the factors on a scale of one to five.  These can then be assessed by specific industries, which the company believe will help managers make the key decisions on digital transformation for their business, whether in terms of increasing training, investing in technologies or engaging in partnerships with startups.

“When investing in a new technology, businesses often focus inward within their enterprise and ignore external factors – such as the available talent pool or industry investment in the technology – that could help them decide if the implementation of the technology is viable or feasible within their organization,” Accenture say. “The Digital Dividends Diagnostic we developed as part of our research takes the guesswork out of where the roadblocks to technology adoption might be and provides a clear understanding of what you will need to do to manage the implementation of the technology.”

Whilst five triggers are provided, Accenture are at pains to point out that no one of them should be considered more valuable than the rest, and that you should try as far as possible to work on all five.  For instance, the research found that

“Given that nearly half of executives surveyed as part of last year’s ‘Combine and Conquer’ research cited an inability to combine rapidly evolving digital technologies as a key obstacle to successfully transforming their business, our new research should help ease their implementation concerns,” Accenture say.