The role of project management consulting in the digital transformation of European businesses
Summary
Companies operating within the current globalised landscape can no longer rely on a digital transformation rooted in their base operations and local operations to carry them to transformation success. In the current cutthroat market, companies must tailor their digital transformation to suit the unique locales of their key operations.
To rise to the need for more strategic transformations, many companies are turning to project management consulting.
The necessity of strategic digital transformation: European companies must think beyond internal priorities and targets and look to the objectives of the European Union. With the Union setting its eye on climate neutrality by 2050 and fostering a Digital Decade, organisations are adapting core functional best practices to drive cultural and organisational change alongside technological transformation.
Leveraging project management consulting to accelerate transformation: Digital transformation is in no way limited to the IT department of companies. When a company approaches their transformation as an organisation-wide, long-term project it must also implement core project management practices that allow for better planning, collaboration, and evaluation over time.
Project management advisory allows a company to leverage the best practices of the function and take a more structured approach to transformation that will drive integrated success and help companies secure a competitive edge.
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When it comes to driving digital transformation, no company in any industry is exempt from the changes overtaking the business landscape.
With the many benefits of digital transformation being much-lauded, however, what often occurs is a rush to digitalise without enough strategic thought being dedicated to the transformative aspect of this change and all that it can achieve.
In Europe, an economy that has been in near-constant flux for over the past decade, effective digitalisation promises many gains but the value of the preparation step remains unchanged.
Every company in the world needs to pay attention to their locality as well as the global economic pulse. This is because, despite the rampant globalisation that has occurred, local markets still differ from each other and with them so do regulatory, cultural, and customer expectations.
What this means is that it is no longer enough to come up with a digital strategy that works for the base of your operations. A digital transformation that works must take into account the granular differences between each of the markets within which a business operates.
While this may be the case for every long-term objective a company sets, a digital transformation—that promises wide-scale, permanent organisational change and can signal the difference between success and failure—may require reinforcement.
The necessity of strategic digital transformation
Digital transformation goes far beyond simple digitisation and more long-term digitalisation to have a more value-added, permanent impact on the ins and outs of how a company operates in the day-to-day as well as in the long term.
For a contemporary business, digital transformation is the only route to survival—let alone success—in the current landscape. Without the support of antifragile digital frameworks, companies do not stand a chance of gaining a foothold in the market, while a competitive advantage seems even further out of reach.
This is especially true for European businesses.
On top of the challenges facing the Union, it also has a digital strategy of its own to help European people and corporations benefit from the changes technology has brought to the world at large, while serving the core priorities and targets the EU has set. Targets such as the overarching goal of building a climate-neutral Europe by the year 2050.
With the European Commission setting its sights on Europe’s “Digital Decade” it is vital that companies follow suit.
To do this effectively, companies must turn to project management.
Digital technologies are changing every aspect of industries and companies from the inside out, which means that your digital transformation must signal a cultural, organisational shift as well as a reframing of goods and services around these offerings.
This is possibly one of the largest projects a company can take on, and professional project managers in the project management function are an integral part of putting in the groundwork that is required to make this project a success.
Leveraging project management consulting to accelerate transformation
When it comes to driving a digital transformation in the contemporary landscape, despite how commonplace it may seem, many companies still fall short of reaping the benefits technology promises.
This failure seems to stem from the fact that digital transformations are often thought to begin and end in the IT function of a company and are driven purely by organisational decision-makers.
This belief downplays the overall higher value addition that a digital transformation can bring to a business and leaves an organisation unequipped when it comes to critical processes such as scheduling and planning, collaborative team functions, and the process of evaluating the success of the transformation over time.
These critical functions, however, are core pillars of a strong project management arm, which means that any business looking to benefit from accelerated transformation has a lot to gain from experienced project management consulting.
With project management advisory on their side, corporations are able to approach their transformation from the perspective of a large-scale project and set KPIs, goals, objectives, benchmarks, and processes to ensure continuous improvement along the way. Your company then benefits from the best practices of the project management function—including the emotional intelligence needed to drive cultural transformation—as well as a more structured, integrated transformation that is more likely to help you succeed in a highly competitive environment.
It also means that transformations can be rolled out with more assurance for stakeholders and on a more accelerated timeline, as project management consultants are able to supplant their up-to-date industry knowledge with experience from other transformations they have supported.
Boosting the success of transformation
Despite digital transformation being hailed as a survival tactic within the current landscape, the rate of failure remains high.
Companies can overcome the obstacles in the way of a successful transformation by leveraging the value of project management consulting and approaching the goals they have set for their transformation as the goals of a long-term project.
