Prioritizing and Sustaining Digital Initiatives in The Era of AI

In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses are striving to keep up with the pace of transformation, harnessing the power of AI to drive growth and efficiency. In our recent podcast, I spoke with Hannah Farley, Vice President of Advisory Services, who shared critical insights into successful digital transformation and why strategy integration, organizational readiness, and change management are key to driving value through digital initiatives.

Grounding in Strategy

Navigating the digital transformation landscape requires a clear strategy. Hannah Farley emphasizes the importance of aligning digital initiatives with the overall business strategy to ensure the most beneficial outcomes. “I would first go in and ask that executive what’s your strategy? What’s your vision for the organization?” Farley said. She also stressed the importance of prioritizing initiatives to maximize return on investment.

“If you prioritize everything, you prioritize nothing,” Farley warned, highlighting the danger of trying to take on too many projects at once without a clear strategic focus.

Upskilling and Reskilling Employees

As businesses increasingly automate processes, the question of what to do with employees often arises. Farley believes in the power of reskilling and upskilling, stating, “I haven’t seen a company say, ‘Help me reduce headcount.’ It’s ‘Hey, we want to keep the headcount, help us figure out how to transition our people.'”

She emphasized that employees need to understand the company’s strategy and how their roles contribute to its realization. Farley also highlighted the importance of effective training, tailored to the individual needs of employees, to help them adapt to new roles and technologies.

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Adoption of Cutting-Edge Technology

When it comes to adopting new technology, Farley highlighted that communication, training, and reinforcement are key. She warned against assuming that training and communication alone would ensure adoption, stating, “Just because you’ve trained and communicated does not mean that you’re going to ensure adoption. You have to have that reinforcement and accountability planning in place to create sustainable change.”

Farley asserted that employees need clear instructions on what they should start, stop, or continue doing. She also stressed the importance of accountability measures and reinforcement mechanisms to ensure the adoption of new behaviors and technologies.

Why Hitachi Solutions?

Transformation goes beyond technology. It requires vision and planning, mindset and culture shifts, new ways of operating — storing and securing data, as well as the ability to map out and manage your change. Find out how Hitachi Solutions Advisory Services can help.

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