Companies in all sectors, from information technology to financial services to entertainment, are seeing meaningful business impacts from digital transformation initiatives. When done right, through intelligent digital product development, digital transformation projects leverage people and technology to achieve important outcomes such as customer engagement, employee communication and collaboration, or operational efficiency.
Despite the buzz around digital transformation over the past few years, organizations often have an insufficient grasp on how to define and implement significant change, and are faced with numerous challenges.
Key Digital Transformation Obstacles
According to a recent survey by data consultant IDG, the top concern for starting digital transformation is outdated and legacy technology. Organizations look at their existing IT processes and systems — as well as years of accumulated data in discrete databases — and they don’t want to disrupt the status quo for fear of something breaking. And for companies that don’t have a significant digital presence but know they need to move in that direction, adopting new technology often seems daunting and expensive.
In addition to these top concerns, the survey reported that many companies simply gave up their digital transformation initiatives because of other challenges. A key obstacle to completing projects comes before the project even begins, in the research phase. Finally, the survey reported that most companies expect they will find themselves turning to consultants to power their digital transformation.
How DockYard Drives Innovation
At DockYard, we’ve discovered that it’s not always out with the old, in with the new. While we employ the most advanced technologies to develop web applications, we understand that they have to work seamlessly with existing systems. For example, in our Netflix project to streamline on-set production operations, we engineered an application in a modular fashion, with minimal impact to the data models and systems of other applications with which it interacts.
DockYard’s product strategy and product design teams dedicate time to diving into problems that new applications need to solve, researching all facets of clients’ businesses, conducting various secondary and primary research, and interviewing users to understand how they can best make use of new digital tools. This is how we make sure the applications we design and develop exceed business and user goals. When the National Association of Independent Schools needed an innovative way to engage communities and reach potential students, DockYard’s in-depth analysis determined that the web application needed a quick and intuitive method for schools to share information and collaborate. Since the app was released, users have reported that communication efficiency and collaboration have improved dramatically.
Whether it’s custom software development or a Progressive Web Application (PWA), at DockYard we view the entire digital product development process as a partnership with clients that advances digital transformation. From initial digital strategy to final digital product delivery, DockYard serves as a supportive team member, technology expert, and professional advocate. Discover how DockYard can help power your organization’s digital transformation.
DockYard is a digital product agency offering exceptional user experience, design, full stack engineering, web app development, custom software, Ember, Elixir, and Phoenix services, consulting, and training.
