Digital transformation has become the norm in many sectors. Indeed, even as far back as 2018, research from Tech Pro Research showed that 70% of organizations already had a digital transformation plan in place, or were working on one. And that’s pre-pandemic.
The massive rise in demand for online products and services has seen the adoption of digital transformation strategies skyrocket across multiple industries. So much so that today, 55% of companies believe that without a digital transformation of some sort, they will begin to lose their market share in less than a year. According to the recent Connectivity Benchmark Report by MuleSoft and Deloitte Digital, organizations could lose a whopping $7m if they fail to successfully complete digital transformation initiatives.
But to successfully deliver your business’s digital transformation, you’ll need the right people with the right skills, working collectively to change the culture and structure of your organization. After all, digital technologies like MuleSoft only offer ‘potential’ improvements to your efficiency, productivity, and user experience. In reality, digital transformation isn’t just about technology. It’s about your business as a whole: the processes, the structures, and the people.
Here are 5 key areas any business that utilizes MuleSoft applications needs to order to focus on to successfully drive their digital transformation.
1. Big data, data science, and data analytics skills
Digital transformation without good use of data is—quite simply—a waste of time and effort. One of the most revolutionary aspects of the digital era is the huge amount of actionable data that it brings with it; but data that is only useful if your business can make use of it.
Ultimately, data is one of the most useful tools in an organization’s arsenal, but if your teams don’t effectively use your analytics tools, or read the data they output, you’ll struggle to deliver better value to your customers than your competitors.
MuleSoft’s Anypoint™ Platform can help make the process much easier and more straightforward. It’s a lightweight, open-source platform that was designed to make data integration feel like a piece of pie, massively reducing the time businesses spend trying to make their databases talk to their applications.
While this tool can make data integration feel like a dream, you’ll still need to search for professionals who can harness the full potential of Anypoint™ Platform and other data tools. Technology brings constant innovation, so it’s a good idea to upskill your team internally to ensure that you have in-house experts who can not only use existing solutions, but keep an eye out on emerging big data, data integration, and data analysis tools.
And there’s certainly a need for more upskilling within the ecosystem—out of 2000+ Salesforce professionals surveyed by Mason Frank in late 2021, only 14% said they held either a Mulesoft, Slack, or Tableau certification, despite these technologies being highly in-demand within the ecosystem and beyond.
2. A robust API strategy
Since 98% of organizations now use APIs, an API strategy has become a crucial component of digital transformation. As MuleSoft put it in their recent paper API Strategy Essentials Blueprint: “APIs are the digital building blocks that compose and orchestrate customer experiences, foster new partnerships, and drive revenue with new business models.”
There are plenty of brilliant examples—like Amazon’s Alexa or Uber—where companies have utilized APIs, independent software developers, third-party device makers, and services available within the cloud vendor to create a seamless experience for the customer. However, one important point of difference is that many of these companies were digitally native, which makes utilizing APIs that much easier.
The same rules don’t apply to organizations and businesses undergoing digital transformation now. There are different challenges to contend with to turn their current (and often fragmented) solutions and the company culture to become digital-first.
Establishing a robust API strategy may be no easy feat, but is a necessary first step. This does not mean that the strategy should be set in stone. Quite the opposite—it should be flexible and open to change, as many solutions will only become obvious as you go along and implement the strategy across the business.
3. A company culture that is aligned to digital transformation
Even if you were to hire the best MuleSoft experts and upskill your internal teams, digital transformation won’t be a success, unless your company culture undergoes a significant change to become digital-first. This means not only educating your teams about the benefits of digital solutions but getting them on board with actively using them in their day-to-day roles.
This means not only providing opportunities for upskilling but changing the entire mindset of your organization. In their recent report Digital Culture: The Driving Force of Digital Transformation, The World Economic Forum outlines that “collaboration, data, customer-centricity and innovation are at the heart of a digital culture and will unlock the value of digital and create new opportunities for an organization’s employees.”
But what steps should you take to start the shift? And how do you know if these steps will be effective?
Good leadership is absolutely critical here. Effective communication and analytics skills are fundamental to managing digital transformation, as they will allow your organization to make use of insights effectively, and share information freely, as you make changes to your infrastructure.
In order to identify which areas of your business could benefit most from a digital re-structure, you’ll need to appoint leaders who can be change agents, drive cross-functional, customer-focused teams, and secure buy-in across your organization for the projects they lead.
It would be difficult to move away from the traditional ways of working without it coming from the top down. For a digital transformation to work, and stick, you need leaders who are dedicated full-time to improving processes within your business.
“One of your first organizational changes should involve working with experts who have a history with game-changing platform business outcomes. This could be a newly created position on the executive team, like a chief digital officer (CDO) or leveraging a consultant that has a strong track record of driving successful business transformations. The aim here is to develop a strategy that is free from the limitations of preconceived ideas of your current team.”
– MuleSoft, API Strategy Essentials Blueprint
4. Enterprise mobility and mobile-first development
5. Security and compliance skills
Digital security is—rightfully—one of the top growing concerns of businesses and consumers around the world. We’ve seen Facebook’s loss of user-data cause a significant drop in share prices, and customers become increasingly more sensitive about where their data goes, and what is done with it.
The sentiment is echoed in the Salesforce ecosystem, where Salesforce professionals who work for a partner listed ‘understanding security issues’ among the typical challenges they face when working with an end-user client [Mason Frank].
As such, as you seek to undergo digital transformation, you have to keep data security and compliance at the front-and-centre of your priorities. While physical security is a case of making a facility more secure, digital security is a much more complex discipline, requiring technical proficiency and constant planning.
Do you have people with the skills to deal with an information seizure, or spot a worm that is monitoring the activity of your users? Is your IT team capable of anticipating the unconventional methods of attacks, and effectively preparing counter defences for them?
If not, you’ll need to find people with a strong working knowledge of technologies used in your organization, a solid understanding of hacking methodologies, and exceptional problem-solving skills.
Any business that stores a lot of data or information online needs the above skills, in-house, or they risk losing both their data and harming their reputation.
What's the way ahead?
With the potential for digital transformation to allow organizations to increase their revenue, minimize costs, and accelerate processes, the practice will become increasingly vital for organizations seeking to be competitive within their market.
But finding people with both the technical skills required to wield in-demand technologies like MuleSoft, who also have the soft skills (like excellent communication and stakeholder management skills) necessary to help drive a digital-first working culture, transforming your business can become increasingly difficult. Talent markets like big data, data security, and MuleSoft candidate-driven markets, simply due to the pace of digital transformation globally, and the resulting high demand for these skilled professionals.
However, partnering with talent creation programs like Revolent can help you attract and retain the skilled professionals needed to drive digital transformation. Revolent recruits, cross-trains, and places skilled professionals with a wide range of clients across Salesforce and other cloud ecosystems, allowing organizations to effectively pursue their digital transformation agenda—without the constant barrier of finding talent.
If you’re looking to secure high-quality, affordable MuleSoft talent (without having to build your own talent pipeline) learn more about how a partnership with Revolent can help.
