What is an agile digital transformation?

“Agile” and “digital transformation” are different concepts but work hand-in-hand to help businesses improve their operations. These terms are more than simple marketing buzzwords; they provide a new way of looking at your existing processes and technologies as well as of assessing what changes could be made to improve them. A true agile digital transformation is as much about transforming the organisation as it is about technology.

What is digital transformation?

Undergoing digital transformation involves a fundamental shift in how people in your organisation think about, as well as use, technology. Digital transformation means using technologies to support a business and cultural shift towards more agile and effective ways of working.

Technology’s role is to support the business transformation; making it easier to create new, faster processes or improve your existing ones. So, implementing a contract management app would not constitute a digital transformation, but makes transformation possible by creating an opportunity to use digital signatures, automation and other technologies that accelerate your processes.

Digital transformation revolves around an ongoing process of experimentation, incremental improvements and learning from failure. It is important to consider what this innovation will look like for your company and the goals you are looking to achieve before deciding on the technology to support it.

Another important aspect of digital transformation is in shifting employee outlook. A common goal is to help the organisation become more outward-focussed, using technology to be better able to respond to the needs of customers, partners, employees and other stakeholders. This might involve breaking down the barriers between internal teams, such as creating greater collaboration between trading and operations teams, with technology supporting a new, more holistic view of how to achieve the organisation’s goals.

Digital transformation in commodities

The commodities industry sits at an interesting juncture in digital transformation. Transformation tends to be more urgent in markets with a high degree of commoditisation as businesses need to find ways to be more efficient and to differentiate themselves in their customers’ eyes if they are to remain competitive. And this transformation has been accelerated beyond any previous predictions with the impact of Covid-19 and a global demand for effective means of working remotely.

Digital transformation has been described as a way to add value to every customer interaction. For commodities businesses, this is not just about ensuring customers receive their orders on time and have a pleasant experience dealing with your team. It is also about ensuring your suppliers find it easy to deal with you and about creating useful interactions between internal teams, such as making sure trading teams receive all the information and approvals they need from finance, and operations from the trade desk.

Transforming these internal processes can have a significant impact on asset turnover, meaning your business has greater opportunities for profitability and can also improve customer service experiences by reducing the errors that can impact customers and providing clear information for customer-facing teams if a client has any queries.

Because this transformation can impact on the entire enterprise, it is likely that a single technology solution is not the answer. An ERP does not handle the complexities of commodity pricing and trading, whereas CTRM systems are not designed to support all the departments that ERP and accounting software do. This is another reason why it’s important to focus on the goals of digital transformation rather than on a particular technology, and why you need to be aware of how any new transformative technologies can interact with and improve the technologies that you are already using.

Adding agile

The agile methodology began as a way for software developers like Gen10 to quickly develop technology in line with clients’ expectations. It involves working in short bursts to deliver regular updates and means that it is easier to experiment, adjust things to get better overall results and change direction part-way through a project.

Agile has moved beyond technology project management and is now an essential strategy for commodities companies to be able to adapt in a world that is changing rapidly and often abruptly. This new way of working allows businesses to embrace change, experimentation and continuous improvement.

There can be many benefits of applying the agile methodology to a digital transformation. Agility provides the flexibility to respond to changing demands, whether that’s updating an automation workflow after creating a more efficient process or adding another app to solve a challenge that was outside the original project scope. And rather than these changes being impediments to success, they are considered a natural part of the process improvement.

An agile digital transformation means implementing your solution through a series of “quick wins” that deliver value early on, show the project’s successes and help to demonstrate its advantages to others within your business. It can also mean implementations are less disruptive, for example by working with your existing systems in a transition period, by onboarding each team on their own timeframes or by implementing a system one app at a time. This agile approach to implementations can help businesses minimise the risk of failed implementations, overrunning costs and project delays by providing clear ongoing milestones and opportunities for continuous improvement.

Agility means continuous improvement, even after a traditional implementation would end. For example, with Gen10’s flexible and collaborative technology, you can go on to continue your digital transformation through further customisation, additional apps or integrate your Gen10 technology with other solutions to create a truly agile ecosystem that does exactly what your business needs – and adapts as this changes in future.

At Gen10, we fully believe in the agile methodology and treat every new project as an agile digital transformation. This means we work closely with your teams to create a project plan that works around your business needs and collaborate with you throughout the implementation journey.