Why it’s Important to Focus on Outcomes During a Digital Transformation

We’ve written before about how digital transformations and the Internet of Things (IoT) can solve problems. It’s a philosophy that works and has worked for many companies. However, thinking about the problem and how to solve it is not the only method of transformation. There is another way, which can provide better benefits to a company looking to improve.

How to Focus on An Outcome, Rather Than a Problem

Fixing a problem solves that problem. If you’re lucky, it will solve other problems as well. Most of the time, though, companies that focus on only solving the problems before them, are trapped in a constant loop of putting out that fire and then waiting for the next one to pop up. In order to truly improve your business through a digital transformation, you need to focus on an outcome, rather than a problem.

Focusing on an outcome gives us a concrete goal to work towards. From there you can plot out the steps that will take you from where you are now to reaching the outcome you declared. It’s not enough to state a generic outcome, though. They need to be specific and ultimately should improve something in your business which will have far-reaching benefits. Here’s some examples of specific outcomes: 

• Build a system which uses accurate production-time data that will make real-time changes in the manufacturing process.
• Build a collaboration system that delivers real-time data to design teams to improve decision making.
• Deploy a system that will calculate real-time product demand which can be used to quickly alter production schedules.
• Develop an analytics system that will deliver critical information to humans as well as machines to prevent break downs.
• Deploy a system that will enable workers and maintenance staff to troubleshoot problems in real-time with accurate up-to-the-minute data.

Each of these examples has a clearly stated outcome with key phrases that describe critical parts of how the outcome should function. When you’re putting together your own outcome, focus on making sure that the language is as clear as possible. Then build your list of iteration steps that will take you from concept to deployment.