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  • MSSBTA Staff

Charting the Course for a Successful Digital Transformation | Part 1


In today’s trying times, embarking on a new and disruptive digital transformation journey might feel like you are setting out in rough seas in a leaking rowboat. To make matters worse, you might feel that you lack a clear destination, map, or compass and are accompanied by just a few key resources that have never rowed or steered or even seen this new ocean before. You have heard the horror stories and maybe even seen firsthand some less than optimal outcomes of well-intentioned initiatives in similar organizations.


Navigating Digital Transformations

Disruptive digital transformations, and well-planned ones, continue to challenge even highly skilled and accomplished executives, especially in the public sector. There is often both a clear need and a strong desire to automate routine processes with modern technology. However, public sector leaders have limited resources and lack sufficient internal staff capacity and knowhow to successfully navigate the process. Executive bandwidth has competing priorities that create strong head winds in a process that usually has waves crashing from all sides.


Despite these impediments, there is often a strong business case or pressing requirement to begin the journey. If you are facing this situation, we have put together the “map” to help you start charting your course.





Digital Transformation Strategy and Requirements

The first set of major decisions for a digital transformation strategy revolve around which vendors you will partner with. We like to break this down into two steps:

  • Strategy and Requirements, and

  • Vendor Selection and Contract Negotiation

Under Strategy and Requirements, we strongly encourage you to begin by creating alignment with the impacted stakeholders around goals and objectives of your initiative. Then, you gather requirements, which industry experts agree is the single most important critical success factor in technology projects. Use these requirements to develop the RFP and transition to Vendor Selection and Contract Negotiation.


Vendor Selection and Contract Negotiation

Getting the RFP out is a major milestone. It is worth noting that this only kicks off another intensive process involving vendor evaluation, due diligence, selection, and contract negotiation. Each sub-process deserves to be approached with equal rigor and requires a slightly different skillset. Your procurement team can likely help with the process part, but our experience is that it is never an “apples-to-apples” comparison of vendors. There is significant skill involved in making good and informed decisions. However, once you have finalized contract negotiation, you are finally ready to begin implementation!






Look for the next post that dives deeper into the Implementation Process. In the interim, now that you have the “map”, you may want to start thinking about the “compass” (hint: LGA) and a sturdy ship with a skilled crew that knows this ocean well (hint: MSSBTA).


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