Why cultural change is essential in the digital age?

In digital transformation initiatives, one of the pressure points is cultural transformation, this is about changing the way people in an organization work and think. If this is not done effectively, companies might fail in their digital transformation efforts.

But cultural transformation is easier said than done. The barriers to it include the lack of the right culture, an inability of people to work together and a general (quite natural) reluctance to change.

However, to create and cultivate a digital culture you need behavioural change. The most important aspect of this is ensuring a work environment that embraces digital. All employees need to feel informed, included as well as empowered. This will help them see the value of digital culture and will also ensure they play an active role in cultivating a digital mindset.

Culture change also needs collaborative, cross-functional teams that share learnings and insights between them. All too often unsuccessful transformation is down to silo-thinking and a lack of communication between departments.

And, although change is unavoidable, it’s natural that people resist. If companies decide to go for a top-down approach, this resistance will only increase. It’s important for the whole organization to be able to make change easier and faster as well as accept that digital transformation is an ongoing journey of both change and improvement.

The culture of an organization will either facilitate or inhibit its ability to co-create new or modified products and services. So, it needs to have the right processes, procedures and metrics in place before embarking on digital transformation. The same applies to ways of working, ability to flex and a mindset to continually improve.

How ITIL 4 helps cultural change as part of digital transformation?

ITIL, the most widely recognized framework for IT-enabled services in the world has been developed to meet the challenges of the modern, digital world in its latest evolution, ITIL 4.

The ITIL 4 approach supports cultural change in a number of ways.

Promoting collaboration: When developing a business case ITIL 4 considers specific organizational needs for better adoption of a new business goal or digital transformation strategy. Plus, it highlights that well-defined yet flexible processes, procedures and metrics help to build a positive, corporate culture.

Handing high velocity IT: It's easy to find “burn out” within high-velocity environments. So, organizations should ensure that employees, while willing to digitally transform and embrace a rewarding workplace, are not pushed too far.

Organizational change management (OCM): Resistance to change is handled through the organizational change management activities in ITIL 4. This includes creating a sense of urgency with clear objectives, creating strong and committed people with stakeholder and sponsor management, empowerment and addressing resistance.

Effective communication: A critical element of organizational change management and ongoing continual improvement is good communication. ITIL 4 helps organizations and people develop and deploy effective communication processes.

ITIL 4 also acknowledges how following up and providing feedback helps to embed change and empowers people to feel part of it. Improvement relies on OCM for success, as it places a strong emphasis on the human factor.

Improvement cannot be achieved or sustained without change and this requires the participation and commitment of an organization’s most valuable asset: people.

Find out more about integrating ITIL 4 into your organization.

Also Read: Transforming customer experience: How ITIL 4 can help tackle barriers