Navigating the digital path

You have decided to upgrade and migrate away from your legacy system. What’s the digital path to do so? This digital transformation may seem daunting, but it is easier than you think. A well-managed plan in collaboration with product experts from Command Alkon Incorporated (CAI) paves the way to successful implementation. CAI assists their customers in the planning stages, implementation, training, and support over the life of their products.  

Define the Mission, Communicate, Earn the ‘Buy-In’

Upgrading to a new system takes careful internal planning, coordination, and testing before your eventual “go live.” Critical in nature, your mission needs to be clear to your employees, without hesitation, carefully identifying the product’s benefits and its accompanying ROI. The most critical and delicate balance you will encounter is effectively communicating to your team that the need for these upgrades is not a result of inadequate performance, behaviors, or shortfalls. They are tools to foster a better work environment, enhance the human element, assist in daily demands, and eliminate tedious, redundant tasks. This employee ‘buy-in’ will, without a doubt, make or break the product launch and long-term adoption. Failed employee ‘buy-in’ will haunt daily operations and employee attitudes, critically altering the course of your digital path for years to come.

Once the project has been approved and you have established employee ‘buy-in,’ it is time to move into the coordination phase of the project.   The first inkling is to focus on time, how long the project will take, and when it will ‘go live.’ Time is essential, but inevitably, timelines will slide, so it is crucial to stay on task and be realistic and flexible. Establish who will ‘own’ the product internally.   This individual shall be responsible for all aspects of the product, including overall accountability and usage. Clouding product ownership outside of a single point of contact will cloud responsibility and inhibit deployment strategies.

Coordination will also need to take place across the organization’s departments. There generally will be a crossover to other departments such as billing/accounting functions, QC/mix management, logistics, customers, and sales. CAI is an excellent resource for understanding who product rollouts will impact.

Test, Test, Test

Once your new environment is available for exploration, you are ready for real-world testing. Keep this one close to the chest, with only the product owners and other department heads at first. It is not game time yet, so it is not time to expose the product to the end users. There will inevitably be items to work out and adjustments to be made. You do not want the end users to become frustrated during your new product's tuning and testing phase, implying ‘it doesn’t work.’ Though this will take time, I do not recommend jumping into a ‘live’ production environment.

Side-by-side testing with your pre-existing environment is critical to verify that all data is carried over/input correctly into the new system and that the product behaves as expected. Consult with your CAI representative to see if a ‘sand box” environment can run parallel to your pre-existing environment with real-time data. It is imperative that you see the expected results before officially ‘going live’ with your new product.

Training and Re-Enforcing the Digital Path

Once you are satisfied with the testing data and overall product behavior, it is time for large-scale training. I recommend training in small groups, with the product owner present, and in the development environment whenever feasible. This approach is best for fostering open discussion, one-on-one attention, and working out setup ‘bugs.’ You will benefit from users literally tearing the product apart in terms of their natural thirst for exploration. Getting more eyes on the product will truly benefit the testing team in identifying adjustments needed in the setup before ‘go live.’ Make sure to offer supporting documentation and ongoing feedback to your team. Don’t forget that CAI offers on-site and virtual training for its products, keeping you on the digital path.

It’s GO Time!

Now that end users have been trained and the product functions as expected, it is time to ‘go live;’ the cutover to your new product is here! Pick a precise date for deployment in the production environment. Make sure all stakeholders are on board and comfortable with the date. Have a backup plan, for example, a failsafe mechanism back to your old environment in case of emergency.

Your digital path will shape your future. Migrating to new systems, including the newest cloud-based environments, can be accomplished with careful planning and support from CAI. 

Up Next: Next month, we will explore how CAI can impact customer transparency. Stay tuned!