eGUIDE

INVOLVING YOUR
CUSTOMERS IN DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION

UX24/7: The Global Design Research Agency

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Organisations all over the world choose UX24/7

to deliver design research from discovery to
optimization. We are experts defining and evaluating
the experience between humans and technology.

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2
[Link] CONTENTS

Contents

Introduction 04

Summary 06

Digital transformations 07

Why Digital Transformations fail 10

Why customers should be involved 14

How to involve customers 15

Conclusion 17

End notes 18

3
 INTRODUCTION

Introduction
Digital transformation is
taking on an entirely new
sense of urgency.

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[Link] INTRODUCTION

“As consumers flock to digital channels This eGuide is designed for leadership
for everyday shopping, education, and teams who are planning or going
entertainment, [and] employees are through a digital transformation.
relocated for work from corporate to Your organisation may be looking
home offices… digital transformation for an effective way to utilise digital
is taking on an entirely new sense technology to make improvements.
of urgency.”1 Or you may be concerned that you
have already made changes that
Over the last 20 years, the inclusion
don’t work.
of technology in business has become
impossible to ignore. From online It could be that your transformation
payments and online shopping is currently too internally focused,
to social media and mobile without input or direction from
communications, the landscape customers. Leading from an internal
is now faster, more efficient and more point of view can sometimes create
personal. And consumer expectations a solution that appears tactical, and
are higher. Organisations which have sales targeted, rather than truly
not invested in technology will be left transformative. It is also hard to create
behind while their competitors thrive. an innovative solution with only internal
(existing) viewpoints.
However, not all companies investing
in technology will get it right. Bain & Design research can help you to create
Company research suggests that only a more personal, effective and
8% of global companies have been successful digital transformation by
able to achieve their targeted business involving your customers from the
outcomes from their investments in very first stage of development.
digital technology. That means more
than 90% of companies are still
struggling to deliver on a technology-
enabled business model.2

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[Link] S U M M A RY

Summary

While global enterprises may In order to avoid failure or rework in the

be paving the way for digital future, it’s vital to involve customers at
transformations, there are obvious the early stages and throughout the
benefits for both small and mid-sized digital transformation process.
organisationsas well. Particularly For example, Design Research (see
where private equity backed page 15) can unlock unknown needs
acquisitions are merging brands and that can be addressed through digital
looking for digital harmonisation and innovation. It unlocks ideas and
transformation. strategies that support wider digital
growth and provide differentiation.
Inherited organisations or those with
Design Research can make digitization
older business models may be relying
strategies, genuinely transformative.
on non-digital practices. The instinct to
jump to new technology in order to This eGuide will demonstrate the
increase profits and cut costs is overtly pitfalls and common failures, as well
simple, yet appealing. The pressure to as the proven Design Research
increase shareholder value (particularly strategies and methods, to show
via digital growth) creates a need to how we can make successful digital
quickly move to a transformation, often transformation happen.
without enough preparation into
strategy, customer needs or goals.

While larger organisations may have

an internal design or IT team (whereas
small businesses just won’t have the
team resources at all), these internal
teams may not have the up-to-date
expertise, independent thought,
innovation or competence to create
an effective solution.

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[Link] D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N S

Digital transformations
The main driver for a
digital transformation is
an overall need to adapt
and move from an
outdated process to
a new way of working
Digital transformation can mean a
myriad of different things, so each
individual organisation should have a
clear vision and purpose specific to
them – and it has to include the needs
of employees, partners and customers
alike. Whether the goal is to drive
growth, increase income or improve
ways of working, there are different
technological investments that can
be made.

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[Link] D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N S

●  Offer future opportunities for


The term ‘digital transformation’ itself
innovation and agility, to keep
can mean many things, as suggested
transforming to meet market
by Pete Peranzo for Imaginovation:
demands and keep a competitive
●  “Digitization, in short, is the process
 edge when there are new
of converting information locked in competitors to the market who will
physical documents from analog be utilising technology to disrupt
to digital. the market.

●  Digitalization is the process of using

 Generally it could be said that the main
digitized information to work more driver for a digital transformation is an
simply and efficiently. overall need to adapt and move from
an outdated process to a new way of
●  Digital transformation is changing
 working. This way of thinking is more
the way you conduct your business. aligned with strategy than it is with
It’s about taking a step back and technology, but the opportunities
revisiting everything you do, from for technology are so wide-ranging
internal systems to customer that they could help a vast range of
interactions, and more. 3 elements in business, if not all of them.
There could be many different drivers Different industries will also have
leading companies to a digital different reasons for implementing
transformation, not least the pressure a digital transformation. For example,
from the competitive environment. the retail industry has been pressurized
The likely aims or goals could stem into transforming its bricks-and-mortar
from a need to: stores into online businesses due to
●  Develop a product or optimise
 the competition from online-only
a service players and the convenience of at-
home shopping. Whereas the print
●  Improve operational flow and
 newspaper industry has had to
internal systems respond to environmental pressures,
cultural changes and customer
●  Reduce running costs

behaviour, and adapt its core product
●  Satisfy stakeholders or
 to incorporate a digital offering.
business drivers
One of the key industries affected
●  Increase customer retention or
 by digital transformation is financial
improve the customer experience services and banking. This sector has
changed beyond recognition in recent
●  Engage or empower employees

years, due to a variety of cultural and
financial shifts:

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[Link] D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N S

●  The financial crash of 2008 has

 the week. Now that retail stores are
led to a global mistrust of financial offering opening hours outside of
institutions. Banks have to work the traditional 9-5pm week and
harder to gain trust and customer Sunday trading has opened up the
loyalty, which can be achieved weekend as a shopping opportunity,
through offering services based on banks need to offer the same
user needs and improving their services or make sure that their
experience. This is a shift from the online offer is fully functioning.
historic bank-customer relationship
●  Customers are also more likely

which was focused almost entirely
to work remotely, away from town
on the needs (and profit) of the
centres or large cities, and have less
business.
physical access to high street banks.
●  Since 2008, banking profits have

●  New challenger banks have

been hit harder and they’ve had to
disrupted the industry and made
work on ways to improve efficiency
traditional organisations respond
internally to save on costs. Some
to a competitive environment.
banking organisations have utilised
New digital players such as Revolut,
digital transformation to improve
Paypal, Wise and Monzo are offering
internal efficiency and the
more digital services, easy-to-use
experience for employees: agile
apps, automated notifications,
or more automated software can
customer rewards and a reduction
reduce training hours, decrease
in some fees due to their innovative
human error, and improve
ways of working. “Banks have to
productivity.
face the harsh reality of the digital
●  Customers now expect a 24/7
 age: if they don't create a truly great
experience. They will be reluctant to customer experience, they will lose
waste time queuing in a high street their clients to financial companies
bank or waiting for postal that have customer-centricity set
documents, when other industries as their TOP priority.”4
are offering digital products,
●  By utilising digital platforms, banks

online services and easy-to-use
can offer an increased visibility of
experiences on their smart phones
products online which are easy
and tablets.
to access and more targeted,
●  Customers who are visiting high
 improving customer experience
street banks will generally want to and boosting sales opportunities.
do so at weekends or out of hours,
●  Security issues and fraud can be

due to cultural change which has
reduced with automated systems,
seen longer working hours during
online services and less paper trail.

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[Link] W H Y D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N S FA I L

Why Digital Transformations fail

Myth: you can spend

your way to leadership

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[Link] W H Y D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N S FA I L

Global Management Consulting Firm, 1. Technology over strategy

Bain & Company, suggests that there Professor Michael R. Wade from the
are two main myths that are hindering Global Center for Digital Business
the success of digital transformation: Transformation suggests: “a digital
firstly, you can spend your way to strategy typically places too much
leadership, and secondly, setting up attention on ‘digital’ as the objective,
Agile teams will be enough to deliver so that the main beneficiaries become
high-quality solutions quickly.5 consultants and technology vendors.
Digital strategies often divert attention
With so many organisations embarking
away from more important goals, such
on digital transformation, there are
as reduced costs, higher revenues,
unfortunately lots of opportunities to
increased customer satisfaction, and
see the other common pitfalls and key
other measures of performance.
reasons for failure.
“Pursuing a digital strategy means that
you have two strategies – one digital
and one organizational. At best this is
confusing, at worst, it is value
destroying. Separate strategies
inevitably lead to overlap and conflict.

“A much better approach would be

to consider how digital tools and
technologies can support a single
organizational strategy, or better still,
help existing strategy adapt to
changing conditions.”6

To look at it another way, there is no

shortage of technology available (and
often no shortage of potential budget).
So from this viewpoint, it’s clear to see
that the technology is not the reason
why digital transformations fail,
because there are always
opportunities to replace or change
it. Rather, the technology itself is not
the problem.

“One of the most important issues is

understanding that this [should be] a
business transformation, supported by
investments in new technology – not
new technology in search of
opportunities.”7

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[Link] W H Y D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N S FA I L

2. Internal conflict of interest

An organisation will need to define
opportunities and problems as a team,
before deciding on the solution.
If different stakeholders aren’t aligned
with their plans, it makes it difficult for
teams to prioritise what needs to be
done or measure the success of
the changes.

Similarly, a single point of internal

interest can also be damaging. If
transformation projects are owned
solely by internal teams (such as IT,
eCommerce or Development) the
vision can be too focused, too
exclusive and limited in its aims.

3. Lack of clarity or vision

There could be a “lack of alignment
and clear understanding among
leaders about how to execute against a
digital transformation strategy”, as well
as a “lack of CEO engagement and
sponsorship.”8

Leaders could easily be concerned

that there is no evidence or data to
support plans for transformation, and
fear the risk of wasting time or money.

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[Link] W H Y D I G I TA L T R A N S F O R M AT I O N S FA I L

4. Heavy internal focus 5. Lack of confidence or knowledge

When the transformation is too heavily Organisations may struggle with the risk of
focused on the back end benefits, digital transformation, or the ambiguity of not
there are often missed opportunities knowing the scale of the project, the costs
for external customers. There could involved or the return on investment at the
even be negative outcomes for end of the transformation. They may also fear
customers, if their needs are not the complexity of the project, knowing that
considered in the narrow thought the existing internal resource is not capable.
process. There may also be a lack of knowledge within
the internal team about specific market
An internal focus, which prioritises the
activity and future behaviour or needs.
business or the team itself, rather than
the customer or the user, can come “The true digital leaders pull away from the
from team politics, a lack of leadership, competition by linking a bold strategic
too much focus on the technology, ambition to the specific inner game
or a lack of maturity. capabilities and behaviors that they will
need to achieve it. First they translate their
Externally, organisations should be
strategy into a clear set of digital initiatives
thinking about whether they are
that point the organization toward a clear
tapping digital innovation to create
vision of full potential. Then they invest
new, distinctive experiences that give
heavily in the fundamental changes to their
existing customers what they want,
ways of working and culture that allow them
and how to help develop new ones.
to develop those initiatives rapidly and
Internally, they need to discover if they
execute them at scale.”9
can extract measurable benefits from
digital investments.
Me Me Tech

Tech Tech

Me

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[Link] W H Y C U S TO M E R S S H O U L D B E I N VO LV E D

Why customers should be involved

In a post-pandemic climate, there By understanding their customers’

is an obvious absence of physical mental models and the context within
relationships – between employees which each element sits, the
as well as between customers and organisation will discover greater
suppliers. This means that those opportunities for improvement, cost
relationships now have to be digital, saving and differentiation. Bringing in
so the way they are created should the customer simply as a ‘test’ subject
be focused on human interaction and at the final stage, means that there is
how the digitisation can best serve no cohesive overview of their needs
the users. and how this affects each element of
the design – and it’s likely to mean
An organisation may start on a
costly reworking or a disjointed
small digitisation change, or may be
experience.
beginning to think about a larger digital
transformation project. Despite having “To make digital transformation
initial ideas of what they need to do effective and successful, it must
(most likely with the customer already evolve through relationship
in mind), they cannot predict the transformation (RTx) and center
customer mindset, or know how on escalating human-connections
far-reaching the customers needs through digital.”10
may be.

With customer research integrated

from the start, their needs and
behaviours can help to shape the
overall strategy and potentially create
different goals for a business that
weren’t originally visible or achievable.

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[Link] H OW TO I N VO LV E C U S TO M E R S

How to involve customers

Design Research
When involving customers from “Design research is the art of observing
the start of a digital transformation, what people say and do, and then using
and being open-minded about the intuition to reasonably perceive what
potential outcomes and goals, you they think and feel. By allowing users to
have an opportunity to create an be the experts instead of ourselves, we
innovative and unique strategy for can uncover new opportunity areas that
your digital transformation. more directly meet their needs.

Properly structured research answers “While design research is amorphous,

questions and defines known and ambiguous, and at times frustrating,
unknown wants and needs. Opening this more winding path is often filled
up the problem space elevates the with surprising findings, new
digital transformation into the strategic perspectives, and rewarding insights,
and provides organisation-wide ultimately reducing the risk of designing
opportunities. Design Research can the wrong solution and creating room for
turn digitization programmes into innovative user-centered solutions.”11
digital transformation strategies.
One of the biggest differences between
We use Design Research as a tool Design Research and more traditional
to truly transform and utilize digital market research is the mindset and
as part of a transformation, giving approach. Designers do not enter the
organisations a framework for early stages of research with assumptions
including customers and helping or hypotheses. The point of this research
those that are too tactical to become is not to gather data to prove that
more strategic. Support from a design something is or isn’t true, but rather
research team allows organisations to capture a more complete picture
to involve customers from the start of our users.
of their transformation, creating a
“We all have assumptions about how the
structure to develop and manage the
world operates, and the more entrenched
overall digital transformation strategy.
we are within a field, the harder it is to let
go of our prior biases and truly explore
things anew. If we are going to design
products and services that truly work for
people, it is crucial to let go of what we
think we know and try to see the world
with curiosity.”12

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[Link] H OW TO I N VO LV E C U S TO M E R S

We define four stages of Design Research:

Discover, Generate, Evaluate and Optimise.

1. Discover 2. Generate 3. Evaluate

“Discovery research is a With the problem space Finally, you can start creating
preliminary phase in the UX- established, generational the experience. This stage
design process that involves research involves your facilitates innovation and
researching the problem space, customers in exploring how creativity by evaluating
framing the problem(s) to be the eventual solution should concepts and prototypes as
solved, and gathering enough be framed. Whilst discovery they evolve toward the final
evidence and initial direction on defines the problem to be solution. Evaluative research
what to do next. Discoveries do solved, generative research ensures that the original
not involve testing hypotheses defines the experience (or problem space is addressed,
or solutions.” solution) to be delivered. It is that the experience that was
not about the interaction design defined is delivered and that
The discovery stage is about
which comes next. it works.
involving your customers
(as well as internal teams) Without generative research 4. Optimise
in defining the problem. the project can stall, or worse, When live, the solution should
It identifies wants and needs go straight into design. That is be optimised to make sure it
and broadens the problem when ‘User Experience design’ delivers the maximum and
area. Specifically it moves the becomes just ‘Experience planned ROI. Qualitative
problem from the tactical space design’, and the user is lost. research at this stage supports
to the strategic by providing your tech stack optimisation
Generative research helps the
context and opportunity. strategies.
designer to understand what
people are thinking and why
they behave in the way they
do, so they can incorporate
their personal responses and
reactions into the design. It
helps the designer to think
about the person, rather than
just the product. Instead of
starting with a solution and
trying to work backwards,
they are entering from the
problem-space.

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[Link] C O N C LU S I O N

Conclusion
“Digital transformation maturity are valuable in the future, such as
requires the ability to take a step back AI or augmented reality.
at all times and look at what is going
●  Create confidence – the team will

on, wondering if it makes sense from
be well-equipped for digital change,
the holistic perspective, if it leads to
creating a feeling of confidence and
real change across the board
digital capability, meaning that the
(including culture, ways of working
drive for change in the future will
and most of all, the longer-term goals).
feel achievable and within reach.
And if it helps to achieve the digital
transformation strategy on top of ●  Improve operations – consolidate

fixing immediate needs and issues.”13 current process or streamline
projects, involving the wider teams
The far-reaching benefits of digital
and bringing the workforce together
transformation are attractive and
and making the workflow more
attainable for those businesses who
efficient.
get it right.14
Independent design research teams
A successful digital transformation can:
can help minimise the risk by putting
●  Transform the customer experience,
 emphasis on customer involvement
which improves customer retention and reassuring organisations who
and potentially increases sales. are about to embark on a digital
transformation project. “UX Design
●  Create data-driven insights which

makes the digital transformation
allow organisations to make
journey easier and is essential for its
evidence-based strategies on how
successful implementation; by carving
to improve and adapt in the future.
out a design path, adhering to an
●  Create unity and efficiency within
 effective design thinking process and
the workforce. tapping talent and using the best
software tools.”15
●  Be more agile and innovative – as

the digital landscape continues to By working with an expert independent
evolve, a transformation strategy design research agency, you can
will get you started on the road to ensure that you have the necessary
adaptability and ensure that there customer research and evidence
are ways to move with the times in to create a successful, long-lasting
the future. transformation that addresses a variety
of different needs. This insight can help
●  Add skills and expertise –
 organizations differentiate through
incorporating new technology from digital transformation rather than
within creates opportunities for the just digitize.
workforce to learn new skills which

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[Link] E N D N OT E S

End notes

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change-not-just-technology/

2 [Link]
companies-know/

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4 
user-experience-transformation

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companies-know/

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companies-know/

8  ttps://[Link]/article/when-digital-transformation-fails-focus-on-the-why-and-how-of-
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change-not-just-technology/

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10 
change-not-just-technology/

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12 [Link]

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14 [Link]

15 [Link]

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UX24/7
HQ London

[Link]
Tel: +44 (0)800 0246 247
Email: hello@[Link]