Here’s why you’ll fall short of AIs potential without true digitalisation
- and here is how you fix it.
It’s no secret that the more digitised a business is, the more value it can get from AI. Without true digitalisation, the power and potential of AI – its ability to transform your workflows and business operations – is severely restricted.
By Aaren Ekelund, CCO (Chief Commercial Officer) at WorkPoint
Many business leaders, and employees, if asked in a survey, would probably say their organisation was ‘highly digitalised’. But here’s the thing. For many organisations, perception is often different from reality. In fact, a closer look reveals that workflows, documents, and processes might have been digitised – converted from paper to digital – but they’ve not been fully digitalised – improved and enhanced by technology.
How do I know this? For over 25 years, I’ve helped to digitalise companies. First as a consultant involved in many digitalisation projects across industries and then for almost 20 years in Microsoft. There I was responsible for an evolving portfolio of solutions to support the productivity of companies - known today as the Modern Workplace (Microsoft 365) – and now I’m the CCO of WorkPoint.
Over the years, I’ve spoken to many business owners and employees from companies of all sizes and industries… and there has always been a gap between what they wanted to digitise and what was actually digitalised in the daily workflow.
The barriers to digitalisation and AI
AI can do amazing things for your organisation if your organisation is ready for it. That takes three things: the right mindset, the right technology, and the right depth of digitalisation:
- Mindset is everything. Change won’t be effective – or won’t happen at all – without people being on board. Employee resistance to change can be overcome through leading by example and training your people on how new technology makes their work easier, and giving them an ‘aha’ moment for what their work could look like.
- You need more than digital versions of manual, paper-based systems. Going about your business with digital files and folders instead of A4 binders and sheets of paper doesn’t automatically change anything, or drive efficiencies. For that, you need to rethink how data in your business is found, shared, and how it flows through your existing processes more effectively. That is true digitalisation, not just moving from paper to a digital format.
- It takes time for technology to change the way you work. For many years, there were discussions about sharing documents online versus storing documents on a local PC or on-premise servers; about using communication platforms like Teams to interact instead of face-to-face meetings; and the best way to automate and streamline certain aspects of employee workflows. But often the real barrier to digitalisation is legacy systems, which aren’t future-proof and which hinder real digitalisation because of complex integrations and UIs that aren’t user friendly.
‘The Modern Workplace’ has evolved. Today, we’re all much better at using technological tools and collaborating digitally. But I still see many examples of processes and workflows that are far from being digitalised in a way that takes advantage of the possibilities of technology.
Signs your organisation is AI-ready
It can be tempting to think that AI assistants like Copilot will improve every aspect of your business, but it’s not a cure-all. If your organisation hasn’t properly prepared the digital groundwork, the value of AI is limited. The trouble is, figuring that out isn’t easy for decision-makers.
Here are four key signs that indicate your organisation is digitalised enough to be AI-ready:
1 You’ve got governance
A defined way of handling, sharing, and storing cases, documents, projects, and so on should be top of your list. As far as possible, a fixed structure ensures consistency while still giving enough safe space to allow the technological possibilities of streamlining, automating, and optimizing work processes.
2 Your storage systems are standardised
Where possible you need a standardised way of storing relevant data, documents, cases, or projects. For example, everything related to a particular project or case, for example emails and contracts, should be tagged correctly and easily discoverable for people with permission to access it.
To break down the silos, avoid storing related information in random folders or in various employees’ inboxes, locally on the PC, or in a numbering system that only makes sense to one person or a select group.
3 Your company data is accessible yet compliant
When you have one indisputable system – a single source of truth – security and data access rights are much easier to control and monitor. This is important for both the requirement to meet legal obligations – like the GDPR or NIS2 – and to ensure that your people (and AI) have ‘just enough’ access to share and leverage approved data and knowledge across the organisation.
4 People are onboard with change
Finally, the one factor that’s most decisive in digitalising workflows to a high standard? People. If data is handled differently by different individuals, teams, or departments, you end up with a fragmented approach to storing, sharing, journaling, and managing data. If that’s the case, it just won’t be possible to achieve a secure and efficient level of digitalisation.
As I’ve already mentioned, this can have multiple causes: old habits, resistance to change, unique filing systems, shortcuts around unfriendly software, poorly implemented IT systems, or a lack of training. The key is to bring people with you on the journey of Digital Transformation.
WorkPoint helps you become AI-ready
There are prerequisites for getting the most direct, safe, and effective benefits from AI. If data isn’t categorised, stored, and accessed in a secure, standardised way, the basic components for fully leveraging AI – like Copilot – will be missing. Getting them in place might mean rethinking workflows and implementing change management to take advantage of the technological opportunities available to you.
The good news is that WorkPoint can help you with governance, tagging, and standardising how you handle documents, data, cases, and projects. In fact, for many information-based organisations, WorkPoint is the cornerstone of Digital Transformation. Even better, our trusted WorkPoint Partners – bringing many experiences from other companies on the same journey – can help you become AI-ready.
Find the right WorkPoint Partner to guide your organisation on a journey of digital transformation. View our partners.
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