{"id":7627,"date":"2022-01-27T07:09:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-06T07:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=7627"},"modified":"2023-07-06T06:14:25","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T06:14:25","slug":"successfully-execute-digital-strategy-salesforce-illuminate-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/in\/blog\/successfully-execute-digital-strategy-salesforce-illuminate-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"Successfully Execute Your Digital Strategy: Salesforce\u2019s Illuminate Approach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation across companies of all sizes and industries. In fact, a recent DBS Digital Readiness Survey<\/a> found that one in two corporates in India have a digital transformation strategy in place. However, a Forrester Consulting study commissioned by Dell Technologies<\/a> found that more than 55% of companies, including respondents from India, are struggling to meet their digital transformation goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is that digital transformation isn\u2019t just about implementing new technology \u2013 rather, it\u2019s about enabling fundamental, large-scale change across the organisation. And that can be challenging. One of our customers, a high-tech manufacturer of software and hardware solutions for the construction industry, had a digital transformation strategy in place to change their revenue model to a recurring revenue one. However, their CFO needed help operationalising this strategy on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do organisations find it hard to turn strategy into execution?<\/i> Because many of them adopt a siloed or project-based approach to transformation. This approach fragments their business processes, data, and experiences, ultimately driving up costs, and forcing the project to be abandoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An enterprise approach, by contrast, looks at transformation holistically, connecting different parts of the business to deliver a cohesive and differentiated customer experience. At Salesforce, we use the mantra, \u201cThink Big, Start Small, Move Fast<\/b>\u201d, coined by Brett Colbert, VP of Enterprise Architecture. Our Illuminate approach is a pragmatic seven-step approach that builds on this mantra to help create digital transformation blueprints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the Salesforce Illuminate methodology? <\/span> <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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The Illuminate framework outlines seven key deliverables that guide both business and technology teams. The first three deliverables focus on the business. This is where we understand the business objectives\/goals and map them to the desired customer experience or customer journey. With the business objectives and customer journey as input, we create a capability model for digital transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the business needs and business strategy are understood, then the technology strategy can be built. We start by understanding the current state of the technology landscape (deliverable 4). Care should be taken to not get too bogged down in this step. Instead, focus on creating a future state architecture (deliverable 5) that can take the business forward. Post that, we proceed to creating a roadmap or blueprint (deliverable 6) for strategy execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Illuminate framework is anchored in the concept of business value. Hence, one of the key deliverables (deliverable 7) shows the value of implementing the business and technology strategy. The reason why business value is the last deliverable is because the final stage is when it\u2019s ratified. However, in practice, the business value analysis starts from the business model exploration stage and continues through the other stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can learn more about Illuminate in this blog<\/a> by Brett Colbert, VP of Enterprise Architecture at Salesforce.<\/i> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Illuminate in action <\/span> <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

To understand how Illuminate works, let\u2019s go back to the example of the high-tech manufacturer who wanted to pivot to a recurring revenue model, We leveraged Illuminate to show the company\u2019s CFO and his team that their digital transformation couldn\u2019t just be about creating new product SKUs, or setting up a subscription and billing process \u2013 it had to be broader than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift to a subscription model needed to be preceded by a shift in the organisation\u2019s mindset \u2013 from product-centricity to customer-centricity. That meant building new capabilities such as renewals management, customer success, and customer health monitoring. Also, all of these capabilities had to be connected to deliver a seamless, differentiated customer experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using deliverables one and two from the Illuminate framework, we identified the end-to-end business capabilities needed for the company\u2019s transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Once these capabilities were identified, we conducted a capability gap analysis from three perspectives:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Complete<\/b> – The organisation has people, processes, and technologies in place for that capability (e.g., renewals management). It is adequate enough to support future growth and objectives.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Partial<\/b> – The organisation has people, processes, and technologies in place for that capability; however, there are gaps either in the way the processes are laid out, or the way technology has been implemented and connected to the overall customer experience.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Missing<\/b> – The organisation has people to perform that capability; however they use a manual, paper-based process. Plus, there\u2019s no technology to support future growth, and to deliver the expected customer experiences.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The next step was to prioritise the gaps identified. We evaluated each business capability against three factors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n