For decades now, businesses have been making the slow shift away from analog and into the digital future. From electronic medical records to customer segmentation algorithms and everything in between, it seems the arc of industry is bending toward digital.
While this was certainly true before the COVID-19 pandemic, this last year has only accelerated the process. Companies across all industries have had to overhaul their business models essentially overnight. Healthcare for example has undergone a rapid shift toward telehealth, and some of the biggest companies in the world have moved from multi-billion-dollar office parks to fully digital spaces in a matter of months.
While these shifts are often a smart business decision, they aren’t always the most comfortable for employees or customers. With every new technology or big organizational change, long-time employees often find themselves feeling more confused than compelled. And long-time customers may start to feel like jumping ship for a business that’s easier to understand.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
ThoughtForm Principal Steve Frank, and Scott Barnyak, Founder and Chief Marketing and Sales Officer of SDLC Partners, sat down with TechVibe radio to chat about how our new partnership is empowering companies to make these kinds of organizational changes quickly and smoothly in the face of crisis by prioritizing people, process and technology, and creating buy-in through design-focused communications.
Listen to the full interview:
“You really have to understand what these big shifts mean to an organization and the individuals who support it,” Steve says. “How they can align to that shift in their workflow process, or engagement model, or customer support experience. And then you work your way forward to make sure the organization is ready for that shift. This shift can be incremental, or it can be disruptive. Ultimately, you make sure you’re controlling the narrative with your customers in the marketplace so that they understand, ‘Oh, there’s been a shift in the value they’re providing, and I can see how that’s been supported through their systems, and through their protocols, and ultimately their experience.’”
In other words, it’s about recognizing that the consumers of change within an organization aren’t just the customers, but the employees as well. In order for any organizational change to be successful, you have to care for both of these parties. Our expertise in service design and SDLC’s decades of experience in customized digital solutions create the perfect combination to lead organizations through the process of digitization and ensure that from start to finish, everyone involved is aligned and ready to make the change.
Let’s pick up the healthcare example. With access to medical services more important now than ever, the drastic and rapid shift toward telehealth has offered myriad opportunities. But it also presents many problems. While more patients now have access to care from the safety and comfort of their own homes, the speed at which this transformation happened has left many patients unsatisfied with the care they’re receiving, and many health care providers struggling to adapt to these new systems. Movement this nimble requires buy-in at every level, and in order to get people on board, companies have to be able to communicate with patients and providers in a way that is efficient, effective, and most importantly, meaningful. But with the right systems in place and an eye toward design thinking, payers and providers can be empowered to embrace new ways of thinking and welcome new experiences, leading to better outcomes for themselves and their patients.
“We’re all consumers in some ways of healthcare,” says Steve. “Our expectations have shifted, our preferences have shifted, and how we interact with our clinicians has shifted. And now businesses are trying to respond to that. I think they were trying to respond even before COVID, but COVID has definitely been an accelerant—almost a catalyst for change. That’s what this partnership is all about: We’re here to guide businesses through the choppy waters of organizational change with speed and ease through thoughtfully designed communications, digitization processes, and experiences, so that every stakeholder clearly understands the change the organization is making and why it’s being made.”