Fostering Technology Innovation Through Strategic Partnerships

Growth Acceleration Partners is a Business Reporter client.

The pandemic has played a big part in accelerating the digital transformation of enterprises, speeding up the adoption of digital technologies by several years and transforming businesses forever. At both the organizational and industry levels, digital adoption and the digitalization of customer and supply-chain interactions have taken a quantum leap forward. 

Moreover, this has helped business leaders realize that digital technology has strategic importance as a critical business component, especially in the current hypercompetitive economic environment. A recent PwC Pulse Survey highlights that 60% of business executives consider digital transformation as their most critical growth driver in 2022. 

Some reports suggest that global spending on digital transformation efforts is projected to reach $2.8 trillion by 2025—strong evidence that corporate decision makers understand the benefits. 

However, digital transformation requires a clear vision, the right tech talent and intricate coordination of tech operations with digital and business partners. That is why it can be a strenuous activity for any company, especially for legacy firms, businesses lacking specific technical expertise or companies with limited tech bandwidth to move to the next level. 

These are among the many reasons why organizations need strategic partnerships to foster and implement technological innovation. Reports suggest that as many as 88% of businesses receive the help of third-party providers for at least one component of their digital transformation. Such partnerships can facilitate transformation, help businesses avoid unnecessary mistakes and save time and money. 

Digital transformation is not just modernizing your business for survival. It’s also about having the foresight to adapt your business to positively impact various aspects such as employee productivity, operations, consumer experience and leadership. 

Other reasons why businesses need to adopt digital transformation include: 

• Getting more data-based insights to enable informed decision-making
• Boosting collaboration across departments
• Improving agility and innovation

Digital transformation presents some challenges

While digital transformation might seem like an obvious choice, implementing it might not be straightforward. 

Business leaders are bound to face some challenges in their digital transformation journey. These challenges will not always be tech-related and can include people-centric issues, organizational structures and many other non-tech factors. 

Other challenges that businesses commonly face during digital transformation include: 

• Organizational silos leading to disconnected decision-making
• A risk-averse organizational culture
• Legacy systems
• Digital skill gaps
• Cybersecurity risks
• Budget constraints
• A shortage of technical resources
• Continuous evolution of customer needs
• Lack of a proper digital transformation strategy

With some of these factors beyond your control, the challenges may seem overwhelming at first, but you can take steps to overcome them. More importantly, you can work with strategic technology partners that can help you face these challenges. 

A digital partner can be your tower of strength when tackling digital transformation challenges. They can also bring new perspectives, ideas, suggestions and points of view to enrich your project. 

Some other benefits of working with digital partners include reduced risk, expanded technology expertise, greater access to IT support, implementation of newer technology solutions and better employee performance. 

But choosing a technology partner is a different ball game. 

Finding the right technology partner

You must look beyond industry buzzwords and go deeper to uncover the real value that a technology partner brings to the table. Ask yourself the following questions: 

• What is their experience in your industry?
• What skills do they have?
• How successful have their past collaborations been?
• What processes do they have in place? 

If they can answer these questions easily, it’s probably the right place to begin. 

Each company’s operations are unique and thus require a unique digital transformation plan. The right transformation consultants will consider a company’s distinctive business processes to uncover where and how digital intervention can improve business outcomes. 

So, to find a digital partner that is truly invested in your organization’s success, you must look for consultants that take a personalized approach toward your digital transformation efforts and align their objectives with your company’s business goals. Look for partners that begin the digital transformation strategy with a structured analysis of your organization’s situation. 

A well-rounded approach will endeavor to understand current operations, past experiences when implementing change and the tools and processes of your company’s employees to ensure that they are on the same page with the digital transformation plan. 

The right consulting team will clarify—at the beginning—the business outcomes they aim to achieve for their customers. 

Company values and culture are also important factors to look for in your technology partner. A company doing well internally will extend its values externally to its client relationships, as well. 

Agility in implementing digital transformation is another key factor that makes for a great technology partner. 

Finally, a digital transformation consultant truly invested in your company’s long-term success will introduce an exit strategy. The right technology partner will create a plan to teach your business the skills to sustain its transformation on its own, no matter how complex the digital transformation process is. 

Growth Acceleration Partners (GAP) is one such strategic technology solutions firm providing exceptional digital transformation consulting and software/data engineering services. The company takes pride in being a value-driven, woman-owned business focused on helping people, companies and communities attain long-term success. 

“During our 15-year presence in the market, our goal has been to create a company focused on two objectives: to create an environment so exceptional that people would want to work here throughout their careers, and to provide so much value to our clients that they couldn’t imagine working with another technology firm,” says Joyce Durst, CEO and cofounder of GAP. 

As a boutique firm, GAP can deliver the same results as any big consulting firm out there—only much faster. An independent and trusted advisor, GAP can deliver architectural designs and frameworks as part of a next-generation digital roadmap, or design decision support reports that offer weighted insights and recommendations. 

Along with consulting services, the company also offers an extensive array of software and data engineering delivery services to help firms build engineering teams that become part of their business. GAP’s delivery services showcase engineering expertise in several areas, including:

• Software development for cloud and mobile applications
• Data analytics and data science
• Information systems
• Machine learning
• Predictive modeling
• QA and QC automation 

“GAP provides full-cycle software development to technically architect and implement solutions,” says Jocelyn Sexton, VP of Marketing at GAP. “The fact that we have expertise in providing both consulting and delivery services is among our key strengths. We not only consult with clients on a viable digital transformation strategy, but also build teams to implement it. So, we can single-handedly complete projects. We want to empower our clients to give more focus on their business operations, since we take care of the technology side of things.”

Reach out to Growth Acceleration Partners today to learn how partnering with GAP will help your business boost tech innovation.

This article originally appeared in Business Reporter.

Image: iStock id1355632581