Digital Transformation: The tool for today’s Mid-Market company

By: Jeff St Onge

One of the reasons I love working with mid- market companies is I believe they’re the sweet spot for digital transformation – meaning they stand to gain the most by investing in digital products and systems. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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By definition a mid market co. does between $20Million – $1Billion in sales and account for the middle third of the economy’s revenue. They’re large enough to have an established market presence and brand recognition but They’re usually competing UP against major players of industry to try and gain big chunks of market share. ⠀⠀⠀
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This is what I love. The underdog mentality and process this takes.

Challenges

Mid Markets face a number of challenges as does any organization at scale. From operations to leadership to tech – going from mid market to large cap or even hitting growth objectives amongst a changing economic climate are something that these companies are accustomed to but also must constantly battle.  Rhythm Systems recently outlined 4 top challenges mid-markets face:

  1. Finding, Retaining and Growing Top Talent
  2. Executing Strategy to Achieve Goals
  3. Scaling Operational Processes
  4. Growing Top Line Revenue Year Over Year

Let’s add another…

5. ACHIEVING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, IE utilizing digital + tech landscape to achieve items  1-4 above

Defined: Digital Transformation can be a massive equalizer while competing against both peers and giants of industry. But, what exactly is digital transformation? It can be defined in many ways and covers a breadth of digital + tech landscape to revamp image, culture, operations, sales using the plethora of IT, creative, web + software applications available today.

CIO.com‘s much more concise take is that “Digital transformation marks a radical rethinking of how an organization uses technology, people and processes to fundamentally change business performance” says George Westerman, MIT principal research scientist and author of Leading Digital: Turning Technology Into Business Transformation.

The truth is DT will mean something different for every organization, whether in manufacturing, logistics, legal, etc etc etc because every industry is bound to different systems, strategy and opportunities unique to them.

So why is DT challenging and very often not being achieved in the way these amazing companies deserve and NEED? Here are a few key reasons.

  •  Lack of knowledge of the vast possibility of resources they could be utilizing
  •  The change requires new relationships with 3rd party organizations and often can’t be done internally
  •  Current personnel is inundated with other tasks and hasn’t made time to manage
  • Not enough of a sense of urgency

But wherein lies a challenge are also the greatest opportunities.

Opportunities Abound ⠀⠀⠀
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Digital transformation can be the equalizer (And that’s what we search for, what we do and deliver by the way). The mid-market company is a wonder of the American capitalistic economy and as a whole, employer of millions of Americans. These organizations often started with nothing and built up impressive enterprise. They’ve sometimes lives through generations of family leadership or otherwise and through the ails of history.

They have always been opportunists. It’s just that the biggest opportunity for them now is in a place that might be a bit new to them, a little uncomfortable.

The economy is doing well now, but won’t always. New tools, strategies and ways of thinking need to be adopted to achieve a new standard of excellence in enterprise during the 2020’s.

God speed in delivering Digital Transformation so these excellent organizations can continue to thrive and prosper. ⠀

 

Written By Jeff St.Onge

Founder, J. Arthur & Co. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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