Plug and Play: Why this does
not apply to the
Digital Transformation

Plug and Play: using new Hardware straight away - without Time-consuming Set-up

Do you know the situation all too well: you’ve finally bought the new headphones you’ve been too stingy to buy for months and now you want to connect them to your computer, smartphone or car just quickly. But unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way. In some cases, you first have to install additional software and it often takes a few minutes for the devices to recognize each other. Sometimes it’s quite cumbersome, isn’t it?

The whole thing is much easier if you buy hardware that supports the plug and play principle. Many modern computer interfaces and peripheral devices are now plug and play capable. Interfaces such as USB work according to the principle.

Plug and play allows you to connect any new hardware to your computer without having to configure it first, saving you the trouble of installing device drivers or making extra settings so that the individual components can interact with each other.

If this now works so well with hardware, can’t it also be done with digital transformation? Let’s first take a look at the success factors that are partly responsible for the success of your project.

These Aspects are involved in the Success of your Transformation Project

1. Often underestimated: Project Preparation

   You make the majority of success-critical decisions in the preparation phase of your project - even before you decide which software vendor you want to work with.

2. Finding the right Partner and the right Solution

   Then it’s all about selecting the ERP solution and the implementation partner with whom you will ideally work together for many years. You can make the selection on your own initiative instead of the classical tendering process if you are guided by key criteria.

3. Choose an Approach that best suits your Initial Situation

   Another important question concerns the project approach: does a “big bang” approach make sense for your project, or a “small steps” approach? While the “big bang” approach often leads to a result more quickly in comparison, it also involves greater risks.

4. Motivating your Employees throughout

   The project is everyone’s business. Your employees will work most productively if they know and understand the holistic goals of the project. It is therefore very important that they remain motivated to give their best at every stage and pull together with all team members. To do this, ensure transparency, visible added value based on concrete key figures and communication at eye level.

People are more difficult to “set up” than Hardware

If they are not convinced by the changes and think that they could be at a disadvantage as a result, your employees will build up resistance to digitalization in the worst-case scenario. This can have very different reasons. To avoid resistance from the outset, it is important that you establish holistic change management.

It is not enough to simply implement new software and send your employees to a few one-off training sessions. Or that you transfer your old processes unfiltered from local servers to a cloud. Because in a digitalization project, the processes, the way of working and even the way of thinking in the company must become completely digital.

Your digitalization therefore requires many extensive, sometimes far-reaching changes, which you cannot implement overnight with the best will in the world. Every company should develop and implement its own digitalization strategy. From the initial idea to its implementation in practice, your company must go through numerous development steps - and sometimes take entirely new paths.

Change Management: 10 Classic Myths
you should dispel

Digital Transformation based on the Plug and Play Principle?

Digitalization is a project in which all company divisions, employees and external partners are involved - in other words, it involves many different people who all have different interests and IT skills. Accordingly, the human factor is also crucial here. Your employees can either drive the digital transformation forward or cause it to fail. And there is much more to it than just the purely technical aspects as with your hardware - for which, in case of doubt, there is a user manual with very precise instructions. 😊

People are much more “demanding”. It is therefore very important to create the optimal framework conditions right from the start. And when you start to initiate change, proceed in smaller steps if in doubt.

Managers must support all employees individually. This means: you need to know who has what level of knowledge, what leads to stress for whom, who has what talents, who is motivated or demotivated by what, and you need to know how they make decisions and what their conscious or unconscious goals are.

Our conclusion: you may be able to use your new headphones on your computer using the plug and play principle - but your digitalization won’t play along. Digitalization costs time, money and nerves. However, with the support of experienced software vendors, you will be able to handle it.