This week I am excited to feature Tony Moroney as a guest writer. He is the Managing Partner of Beta Digital in Dublin, Ireland. He will share information on a topic that is of great interest to me and many business leaders—Digital Transformation.

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Forward-thinking organisations constantly search for innovative ways to remain relevant and competitive in a hyper-connected world.

While most organisations are focused on Digital Transformation, many are now starting to adopt Citizen Development to achieve their transformation objectives. Citizen Development puts Low-Code and No-Code tools into the hands of relatively non-technical people.

The driving force behind this trend is the growing need for responsiveness, agility, and improved productivity. But why is this important, and what do business leaders need to consider?

Let’s Start by Defining Digital Transformation

In my experience, there is much confusion in organisations about digital transformation. A definition is, therefore, essential. For me, Digital Transformation is about strategically repositioning the organisation to compete and thrive in a digitalised world. In essence, it is redefining the future of the organisation.  

Why Citizen Development?

While the pandemic accelerated the need for digital transformation, it has also highlighted a global shortage of skilled software developers. According to research from Forrester, there will be a deficit of 500,000 software developers in the U.S.A. alone by 2024.

Against this backdrop, finding ways to empower non-IT employees to solve day-to-day challenges makes sense. Citizen Development puts the technology to automate processes and design applications directly into the hands of those who know the processes best, the business users.

Critically, it empowers subject matter experts to design, develop, and deploy applications into production as experienced coders. Doing so reduces the demands on IT departments, but it can help the organisation in terms of mindset, culture, alignment, and collaboration--all critical components of digital transformation.

There are challenges, however, and I would like to address four in particular:
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1. IT Overload

Organisations face a growing number of demands from external and internal customers and must also respond to market developments and regulatory expectations. Citizen Development can help, but organisations must be wary of complexity, extensive customisation, and integration issues.

It is important to recognise that Citizen Development is not a means to circumvent skilled staff or enterprise infrastructure.

2. The Human Factor

While technology provides the means for digital transformation, success is ultimately in the hands of the people who have to work with it. All too often, organisations select too complicated tools to implement intuitively.

By comparison, Citizen Development can empower non-tech employees with a deep understanding of customers to explore new solutions as part of digital transformation.

3. Culture & Collaboration

Creating great customer experiences and good outcomes is everyone's job. Doing so requires eliminating silo thinking; developing a partnership between IT, the business, and Citizen Developers can enable organisations to become more informed and responsive to customer needs.

4. Shadow IT

Organisations must have a robust governance and collaboration model for Citizen Development informed and guided by IT best practices. The organisation can amplify best practices and specific accomplishments to encourage greater adoption.

Your People are Key

Digital transformation has become a global priority, as organisations require hyper-agile approaches to keep up with the pace of change. Citizen Development provides business leaders with an opportunity to drive change without relying on scarce and expensive core technology, IT, and engineering talent. Training and governance are critical.

Equally important, as organisations progress with their digital transformation efforts, they should never forget to put their people at the centre of it.

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I agree wholeheartedly, Tony! Putting people at the center of your Digital Transformation efforts is so important.

Michael Cantu and I talk about this in our best-selling book, No-Nonsense Digital Transformation. We address mindset, culture, and properly planning your transformation efforts, among other topics.

Speaking of our book, we are excited to announce the launch of the paperback version sometime next month! To learn more, click the button below.

Many business leaders who are new in their roles and are responsible for improving their organization's profitability may not know where to start to achieve profitable growth. With so many options on the table, knowing which path to take can be challenging.

If that's you, check out the following five things an organization can do to improve its bottom line:

1. Establish a Culture Employees Love

According to McKinsey, companies with cultures ranking in the top quartile of the Organizational Health Index post a 60% higher return to shareholders and 200% higher than those in the bottom quartile.

There’s no easy formula for creating a great culture, and I certainly can’t do this subject justice in a 500-word blog. The foundation starts with valuing each individual, giving them a voice in everyday matters, and creating an environment where employees love to come to work. Then, build from there.

2. Establish Goals Everyone Can Buy Into

When business leaders establish top-level goals and all levels of the organization establish their goals in support of them, that's an excellent place to start. However, the employees have to buy into their plans. Executives must cast a vision of where the organization is heading and the employee’s role in getting there. If employees don’t connect to the big picture, productivity can suffer, and the organization’s profitability could follow suit.

3. Emphasize the Use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Successful organizations use KPIs to measure progress towards their goals, Even if you're currently using KPIs, it’s important to tie them directly to your most critical operations. That way, you can stay on top of progress towards your goals. By monitoring your KPIs, you’ll be alerted when measures are trending downward, so you can intervene more quickly with solutions.

4. Streamline Your Processes

Organizations with streamlined business processes experience a reduction in costs, increased revenue, and improved profitability. Take Merchants InsuranceGroup. After streamlining their Portfolio Management area operations, they improved on-time project delivery to 80% and achieved a 758% revenue growth in the first two months.

For your operations, focus first on improving your processes that are the most significant cost drivers and have the most time-consuming tasks. By doing so, you're likely to experience more significant gains on a shorter timetable.

5. Automate Your Processes

When organizations automate their business processes, it’s a powerful tool for reducing costs, improving productivity, and increasing profitability. It's not uncommon for productivity to increase by over 300% with workflow automation over previous processes.

A great plan is to automate recently improved processes. By doing so, you can achieve even more significant cost reductions and productivity increases than through process improvement alone.


Speaking of process automation, I had the privilege of talking about this as a recent guest on the ThriveRadio podcast. I also shared my beginnings as a consultant, what keeps me inspired on my entrepreneurial path, and a little bit about No-Nonsense Digital Transformation.

​​I'd love for you to check it out! Click the below to access the pod.

One challenge facing businesses these days is how to provide top-tier customer service.

This reality is especially true due to the current labor shortage of qualified customer service agents. In light of this fact, what steps can companies take to elevate their customer service capabilities?

One shining example is the pet care company, Chewy. I recently had one of the best customer journeys I've had in a long time, and my experience with them serves as the inspiration and case study for today's blog.

Here are three things that Chewy does with excellence that if all businesses would do, they'd reap incredible benefits:

1. Notify Customers of Actions You Plan to Take

When I ordered some dog food several months ago from Chewy, I forgot to cancel my auto-ship feature with them. I realized this when I received an email letting me know Chewy planned to auto-ship a bag of dog food the next day.

Now, this would have been a simple fix if I had read that email the day I received it, but I didn't. So, the next day, I received a notification that Chewy had shipped my order.

If I hadn't seen the notifications, I would have never known there was a problem in the first place until the box showed up on my front doorstep.

2. Make it Easy and Enjoyable for Your Customers to Get Help

After discovering this news, I pulled up their app on my phone. I was happy to find Chewy's phone number displayed right at the top, making contacting Chewy simple.

After I clicked on the number, their phone system immediately connected me with a super personable and fun-to-talk-to agent.

3. Fix the Problem Until Your Customer is Satisfied

Within a matter of minutes, the rep had cheerfully canceled my auto-ship, refunded my money, and told me that if he didn't catch the auto-ship in time and I didn't need it, to donate the $43 bag of dog food to a shelter. There was no need to return it nor pay for it. He did a great job solving my problem quickly and to my satisfaction, and it was all accomplished in 5 - 10 minutes. I was delighted with the result!

One More Bonus Point…

A common thread throughout my positive experience with Chewy made it possible: their current workflow automation platform. It fuels their ability to satisfy their customers highly. The right tool can certainly do that! But, the right workflow automation platform can also help offset the challenge associated with labor shortages of qualified agents or other employees.

How is this possible? I'm glad you asked!

When a company can consistently help customers more quickly (like Chewy does), productivity can increase significantly, decreasing the need for more representatives. This capability can allow organizations to provide more amazing customer experiences through their current staff.

And who wouldn't want that?

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Are you intrigued?

If so, Michael Cantu and I would love to chat with you! Michael's automation platform, Accelerate, has consistently achieved over a 300% increase in productivity for his clients.

If you’re interested in learning more, click the button below.