Digitisation is currently a particularly topical issue and the digital transformation is strongly driven and supported by the Austrian public administration. Viadonau, a state-owned company, has been challenged to find a suitable way of introducing digitisation and in autumn 2017, they initiated a digital transformation process to proactively meet customer requirements. The initiative started with a series of creative working sessions. The aim was to sharpen the digital mindset, collect initial experiences and generate ideas for process digitisation with prototyping methods. As the working sessions had been well received by the employees, the top management decided to set the digitisation process as a medium-term corporate target.
The viadonau business process management system represents an essential basis for the management and control of the core business of viadonau. The disruptive external changes that take place confront organisations with new challenges that have implications for every business and process model. The digitisation of a process, however, should be more than just the use of new IT technologies. It can be assumed that business processes will change structurally with the help of new information and communication technologies and systems. To comply with all these developments, it was necessary to analyse the current viadonau process model and to identify potentials for digital transformation.
An analysis was carried out both from the internal (organisational) perspective and from the external (customer) perspective. To make the digital transformation sustainable, the digital mindset was identified as a very important success factor. As a first step, the top management therefore decided to set conditions and requirements for a cultural change on the subject of digitisation.
The viadonau model also relied on targeted external expertise to reduce possible resistance and increase the employee motivation. The project started with creative phases. The primary objective was to facilitate a playful approach towards digital products and technologies. The participants learned which aspects of new technologies will actually form a fixed repertoire in the future, how they work and where they could be used in the processes. At the same time, it was important to communicate that not every analogue process can or should be digitised.
To establish the topic of process digitisation within the organisation, the management decided to set up the project as a long-term change project, which needs to be continuously promoted and supported by the employees.