Growing Talent: How to Find the Right Digital Transformation Partner

Resourcing is top of mind for many companies, including financial and insurance service (FIS) organizations. The Great Resignation has made it a requirement for businesses to rethink staffing, recruiting, and retention. Today’s candidates and team members are looking for more than a job; they seek positions that will encourage and enable their growth and provide them with a career path.

Additionally, it’s also becoming apparent that organizations will need skilled help to achieve their business goals through partners and vendors. However, vendor and partner selection need to be done with retention and staffing in mind in the current environment.

Outside companies can help you grow your teams and provide a richer and more meaningful work environment. When searching for the right partner or vendor, choose partners that will challenge the status quo, are willing to teach, and have continuous learning baked into their culture.

Find partners who are willing to challenge the status quo

One of the dichotomies that financial services organizations must cope with is the need to present a face of stability and risk mitigation to investors and consumers while, at the same time, being ready and willing to adapt and change to stay innovative and competitive.

It’s essential to find partners and vendors that will challenge you and help you to think differently while bringing new ideas to the table. A sound strategy and capable digital transformation partner should combat expectations in which an underdeveloped vendor collaborates with an inexperienced partner to challenge them and experiment with new digital optimizations. It demonstrates less productivity than finding one who, from the beginning, has an interest in seeing your business and teams grow.

However, it appears counterproductive to your organizational development, and experimentation often feels "risky." Still, it is the best way to mitigate risk because significant spending in untested, unvalidated tech workstreams is far more likely to be wasted. So, here is where your organization can accept failure as equally valuable as success. In that validation, you will begin to see the power of fundamental Agile principles in play.

Find partners who are willing to enrich

There are, in essence, two philosophies that vendors adopt regarding the knowledge gaps in the companies they partner with. They either present opportunities to obtain skilled team members from the partner for short-term support or bring longer-term opportunities to do business with your organization to train and enhance your current team's skills.

For example, our FIS client had a team who had minimal experience with strategic planning and thinking. Because DMI has a human-centric approach to optimization, we worked with the organization to compile training materials to empower that same team to impact the business as the partnership advanced strategically. Teaching others to increase and hone their skills is embedded in DMI's culture and something we anticipated offering to this client.

Change is vital to growth, but it shouldn't create new intentions for your current processes. A solid partnership leaves your organization as it found it while adding improved development and positive outlooks for business growth. 

Find partners who commit to continuous education and learning

Training and learning should be essential elements for your teams. Technology moves fast, and if you hire resources only based on their current knowledge and deny them the chance to grow, they may be obsolete in a few years. With the wealth of positions available due to the Great Resignation, candidates (including your existing team members) can choose a role where their future is a priority.

Use that same mindset with your vendors and partners. Choosing a partner because they have experience in the one thing you need today is myopic. A partner who embraces continuous learning means their resources bring knowledge and experience to engagements and act on execution work while also being an advisor. 

At DMI, we love being the partner who has contributors that love to learn, and we encourage that. Still, it’s also about DMI’s ability to bridge the commitment between the traditional processes and learning new things and positive technological experimentations.

Nurture your FIS internal teams

DMI’s core values make us an ideal partner for those companies interested in growing their internal teams. We’re committed to the success of our clients and drive to support them to be innovators and change-makers, with their teams at the core of that success. 

We help prepare them for the end-to-endless process that is part of modern digital business by meeting companies where they are. Contact DMI today to learn more.