Companies that succeed in their digital transformation most often bring together expertise in commercial, technological and organizational areas.

These cross-functional teams have proven their value in the innovation phases.

Today, they play a crucial role in destroying organizational silos that can impede business change.

The composition of these teams requires a lot of thought.

Digital transformation requires specific skills

First, it is important to ensure that these teams (usually 8 to 12 people in total) are equipped with the appropriate skill sets and soft-skills to provide an enabling environment for the transformation.

Next, digital transformation teams need to think "from the outside in", adopting a new mindset. To do this, they need to leverage enterprise capabilities to rethink models and processes.

Finally, the skills required are cross-functional, with a mix of business and technology experience as well as process creation skills.

Some IT professionals, such as software developers, are obviously essential for a digital transformation.

Here are eight types of profiles - which combine business, technology and process expertise - that need to be recruited in order to consider a successful digital transformation.

1 - The digital transformation leader

Any major transformation project requires a seasoned leader. This is obviously the case for something as important as DX (short for digital transformation)

This key player has good soft skills, a strong sense of responsibility, and proven experience in managing the various aspects of digital transformation.

The leader will have a balance of technology and business skills to ensure both strong technical solutions and achievement of business goals. This will allow the leader to oversee all staff

2 - The Change Champion

The person in this unusual position must have excellent expertise in communication, cultural and organizational change.

She has a positive presence that allows her to both influence business leaders and connect with employees at all levels to advocate for transformation.

The change champion must be extremely agile to adapt to unexpected changes and shifts. He recognizes the need to change direction and pivot quickly to a new plan.

He will demonstrate how to respond effectively to change and also help others adapt.

3 - The technical engineer

The technical engineer defines the IT architecture required for the digital transformation (including ERP). Not only does he or she understand all the technology used today, but she can also imagine the technology that will be used in the future.

He has a good understanding of various technology architectures and integration models to leverage existing capabilities and is able to plug and unplug internal and external capabilities.

4 - The Data Architect

This critical contributor will describe the different use cases for data collection and guide how analytics projects will be implemented across the organization.

It can connect data applications with business outcomes at different levels.

It is by composing a complementary team that you arrive your digital transformation

5 - The UX / CX professional

The user experience or customer experience experts ensure that technology solutions are developed with the end user in mind.

So, the person in charge of this mission is an expert on the field of human interaction-centered design. She has a critical eye on the technological solution, which must be primarily aimed at customers who no longer want interminably long manuals to understand features.

6 - The financial analyst

This DX team member is responsible for ensuring that the digital transformation is profitable.

He analyzes the financial value framework of the initiative and its profitability. It provides a critical element that is sometimes overlooked even though this data is the evidence of a successful or unsuccessful transformation.

The relationship between digital transformation and business value is a key factor in the success of the initiative.

The relationship between the financial analyst and the entire rest of the team as well as your company's finance department must be a priority, the continued funding of digital projects depends on it.

A first step is to present all IT projects with a return on investment!

For example, don't know how to measure the ROI of your content marketing? Go check out this article.

Although many digital projects are aimed at targets that won't pay off until much later, it's essential to make a strong financial case at any project milestone.

7 - The Inbound Marketing Expert

Inbound marketing is based on a content creation strategy that attracts visitors in order to convert them into leads and then into customers, thanks to techniques such as marketing automation, lead nurturing and content creation.

The Inbound Marketing expert is essential to your digital transformation because he takes care of creating quality content in order to attract prospects on the page. Moreover, he manages the database of attracted contacts in order to convert them into customers.

It is on the Inbound Marketing expert that a successful digital transformation from a commercial point of view relies!

You now know the essential trades to launch a transformation that is critical to your business.

You are now ready to surround yourself with a dream team to successfully complete your digital transformation.