Where to start

Where to start?

If Digital Transformation means that “workflows are simplified through automation to increase operational efficiency and standard processes will be automated”:

What does that mean to each Sea School that decides to start or to improve its digitalisation?

Depending on the Sea School’s:

• digital knowledge and skills,
• current level of digitalisation,
• individual goals, and
• means in form of funds and time.

The starting point of each Sea School, the actions needed, and the results will be very different. Therefore, a Sea School that wishes to develop its digital transformation must first take stock, recognise its current Status Quo, identify its objectives and decide how much time and money it wants or can invest into this process.
In the following this process of “taking stock” is explained in more detail and in a template table is provided that can be used for the individual evaluation.

 

STEP ONE: What is your DIGITAL Knowledge and Skills level?

The EU has developed the DigComp Framework and its newest publication “DigComp 2.2: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens – With new examples of knowledge, skills and attitudes” provides the table that lists different levels of digital competence. Table can be a guide that leads either to the need of acquiring further training in form of training (online or in person), determines the level of digital transformation or the need for outsourcing the digital transformation. Go through the list and check your digital knowledge and skills level.

 

STEP TWO:  What is your current level of digitalisation?

The next step is to check the Status Quo of the Sea Schools current level of digitalisation: Which areas in my Sea School are digitalised at the moment?
This is a very individual process and needs to be carefully reflected to determine the starting point the Sea School is at. If the organisation has several sites or locations or is splitting its operations into different business areas, then that might need a differentiated view and separate “taking stock”.

We suggest to rank the level of digitalisation on a scale of 1 to 5, reflecting the following levels:
1= not digitalised at all
2= very basic digitalisation
3= some activities are digitalised
4= fairly advanced digitalisation with some room of improvement
5= currently digitalised to the state-of-the-art

As digitalisation is moving forward very rapidly, it is also recommended, to evaluate the Sea Schools level of digitalisation regularly.

 

step three: what are your goals regarding digitalisation?

Means or maybe better constraints will determine, what is possible from the above “wish-list”. The main constraints in most businesses will be the factors:

• Skills (and knowledge)
• Time
• Money

The knowledge and skills and how to analyse the individual level and the possible need for further training were explained previously. If knowledge is a constraint and training necessary, then time and money are secondary factors that are needed to overcome any skills gaps. Another solution is possible outsourcing of the digitalisation, which again requires funds and time to find a suitable partner outside the own enterprise. Additionally, specific hardware and software might be necessary, which also carry a price and possibly a time factor for acquisition, installation and training.
Therefore each digital transformation actions needs to be critically reviewed for any possible constraints, because only with these clearly in mind, suitable solutions can be found.

Use table below to analyse your digitalisation level:

	Activities	Current level of digitalisation (level from 1 to 5)	Do I want to improve this? Yes or No	How much do I want to digitalise? (level of 1 to 5)	Can I/ my staff do it “in house”? Yes or No	What is the constraint? Skill, Time, Money	How can I overcome it?
Operations	Theory Courses
	Practical Courses
	Examination processes
	Cruise Planning
Human Resources	Staff admin
Marketing	Website Optimisation
	e-mail marketing
	Influencer -Marketing
	Social media – Marketing
Sales	Online-shop
	Payment systems
	Customer care and service
Finance	Accounting
Management	Full data processing
	Administra-tion
	Boat Care
	Privacy

 

step four: Decide which tasks and operations you want to digitalise

Usualy, a process which contains a lot of tasks related to data management, spread sheets, etc. should be among the first to be digitalised. Once the process has been picked, one can identify which steps for the process can be digitalised.
It is not mandatory to automate the whole end-to-end process, just think about what will provide the most value to your team and customers, and which steps have the greatest potential for automation.