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Digital Transformation: 9 Elements for Success

Digital Transformation

By Marie WeaverPublished about a year ago 10 min read
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Digital Transformation: 9 Elements for Success
Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash

Digital transformation, the idea of improving business processes through the use of emerging technologies and human-centered design thinking, seems to be everywhere today, with everyone talking about it in one way or another.

It has been heralded as the next step in business evolution since the 1990s, but only now are companies truly beginning to implement it on a large scale. The challenge of digital transformation lies in the fact that it’s more than just one initiative; it involves multiple changes throughout the organization, from implementing new software and hardware to retraining staff on new systems and processes.

But what exactly makes up this transformation? What are some key elements of digital transformation that can help your business become more efficient? Let’s take a look at the nine elements of digital transformation and how they affect our daily lives as consumers and how they can help businesses improve their operations and make better products or services available to us at lower costs or with better features.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital Transformation is defined as a process that allows businesses to create systems, applications and organizations, without being limited by the constraints of their current business structure or environment. Achieving Digital Transformation means adapting to a new reality where customers interact with brands in ways they never have before. As a result, companies must redefine themselves and rethink how they approach technology in order to succeed.

Actually digital transformation encompasses two separate yet equally important questions: what does digital transformation entail? and how can organizations digitally transform? Organizational transformations rely on tactical shifts within existing processes. Digital transformations are measured not by changes inside an organization, but rather in the degree of change that takes place in an organization's external environment as they seek to meet their customers' demands over time.

Benefits of Digital Transformation for Small Businesses

Businesses, startups or enterprises, can benefit from digital transformation in a number of ways. For starters, they'll be able to differentiate themselves by offering services that larger competitors aren't yet capable of providing. They'll also have the opportunity to engage their customers in new and innovative ways.

Additionally, the small size of these companies means that they're often more agile and able to experiment with new technologies or ideas without the fear of jeopardizing an entire company's worth of work. Here are some additional benefits for digital transformation for small businesses:

  • Increased customer engagement
  • Cost savings through automation
  • Enhanced productivity due to the increased adoption of remote workers
  • Reduced need for expensive physical office space
  • More job opportunities due to demand for digital marketing expertise - Improved communication between employees and stakeholders
  • The ability to take advantage of location independent working
  • Businesses will be better positioned for future trends such as artificial intelligence, IoT, and robotics ; all of which are expected to continue disrupting markets over the coming years.
  • Global competition is fierce and digitization is playing a key role in market share battles around the world.

In 2017, $1 trillion was invested into global technology firms while only $7 billion went towards enterprise software startups. One thing this tells us is that established firms are looking for ways to grow their presence online, as opposed to startup ventures who don't have any experience building technology products yet want to jump right into building a product from scratch.

Challenges of Implementing Digital Transformation

The biggest challenge of implementing digital transformation is having the right people to manage it. It takes a different type of person with a different skill set to move away from traditional management and do more, in terms of technology. The other challenges are change management and the creation of new revenue streams.

Change management is the largest issue organizations face when attempting to implement digital transformation strategies because most organizations are not used to changing what they have been doing for so long.

They will need buy-in from all levels, which can be difficult because many workers are resistant to changes that may disrupt their daily routines.

Revenues also pose an issue because some organizations rely heavily on revenue generated by physical stores or services and may not want to risk losing this revenue by introducing too much digital content into their portfolio.

One of the best ways to address these issues is to establish a clear plan for implementation and stick to it.

Clear goals, timelines and success metrics should be established before any steps are taken towards digital transformation so everyone involved knows where they stand, who is responsible for what tasks, how progress will be measured and why these changes are happening.

Have a look at 9 digital transformation elements:

Customer understanding

The customer is at the heart of every digital transformation. To effectively meet their needs and optimize the customer experience, you need to gain a deep understanding of what they want. When it comes to the customer, you don't want to just know who they are and where they live--you also want to know what they like and dislike.

With this knowledge, you can help them achieve their goals by using your products or services in ways that make sense to them. The better you understand them, the more successful your business will be.

Enhanced sales pitches

When it comes to digital transformation, many organizations are still using the old approach of doing business. A customer can buy a product or service in person or online and sales representatives will then contact them to follow up on the purchase.

The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t take into account how much time is wasted by waiting on customers to call in, and many customers aren’t returning calls due to pushy sales tactics. By introducing more enhanced sales pitches, businesses can reduce the time spent on outreach and get closer to their customer base.

The key to transforming your company into a digital powerhouse is removing barriers for your customers so they feel like they’re being heard by a human rather than an automated system.

Customer touch points

To remain competitive, companies must stay on top of what customers want. A customer touch point is any interaction a customer has with your company, whether it's online or in person. Customer touch points are not the same as marketing touch points because they don't have to be commercialized.

They may just be informational, such as an email newsletter. Regardless of the type of customer touch point you're using, these nine elements need to be present to ensure success:

Automation

A business can't grow without automation. Automation is a big part of the digital transformation process and it doesn't just stop at automating your manual tasks, it's about automating everything you do.

Automation is about maximizing your efficiency, getting the maximum amount of work done in the minimum amount of time. The more that you automate, the less time you need to spend on repetitive tasks which will free up your time to focus on bigger tasks and opportunities.

By automating your business processes with software like TSheets, you'll be able to track how much time each task takes to complete so that you can set efficient work schedules and ensure that all work is completed efficiently.

Virtualizing individual work

It is important to think about the environment in which people work. We are not just talking about physical office space, but also their virtual workspace and tools. If there are too many applications and platforms to access, they will become overwhelmed and distracted.

This can lead to an unhappy workforce, lost productivity and unappealing customer service. Virtualizing individual work can be one of the most important aspects of digital transformation as it can help make work more enjoyable again. It also eliminates the need for expensive office space or technology upgrades.

Performance management

Performance management begins with establishing goals for both the individual as well as the organization. Goals should be challenging but achievable so that there is room for growth without being unreachable.

The benefits of clear, well-defined and measurable performance expectations include reduced employee turnover, improved productivity, increased customer satisfaction and better retention of top talent. For an established business this can mean doubling in revenue or market share in a year’s time while reducing costs by 50%.

The key to good performance management is to set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely). Each goal should be reviewed regularly and changes made when necessary to keep them on track.

The most successful managers focus on coaching employees rather than imposing demands on them in order to reach their objectives. The more employees are engaged in the process the more they will buy into it resulting in higher levels of commitment from everyone involved.

Digitizing the businesses

The first step in digitizing your business is to figure out what you want to digitize. Is it your marketing materials? Your customer service? Maybe you want to work on digitizing the product design process, or maybe the entire production process, from start to finish. There are a lot of different options, so take some time and think about what you want to achieve before doing any planning.

Once you know what you're going for, there are a few important things that need to be taken care of in order for this process to succeed. First, make sure that everyone who's involved with the project is on board with it.

Second, hire a digital transformation team - experts who will make sure everything goes according to plan without being disruptive to day-to-day operations. Next, get together all of the information you'll need in order to execute this project successfully - like where all of your data is stored (some companies even move their data into new cloud services), which tools you'll use during the transition period, etcetera.

Introducing digital products

The goal of digital transformation is to create a culture that embraces and relies on digital products. One of the ways to increase your chances of achieving this goal is to introduce digital products and services in a way that’s both seamless and intuitive, so you can entice new customers while not alienating your current customers.

It's important to understand that no matter how innovative your product or service might be, it's only going to take off if people know how to use it. Another important point worth mentioning is security. It's essential that any digitally-transformed company takes their customer's data seriously by protecting it through encryption, two-factor authentication, tokenization or hashing (it helps prevent unauthorized access).

Digital transformation doesn't stop with just introducing digital products though; they also need to deliver a high-quality customer experience. Part of what makes an experience high quality are well-designed features and functions within the app - something which users notice quickly - but there are many other components too.

Digital globalization

Digital globalization is the movement of ideas, people, goods, services, and capital across national borders facilitated by digital technologies. The consequences of this phenomenon are as varied as the individuals and institutions impacted by it.

For some, digital globalization has brought about many improvements such as increased efficiency and access to information. For others however, there have been serious repercussions such as unemployment or decreased wages due to competition from those in countries with cheaper labor costs.

It is important to note that these benefits and detriments are not experienced equally across all nations; they vary depending on how developed a country's economy is and how much they rely on exports or imports. These consequences may be either positive or negative depending on an individual's perspective and his/her relationship with digital globalization.

Conclusion

I hope this guide has helped you get a better understanding of what digital transformation is and how it might be able to help your business. Digital transformation is not just a new strategy, it's an entirely new way to operate. Those who have successfully undergone digital transformation have completely different DNA than before.

Every aspect of an organization needs to be digitally transformed for success. Change management is key when undergoing digital transformation and should be led by the CEO. You should hire a software development company in the UK to ensure digital transformation for your business.

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About the Creator

Marie Weaver

Tech Consultant at well established IT company specializing in enterprise web application development, mobile apps, iOS App Development Services, IoT, Cloud and Big Data services.

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