The Ultimate Guide to Digital Transformation

It may seem that digital transformation is making companies modernize their business models, the reality is that digital transformation is customer-driven. There are few aspects of our lives that remain untouched by technology. For example, technology wakes us up in the morning and keeps us company until we retire to bed. Customers are always connected and they typically desire real-time interactions facilitated by digital transformation.

Modern technology has a ubiquitous stronghold in our society and companies which fail to adapt are bound to have tapered growth. Therefore, a shift to a more modern approach would be well suited to put the customer first. Digital transformation is not an instant process. People generally don’t appreciate change so employees might be initially resistant to change.

Many companies and organizations were successful long before digital transformation. Some of them already had business structures or analog processes they followed. So switching to the digital era might seem costly or daunting since there is evidence that not every company succeeds after going digital.

Digital transformation is deeper than technology it is more about people and processes. It involves changing people’s habits, improving the organization, making processes streamlined, better metrics to measure progress, time, and resources. Everyone in the organization should adjust to digital transformation for it to be resoundingly successful.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation is a process of embedding digital technology into all aspects of an organization that result in increased value to customers. This fundamental change in how businesses operate and the value they deliver goes beyond traditional analog methods to empower business processes and performance. Therefore the isn’t only a process of optimization but development of new organizational strategies.

These changes affect how a business communicates with its customers and how they provide a unique and consistent experience with their customers. Since this change is usually customer-led, it tends to increase customer satisfaction and keep them highly engaged. When customers are satisfied they are more likely to recommend the offered product or service, try a similar service or product from that company, and use products or services more frequently.

Getting Started with Digital Transformation

It has been said that digital transformation can even challenge the existence of a market leader. Consider the case of Kodak, the company failed to apply digital transformation at the beginning of the computer age and ended up losing a large part of their market share. Kodak missed the key element of human focus, this mistake can be avoided. How can you get started with digital transformation and redesign business processes fundamentally?

1. Planning. Setup a roadmap for digital transformation, this would serve as a guide for the future. Put together an actionable plan which includes internal and external factors. Make sure to prioritize opportunities, and make timely schedules.
2. Budgeting. Build a healthy budget. This requires understanding what would create in the most expenses, then you can compare the cost versus the benefits. Also, try to use the existing resources to fulfill the digital transformation goals.
3. Personalizing customer experiences. Digital transformation is customer-driven. The customer wants to feel unique and have their preferences catered to. When customers are satisfied in this way, they are usually loyal and even recommend the organization to their peers. An essential approach to this is customer relationship management. Previous interactions between the customer and the company can be analyzed to pinpoint where there can be an improvement. It is also important to give customers a seamless multi-channel experience.
4. Prioritizing Business Objectives. Digital transformation can help improve efficiency in business objectives and generate the best business outcomes. The results are usually positive and vary from better record-keeping to improved customer care. Also, digital transformation allows the company to have insights into their customers’ preferences. This information can be used to prioritize and improve business objectives.  ‍

Challenges of Digital Transformation

Process improvement is vital for company growth, but the process of digital transformation is not an instant process. There are various challenges a company or organization will face when the process starts.

• There is organizational resistance to change, especially when the company’s business model and policies have already succeeded in the past. For example, Blockbuster failed to improve and fulfill customer demand so it fell to current market leaders such as Netflix. There is also internal resistance particularly from workers who have been with a company for years and are used to a certain way of performing tasks.
• Without digital transformation, analyzing data sets tends to be difficult but a company or organization may already have a system in place for data extrapolation. Since data is the driving force and is often a determining factor in many of a company’s or organization’s approach, it should be prioritized and optimized.
• Old systems are woven into the fabric of the company. This makes change more difficult because it can seem like these systems are part of the company’s backbone. Though digital transformation can be expensive it is needed for a full system update and stamping out legacy systems which would eventually get obsolete. This improves company innovation and process optimization.

Benefits of Digital Transformation

Digital transformation affects a lot of the processes of a company or organization. It improves outcomes and results as well as making business models and company structures more efficient. No wonder why it is vital for company growth, but what other benefits can digital transformation provide?

1. Customer Experience: The use of smart technology will certainly benefit customers while providing each of them a unique experience. This is a core part of digital transformation that leads to customer satisfaction from the enhanced experience.
2. Data-based insights: These are great benefits of digital transformation. The capability to track metrics and analyze them in real-time offers insights and allows restrategizing or optimization of organizational processes.
3. Integrates process and operations: It improves communication between the business and the customer. It also facilitates collaboration across business departments as well as developing employees and letting them learn new skills such as cloud computing, machine learning, data analytics, and others. This creates a digital culture that improves teamwork and results.

Digital transformation should be highly specific to particular businesses or organizations, their customers, and their market share. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution but rather an approach that utilizes technology with a human focus. The elements of Digital Transformation include customer experience improvements, operational process enhancement, and business model adaptation.

   

About the Author

ByteScout Team of Writers ByteScout has a team of professional writers proficient in different technical topics. We select the best writers to cover interesting and trending topics for our readers. We love developers and we hope our articles help you learn about programming and programmers.