What Is Digital Transformation?

What Is Digital Transformation?

The simplest and the broadest explanation of digital transformation is that it’s the process in which your business incorporates digital solutions into every part of the business. Some businesses, the ones that are using digital-first solutions from their very start, don’t have to worry too much about it. Older businesses are the ones who can have a harder time adapting to and adopting digital technologies.

And they’re also the ones who desperately need it. Digital transformation can happen on two tracks simultaneously. The outward processes and products, the things the customers see and experience, are on one of the tracks. On the other, there are the internal processes, the stuff that’s happening behind the curtains or under the hood. For the best results, businesses, especially the more traditional ones, should invest in both.

What Does Digital Transformation Do for Your Business?

One of the best examples of the possibilities of digital transformation can be found in retail. The “retail apocalypse” started happening around 2010 and is still going on. In it, we saw retailers such as J. C. Penney, Sears, J. Crew, and many other large chains having to drastically reduce the number of brick-and-mortar stores in a last-ditch effort to stove off the inevitable and stay in business. Some were successful, others weren’t.

The businesses that thrived during the period, however, are those that adapted to the new reality of retail. The increased prominence of mobile-first shoppers shows just how much people are craving the convenience offered by digital solutions. But those same people might be unwilling to completely give up shopping in stores, which only goes to show how the analog and digital, the old and the new, need to mix.

The businesses that found success during the decline of retail are the ones that managed to harness the power of digital solutions. And even though some of them were the smaller and nimbler businesses that can adapt more easily to emerging circumstances, the lesson that’s present in the example should resonate with businesses of all sizes. The lesson is simple: digital transformation is the thing that can keep your business relevant.

How Digital Transformation Improves Business Processes

Relevance means little if your business can’t function, however. One of the promises of digital transformation is that the introduction of appropriate digital technologies will improve business processes to the point when your business starts functioning better.

How do you improve business processes? For starters, you separate them into components. There are specific procedures and types of work that need to occur. They all need to have outcomes that are aligned toward contributing to defined goals. And because customer-centricity is such a useful and desirable trait in businesses, the needs and habits of your customers should at least inform the design of your business processes.

Let’s see how digital transformation helps. Digitalisation and automation can quicken some procedures and make some types of work less expensive. When it comes to outcomes and goals, digital transformation can give you more data and better tracking, which will eventually lead to better decision-making. And because digital transformation goes hand in hand with greater data gathering and utilisation capabilities, you will have a better insight into what your customers want and when they want it.

All of this can improve the design and functioning of your business processes. Digital transformation should, in theory, help you do more with what you have. At the very least, it should get you to invest in the processes that affect your bottom line the most.  Ask us about our IT Services in Perth for the latest technology that applies to your business and to improve its efficiency.

How Is Staff Cooperation Changed by Digital Transformation?

One of the major changes digital transformations brings to the game is the support for geographically dispersed teams. The office, as it existed just a couple of decades ago, is being replaced by people working from home offices, co-working spaces, or even coffee-shops. This helps businesses keep the overhead in check and gives team members greater flexibility.

Cooperation itself doesn’t have to suffer much because there are tools that enable dispersed teams to negate the effects of the distance. Tools like the very popular Slack or Microsoft Teams let teams communicate easily via text, voice, or video chat. Tools like Asana, Trello, and Basecamp are there to provide the proper scheduling and tracking of work. And tools like Google Docs and Office 365 are there to easily share and collaborate on work products.

It also doesn’t hurt that digital transformation can open your business to a larger pool of international talent. Outsourcing is still popular but building international in-house teams can be an even better option. And again, the best way to make the most out of all these opportunities is to undergo a process of digital transformation in a way that makes the location of at least some of your teams and team members irrelevant.

Challenges of digital transformation

When done well, digital transformation can be a game-changing strategy for organisations. However, it can be an incredibly challenging process. There are several common challenges that organisations face when digitally transforming their business.

• Getting started
  It can be difficult to get started with digital transformation, especially if your organisation does not have a digital transformation strategy.
• Finding the right technologies
  Finding the right technologies for digital transformation can be difficult that best suits the organisation
• Organisational culture and readiness
  Getting an organisation ready for digital transformation can be a challenging process.
• Lack of employee engagement
  If a lack of employee engagement is a problem, it can slow down or undermine your digital transformation efforts.  Many staff a not open to changes to their current daily tasks.
• Funding and resources
  Organisations need to have the funding and resources necessary to transform successfully digitally.
• Measuring ROI
  Without a clearly defined digital transformation strategy, it can be difficult to measure ROI.
• Identifying opportunities
  It can be difficult to identify the right opportunities for digital transformation.

Identifying the right technology for your digital transformation

The first step in your digital transformation journey is to identify the right technologies for your organisation. There are many different types of technologies that you can consider, including AI and machine learning, blockchain, cloud computing, cybersecurity, Internet of Things (IoT), robotics and virtual reality (VR).

Deciding which technologies to invest in and which ones to prioritise can be challenging. You can start by assessing the state of your organisation and identifying its current strengths and weaknesses. You can then use that information to identify your organisation’s technology gaps, system processes and determine which technologies you need to digitally transform your organisation.

Steps to implementing your digital transformation strategy

After you have identified the right technologies for your digital transformation, and have decided which ones to prioritise, you need to put those technologies in place.

This process is known as implementation. There are several steps that organisations can take to successfully implement new technologies.

• Define your change management process
  The first step is to define your change management process. This process will help you manage the various challenges that you will face during digital transformation.
• Assess the current state
  After you have defined your change management process, you need to assess the current state of your organization. What are the current state of your operations and assets? What is your current customer experience? What are your current processes and workflows?
• Plan for the transition
  Once you have assessed the current state, you need to plan for the transition to the new technologies. You will want to plan for the initial transition, and then determine how you will sustain the new technologies in the long term.
• Implement the technologies
  Finally, you need to implement the technologies that you have prioritised. You can start with one technology at a time, but it is often helpful to select several technologies to implement at once.

Measuring the success of your digital transformation

It is important to know if your digital transformation efforts are successful. You can measure the success of your digital transformation in a few different ways.

• Internal metrics
  You can measure the success of your digital transformation efforts internally, through metrics such as employee satisfaction, process improvements and productivity.
• Customer engagement and satisfaction
  You can also measure the success of your digital transformation efforts through your customers.  Whether their purchase and service are streamlined, or better customer service is provided because of the digital transformation efforts.
• External metrics
  You can also measure the success of your digital transformation efforts through external metrics, such as industry rankings and financial results.

Takeaway

It would be dishonest to say that digital transformation is an effortless process or a process that guarantees results. But it would be even more dishonest to say that it’s a needless process, or a process a business can afford to avoid. Digital transformation gets difficult, and it takes a lot of planning and strategising if you want to ensure successful implementation.

But managing to implement it will give your business a clear competitive edge over the businesses in your industry that are still too analog for their own good. And it might even help your business survive in situations where odds are against you like it did for many retail businesses who survived — and thrived — during the retail apocalypse. The bottom line is the age-old proverb that you’ll either adapt to the new ways of doing business or die with the old ones.