Sceptics may have viewed digital transformation to be yet another buzzword to add to the list at one point, but the Covid-19 pandemic has forced businesses to reconfigure their entire marketing strategies, with many deploying digital reforms in a very short period.
What is Digital Transformation?
The strategic application of digital technologies is referred to as digital transformation. It’s used to boost processes and production efficiency, provide better customer and employee interactions, monitor business hazards and keep costs under control. Digital transformation entails a plethora of tools, quick fixes, and processes. A successful strategy is tailored to the specific needs of each organization. In essence, digital transformation occurs when businesses use compelling technology to reshape their operations. It is a massive shift to consider how to digitalise every aspect of the organization as almost every aspect of the company now requires technology to function. It could be in any department: customer support, operations, or human resources, for example.
Throughout history, technological advances have disrupted existing industry methodologies and replaced outdated business methods with more enhanced solutions and ground-breaking technologies. Companies that have struggled to develop will have to revolutionize themselves inevitably to sustain. Businesses have been undergoing a digital transformation for decades. From minicomputers to desktop computers, the Internet, smartphone and cloud services, and the current state of AI-driven computer technology. However, the pace and scale with which digital transformation is needed following this pandemic are unexpected, and it will result in irreversible change throughout all industries.
Digital Transformation Driver: Survival
We can leave this section on digital transformation drivers with that single term. Businesses are concentrating on a digital transformation path to keep up with (and even outpace) rivals, incumbents, and new entrants in their business sector. Companies are hoping to substitute unproductive mechanisms with more efficient ones to become well-oiled machines. They must accept change or risk becoming victims of deterioration. Every business, every executive, every person, and every entity is now on a digital course. Businesses must choose whether to be adversely affected, monitor the disturbances, or lead the disruption.
What is Digital Transformation about?
1. Enhancing business value, not just streamlining business processes
It is not enough to simply use digital technologies to cut costs and speed up processes. The transition from your own Microsoft Exchange servers to Office 365 in the cloud does not constitute digital transformation. It’s the same email as before.
2. High-velocity time-to-market
Truth be told, speed is a critical component of business modification. When systems take months or even years to implement, the business requirements have frequently transformed by the time the new system is provided. You’re dealing with issues from yesterday. Digital transformation necessitates evolution that takes weeks or days from conceptualization to closure.
3. Agile development methods
Traditional businesses employ “waterfall” development methods. IT solicits business users for prerequisites, IT codes, and tests, and then months or years later, IT provides systems that do not rectify the business issue. One possible explanation why waterfall development is ineffective is that business users are frequently incapable of expressing their requirements. Steve Jobs once said, “It’s not the customer’s job to know what they want.” They’re operating with current systems and implementing adjustments regularly until they’re just perfect. It’s similar to shifting furniture. You and your spouse can argue about where to put the sofa for hours, or you can roll up your sleeves and keep moving the couch around, changing the location until it’s just fine.
4. Digital transformation tools are a pleasure to use
This gets to the core of why digitization is becoming so important: The IT sector is up against businesses whose products people enjoy using. People spend their weekends and evenings Instagramming and Facebooking and having a good time. They then arrive at work and struggle with the corporate invoicing system In the end, IT comes up short. It’s too much to expect the business invoicing system to be enjoyable to use.
5. Automation
Digital transformation necessitates the deployment of tools to automate management, freeing up monetary resources and personnel from operations to work that adds value to the business.
6. Crossing business and technology lines
IT collaborates with company users to establish systems that meet their needs to obtain digital transformation.
7. Leveraging emerging technology
To accomplish its goals, digital transformation employs tools such as containers, micro-services, open-source, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT). It’s theoretically achievable to attain digital transformation using COBOL programs on a mainframe made available via Windows XP.
8. Connecting partners and customers
IT isn’t just creating systems for co-workers; the platforms would be used by consumers, distributors, contractors, and other business associates.
Examples
Numerous success stories such as Uber, Amazon, and Facebook, can be attributed to digital transformation. But what about grocery shops that have made it simple to order and have your shopping list delivered online? What about the borrowing industry which has made it easier than ever before to get a loan sanctioned online? The examples are countless, and they apply to every sector. Big data, cloud, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are all assisting corporations in developing new methods of conducting business and introducing opportunities to transform established operational methods.
Target is enhancing the “guest experience” at its 1,806 stores by utilizing open-source, mobile, and other innovative technologies. It wants consumers to have the same outstanding experience whether they deal with Target in stores, on smartphones, or online. Allstate is reshaping business operations with cloud and other digital innovations to compete with fast-moving online-only start-ups like Lemonade. In addition, Liberty Mutual intends to move 60 percent of its volume of work to the public cloud, with 50 percent of apps releasing code to production every day and 75 percent of staff writing code.
Conclusion
The term “digital transformation” is a relatively new buzzword, but its origins go back a long way. We first heard about the need for IT to use Internet technologies to increase business importance in the 1990s. However, the need is no longer immediate; it is critical. The retail, hospitality, and cab industries are three examples of what transpires when incumbents are unable to employ digital transformation to compete with the Amazon, Airbnbs, Ubers, and Lyfts of the world.
