Do you want to maintain the success level of your business in this advanced era? If your answer is yes, digital transformation is the only way to move forward. Nowadays, technology provides validation for success and allows for transforming the corporate landscape. Leaders are aware of the potential benefits of digital transformation; that's why they don't want to pass on this golden chance. But in digital transformation initiatives, there is so much that you should learn. However, let’s explore this journey with the basic definition:
Table of Contents
What is digital transformation? A breakdown of the definition:
Nowadays, digital transformation has become one of the most critical topics in the business world. In today’s world, digital transformation is an alternative word for digitalization. It is one of the most famous technologies for automating processes and activities. Now startups are using technology to win the hearts and minds of people. But digital transformation is a vast concept that involves other changes. For instance, we can implement this concept in various industries. Usually, digital transformation uses for the following purposes:
| Helps to design new products and services | Automate processes and activities | Improve customer experience |
| Helps to streamline operations | Decrease costs |
In simple words, in this concept, we use technologies to reduce or solve problems and improve processes. However, if used correctly, it gives unprecedented value to the customer. But if companies don’t implement it correctly, the whole process will be unsuccessful.
Importance of digital transformation:
After knowing the basic definition, you should be aware of its importance. The journey of digital transformation can bring fruitful results if implemented correctly. So, it’s a powerful tool that helps businesses move forward in a new way. It includes the following technologies:
| Mobile | IoT | Digital Twin |
| Robotics | Cloud | Artificial intelligence |
| Augmented reality | Additive manufacturing |
Apart from this, it provides a range of opportunities that allow you to strengthen existing services. There are the reasons why you should choose to go on this journey right now:
- Helps to improve customer experience and engagement
- Increase the overall efficiency of the organization
- Improve business decision making
- Perform best when it comes to enhancing innovation in business
- Transform the business in a best possible way
In short, digital transformation helps your organization to earn more profit by improving processes and automation. For instance, an online paystub generator is a strong example of automation that makes payroll management easy.
How to improve the journey of digital transformation? Steps-to-step guide:
A digital transformation strategy is a detailed plan that organizations use to enhance the aspect of digital business engineering.
“Only eight percent of survey respondents claimed that their company is fully digitized.”
(Jabil’s digital transformation trends survey of 2018)
Apart from this, 31% responded that their digital transformation is ad-hoc, and the other 31% shared that they are still working on a plan. But most companies don’t succeed in implementing digital transformation because they don’t follow the proper course. So, here is a step-to-step guide to this journey:
Build fundamental capabilities:
Before starting anything new, the first step is to work on the fundamentals. All businesses must work on the three fundamentals if they successfully want to manage the digital transformation journey.
| Awareness | Assessment | How to transform? |
| Identify market and pain points | Analyze priorities | Design an innovative scale |
| Set a benchmark | Focus on intangible assets and customer data | Optimize information |
| Assess skill set | Base a strategy | Connect Technologies |
| Build a roadmap for achieving current evolutions and opportunities | Include internal and external help | Build eco-system and platforms |
| Design communication bridges with customers and stakeholders | Get clear leadership and set goals | Learn, measure and re-assess |
Apart from this, don’t forget to decide your long-term, intermediate, and short-term objectives. Each step of the plan should be transparent for everyone.
Assess your current potential:
After assessing the meaning and definition of digital transformation, the next step is to determine where you are currently standing. You need to understand that success doesn’t happen overnight. The main thing in a journey is planning and execution. However, you must take a closer look, understand the current state, and evaluate each component. It would be best if you judged everything from the website, social media presence, customer relationship management, and other systems. In the end, the assessment will help you to identify gaps in the following areas:
| Strategy and company leadership | Technology | Operations |
| Data management | Customer relationship and experience | Company culture |
Moreover, setting realistic goals and building flexibility to accommodate future decision-making is essential. If the plan is solid, the results will be according to your expectations.
Establish the roadmap of digital transformation:
After identifying and assessing the current potential and challenges, you are in an excellent position to establish a plan. There are many plans that you can adopt for the digitization of the company, products, services, and customer experience. Here are some strategies that companies consider for digital transformation in the front and back end:
- Redesign experience of products and services to have digitization in your company
- Build the digital ecosystem by taking the help of the cloud and connectivity
- Monetize the data that you collected from IoT eco-systems for developing new features and solutions
- Transform operations using innovative ways like advanced automation, 3D printing, and machine learning.
Apart from this, don’t forget to build a robust IT infrastructure, as it’s the second biggest challenge that companies face. You need to understand that infrastructure is like a central nervous system for an organization.
Design a future roadmap:
Finally, you must understand that we live in a hybrid IT world. Now organizations are taking the journey of digital transformation to maintain their infrastructure. The perfect strategy is modernized and co-exists in a hybrid environment. An agile journey optimizes infrastructure and simplifies IT management on the backend to improve the user experience. However, as a result, you can benefit customers by transforming IT. But there are several skills that you need to operate the system successfully. So, it’s safe to say that high-quality human skills are also crucial for digital transformation.
