We are in the middle of a revolutionary transition; the fourth industrial revolution if you wish – the Digital Transformation (DX). Everywhere you go, the digital wave is sweeping through industries and permanently changing businesses, consumers, and how the two interact. In this article, we look at DX in detail. How could it impact your business and how can you prepare for the transformation? First, though, a definition.

 

Block chain network concept , Distributed register technology , Block chain line of participant chain. 3D Rendering

What is Digital Transformation?

The MIT defines digital transformation as the use of technology to radically improve performance or reach of an enterprise. It can also be defined as the digitalization of most processes in a business or organization. 

How Digital Transformation Can Help You

Primarily, digital transformation impacts three things: 

  • Customer understanding 
  • Top-line growth
  • Customer touch points
  • Customer Understanding 

Companies are taking advantage of previous investments in their business systems to learn about customer geographies and market segments. Some are also using social media to try to understand what makes customers happy. You’ll also find others building online communities to promote their products while building customer loyalty. 

Then, you also have an increasing number of brands and businesses utilizing analytics software to understand customer behavior better. Some of the top brands, for instance, are using analytics-powered experiments to drive customer behavior. There are restaurants, for example, currently conducting experiments in pricing and promotion across global enterprises to use  prices to influence demand. 

  • Top-Line Growth

When it comes to top-line growth, the majority of companies are using tech to enhance in-person sales conversations. Take an example of today’s financial companies. Most of these companies now use tablet-based presentations instead of paper-based slides when making sales pitches. Then, you have insurance firms introducing mobile tools to help sales reps engage consumers better.

Better understanding helps these companies transform the sales experience. These digital tools allow companies to capture useful data. When analyzed, the data enable marketers to derive useful information to help deliver personalized sales, services and experiences. A hospital, after gathering and analyzing lots of data can, for example, send location-targeted messages. The result is greater convenience for the customer and shorter time-to-sale for the brand.

  • Customer Touch Points

Finally, digital transformation is also critical in creating additional customer touchpoints for flawless customer experiences. In the traditional setup, customer service begins after the customer makes contact with a potential seller. This approach, though effective, creates many stumbling blocks. For instance, it limits consumers’ choices. In most cases, the consumer reaches the seller with one fixed item in their mind. Additionally, the approach makes the consumer’s journey unnecessarily long.

The digital transformation revolution completely changes this paradigm. Rather than wait for the customer to reach out to you, businesses and brands reach out first. If a bank customer has a problem with their account, for example, the customer doesn’t have to go to the bank’s branch physically. Instead, the bank reaches out by making it possible for the customer to get support via social media, email, text, and phone calls. When it comes to shopping, many retailers now also allow customers to make orders from home.

Business transformation

In the end, the digital transformation wave promises to revolutionize pretty much every process in business or organization. Digitization of processes boosts worker enablement by automating specific processes, improving collaboration, and creating new networking avenues. It also promotes performance management and has played a starring role in globalization efforts.  

How to Make the Transformation

The process of digital transformation is a long and delicate one. You’ll need a plan, significant goodwill, and as much help as you can find. Essentially though, the process can be accomplished in four steps. 

  • Assess your current state

Before commencing the transformation, executives must clearly define what’s currently happening within the organization. What processes call for a digital transformation? Where have current demands not been met? In which areas is production lagging? What customer processes could be accelerated? These are the questions to ask in this step. 

The reason you need to ask these questions is that digital transformation is here to solve problems – not to create another silo. Businesses that transform their operations successfully are those that first identify a problem and use digital technology to address these specific problems. 

  • Identify the right technology 

A digital transformation doesn’t mean you adopt any technologies you come across. That’s impossible. Instead, it’s about finding the right solutions for your challenges. If you feel your company needs to improve the accounts department to cater to more customers with little downtime, for example, find cloud accounting solutions. 

Still, on finding the right solutions, we have to stress the need to find the right partner. Your technology partner can make or break your transformation. You need to find a partner that understands your type of business and has handled similar transformations. More importantly, choose a widely experienced tech partner. 

  • Plan for training and onboarding 

Getting employees to buy into new technology can be a significant stumbling block. That’s because it forces these people to completely unlearn processes they’ve used for years and learn something they probably didn’t see coming. You, therefore, need to have change champions within the different departments. Also, schedule multiple workshops to preach the transformation message.

Aside from that, it’s also important to plan the training in advance. The best training method at the moment is digital training that enables contextual learning. Primarily, learners are walked through real-time navigational prompts and on-screen guides so that they learn while also completing tasks.

  • Plan for feedback 

Finally, after the training is done, the actual transformation begins. The most important thing at this stage is feedback. Remember that no one learns everything in one sitting. Therefore, you need a robust change management infrastructure in place to address employee frustrations, resistance, and disengagement. 

Open communication is also critical. Ensure that your employees feel free to share their experiences and challenges during the transformation. This way, you can address any issues right away.

Remember to keep the process open-ended

As mentioned, digital transformation is an ongoing process. New technologies are created every single day. You’ll periodically need to adopt some of these technologies as you update or upgrade your systems.  Keep your systems are open-ended, so it becomes easy to add to or update your technologies as needed. To prepare for transformations and conduct them properly you will need a reliable tech partner. United Perectum is the right choice if you’re looking for modern, relevant and professional solutions that will help your business grow.