Why You Need Digital Transformation in an Ever-Changing Market
Digital transformation refers to the use of digital technology to address traditional problems and business functions. It’s the application of technology in new and often startling ways which fosters innovation and creativity.
Three Key Features of Digital Transformation
In order to stay competitive within their industry, businesses need to fully embrace digital transformation. Here are the three key features of digital transformation, and why they matter to a company’s longevity.
1. Everything Is Moving Faster
The most salient feature of digital transformation is its ability to increase the speed at which everything happens. We’ve been seeing this effect in our world at large for quite some time now. For example, consider the shift from traditional banking to online banking. Not too long ago, people had to stand in long lines at the bank to cash a check. Now, people can use their phones to take a photo of a check and the money is sent directly to their bank accounts.
What used to take days, if not weeks, now takes a few hours. For businesses, such changes have profound implications on the way they operate.
In a digital environment, it’s not just the technology that is constantly changing. Data flows through businesses faster, more frequently and at greater volumes. Businesses are expected to handle this flow adeptly and to extract increasingly more sophisticated insights to present more personalized user experiences.
Whereas personalization may have once given a competitive edge to a few savvy companies, the average consumer is becoming more digitally literate as technology permeates every aspect of our lives. Keeping pace with customers is not optional.
2. The Real World Happens in Real Time
Digital transformation is about more than just staying current with technology. It’s also about staying relevant to customers and current market trends. In other words, businesses are expected to operate in real time, responding to shifts in markets and situations with unparalleled agility. This is especially important in critical situations such as:
- Cybersecurity and disaster response
- Information that goes viral on social media
- Product flaws or bugs in UX designs
- Trending products or services
- Social and political climates
- Industry disruptions
A nimble response not only protects the interests or assets of a business and its clients; it also opens doors which may only exist for a few moments. The ability to respond rapidly, with poise, is key to business survival. By accessing real-time data and deploying changes instantly, businesses can ensure their users enjoy quicker and more relevant experiences.
Real World Takes on a New Meaning
What constitutes the real world also takes on an entirely new meaning in the digital transformation world. Digital businesses align with the reality that the digital and analog no longer exist in discrete spheres. That means businesses need to reconsider the way they interact online and offline, or digital and physical. For example, organizations can use O2O (online-to-offline) commerce to bring online customers to brick-and-mortar locations while creating a seamless digital experience throughout the whole purchasing process.
3. Ideas About Processes, People, and Products Are Challenged
Digital transformation continues to change the way business is done. A digital-first model is challenging ideas about processes, people and the products themselves. This is manifesting in ways such as:
- Embracing the Agile methodology to help their decision-making processes become faster and more efficient
- Increasing cross-departmental collaboration
- Rethinking legacy processes to keep up with competitors
- Looking at how other markets increase efficiencies through DevOps
- Reconsidering what traits the ideal candidate must possess for a specific role
In short, digital transformation turns traditional business models on their heads, unbarring the way for novel and creative methods to replace unwieldy processes which cannot adjust to a digital reality.
A very common result is that developers, product designers and business people work together in unprecedented ways to achieve objectives from improved product design to the perfect development team. This represents a culture shift, which is what lies at the core of digital transformation.
Every Company Needs Digital Transformation
Digital transformation is the future of business. At its heart, digital transformation is about changing the way a company thinks about and approaches its work. A company which can adapt to the market in real time, leverage predictive analytics and provide a superior customer experience has a strategic advantage over the competition.
To learn more about how you can modernize your organization with digital transformation and improve your organization’s tech capacity for the future, reach out to our Managed IT team and speak to one of our experts today!