The Path To Digital Transformation

The debate whether a business should transform with the digital times is over. With increasing numbers of individuals spending more and more time on their digital devices, and so many background economic processes taking place digitally now, chances are most organisations have started their transformation without even realising it. There are four main areas any organisation should focus on when initiating digitalisation. However, it is important to keep in mind that the path to digital transformation does not have a destination. The technological world is ever-changing, and thus business will have to adapt processes to keep up constantly.

1. Technology

Think about how many organisational areas have gone digital now. Accounting, project management, meetings, internal memos, finances, HR, PR, retail. Businesses that still deposit cash physically, or who regularly printing out meeting notes for all in attendance, should invest in technologies that can save time and resources. One example of these is online collaborative scheduling, as offered by Google Calendar and similar websites, which allows teams to all see each other’s work schedules and thus plan projects and tasks better.

2. Value Creation

Traditionally, businesses have been able to drive value for customers through physical means, like 2-for-1 coupons or competitions to win over-night stays. Today, added to these value offerings, consumers want to see value where they hang out: in digital spaces. Content marketing is just one of the countless ways that brands can offer value online through the use of informative blog articles, helpful checklists, video content, online competitions, etc. It’s much easier to facilitate value for each customer online than it would be trying to do the same in-person.

3. Organisation

When we bring new technologies and different ways of value creation into a business, there will be certain organisational infrastructure changes that might need to occur. Questions to answer at this stage include: who will be responsible for managing the digital transformation? How will the organisation’s digital capabilities be bundled and eventually expanded? Some businesses might have to adopt new roles, processes, and activities once implementing their digital transformation.

4. Financials

It stands to reason that real digital transformation is going to affect the bank balance. How else can a business invest in new digital technologies without being able to afford them? Since digital transformation is an ongoing process, financial departments will have to look at ways to either generate more revenue to cover the added transformation expenses – or reduce overheads and save capital where possible to ensure that a “digital transformation” fund is available should the organisation have to scale up at some point.

Digital transformation, while often financially taxing, offers countless benefits to any organisation – almost immediately.

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