Why There’s No Turning Back From Digital Transformation

The world has gone digital. There’s no going back. Almost every single person globally has a smartphone these days and they make use of these every day to help them make decisions, find brands to buy from or to learn more about a particular product.

While this may all sound like fantastic changes, it presents some unique challenges for organisation. And devoid of a path forward, some of those businesses may not make it through the next few years. Businesses are often slow to adopt digital transformation and many of these evolutions that come quickly through our digital world don’t come easily or cheaply.

Fundamentally, most digital technologies provide the possibilities for efficiency gains and customer intimacy. However, if people lack the right mindset to change – and the current organisational practices are flawed – digital transformation will simply magnify those flaws.

The Cost Of Not Embracing Digital Transformation

What characteristics do Amazon and Uber share? These businesses have been taking market share as the existing industries are not adapting their business models quickly enough. For example, e-commerce has grown at an exponential rate worldwide in the past few years however many businesses have shut down because they didn’t put an online store on their website or did not manage to offer quality sales services, such as delivery, product change or return policies.

A recent example of a failure of digitally transform a business is what happened to Toys’R’Us. This dominant American toy store was founded in the ’50s and filed for bankruptcy protection. This toy giant failed to keep pace with the shift to an online business model and, as a consequence, lost to its new competitors, such Amazon among others, who is the face of digital transformation. Countless more traditional retailers have lost their market position owing to the rising popularity of e-commerce as well as mobile commerce.

On another spectrum, there are companies like Uber which are offering an incredible digital experience to customers. You are able to easily download the app, register and then request a service. You know exactly which type of car you’ll be travelling in, how much time the ride will take, what the route will be as well as roughly how much you’ll pay.

Amazingly, the taxi industry is putting all its efforts into fighting off disruptive companies such as Uber and fail to see the big picture. A massive change is required in that sector and there’s a lot to be learned from Uber’s business model as well as processes. However, this isn’t recognized by the traditional taxi community and very little is being done to adapt and embrace digital transformation.

Digital transformation worked well for organisations such as Amazon and Uber as their leaders went back to the fundamentals. They focused on altering the mindset of its members as well as the organisational culture and processes prior to them deciding what digital tools to use in addition to how to use them. What the members imagined to be the future of the organisation drove the technology and not the other way around.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Digital transformation is here and there’s no escaping it. If you want to find out how to work this in your business then you need to do our Digital Transformation Course. For more information, please follow this link.