Digital transformation – the evolution of businesses

Digital transformation or “DX” is not just a buzzword – it’s a term that refers to the evolution of businesses across industries and sectors. Experts predict that by 2024, businesses will spend around $2.4 trillion on digital transformation initiatives alone.

The problem is that most people do not know how to start a digital transformation project. Either they assume that DX is just something you can do as an agile business with access to infinite technology, or they simply do not have the right resources to make the transformation happen.

Today, we are going to look at how you can start your own digital transformation efforts to give your business a decisive advantage.

Step 1: Define Digital Transformation Goals

The first and most important step of any digital transformation initiative is to know what you want to achieve with digital innovation. There are many ways for a business to digitally transform. For example, if your company’s primary goal right now is to improve customer retention, you’ll likely be looking for ways to digitally improve your customer experience strategy.

A CX-focused digital transformation strategy would use things like virtual agents, automated customer service systems, and chatbots to achieve the goal of gaining happier and more loyal customers. However, if you already have an excellent customer service strategy in place, your focus could be on running your business more efficiently with fewer downtime issues. In this case, to achieve your goals, you could optimize network performance and use real-time statistics to track issues.

Some of the most common goals of digital transformation are:

• Improving decision making through better access to information
• Streamlining operations to improve agility and cost-efficiency
• Simplifying service management to solve problems before they arise
• Redesigning processes to increase productivity and reduce costs
• Improving the end-user experience to increase loyalty

Step 2: Research Your Technology Enablers

Once you know what you want to achieve with your digital transformation initiative, the next step is to find the technology that will help you achieve your goals. For example, if your goal is to streamline your business operations and reduce costs, you might look for tools that can help you automate repetitive tasks and processes in your business.

Process automation solutions would allow you to simultaneously increase the efficiency of your teams so that employees can get more work done while reducing the amount of money you spend on additional employees to handle the excess workflow.

In today’s highly innovative digital world, you can find a number of technology solutions to solve the same problems. For example, you could aim to attract more satisfied customers by offering self-service solutions to your customers or creating service performance dashboards so you can track the efficiency of your tools. Choosing the right technology means considering what changes are best for your business and its goals.

Step 3: Find the Right Partners

Digital transformation is rarely an initiative that companies undertake alone. To succeed, you need access to vendors, suppliers, and experts who can not only provide you with the technology you need to transform, but also show you how to use those tools more effectively.

Ask yourself what you need most from a digital transformation partner. Are you looking for a company that offers solutions that are specific to the needs of your industry? Banking and insurance companies, for example, have unique needs when it comes to adding new tools and innovations to their technology stack.

The best digital transformation provider should have a wide range of forward-thinking technology tools to help you achieve your goals, whether you are interested in automated diagnostics, chatbots, or device management. Look for a partner who can educate you on your options, simplify implementation, and even guide your team as they adopt new tools,

The right partner also needs to be able to scale their services to meet the needs of your brand. As your business transforms and grows, the goals you want to achieve with your digital technology may also change.

Step 4: Prepare the Business for Digital Transformation

As exciting as a digital transformation project can be, these plans often come with some challenges to overcome. For example, one of the biggest challenges for businesses is change management and ensuring that digital transformation can happen at the right pace for the business. If you have not already, now is the time to start thinking about how you are going to introduce your business to new digital technology.

Do you have a rollout plan in place? Who among the employees who need access to your new digital tools should be allowed to test the software or hardware first? What kind of training will they need, and how can you encourage your early adopters to support other employees so they can use the new services, too?

If you have taken the time to select the right digital transformation partners, the companies you work with may also be able to help you prepare for this next step in digital transformation. Many of today’s most innovative tools are designed with ease of use in mind, making it easier to implement new features into your business.

As you prepare your business for transformation, think about how you want to track the metrics and KPIs that indicate the success of your current transformation initiatives. What kind of analytics tools and reports can you implement?

Step 5: Constantly Optimize and Adapt

Digital transformation is not something a company does once and then never again. The reality is that true digital transformation is happening all the time in any business that has its eye on the future. If you want to provide the best possible service to your customers, you can not just update your automated diagnostics and troubleshooting system once and forget about it; you need to pay attention to how your customers are using these tools and what features they like best.

By paying attention to the results of your digital transformation efforts, you can identify where you need to take additional steps to move your business forward. At the same time, by creating the right feedback and analytics loop, you should gain insight into other areas of your business that could benefit from digital transformation.

For example, if you start your initiative by implementing a real-time service performance dashboard, you may find that after some time, your customers who have access to that dashboard will demand the ability to troubleshoot issues with their service in the same environment, with automated tools and applications that allow them to fix their own issues immediately.

This added ability to digitally transform would not only make your customers happier but could also make your business more productive and efficient. When customers can resolve their own issues without your service representatives having to intervene, your employees can spend more time doing the things they do best – like growing your business.

Time for a Digital Transformation Roadmap?

There are still too many companies for whom digital transformation is nothing more than a buzzword. Digital transformation is not just about investing in the latest technology solutions as soon as they hit the market. Rather, it’s about looking at your existing landscape and finding areas where digital innovation can help your business evolve.

If you get your digital transformation strategy right, you can diagnose problem areas in your business and replace them with more efficient, effective solutions. In a short amount of time, your digital transformation initiatives can increase your revenue, increase your chances of new customer leads, and even improve employee engagement.

In today’s digital world, digital transformation is not just another consideration businesses should make. If you want to stay ahead and stand out from the competition, you need to be ready to transform.