Is digital transformation more than just a technological buzzword?

For years, companies have been using technology to improve the efficiency and performance of their businesses. Since the pandemic, the number of companies investing in transformation has increased dramatically. According to McKinsey, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies by at least 7 years.

Unfortunately, there are still many companies struggling to take full advantage of the digital landscape. If you are still waiting for the perfect time to roll out your new automated asset management strategy or virtual agent for customer service, you could be falling behind the competition.

For most businesses today, the question is not whether they should be looking more deeply into digital transformation, but how to get started.

Here is a guide to what to look for in your digital transformation project.

Digital Transformation Requires a Plan

The first and most important thing to remember when engaging in a digital transformation strategy is that true transformation requires a plan. You need to know where you want your digital evolution to take you and what you want to achieve. Ask 10 different CIOs or CTOs what “digital transformation” means, and you’ll usually get a different answer each time.

So, ask yourself what your goal is in digital transformation. Are you looking for a quick and easy way to make your business more agile? A digital transformation strategy could involve implementing automated tools for innovation and business growth or investing in low-code technology to build a team of community developers.

Is your need for digital transformation driven by a desire to save money and open new doors for customer satisfaction? Predictive analytics, automated diagnostics, and anomaly detection can help you avoid unexpected downtime and support your customers in self-service.

When planning your digital transformation strategy, remember:

1. The Employee Experience

The best companies always benefit from a team of engaged, empowered employees. As you introduce new tools to your business, ask yourself how your employees will benefit. For example, a virtual agent can help your employees find and use information more quickly when dealing with complex issues and customer service.
Digital process automation reduces the number of repetitive tasks an employee has to do on a daily basis, giving employees much more time to do things like develop new products or make sales. Take a look at Adidas, for example. The company automated its procurement processes and streamlined the management of 5,000 orders per month. The result was a reduction in operating costs of around 60%!

Look for ways to reduce the number of labor-intensive tasks your employees must complete each day so they can focus on the work that matters.

2.    The Customer Experience

The desire to improve the customer experience is the main reason behind most digital transformation strategies today. Every business knows that if they want to stay competitive, they need to provide their customers with an experience they can not get anywhere else. Therefore, when you invest in digital transformation, it pays to think about how you can improve things for your end-users.

For example, an automated system that automatically checks network performance and makes changes to ensure your telecoms customers do not suffer a drop in call quality is a great way to improve customer satisfaction. With an automated system, you can intelligently detect impending network issues and apply failover strategies before your customers even have time to call you with a complaint.

Digital transformation in the customer experience landscape can also include a consideration of how you interact with your customers and what tools you provide them to serve themselves. For example, in a digital environment, many customers may be comfortable with the idea of using chatbots to handle their service requests. A chatbot can do things like renew subscriptions, find common solutions to problems and organize screenings in seconds.

Take a look at how your customers are currently interacting with your business and consider how you can potentially optimize their experience.

3. Compliance and governance

Digital transformation is a powerful strategy for improving the employee and customer experience, but it has other benefits as well. As companies move toward a digital future, for example, they are under more pressure than ever to ensure compliance with the latest government regulations and policies. A digitally enhanced ecosystem could be a great way to improve your governance strategy.

For example, an automated customer service system could collect information from your customers while ensuring that personal data is encrypted or removed where possible. This ensures that all information stored in the cloud complies with appropriate privacy and data protection policies. With AI and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) services, companies can even develop unique compliance and security strategies tailored to the needs of their industry.

In the banking and insurance industry, for example, many companies need to implement additional security standards when determining where and how information can be stored. Your automated and digitally transformed landscape can ensure that you are sending information to the right environment and protecting it with the appropriate security standards.

4. Adoption and implementation

For a digital transformation strategy to be successful, companies need more than just an idea of what kind of innovative technology they need. Any significant “transformation” in an organization requires some degree of change management. This means that executives and managers must work together to develop a strategy for implementation and adoption.

For most organizations, the process of comprehensive transformation begins with an assessment or technology audit. By reviewing the solutions you already have in place, you can determine what types of systems will benefit you most in your digital transformation.

For example, if you already have tools in place to optimize network performance, implementing an intelligent service performance dashboard could give you better insight into your business in real-time. You can even combine this dashboard with AI tools that initiate workflows when a certain threshold is reached. For example, if your performance dashboard shows a drop in call quality for your telecom services, your system can automatically route customers to another data center or implement processes to improve performance.

Once you have decided how to implement your digital technology, you need to get the right buy-in from stakeholders and business leaders to ensure adoption. With the full support of your leadership team and all other decision-makers, it will be much easier to turn your vision into reality.

4. Support and guidance

Aside from enterprise-wide adoption, one of the best ways to roll out a new digital transformation strategy broadly is to get the right help. After working with your team to create a roadmap of what your digital transformation journey might look like, ask yourself what kind of support you need to achieve your goals.

If you want to discover the benefits of fully digital onboarding and order management system, it’s worth working with a technology provider that not only has experience with this technology, but also with supporting digital transformation processes in your industry. Many companies make the mistake of thinking that they need to plan, implement, and manage their digital transformation themselves. However, the reality is that the main reason digital transformation projects fail is often a lack of the right knowledge and skills.

Even in the 2017 Digital Transformation Report, 31% of respondents said that a lack of expertise and digital skills was the main issue preventing their success. Before you dive into your digital transformation strategy, make sure you have the right partner on your side to guide you through the process.

Get Ready for Digital Transformation

The term “digital transformation” has become increasingly popular around the world over the past decade. But it’s only in the last few years that many companies have discovered how important this idea really is.

If you have not yet invested in a digital transformation project, now is the time to act. If you act too slowly, you could find yourself completely left behind by similar companies.

For those of you who have already started digital transformation but believe you could achieve more, perhaps it’s time to look at other opportunities for growth?

Get in touch with Bulb Tech today to start the perfect digital transformation project.