Whether you realise it or not you have been living in a new digital world, working from home, shopping online, consuming tailored advertising or even countless Zoom quizzes with family and friends. The fact the pandemic closed offices, shops and restaurants has showcased the value of digital operating models and have pushed the hands of business leaders of all sizes to focus and invest in digital innovation and transformation.
According to a global research study from IFS 52% of companies stated they will increase their spending on digital transformation despite the disruption caused by the current economic conditions. The ability to provide process transparency and the necessary analytics to ensure effective and informed decision-making is critical in these trying times.
Each organisation will have its own digital roadmap and will be at different stages of their journey. For example, there will be those that have a lot of paper processes, which can be hard to imagine in today’s world, however, some factories and manufacturing plants were built a long time ago and never took the opportunity to modernise. Then there are those organisations that are farther along their digital journey and are focused on trying to get more out of the digital processes and data that they already have in place.
Ultimately digital transformation is about how a business can change the way it interacts with its customers to provide an improved and seamless customer experience. When personal interaction was removed by COVID-19 businesses had to look to their digital capabilities to see where they could alter their approach to keep engaged with customers. This could be something as visible as improving a mobile app or website front end to make it easier to use, or something a bit more complicated at the back end such as moving from on-premise infrastructure to the cloud and utilising algorithms to provide better BI from data lakes.
The powers that be must be wary though as whilst technology is at the forefront of digital transformation, all types of change must be embraced by the employees that will be working with the new processes. Culture change can take time but if the hearts and minds of the organisation are on board with the change then the transformation will be easier to deliver, the technology and operating processes will embed faster and the benefits will be realised quicker.
Of course, digital transformation cannot rescue businesses from an economic downturn on its own. However, it’s now more than likely to be on the agenda at all board meetings and to think all it took was a global pandemic. How has your life been affected by digital transformation since lockdown? Contact us now to discuss digital transformation further.
