What’s all the fuss about Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all areas of your business, fundamentally changing how you operate and deliver value to your customers. Using the latest technology, often powered by cloud-based platforms, it solves problems and streamlines processes within your business.
But that is not all. Digital Transformation also involves a change in leadership, alterations in thinking and the encouragement of innovation and new business models. It incorporates the digitisation of assets and increased use of technology to improve the experience of your organisation’s employees, customers, suppliers, partners and stakeholders.
Why does it matter?
Businesses nowadays need to be more efficient, cost-effective and streamlined, in order to stay competitive and survive in their industry. This means that digital transformation becomes more of a necessity than a luxury. By starting to make the change sooner rather than later, your business will ultimately pay dividends. Through embracing Digital Transformation, you could unlock the full potential of staff, automate processes and lower costs, which opens the doors to further growth and profits.
So, what is involved in the process?
When a business wants to undergo a digital transformation, it requires to ask itself these questions:
- What processes do we currently have in place, and how can these be streamlined or automated through technology?
- Which business-critical applications do we use, and do these in their current form still fit our needs?
- What is my current IT infrastructure, i.e. hardware, and do I need to invest in new hardware soon?
- What is the demographic of its staff? For instance, does the staff mainly consist of middle-aged persons or does the company mainly consist of millennials?
Implementing Digital Transformation into your business
Often, local hardware, such as servers, are needed to host mission-critical applications and data. Embracing Digital Transformation and upgrading your applications to a cloud-based version will not only allow you to access the app from anywhere at any time, but will also reduce the need to purchase expensive new hardware every few of years.
Taking a proper critical look at current business processes can really identify areas where digital transformation can eliminate human error, automate mundane, repetitive tasks and lower staff overhead costs. For instance, the process for actioning purchase orders that come in via email could be completely automated. In turn, this will free up time that staff would typically require to process the emails manually, enabling staff to prioritise other resources in the business.
Nevertheless, technology should not just be implemented because it’s the latest and the newest; it also needs to fit your business. The staff demographics can be a significant factor in this. If new technology is not adopted easily by your team, then it is bound to fail. Where millennials adopt new technology at a fast pace, the older generations often tend to stick to their learned and proven methods.
Successfully transforming the business will be dependent on your staff’s buy-in. So, identifying the demographic and providing solutions for ensuring a successful implementation of new technology is key. For instance, identifying key staff to champion the new technology and become mentors in your business for colleagues can hugely help in this process.
Let’s get started!
Digital transformation is a big undertaking. But when done right, it will produce a business that is more aligned with customer demands and resilient in their respective fast-moving industry. Open the discussion with your IT partner, ask the above questions and, together, develop a strategy for digitally transforming your business to the next level. Get in touch with a member of our team who’ll be happy to discuss Digital Transformation Solutions in Gold Coast and Brisbane and how you can get the most out of it.
