Digital Transformation: A journey to the future
When you know the destination of your journey, the process of charting out the best possible route becomes much easier. However, digital transformation is a unique expedition where the goals may not be specifically defined. Complicating it further, there is no particular direction in which you can head once you’ve decided to embark on the mission.
Digital transformation, though, is imminent, and deciding against it can leave an organization at the risk of being stagnated. Because, it’s no ordinary journey; and is, by far, the ideal way that can lead us to the future.
For most originations, however, the path to transformation begins with the customer. It’s because the modern customer has identified the improvements an organization can be achieved by going digital. Consumers now expect quicker, reliable and personalized offerings, along with a bespoke platform that enables real-time communication, offering quick solutions to their issues.
1. Digital CX
Digitalization of customer experience is one of the foremost steps that can define the success of the initiative. Upgrading core systems, building an effective social presence and integrating it with the customer contact channels such as mobile apps and newer responsive websites, are some of the digital initiatives that can bolster the customer satisfaction ratings.
Hard-pressed to digitally transform the customer experience that could even make them the future market-leaders, enterprises can gear up for tomorrow by analyzing the potential of both the existing and future digital tools and strategies. Discussed below are some of the core aspects that could be central components of the future business environment.
2. Proactive Innovation
Rapid innovation is a vital cog in the wheel of transformation. Companies looking to stay relevant and competitive in the future marketplace should learn to embrace new technology. Brisk assessment of new tools and technologies to ascertain their real value is the key to achieving rapid progress. The time taken to switch from idea to implementation can be pivotal when it comes to tapping the opportunities that can disrupt markets and deliver exponential growth.
The surge towards the digitalization is a virtuous cycle. Achieving it can make organization remarkably flexible and responsive. They can collect and absorb new data much more efficiently and respond to market changes to meet the evolving customer needs head-on. The competitive advantage of quick innovation can eventually enable them to seize market supremacy.
3. Inspiring Technology
i. Internet of Things: At the heart of the transformation are the smart devices with the ability to communicate with other devices in their environment. As these connected devices keep increasing in number, it’s important to channelize their activities to derive the ideal benefits. The advanced IoT scenarios such as connected computing and ubiquitous networking can be incorporated in various spheres such as marketing, health, security, etc.
From using sensors for continuously monitoring security threats to identifying the medical anomalies in patients, IoT can be immensely beneficial for the society as a whole. However, businesses can also utilize its power to track and analyze consumer behavior. Such an immeasurable insight into customer’s mind can be invariably used to create more personalized products and services. Moreover, as billions of sensors and connected devices are expected to get active in a few years from now, the IoT is sure to play a transformative role future digital business models.
ii. Big Data and Analytics: Few things are as valuable as data for organizations looking to go digital. To tap the potential of big data, they have to put their core focus on transforming vast amount of information that gets generated from various business processes into actionable insights. Using advanced analytics to process the data flow into valuable info such as precise details on customers’ thought-process, their existing needs, and how they view your brand. In the digital realm, everything is measurable, and a thorough analysis of it would be the key to how businesses operate. Data and analytics would have to be the cornerstone of every important decision and would define the core decision support system of an enterprise.
iii. Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning: The prospect of machines being able to perform human-like activities such as differentiating things through visual perception and being able to understand and translate different languages through speech recognition is central to the concept of digitalization.
Moreover, the ability of computers to automatically identify data patterns by applying statistical learning is the key to extract critical information from raw data and subsequently make highly accurate predictions.
In collaboration with human professionals, bots would be able to solve intensely complex problems much more quickly and with maximum accuracy. These technologies would determine digital strategies the enterprises would implement to enhance the customer experience in the future.
4. Adaptive Culture
The process of digital transition may be dominated by dominated by technology. However, it’s not the only factor. The primary idea is to combine the power of technology with an adaptive culture. Together, they can deliver the change can assure the organization into a secured future. It’s been observed that companies have a better chance to succeed when they adapt to unexpected and sudden shifts in the marketplace and industry by integrating technology into the core business functions and eventually into their organizational culture.
Digitalization would offer a new mechanism for companies to gain feedback on their products. By integrating the response system directly into their products, firms would be able to obtain instant and precise insights about the interaction with customers. The digitalized culture could then play a vital role in determining the solutions to those responses, which could go a long way in improving the products and the brand image.
A company’s success in achieving digital transformation would not just maximize its external capabilities to deliver better customer experience and shoot up its profits, but could also have a significant internal impact. The ability to streamline the business processes through digital tools and strategies would also improve the employee capability and revive regular operations. Being able to capture real-time insights through automated tools and robots, and using them to make the right data-driven decisions is sure to make the journey into the future much more exciting and profitable.