Published on January 21st, 2020 | by Tony Joseph

5 ways Digital Transformation can reshape business strategies

We are moving closer to the end of the decade and it is time for organizations to revisit their often-acclaimed Vision 2020 goals that were marketed as early as 2010 in several cases. A key agenda of almost every business that had this vision of re-inventing themselves by 2020 was to undergo a phenomenal shift in their technology infrastructure or in short a complete digital transformation from the ground up. From using software to simplify daily operations across units, enterprises aim to transition into a technology-driven business where digital is at the heart of every business activity.

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In fact, a lot of investment has gone into these digital transformation initiatives and a lot more is in the pipeline. Industry watchdog IDC predicts that 85% of all enterprises have a digital transformation objective that they hope to execute before 2020 to realize the value hidden deep within their business in the form of data. Besides, a McKinsey global survey outlines that eight in ten respondents have reported that their organizations have undertaken digital transformation efforts in the last five years.

So how has digital transformation changed the way businesses are conducted globally? Let us examine the five areas where the impact of digital transformation digital transformation solutions has reshaped business strategies:

Intelligent Marketing and Lead Generation

A healthy leads pipeline is a high priority objective for every C-suite executive in today’s business environment. Rather than just having many names in the lead list, today it is imperative that the leads are in-fact qualified ones that have the potential to yield high value to the business in a short period. Sales and marketing teams within organizations have successfully achieved these objectives by digitally transforming their operations and customer-facing activities.

From creating intelligent chatbots to answering user queries over a business website to building 360-degree customer profiles, digital tools are empowering lead generation activities to go beyond traditional approaches. By running analytics on historic lead data, it is possible for businesses to now predict deal closure times, the right audience to target with campaigns, the right content to use in campaigns and the best channels for faster results.

Traditional eye-catchers like billboards, signages at popular destinations have all lost their sweet spot in the marketing funnel to social media channels like Facebook, which offers highly personalized advertising and marketing opportunities for businesses.

Hardware Software Integrations

Today, advancements in sensor technology and embedded electronics have given rise to the phenomenon of the Internet of Things where any electrical hardware can be connected and controlled over the internet thus ushering in a gamut of possibilities. From smart beacons that facilitate near field marketing to automated manufacturing facilities that work without human supervision and wearables that can track every activity of humans, the possibilities of IoT enabled devices are innumerous.

By 2020, the global IoT market is expected to be worth a staggering USD 1.7 trillion. Every industry from automobiles to retail to even healthcare can derive new service opportunities by bringing their physical infrastructure online and transforming them into intelligent service enablers. Brands can capitalize on using new channels of communication with customers such as smart home assistants and appliances.

With over 64 billion IoT devices expected to be available by 2025, the future of this digital transformation initiative looks all set to prosper.

Smart Automation

Today, every single consumer-facing business wants to integrate automated operations into their working environments at some scale to help grow their bottom line profits. Some may use it for resource management, some for automated production units, some for automated customer relationship management and so on. The list of possibilities is unlimited and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and machine learning only adds to this phenomenon.

Automation is possible when multiple functions of a business are managed by digital systems that can provide smart data inputs to develop automation frameworks. These automation frameworks can then eliminate manual errors in operations, bring about unparalleled speed in business processes and enable massive scaling of business operations with minimal resources.

Enterprises can focus more on their core business processes while redundant manual efforts can be systematically automated with digital systems.

Customer Experience

No matter the decade or century we are in, the customer is always the king of every business. As such, any business needs to ensure that the experience that their customer is offered at every touchpoint either physical or on the internet is world-class and intuitive. Seamless customer experience across touchpoints brings in truly engaging experiences that tailor to the unique preferences of each customer. This is where digital transformation can do wonders.

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Take the example of e-commerce giants like Amazon, who use almost any data from their customer’s interaction on their main website and translate it into useful insights, which can then be used to create better experiences in the future. Predictive user behavior, intelligent recommendations, smart and user-friendly interfaces are some key areas where brands need to invest in digital platforms to collect and act on customer data in order to continuously ensure a great experience every time they pay a visit.

Besides, every unit of your business needs to be unified in its objective to serve customers with the best. This includes your customer-facing staff, back-end operations, technology departments, supply chain organization, vendors and business partners. The entire ecosystem of your business should be willing to adopt the best digital practices to ensure a relevant and consistent customer experience.

Employee Collaboration

Just like customers, your employees too need to have the best experience in their workplace to allow them to treat your customers better. Today, the workplace is never restrained to the four walls of a building. Employees may work from anywhere, like on the field, from their homes or from anywhere in the world if their job roles favor the flexibility. However, to enable them to work collaboratively with peers, there needs to be a proper platform where they can converge, share tasks, communicate and collaborate to get tasks done.

This is where digital transformation at the workplace can be the game-changer. According to a McKinsey survey titled Unlocking Success in Digital Transformations, formulating a winning transformation strategy rests on good funding and the effective planning of workforce and talent development.

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Today there are several world-class digital solutions that help create a virtual office platform for employees to constantly stay and collaborate with their peers. It is a digital extension of the workplace with added security to ensure that policies like remote working are encouraged to help employees safely balance their work and personal lives.

In a Nutshell

Digital transformation has reshaped the way a business operates today by improving performance and productivity. To address the dynamic needs of today’s tech-savvy customers, businesses need to have their grip on as many insights into their behavior and make decisions solely based on data-driven analytics. They need to bring in the power of digital to not just their core operational streams but also use digital across their entire ecosystem of customer interactions, partner and employee collaboration.

Be it a start-up or an established business house, the way forward is surely digital powered and those who invest smartly in digital will reap its benefits the most and stay competitive in the market.

Tags: digital transformation, reshape, strategies

About the Author

Tony Joseph I believe in building technology around processes, rather than building processes around technology. I specialize in custom software development in USA, especially in analyzing processes, refining it and then building technology around it. I work with clients on a daily basis to understand and analyze their operational structure, discover (and not invent) key improvement areas and come up with technology solutions to deliver an efficient process.