Digital transformation is a complex process that changes how businesses work and go to market with their products, creating long-term opportunities for partners equipped to take customers on this on-going digital journey.
Transformation involves the use of third platform technologies, big data, analytics, social and mobile, to optimise value and create a competitive advantage. By 2019, it is estimated that digitally transformed organisations will earn at least 45% revenue from new business models and by 2020, 60% of businesses will develop and implement an organisational digital platform strategy.
IDC has predicted that by 2021, spending on cloud IT and services will more than double, allowing insight to be gained in the opportunities and size of the rapidly growing digital market.
The 4 key trends to digital transformation:
1. Engage customers
It is crucial that as a business you understand how to engage with your customers across the transformation life-cycle and how you can integrate customer centricity across your business, utilising data-driven insights.
As a business, you can strengthen your customer acquisition and loyalty using a smart platform that enables personalised experiences, which are becoming a growing trend, especially amongst retailers. Businesses are starting to utilise AI (Artificial Intelligence) to help them digitally transform and provide their customers with the best customer experience possible.
The most successful firms noted that optimising tools, applications, and operational processes to engage with customers across every phase of their journey is a core growth strategy, which has accelerated with the advance of technologies such as big data analytics and virtual assistants.
2. Empower employees
An empowered employee is a happy employee. When an employee is empowered, customer satisfaction improves along with the overall business benefits. Employees are starting to benefit from the many new capabilities these digital tools offer, allowing them to digitally transform their business. Businesses need skilled, ambitious and trainable employees, that can be developed to become digitally-savvy.
When looking to digitally transform a business it is fundamental that team productivity is boosted with solutions that support mobile teamwork and flexible workstyles.
3. Optimise operations
Businesses are starting to transform their operations to become more adaptive, agile and efficient by connecting technology and digital platforms. The use of automated processes and governance is key to help improve the speed of digitally transforming your business.
Thanks to the many digital tools and capabilities that are now present in the modern world, businesses across every industry have the ability to improve collaboration, increase the decision-making speed, develop and produce new products, and gain greater visibility into their entire organisation.
4. Transform products
During the growth of the digital age, it is increasingly important that businesses differentiate and capture emerging opportunities by utilising data as a strategic asset and shifting to foresight.
There is an increasing opportunity to incorporate intelligent software and technology into products and services. Innovating products with intelligent technology such as AI and Machine Learning (ML) enhances your businesses processes.
An example of a company incorporating AI into their products is Amazon. Amazon utilises AI by offering both consumers and business-orientated AI products and services. The Amazon Echo uses AI and brings it into the home through an intelligent voice server, Alexa. Other businesses are also starting to incorporate intelligent technologies into their business processes to advance them in the digital world.
So how can Columbus help your business to digitally transform?
At Columbus, we appreciate and understand that you want to provide an experience to your customers and employees that fills them with delight and satisfaction.
Our eCommerce solution, Columbus SWIFT eCommerce, is designed to help you quickly respond to your buyers' needs. From an assessment of your business value chain and tech stack to providing you with a free personalised solution landscape tailored to your business, you can ensure you're on the right track to achieving digital transformation.
