Over the last few years, the term ‘digital transformation’ has gained significant popularity. And if you’re a part of the business world, then embracing digitalisation can bring your organisation increased opportunities and benefits. In fact, dismissing the need for a digital strategy could even mean falling behind the competition and being unable to deliver products and services to your clients.
Digital transformation allows organisations to apply the latest digital technologies across all aspects of their business — marketing, product development, sales, and customer support, to create fundamental changes in the way they operate and deliver value to their customers. It is an ongoing process that needs to be constantly developed to solve problems and streamline operations.
But how do you know that your business needs digitalisation? We’ve made a list of five signs to look out for.
1. Your current technical processes are inefficient
Obsolete and siloed software and hardware are one of the primary reasons why businesses are unable to scale at speed. In fact, according to recent research, companies lose roughly 30% in revenue per year due to inefficient processes. And most of the time, this is because business owners and technical managers are simply unable to keep up with the latest technologies and best practices.
So what’s missing here? Digitalisation.
Digital transformation provides businesses with the highest standards of scalability and risk mitigation. Some of the areas that are often neglected and need to be digitalised include:
- Deployment infrastructure:
When building software products and services, development, staging, and live environments allow for the safest development scenario — one that ensures that all the environments are separated, and the software undergoes rigorous testing and quality assurance. It also means that if your live site were to crash, you always have your staging environment to fall back on.
- Code management:
Code management systems like GIT ensure that development teams have access to a code repository that they can rely on to store and maintain the software they build. It also makes it easy to track changes, roll back if required, and prevents software from getting rewritten accidentally.
- Cloud backups:
Having a cloud backup can truly be a lifesaver, especially if you accidentally break something. The lack of a digital backup can lead to a lengthy restoration process that doesn’t always guarantee 100% success.
- Security:
Security is yet another aspect of digitalisation that has gained significant popularity in recent times. Not keeping your software updated and secure leads to vulnerabilities, hacks, and other threats that inevitably lead to chaos, financial losses, and loss of sensitive information.
So if you haven’t implemented either of these processes, then it is time for your business to consider digital transformation.
2. Your industry needs disruption
Disruptive innovation is the need of the hour. Because today’s marketplace is saturated, the necessity to create solutions that can revolutionise how people perceive a product or service has become extremely important. So if you find yourself in a similar situation, then digital transformation is probably the answer.
For instance, let’s consider the simple example of Uber, a company that used digitalisation to provide a one-of-a-kind user experience. Though they are a taxi provider, they leveraged a digital platform to offer a cheaper, faster, and more comfortable solution than other taxi service companies. And that’s what digital transformation can do for your business.
So if you’re falling behind the competition, ask yourself the following questions:
- Can you leverage digital transformation to become a disruptor within your industry?
- Are you aware of what your customers need from you?
- Are you aware of how your competitors are offering solutions that answer your customers’ needs?
These questions are a great starting point to help your organisation in the journey to achieving a digital transformation.
3. Your customers are showing less interest in your business
If you feel like you’re putting a lot of time, effort, and capital to scale your business, but you’re simply not getting the results that you want, then maybe it’s because you’re not offering your customers what they want.
Providing your target audience with the right customer experience is key, and sometimes, you need digitalisation to achieve it. For instance, consider the example of Pizza Hut. Realising that their customers hate waiting in line to place an order at their restaurant, they installed interactive touch screens at their outlets, so people didn’t have to wait in line or feel bored because of the waiting time.
Now think about your own business and analyse the needs and problems of your everyday customer. Can you use digitalisation to serve your clients better? If yes, then digital transformation is the way to go.
Wrapping up
If the above points apply to your business, then digital transformation is definitely the way to go. Start by jotting out an operational roadmap for the next 12-18 months — a guide to help you formulate the right strategy so you can scale your business at speed, get ahead of the competition, and generate more profits.
