“There is nothing permanent except change.” -Heraclitus (circa. 5th Century BC)”
Truer words cannot be so timelessly spoken, especially about business. Given these days when the businesses are progressing faster than ever, and in the marketing spectrum which has become more democratic, it is important for businesses to run faster than the competition, or at least run as fast as the competition to stay relevant to the changing times.
“Only 12% of the Fortune Companies of 1955 remain in the Fortune 500 today!” American Enterprise Institute (2015)”
This fact is an important indicator of how important change is, and companies like Kodak and Nokia are dubiously stellar examples of how inertia in business can be fatal, or detrimental at its best.
One of the most recent and yet most widely adopted transformation in the recent past is the digital transformation. When we talk about digital transformation, we are not just referring to just having a website and a few social media pages in their fullest intensities, but more of an ecosystem that leverage on all the advantages of going digital, right from managing mundane processes through Robotic Process Automation to using chatbots to augment your customer support and relationship management.
If at all the world of business has taught us anything, it is to be understood that any business-aspect that has a “fad” flavor to it always has a chance of going “bust” after an unprecedented boom. However, what differentiates the great from the good in times of these crises is how they never lose focus on the vision, and how the vision isn’t short-sighted.
While there is a sea of reasons why digital transformation is inevitable in the fast-paced world of business-changes, here are a few Cs why you should consider them.
Cost:
One of the greatest advantages of digital transformation has to be in the lines of cost. When we talk about cost, we are not talking about instant savings but long-term effectiveness and better revenue.
Any transformation will be a cost initially because of the investment required in the infrastructure and training of the key assets in your organization. However, all these trainings and loss of time is going to pay off multifold when your company is in line with what is happening in the world of business.
Revenue-generation, profitability and cost-effectiveness are the three pillars of cost-saving. With digital avenues making processes quicker and easier with reduced risk of flaws, it surely translates into better profits being hated by the company.
“125000 enterprises expect revenues in digital avenues to increase by 80% in 2020” – Gartner (2016)”
The reluctance for this transformation lies in the initial cost and the impedance of the top management that is strongly rooted in the traditional methods of the company. However, if they can be convinced of what the future holds for them, it is quite possible that the company can make the best of digital transformation and turn its growth into a curve that points up and to the right.
Customers:
Let us admit it! Gone are the days when customers were forced to consume the product that we provided them. With the extent of choices that they have, it is imperative on part of the company to produce products and offers services that are best suited for the customers.
This mandates that companies understand the customers’ requirements, the emotions that is shared towards the company and the products, and more importantly, the future of what the customers would need.
The traditional methods with the burden of bookkeeping and scatter information might not have smoothly facilitated understanding the customers it. However, with the advent of digital platforms and the technology that helps easy and meaningful interpretation of data into intelligence, all of this becomes possible.
Companies that have believed that they are above customers are probably the ones that lost in the battle of being in Fortune 500 list. On the other hand, companies that have focused on what the customers wanted has been quite successful. The Stethoscope of understanding customers undoubtedly life in the digital Railway where customers can connect with the organization.
Connect:
This brings us to a point where it is important for us to understand the customer’s needs. For this to be executed a platform where the customers can uninhibitedly interact with the brand and give their opinion in a way that it will reach the decision makers.
With the world of communication becoming flatter by the day with the advent of social media and the user-generated content on social media coming under the direct and unfiltered scrutiny of the decision makers, digital transformation is essential for companies to connect with customers.
With the advent of big data, automated chatbots, Artificial Intelligence, and machine learning, it is not only possible to understand the requirements of the customer at that point in time but also arrive at a pattern which would help you project your marketing and sales.
It is the Digital platforms that give you the perfect avenue for understanding customers, their Minds, their requirements and above everything, their emotions and ego-based on which today’s world of marketing is built!
Commercials:
Marketing happens in spaces where you can find the right customers at the right time and you target them with the right message. There was a time in history where you could not hit customers with Precision. However, in the digital age, it has drastically changed. Digital advertising and digital marketing are considered to be the mainstream marketing method of the day.
Considering this evolution of consumption, it makes a lot of sense for brands and big companies to invest a substantial portion of their marketing budget into the digital avenues. These digital avenues not only give you an advantage of Precision but also a scope for you to measure the direct impact and make informed decisions on your marketing strategies. This was not possible with the classical methods of marketing like television and print.
These digital avenues help you in precisely targeting your customers not buy an assumption but more by an attribute that was provided by them which would mean that your targeting is more accurate and more likely to translate into a profitable transaction.
It is important for organizations to understand at every level that Leeds, brand building and customer information can come in from any corner because of the positive impact of digital transformation!
Competition:
One of the oldest forms of marketing and Advertising Boss to position yourself better than the competitive to position another person as a competitor to the customer in terms of the benefit they will get. Digital transformation might not change one of the most basic attributes of human thinking.
Digital transformation is going to be really helpful in helping you stay ahead of the competition. Your competitors are always on the Lookout for insights not just from your actions but also from the customers at large. With the ease of creating companies, the fillip in the entrepreneurial mindset of people working on the positive side and the democratic nature of web-based marketing working on the practical side, it is important to stay ahead of your competition with the insights and the advantages that digital transformation can provide.
The combination of competitor analysis and customer connect will help you create personalized communication for customers which will put you at a better place than your competitors.
Company:
The effectiveness of digital transformation is not only dependent on how’s your company projects all the advantages of the transformation externally but also on how the company imbibe the spirit of transformation into the digital internally. Every employee in the organization has to understand the evolution or rather the adolescence that the organization is going through along with the possible uncertainties that might arise in the short-term.
This also involves digitizing your internal processes, giving the employees the minimum training, it requires for them to get accustomed to these processes and have contingencies in place so that no work will be hampered. It is important that employees of your company do not take digital aspects of your business to be a niche skill set but rather as a lifestyle for work.
Organizations that have made sure that the digital transformation is not just a top-level management decision, but a cultural evolution have succeeded in making their entire organization complaint to not just this change but any other transformation in the future that might be influenced by the customers, the marketing ecosystem and the technology.
Celeritas:
Celeritas is the Latin word for Speed, and it is from this route that the words acceleration, Celeron – the processor, and C, the symbol of the speed of light come from. there have been a lot of transformations all through the different type of history.
Digital transformation is one of those and is not the end. While it is encouraged to adopt early to digital transformation and make your organization compliant, it is not a great idea to get your organization completely dependent on digital transformation. This might cause another face of inertia where we will have industry leaders who are to be accustomed to the digital way of doing things and might not adopt to the next phase.
Digital transformation is about going fast and failing fast. However, it is more about a destination then how far you go. It is important to reach the destination or two games if you can reach the destination or not in the mood of moment that you are planning to undertake. If you have gone too far, it might backfire and not give you the best of results.
Conclusion:
Digital transformation is surely the essence of the day and rather than just to be one of the many organizations that embrace it in a very passive way, it would be better to embrace the agency of digital transformation in the words of Val Sribar, the Senior Vice President of Gartner. One into the future, we will be looking at the entire business ecosystem looking digital, and the word transformation will essentially need to be detached from the word digital, at least in its present sense and context.