Why is Digital Transformation Important?
Digital transformation is changing the way an organization operates. Systems, processes, workflow, and culture are all evaluated. This transformation affects each level of an organization and brings together data across areas to work together more effectively.
By taking advantage of workflow automation and advanced processing, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), companies can connect the dots on the customer journey in a way that wasn’t possible before.
8 Benefits of Digital Transformation
For many companies, the driver for digital transformation is cost-related. Moving data to a public, private, or hybrid cloud environment lowers operational costs. It frees up hardware and software costs while freeing up team members to work on other projects.
1. Enhanced data collection
Most businesses are collecting mountains of data on customers but the real benefit is optimizing this data for analysis that can drive the business forward. Digital transformation creates a system for gathering the right data and incorporating it fully for business intelligence at a higher level.
It creates a way that different functional units within an organization can translate raw data into insights across various touchpoints. By doing this, it produces a single view of the customer journey, operations, production, finance, and business opportunities.
2. Greater resource management
Digital transformation consolidates information and resources into a suite of tools for business. Rather than dispersed software and databases, it brings together company resources all into one place. The average number of applications used in enterprise businesses in 2020 is 900. That makes it exceptionally difficult to provide a consistent experience. Digital transformation can integrate applications, databases, and software into a central repository for business intelligence.
Digital transformation is not a department or functional unit. It encompasses every area of a business and can lead to process innovation and efficiency across units.
3. Data-driven customer insights
Data can be the key to unlocking customer insights. By better understanding your customer and their needs, you can create a business strategy that is even more customer-centric. Using both structured data (personal customer information) and unstructured data, such as social media metrics, these insights can help drive business growth.
Data enables strategies to provide more relevant, personalized, and agile content.
4. An overall better customer experience
Customer expectations are sky-high when it comes to their experience. Customers have gotten used to having endless choices, low prices, and fast delivery. Customer experience (CX) is the new battleground. Gartner reports that more than two-thirds of companies say they are competing mostly on customer experience. In 2020, they expect that number to rise to 81%.
Accenture reports that CX “has emerged as the key driver of sustainable business growth.” They suggest that even a single point increase in CX scores can results in millions of dollars in annual growth.
5. Encourages digital culture (with improved collaboration)
By providing team members with the right tools, tailored to their environment, digital transformation encourages a digital culture.
While these tools provide an easy way for collaboration, they also help to move the entire organization ahead digitally. This digital culture will be crucial in the future. It forces the upskilling and digital learning of team members to take advantage of the benefits of digital transformation.
6. Increased profits
Companies that undergo digital transformation improve efficiency and profitability. Consider these results:
- 80% of organizations that have completed digital transformation report increased profits.
- 85% say they have increased their market share.
- On average, leaders expect 23% higher revenue growth than competitors.
7. Increased agility
Digital transformation makes organizations more agile. Borrowing from the world of software development, businesses can increase their agility with digital transformation to improve speed-to-market and adopt Continuous Improvement (CI) strategies. This allows for faster innovation and adaptation while providing a pathway to improvement.
8. Improved productivity
Having the right tech tools that work together can streamline workflow and improve productivity. By automating many manual tasks and integrating data throughout the organization, it empowers team members to work more efficiently.
