Digital transformation involves utilizing digital technologies to develop new business processes, cultures, and customer experiences – or modify current ones. The changes made are those deemed necessary to meet evolving business and competitive market requirements. Digital transformation transcends conventional roles like sales, marketing, and customer service, instead focusing on how companies think of and engage with clients and customers. Innovating from spreadsheets to smart applications and digital technologies reimagines how companies do business.
For small and medium business enterprises just starting out, planning and building digitally allows the ability to be flexible and poised for growth from the start.
Digitization of Business Data
Digitization is the move from analog business data (paper records and physical documents) to digital. Digital data was significantly more efficient for companies than analog had been. However, business systems and processes were still primarily designed and developed around analog-inspired concepts about finding, sharing, and utilizing information. Digitalization isn’t about changing how business is conducted – it’s about maintaining the business with instantly accessible data that does not have to be found in a filing cabinet.
For instance, digitalization was a boon for customer service operations across all industries, making customer records easily retrievable via computer. The standard methodology of customer service didn’t change, but the overall process of posting an inquiry, looking up relevant data, and providing a resolution became far more efficient. However, as digital technology has evolved, ideas for using the technology in new ways have been encouraged and inspired.
Digital Transformation Continues to Change How Business is Done
Digital transformation is not only transforming business processes, but it has created completely innovative classes of businesses. We are far enough into the digital age for companies of all kinds to consider developing disruptive ways of effectively leveraging technology. A key component of digital transformation is understanding the full potential of a company’s technology. this doesn’t mean wondering, “How much faster can we do what we have always done?” Instead, it involves asking, “What is our technology capable of doing, and how can our business and processes evolve to optimize our technology investments?”
Here is a straightforward illustration of how digital transformation changed an industry altogether. Blockbuster video stores used to be full of people looking through rows and rows of movie titles, borrowing them for a week and returning them. But they were put out of business by innovators looking for new ways to use technology. Today, libraries of the same content are delivered digitally on personal devices – complete with reviews and recommendations based on past preferences.
Help Your Business to Leverage Digital Transformation
Similarly, digital transformations have transformed how businesses approach customer service and delivery. The traditional model was to wait for the clientele to come to the company in person or by phone. But the proliferation of social media has changed the entire game, including advertising, marketing, and even sales and customer service. Finding new ways to leverage social media is one of the latest and most disruptive ways companies use digital transformation to stay competitive and ahead of their competition.
Alliance IT helps Sarasota small-to-medium-sized businesses to leverage and optimize today’s technology to benefit their business processes. Our deep bench of professional expertise and state-of-the-art technology, communications, and cloud capability can fill in the resource gaps you may have at your company – and allow any organization to utilize our economies of scale to stay competitive with even the most significant competitors. Call today to learn more about how we can help.
