Welcome to the topic “The Need for Rapid Digital Transformation and How To Do It”
No doubt that the business world has changed in recent years. But now, that pace of change has increased significantly.
The COVID-19 outbreak has pushed businesses into the digital age. This has created challenges for entrepreneurs across the globe. Businesses need to adapt to changes quickly to survive. Agile is the name of the game.
Companies that had already invested in the digital transformation found it easier to adapt to the changes. However, some businesses struggled to change their processes and functions. So, many companies had quite chaotic early days when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit.
Is your business also challenging to adapt to these dramatic changes?
If “yes,” then you’re not alone. The lockdowns and restrictions have resulted in massive economic disruptions. Hundreds of businesses were forced to shut up shop entirely. The adoption of digital transformation has become a necessity since the pandemic started.
What your business needs are digital transformation. But here’s the tricky part. You might not know exactly how to do it.
Fret not! We are here to help you survive and thrive through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Read on and find out how.
What Is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is no longer a meaningless buzzword. It is the organizational, cultural, and operational change of an industry or organization through the integration of digital technologies and processes across all levels in a strategic way, with present and future shifts in mind.
“These technologies are not just latest buzzwords,” says Akash Khurana, CDO, and CIO at McDermott International. “We see tangible value coming from these technologies in terms of improving product optimization, increasing the production output, and tackling the operational efficiency challenges.”
What Does Digital Transformation Entail?
Digital transformation involves a profound transformation of organizational and business activities, competencies, processes, and models. Digital transformation aims to fully leverage the changes as well as opportunities of digital technologies and their accelerating impact across the world.
A digital transformation project involves rethinking and remaking of business models and processes. It’s not about enhancing the traditional methods. Contrary to what most people believe, digitalization is not merely the implementation of technology systems and services. The primary purpose of digital transformation is to create something new that can improve customer experience, streamline the supply chain, or offer new products.
Rapid Digital Transformation
Technological Impact Of COVID-19
The need for rapid digital transformation is not entirely an outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results of a recent survey show that 87% of executives were experiencing skill gaps even before the pandemic started.
In 2017, Mckinsey Global Institute predicted that almost 375 million workers will need to update their skills by 2030 for adapting to the new wave of artificial intelligence and automation.
However, it’s a fact that the COVID-19 outbreak has forced businesses to change their entire business model and launch digital initiatives with fewer resources and little time.
“The impact of COVID-19 has only made this (digital transformation) more relevant,” says Kate Smaje, the global co-leader of McKinsey Digital. “Companies have surged in serving their customers through digital channels and undergone massive, overnight experiment in agile, and remote ways of working.”
Why Do Businesses Need To Adapt?
At present, businesses are facing enormous IT challenges. The need for making real-time decisions and managing external and internal operations online is forcing the C-suite executives to improve the resilience of their systems quickly.
The need to adapt is due to the following reasons:
- Keeping Up with Customer Demands
Consumer preferences are changing rapidly. It’s making it harder for companies to keep up with customer demands. The results of a study revealed that 86% of consumers had changed their behavior as a direct result of Covid-19. In addition to that, the use of technology has raised the expectations of consumers for curated experiences.
- Transformation of Workplace
COVID-19 has transformed the workplace. Businesses have not only digitized the relationship between customer and firm but also the relationship between employee and employer. Study shows 92% of workers believe that they are well-equipped to work from home. Forward and fast-tracking trends have been seen in the business world, such as digitalization, automation, and innovation.
- Workforce Reduction
Many businesses are not doing so well. They’re looking for ways to cut costs. One way to do so is downsizing which has led to major layoffs and workforce reductions. Some companies have eliminated entire departments. However, it’s doing more harm than good. Workforce reduction has created unease throughout the organizations.
- Customer Retention Strategies
Since budgets slashed, entrepreneurs and marketers are forced to rethink their customer acquisition as well as retention strategies. Before the pandemic, almost 44% of businesses focused on new customer acquisition, even though it was five times more expensive. Now, thousands of brands are offering discounts to shift the stock. But is not going to have long-term benefits.
Competitive Advantage
There are always two broad business objectives; transforming the core and building new businesses. But these two objectives overlap. Only those companies are going to be long-term winners that are capable of playing along both of these tracks.
Digital transformation allows you to achieve both business objectives simultaneously. However, McKinsey Global survey revealed that 92% of the companies believe that their business model will not remain economically viable through digitalization.
“How is the world-changing since COVID is an incredibly relevant dimension when it comes to digitization since recovery from COVID is digital,” says Rodney Zemmel senior partner and global co-leader of McKinsey Digital.
Organizations should harness the power of data and artificial intelligence. To survive in the business world of today, optimizing and automating operations, digital growth, creation of captivating digital experiences, and building digital talent and culture is essential. Digital transformation can give a tremendous competitive advantage to your business.
How Can Digital Enablement Help?
Digital enablement influences the digital transformation journey of an organization via digitalized business platforms. It helps to achieve enhanced customer experience, efficient business processes, and revive the business model.
A new study by The Economist and DXC revealed that 68% of senior company executives saw profitability increase due to digital transformation, whereas 74% believe that the rise in profits has resulted from their digital strategy.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the spending on digital transformation will increase to $2.3 trillion in 2023 worldwide. Considering the benefits of digital transformation, these statistics are not shocking.
Digital enablement helps to:
- Increase productivity and make the workforce more efficient. A study published by Fujitsu, the organizations that have already embraced digitization has experienced improved efficiency by 39%.
- Reduces operating costs up to 20% and allows systematization of business and organizational development.
- Provide exceptional customer experience and also improves communication with customers.
- Enable the companies to make better and informed operating decisions and create collaborative work environments.
- Enable product and service innovation across business sectors.
- Along with greater fluency of internal processes, digital enablement gives a competitive advantage to the organization in the market.
At present, organizations all across the globe continue to strive to develop new digital capabilities such as AI and automation, machine learning, data analytics, mobile communications, and more.
Why Most Digital Transformations Fail?
“16% of transformations fully succeed in reality,” informs Rodney Zemmel. “When it works, it’s magical.”
A recent survey found that digital transformation risk is the top concern of CEOs, directors, and senior executives in 2019. Still, over 70% of the digital transformation initiatives don’t reach their set goals.
According to research from Cass Business School, most organizations don’t have a huge problem generating new ideas. But most companies fail when it comes to the implementation of fresh business models and the transformation of ideas into organizational objectives.
Most organizations have already started digital transformations, but they’re not achieving the desired outcome. They are witnessing improvements in some parts. But the companies are not scaling effectively. Such organizations have just started the digital transformation by name only.
Is your organization one of them?
If the core of the businesses is not changing, the digital transformation won’t work. To become a digitally-enabled organization, companies need to make a cultural shift. It would be best if you found a way to modernize your organization.
It falls upon CEOs to excite their team so that they will accept the change happily. CEO should empower his team to do things differently than they were used to. The next step is to rewire the way the organization works to make better decisions quickly. However, you should keep in mind that there will be people in your team who don’t believe in digital transformation at all.
Along with cultural transformation, successful digital transformation requires expertise and strategy. To succeed, you need a clear business direction and vision to move forward.
How To Effectively Transform Your Business?
If a business doesn’t have a clear digital strategy, it will fail to create value for its stakeholders since all the focus would be on solving current problems only. The effective digital strategy offers an opportunity to improve and outperform rivals. Does your organization has a digital strategy?
If your answer is “no,” you need a clear and effective digital strategy ASAP. But how can you effectively transform your business?
If you want enhanced operational efficiency and unprecedented business capabilities, there are a lot of solutions available today. We can offer you the help you need. Never miss out on the most profitable business opportunities and start your organization’s digital journey today. Contact us today www.smartupsuite.com
Our experts can help you develop a clear digital vision and build new business models. We have all the elements, tools, and strategies your organization needs to adapt and grow.
Engage in our rapid discovery session using an already available framework to determine what can be done for informed decision making.
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Also Read: Organizational Culture Inventory
Also Read: Organizational Culture Inventory
