Why is Digital Transformation not a Choice Anymore

In recent history, businesses have always had to face changes in customers' demands. But, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the norms that prevail in modern society have changed, and the impact will likely be in effect even after the end of the pandemic. While some changes in routine due to strict lockdowns and other containment measures may end as soon as people start getting vaccinated, other aspects such as the way people depend upon digital technologies will endure.

Businesses can only survive in the post-pandemic environment is to reforming an organization's digital makeup. Companies will have to reform and revise their operations through the entire lifecycle, from customer acquisition and operations to post-sales service and customer care.

In the contemporary scenario, if an organization hesitates to transform itself to address the business landscape's demands digitally, its survival would be questionable and uncertain. Adapting rapidly to the evolving challenges and conditions is also mandatory for the successful and timely delivery of products and services to customers.There are many blockages for the conventional global supply chains due to containment measures in different countries, and people are getting used to adapting technologies in different ways. An agile response to transforming business processes hit by the pandemic is vital for the survival and growth of the organization. We must first accept that the new normal of the post-pandemic world will not be the same as the old one.

Digital Transformation in a Nutshell

Digital transformation denotes a reimagining of how an organization integrates technology, people, and operations to pursue modern business infrastructure and enhanced revenue streams, fueled by changes in customer expectations concerning the products and services. For many businesses that produce conventional goods, digital transformation means building digital products, such as mobile applications or an eCommerce platform. In order to do so, they must follow the operational model of software companies, most of which operate on product-based models. Ideally led by the CEO in partnership with CIOs, CHROs, and other senior leadership, digital transformation needs cross-departmental collaboration in integrating business-oriented philosophies with instant application development methodologies.

Digital Transformation - A Strategy or Solution?

In the recent decade, companies have embarked on digital transformation drives to eliminate the potential for disruption from incumbents and startups, but the sledding has been slow — until the pandemic. Top retail store chains like Walmart and Bed Bath & Beyond shook up store operations by switching to shipment-based delivery and other contactless options to assist consumers in safely having their hands on desired products or items. Meanwhile, IT leaders reprioritized strategic IT solutions, with many acquiring cloud infrastructure for video collaboration and deploying machine learning (ML) models that can help organizations to manage how products want through lengthy supply chain processes.

On a point-by-point basis, such methodologies and solutions don't impact in such a way as to be called transformations. In fact, how these methodologies and other solutions are integrated throughout an enterprise presents a transparent view of a company's digital supremacy and reflects its business priorities. In the contemporary scenario, When trade shows were stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the most prominent companies took their interactive experiences onboard to ensure interactive customer engagement. They also trained their sales department to use these tools in one-on-one virtual meetings, and they are now able to showcase their competitive edge effectively. Digital transformation solutions are intended to overhaul the overall business operations, interactions, and service delivery mechanism. Therefore, Digital transformation is more of a strategy than just a solution. Understanding digital transformation bounds you to have deep insights into the reasons why the sudden upsurge in digital transformation and the need to adapt it is becoming crucial like never before. Let's discuss this in detail.

The Raising Concern for Handling Data

Businesses are becoming more data-driven than ever, and dealing with the overwhelming amounts of data has been the biggest challenge. In specific, the need to place intelligent mechanisms to manage data inflow and storage is growing exponentially to manage and store it in a secure and streamlined manner. In this race for digital supremacy that centered around data to keep businesses beyond their potential rivals, the only solution is to adopt digital transformation. It involves deploying effective tools and methodologies to conduct secure data transactions, place data strategies and develop data analytics.

In this context, the primary approaches in digital transformation are big data, agile analytics, and AI concepts (More specifically, Machine Learning and Deep Learning). These mythologies and approaches are helping businesses to extract more profound insights into the market dynamics and consumer response, which are vital in driving rational and informed decision-making processes. In this way, digital transformation can make businesses more effective in handling data and retrieving fruitful insights from it.

Service Delivery Efficiencies

Generally, companies value workplace services the least compared to client/consumer service delivery. Despite having numerous digital applications to streamline the processes, companies are using many manual methods to deliver services within the organization. One such case can be noted easily in HR-related functions, where both parties must write numerous back and forth emails, wasting their time for simple queries, like PTO balance, etc. HR departments waste around 70% of their time performing such routine and iterative tasks even if they could be streamlined.

Digital transformation in such service delivery processes can be attained by having intelligent HR automation software utilities. These solutions have an immense potential to boost operational efficiencies of the business while ensuring intuitive experiences in workplace service delivery. Further integrating AI-driven chatbots or voice assistants with service delivery platforms is a big plus for the overall process.

Getting Freed from Legacy Systems

Legacy systems are among the top hurdles for mighty organizations that abstain from meeting the modern market's dynamics. As legacy systems are based on conventional technologies, acquiring a resource person and updating it to digital technologies is complex. It was acknowledged by the majority of IT decision-makers linked with research work. Apart from this, most organizations are conscious of security concerns involved in performing legacy migration. For instance, in conventional legacy systems, such as air trafficking control ATC-systems, carrying out legacy migration can be risky as it possesses a variety of risk factors and intellectual data.

In such a scenario, ensuring digital transformation clearly requires a precise statement of scope, and the objectives of digitalization must be clear. The best solution ever introduced is the Application Programmable Interface (API) to modernize such systems. This integration solution allows businesses to bridge their existing legacy systems with digital efficiencies. By doing so, the API provides a gateway for businesses with legacy systems to enjoy the perks of digitally transformed solutions.

Consumer Digital Trends are Driving Transformation

According to the research:

• Around 60% of the global population are internet users
• Around 2.5 billion smartphone users
• 75% of internet usage is driven by smartphones
• 2.5 billion are social media users
• Global eCommerce sales climbed to $4.921 trillion by the end of 2021.

These statistics clearly showcase the sudden upsurge in the use and dependence on consumers' digital platforms, devices, and applications. The need for businesses to revise their efforts to meet the contemporary market challenges to win the digital audience by promoting their services and products digitally is not a choice anymore. Meanwhile, companies are putting efforts into mobile apps, responsive websites, social media channels, etc.

End Words

Another aspect of the context is that most businesses are failing to achieve total digital transformation. This is because businesses are neglecting that digital transformation is more of a strategy than just a solution or a tool. Businesses need to have clearly outlined and defined objectives and scope before gearing up for digital transformation.