Guide to Digital Transformation in 2020

In our world today, technology is either bringing new opportunities for success or threatening companies that fail to accept the changing ways of the business landscape.

Digital information technologies have greatly changed how we operate. From changing the way we talk, meet, interact, and engage with each other, to quickly changing the way we do work.

It’s no surprise that we are experiencing the biggest era of cultural change due to technology. However, digital business transformation is not only limited to large organizations, but also startups and small businesses.

Integration of digital transformations into your business can reap great rewards and you don’t want to miss out on the opportunities that could come with such implementations.

The year 2020 promises to be marked by digital metamorphosis. As we look forward to this, we are interested in the trends, technologies, and developments that will happen in 2020; from machine learning to AI, to multi-cloud computing, the focus is on various technological changes that simplify and improve user experience.

What is Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into all aspects of a business. It greatly changes the way a business operates and delivers value to customers. It can also be seen as a cultural change that needs companies to constantly challenge the norm, experiment, and get comfortable with failure.

This transformation makes use of technologies to create value and new services for clients, innovate, and get the capabilities to adapt to changes. It transforms organizational processes to take advantage of technological changes and their rising impact across society in a prioritized and strategic way.

Although digital transformation is greatly used in a business sense, it also impacts other organizations such as public sector agencies, governments, and companies involved in solving societal challenges like pollution and aging populations.

What are the 4 Main Areas of Digital Transformation?

To succeed with digital transformation, you need to include four key areas – customer engagement, empowering employees, optimizing operations, and transforming business models.

Customer engagement
Providing customers with a great experience of customer engagement platform is a requirement for any successful customer engagement strategy. The normal means of communication remain, but there are other advanced ways of reaching customer support that are gaining popularity.

Communicating with customers using their most preferred channel makes it possible for your support team to have the flexibility to assist wherever and whenever the prospect wants. This means that communication of customer engagement marketing with clients on social media platforms is now mandatory.

You may discover that you need to work with customers across different social media channels to remain competitive. Most businesses use Twitter to provide quick responses to frequently asked questions. Other chat apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Viber, are also great options.

Empowering employees
The idea of having a formal workplace setting is changing; now becoming more digital in most sectors. Particularly during this pandemic, businesses have focused more on providing services remotely. This dynamic will probably intensify in the coming years.

Digital Transformation can make it possible for people to have a unified and consistent experience – they can access data, systems, services, and applications from any location, creating a digital workspace. A digital workspace improves the journey and experiences of employees. It empowers them and automates operations to make work more efficient.

For example, when the onboarding process is automated, it can enable quicker onboarding of new employees, giving them access to devices without tickets, help-desks, or human intervention. A digital workspace that is well-optimized is bound for success, as digitally empowered employees have greater potential to serve customers better.

Optimizing operations
Companies can strategically apply technology platforms to make an automation process, specifically for operational processes.

Based on how good their AI and Machine Learning are, software services like ERP, CRM, Financial Planning, have been redefining and reallocating resources in organizations.

With the capacity to handle large data, quickly and accurately give real-time information, these applications will help streamline operating processes, assist employees in making accurate decisions, and focus on strategic tasks.

Transforming business models
Digital transformation enables new business models. It opens doors for creating products, finding customers, making and providing value, and generating profits. All these can be combined to digitally transform any business.

Digital transformation doesn’t only focus on products and technology. In a connected world, where most physical products are now commodities, and everybody can search for competitors online, you need to change your business model to give you a market advantage.

Adapt to digital clients that are looking for customized services rather than new physical products. This change from physical goods to digital services is demanding: it needs new skills, value chains, and customer-focused mindset.

It is a huge challenge, particularly for organizations that are focused on product and retail. Nevertheless, digital transformation is here to stay, and businesses should consider their entire business model when embracing it.

How do you develop a Digital Transformation Strategy?

In our fast-paced, tech-heavy market today, you can witness rapid digital development and evolution in every industry. To keep up, you need to have the proper plan to make the best of the digital landscape.

It is not only startups that are affected. Established businesses are being disrupted yearly by ever-evolving and advancing technologies.

For instance, Uber transformed the entire taxi industry in 2009. Another example of digital transformation is Amazon launching its cashierless checkout store in 2019. Below is a three-step process to make your digital transformation strategy roadmap.

• Analyze what you need and align the goals your business
• Plan your budget
• Evaluate the present to prepare for the future

Your digital transformation goals are driven by a framework, which is a formalized plan that guides you on how to make strategic changes to vital systems and processes. The digital transformation guide of your business might include:

• Vision creation: Determining the vision of your company and the goals you intend to achieve with your digital transformation.
• Market analysis: Understand how technology can make your business better before you get overwhelmed by your competition.
• Experience design: Consider the experiences you want to create for your customers and prospects.
• Infrastructure adjustments: To bring implement new ideas, you need to adjust your existing methods.

Importance of a Digital Transformation Strategy

The digital economy is experiencing fast evolution, development, innovation, and disruption. Businesses that want to succeed have to be prepared to adapt to this new landscape. However, going through a digital transformation is about more than just adopting new technology, investing in good looking gadgets, or upgrading your systems.

Those things are important, but they are not the entire picture. To remain competitive, you can’t just react to changes – you’ll have to anticipate them and drive innovation on your own. To achieve this, you need to plan and be an active designer in your future. This is where a digital business transformation strategy comes in.

A digital transformation strategy will help you answer these questions for your business:

• Where are you right now?
• Where do you intend to be in the future?
• How do you plan to achieve that?

To protect your business against digital disruption and successfully navigate your digital transformation, you need to have three vital competencies:

• Awareness
• Informed decision-making
• Quick execution

Business owners who don’t understand their processes and operations will be unable to identify business priorities. After all, you won’t be ready to tackle a problem if you’re not aware it exists.

Also, companies need good data and resources to help them make informed decisions so they can take advantage of opportunities and reduce risks.

Finally, you will need agility to quickly and precisely execute your strategic decisions. Without these capabilities, your digital transformation will not succeed. A strategy and digital transformation roadmap can help you effectively create and harness those capabilities.

What are some of the best digital transformation examples?

• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer Support

The Pillars of Digital Transformation

To understand the areas that will be impacted and what the effects of digital transformation on your business will be, you need to first understand on what basis this changes the way you run the business and interact with customers and partners.

Therefore, the 3 pillars are:

• Customer experience digital transformation
• Operational process transformation
• Business model transformation

Why does Digital Transformation Matter?

A business may decide to implement digital transformation for various reasons. But the most likely reason is that they have to – it is a matter of survival. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ability of a business to quickly adapt to supply chain disruptions, time to market pressures, and quickly changing customer expectations is now important.

Digital transformation attempts to fully leverage the possibilities and opportunities of new technologies and their impact in a more innovative way in the future. This journey needs a staged approach with a clear roadmap, involving various stakeholders.

The plan considers that the results will continue to move because digital transformation is an ongoing journey, just like change and digital innovation. Digital transformation covers various processes, transactions, technological evolutions, interactions, changes, factors, industries, stakeholders, and so on. Therefore, when reading advice on digital transformation or reading reports and predictions you need to keep this in mind.

So, it is quite clear Digital Transformation is the key factor for optimizing the customer experience for businesses today. Trending Technology is one of the factors of Digital Transformation but not the only part. Real Transformation means a Shift in Culture and it needs to change from the top. The marketing department should be placed best to understand the customer journey and the opportunities that come along with the Digital Transformation. To know more about the Digital Transformation Trends in Media and Entertainment for 2020, please feel free to contact us.