Exploring the Benefits of Digital Transformation

The world has witnessed significant digital transformations in the span of only a few years. Technology now plays a critical role in any business strategy rather than just a cost-effective solution. You have probably heard of the increased concern regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our daily lives or how 3D printing has managed to accomplish incredible designs. The use of technology, or in other words, digital transformation on both business-level and industry levels - has become one of the deciding factors towards success.

Therefore, let’s explore the benefits of digital transformation in-depth, setting aside any worries about how digital technology might someday replace humans.

Why Does Digital Transformation Matter?

The first and foremost reason is that the current business and economic circumstances require the practice of new strategies - one of them is utilizing technology to gain a competitive advantage. As reported by Gartner, 87% of senior business leaders acknowledge that digitalization is a priority nowadays, and 91% of organizations of different sizes are currently involved in some digital processes. Market pressures are the main forces behind digital transformation, according to Prophet, as 51% of the efforts result from growth prospects and 41% from heightened competition.

Not only is the digital transformation of strategic importance for companies, but it also is needed to meet customers’ expectations. Users and buyers now expect seamless digital experiences on websites or applications.

Benefits of Digital Transformation

As the presence of digital solutions becomes so ubiquitous, it’s easy to overlook the multiple benefits it has brought into our daily lives.

Data-driven Insights

Digital technologies have long been used for data collection - they allow data collection to be accurate and centralized. One can access business-critical data using the right digital tools.

Nonetheless, the collected raw data only has meaning once it is going through analysis. Here is where you can see real-life digital transformation benefits - it provides you with the right tools to create a system and gain data-based insights. You will be presented with a single picture of operations, production, finances, and commercial prospects for the customer journey. From there, you can use this knowledge to adjust your business tactics as needed.

On another note, cyber theft is a continuing serious problem. Make sure you take proper measures to protect the sensitive data collected. Moreover, let your customers know how their data is being used - customers are becoming increasingly aware of how their private data is gathered and exploited. Show them you respect their privacy.

Less Human Error

Most manual data processes are error-prone. Such errors are, in today’s digital age, time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes even downright dangerous. Security gaps may pose massive threats to the existence of the company itself. It is critical to minimize such risks.

The use of digital tools is critical to limiting such errors. They do so by flagging any abnormal activities instantly, controlling access, and setting up protective barriers.

Boost Productivity

The automation of numerous manual procedures, streamlining of business processes, and integration of data empower your team members to work harder and encourage them to utilize technology on a daily basis. Ultimately, this leads to increased productivity. You might not see the difference right away, but once the compound effects start to show, you will notice the difference.

Better Customer Insights

Data-driven insights lead to better customer insights. From there, you are given the tools and information to make data-driven decisions to further enhance product and service quality. The business operations revolve around your customer’s needs and feedback.

In order to really accelerate business growth, it is a good idea to utilize both structured and unstructured data (like social media data).

By actively analyzing the data and making suitable adjustments, along with smoother business operations, you are also improving customer experience. Customer experience seems to be the new battleground - businesses are fiercely competing to win their customers’ satisfaction and positive reviews.

Increased Agility in Software Development

Agile methodologies are preferred and used across a large number of companies these days. Agile data-driven management software management solution that encourages adaptability and ongoing business intelligence use.

Digital transformation has led to the automation of important processes. Such automation can create a revolution in business operations by quickly generating core engineering metrics and establishing baselines. Automation also means that there are higher requirements regarding product quality and product performance.

With such a goal in mind, product managers make use of digital transformation to lower the number of bugs found throughout the DevOps process, enhance unit testing coverage, raise the number of code reviews, and boost overall stability.

Encourages a Healthy Digital Culture

One of the many benefits of digital transformation is it creates a healthy digital culture for employees. By providing the right tools suitable for the existing tasks and even future workload, a lot of overhead is reduced (e.g., instead of back-and-forth emailing to determine the best time frame for a meeting, checking available time slots on a digital calendar would quickly give you the answer), giving employees the time and space to focus on value-driven activities.

Such advantages encourage teammates to learn and upgrade their digital skills in the short term and leverage the benefits of digital transformation in the long term.

Better Compliance

Each industry, each client even, has their unique set of regulations and standards. Not complying with such regulations may lead to financial penalties. Individually, they might seem minor - but if such carelessness continues, they become extremely expensive - which eventually has negative effects on the bottom line.

Your company reputation then might suffer, too. Major partners then might think twice before choosing to work with you. That’s when digital transformation gives you the tools to gain visibility into your processes, products, and performance to make the right adjustments.

Innovative Business Models

Digital transformation is more than enhancing and streamlining existing products or procedures. It is also innovative - looking for fresh lenses to drive growth or even completely new revenue streams for the company.

Furthermore, the constant adaption to technology leads to new business models being created to meet customers’ needs.

Examples of Digital Transformation Benefits in Real Life

If you still find digital transformation and the future of digital growth as something on a large scale only and unrealistic, let us show you some real-life, close-to-home examples in three different industries.

Digital Transformation in Food and Beverage

Any frequent Internet user has probably seen chatbots at least once during their Internet surfing sessions. Chatbots, specifically those with the help of Artificial Intelligence, have opened up new potential for businesses.

Domino Pizza is one such business. Its chatbot allows those with a Domino’s Pizza account to make use of Facebook Messenger to place a repeat order for a previous pizza or order their usual selection. Additionally, users receive continuous information on the progress of their pizza and may follow it from preparation through delivery.

Digital Transformation in the Supply Chain

Visibility in the supply chain is imperative. One way to achieve it is by using IoT (Internet of Things) sensors on trucks, ships, and cargo containers. The sensors provide companies with information regarding locations in real-time and the conditions of goods.

This allows business owners to make sure the transportation is going to plan and have timely solutions should any unexpected situations come up.

Digital Transformation in Software Development

Microsoft has also become aware of the major benefits of digital transformation. The business has made itself more accessible to mobile devices by offering, for instance, Office for iPad. Furthermore, the organization partners with Dropbox, expanding its OndeDdrive service, and Red Hat, a software company that provides open-source software products.

Not stopping there, the enterprise has also acquired LinkedIn and GitHub, creating new revenue streams for the company in the age of digital transformation.

Final Note

An organization that enables future digital growth enables itself one step closer to innovating your business operation. Understanding and seeing a successful digital transformation journey is one thing - you also need a clear business strategy for digital transformation to avoid expensive and time-consuming pitfalls.

Don’t let your digital transformation efforts turn to nothing. Always consult experts before you decide to follow through with any long-term digital transformation strategy, especially when you are at a loss and don’t know where to start. Those with years of experience and testimonials from trusted partners are the ones you should go for, like the Orient Software team.