Equip your business to thrive and prosper - Digital Transformation

We live and operate in the digital age. Technology has reduced the barriers for creating new lines of business, reduced capital investment and reduced constraints such as location, language and asset-ownership. It enables smaller firms to compete with larger, more established companies. Significant opportunities exist to grow and transform your business. But if you just stand by and watch, your business may disappear.

In recent times, most businesses have invested in their digital front-door - their website. Whilst this creates a presence in the Digital World, by itself, it is not transformational.

The problem is that the internal workings of the business are often not joined up. Business processes across the organisation are frequently not aligned. So dealing with customer queries or with the supply chain can be inefficient, time-consuming and expensive. Yet customer expectations in this digital world are increasing, with many venting their disappointment with service via social media channels.

A number of companies demonstrate this potential to re-shape how they operate, as set out in the case studies by Deloitte in their publication “Building your digital DNA”. KPMG’s report “Digital to the Core” found that while most mid-market companies are investing in digital, the majority are adopting a tentative strategy. This report noted that whilst almost one in nine mid-tier executives in the Midlands plan to increase their investment, only one in six is a “digital pioneer.” The Lloyds Bank UK Business Digital Index 2017 noted that "the the majority of small businesses and charities are embracing digital ways to do business, but an important minority aren’t and it’s costing them time and money. 1.6 million businesses (41%) and over 100,000 (52%) charities in the UK are in the digital slow lane and are currently without full (all five) Basic Digital Skills. Worryingly the Index has also identified 118,000 organisations in the UK who aren’t using the internet at all. For many, this is a mindset issue. The leading barrier for those with lowest levels of digital skills is seeing the internet as of interest – 61% of charities and 43% of small businesses in thisbracket believe an online presence is ‘irrelevant’.

Older business and established charities are unsurprisingly the ones most likely to be missing out. 57%of businesses over 10 years old don’t believe digital or technology advances are required, but they maystart to see their more digital competitors using tech to their advantage and overtaking them.

Another key barrier is online safety and security. The data reveals that currently only one-third of small businesses and one-quarter of charities feel they have the skills to protect their organisations from fraud and potential scams. This is 2.6m small businesses and almost 50,000 charities."

Recent digital advances cover aspects such as analytics, mobility, social media, smart embedded devices, unified communications & VOIP, machine learning, robotics, and cloud-based services, to name a few. The opportunities are significant for both large and small companies.

This digital landscape can be harnessed to reduce constraints related to organisation size, location, language and asset-ownership. Remarkable new businesses have emerged. Tom Goodwin at Havas Media notes that the world’s:

largest taxi firm, Uber, owns no cars;
most popular media company, Facebook, creates no content;
most valuable retailer, Alibaba, carries no stock;
largest accommodation provider, Airbnb, owns no property.

A key factor in all this has been the consumer technology revolution. Once, most technology originated in the business world, or the government, and then made its way to the consumer world. Now much is now being driven from consumers to businesses. Thanks to the Internet, the pace of innovation in consumer technology is quite amazing.

This technology change enables your business to become much more customer/client focused - to provide high-quality engagement experiences to drive service excellence, business efficiency and growth. It also enables your internal teams to work more effectively. As a result, as noted by Deloittes, is driving a significant shift in the balance of power between organisations and individuals. The explosion in connectivity and the availability of information is putting today’s consumers, employees, citizens, patients and other individuals squarely in the driver’s seat.

Achieving effective digital transformation requires the re-alignment of people, processes and technologies to drive great and customer experience seemlessly across all customer touch points (digital and 'bricks & mortar').