What is Digital Transformation?
Digital Transformation means making use of existing tools and technologies to make advanced tech that can help in tackling the business and customer-related concerns more accurately, easily, and conveniently. This means not making things work ‘’faster’’ than now but more reliable, customer-oriented, and efficient.
How Popular brands transformed by using Digital Transformation
Supply Chain & Logistics: To make the customer services faster, supply chain & logistics company UPS has synchronized its digital platforms like Orion, strategies, and logistics to meet the demands of the customers efficiently like package tracking and constant updates. This also provides delivery routes to the drivers that make them deliver the packages on time.
Dominos: To tackle the demand for pizzas and to serve the customers better, Dominos came up with the idea of ‘’Pizza Tracker’. People can keep a track of their orders by this tracker. It helps the company to make further customer-friendly strategies.
Netflix: We all love to spend time at home doing nothing and watching Netflix. But you know the story of Netflix? Earlier people use to buy rented films and watch them at home. There were no reviews by which one can decide to rent the movie. However, with the introduction of OTT platforms like Netflix, people can now decide to watch a movie by looking at the review rates of the movies in advance. An excellent example of how to serve your customer preferences in a better way.
Challenges in Digital Transformation
Digital Transformation is not just adopting, using, or innovating new software or tools for better customer service. It is a whole new concept for the business and the employees working for that brand. Many companies find it difficult to manage the new tech because of a lack of support from the owners/directors of the companies.
Moreover, One must keep in mind how people will react to the change, the financial budgeting of the product, the business integration cost, and the training procedure for the employees and customers.
- Customer Relations: One of the few challenges in Digital Transformation is to manage customer relations using the latest tech. People might think the brand is taking too much information from them or is disturbing their routine. Many companies store personal data to manage its functioning smoothly which can be sensitive data like credit card information, browsing history, or travel information.
- Innovation Costing: Every innovative idea needs financial support to execute. Sometimes the brand is not strong enough to manage the innovative costs of a new product including training of employees, advertisements, and maintenance.
- Training: Lack of sense of responsibility in the management can lead to a decrease in revenue, motivation, and productivity of the employees. Regular training sessions, timely guidance, and motivational sessions are necessary to manage the operations of an organization. Similarly, learning and mastering a new product needs time and training that can prove to be a difficult task for some brands.
- People Reactions: Digital Transformation can lead to positive as well as negative reactions by the users. There is no point in innovating software that can lead to negative reviews. The management needs to research and study the tech carefully with the government rules & regulations to make sure everything is on track.
- Alignment with Business Goals: Another challenge in Digital Transformation is the alignment of innovative ideas with the organizational goals. For example- Apple does not need to build an application that says order now and pick up your order at a nearby drive-thru store. It is only applicable to fast food chains. Similarly, such digital assets should only be executed with the desired results of the company.
Solutions to manage Digital Transformation
To overcome the above-mentioned challenges, you can implement the following solutions to keep the functioning smooth.
- Manage Relationships better: Delegation of accountability and responsibility in the hierarchy is the base of maintaining a healthy work environment. Make them feel that everyone is a stakeholder in the company. It would increase their motivation and productivity. Also, would lead to new innovative ideas to tackle the challenges easily.
- Hire an Expert: Hiring a Digital Transformation consultant would help in keeping the risks out of a project. They can make a blueprint of the associated risks and can help in aligning the business goals with the new tool through their experience and expertise in the consulting field.
- Invest your time in Research: You can subscribe to various research tools that can help in getting an overview of the latest trends, needs, and demands in customer service/business growth. Good research might eliminate the threats in advance and would help build a roadmap to tackle the roadblocks.
Summary
Digital Transformation is a great concept and would grow to new heights shortly. Gadgets like Virtual Reality, Smart Glasses, 5g Network, and Augmented Reality have changed the market completely. By such innovations, a brand can position itself in the market as a giant tech brand.
- Understand the idea and research as much as you can.
- Make a good plan including the possible threats.
- Execute the blueprint with the help of your consultant.
- Achieve new heights and grow your business.