Digital Transformation from Within
Digital transformation has become a buzzword as companies change the tools they use and even their business models to remain competitive in a changing world. According to SuperOffice, however, it’s not the companies that are driving this change, but their customers. That makes sense to some degree, as customers expect businesses to be more available, more responsive and more efficient.
Digital transformation can offer immense benefits in helping businesses to become more customer-centric. Cold calling can be replaced with “social selling” when the sales teams use digital tools to interact with customers online, building relationships, educating them, and meeting their needs.
Digital-first also enables companies’ customer service teams to be proactive, not reactive. They can engage regularly with customers on a variety of channels, instead of waiting for the phone to ring.
At Numata, we’re all for this type of development, but we also believe it’s important to focus on the benefits of digital transformation for employees.
With a cloud-based system, your team is empowered to do their jobs, wherever they are in the world. And, once they are comfortable with using the technology, it makes their job easier and faster than manual data capturing and weeds out human error. It also frees up their time to be spent on more valuable tasks than plugging data into documents.
There are many, many more benefits, and we’ve included them in our free e-book called How Can Digital Transformation Empower My Employees? as well as outlining the three stages of digital transformation and navigating business process overhaul.
The great news is that digital transformation is a win-win-win – your customers, your people and your business can benefit from it. Here are six steps to help get you started on your journey to digital thinking:
- Define your objectives: what do you want to achieve with digital transformation? It could be improving customer service or employee retention, cutting costs, or reducing manual error.
- Match your objectives to actions: What will help you to achieve your goal? Improving customer service might mean employing chat functionality on your website. Reducing manual error might mean investing in OCR technology.
- Define the process: Think about what actions your organization needs to implement to achieve the desired outcome. This is not just about identifying specific technology – it’s about mapping out the processes, policies, procedures, and people you need to make this happen.
- Pin down costs: Budgeting is not on many people’s lists of favourite things to do, but it’s important to have a clear view of the funds required before you kick off the project to ensure you’re able to complete it successfully. It’s also critical to check whether the investment will bring sufficient returns to be justified.
- Make a plan: Create a timeline and project plan and assign responsibilities, including realistic deadlines for every action and who is responsible for each part.
- Partner with a pro: Creating a digital transformation strategy can be a tough task, especially when everyone in your organisation already has a full-time job. That’s why partnering with an expert might be your best option – get access to experienced, specialist skills and the latest technology tools and developments, and allow your people to focus on ongoing business tasks.
Contact us at Numata Business IT to find out how we can support you in your business’s digital transformation journey.