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The Digital Transformation of Traditional Businesses: How Your Company Can Stay Relevant

November 30, 2022

Digital transformation is a term that has been thrown around for years. It’s a buzzword that many businesses have adopted as an important strategy, but until recently there hasn’t been widespread adoption of digital transformation strategies among companies. In the past few years, we’ve seen more businesses implement digital transformation strategies than ever before, in response to changing customer preferences and technological innovations like neobanking. 

There are a plethora of real-world use cases for digital transformation, which is great for organisations who are still trying to figure out how to do it themselves. The following article outlines some of the most effective ways that you can digitally transform your business so that it remains relevant in today’s marketplace.

  1. Change Your Culture

Digital transformation begins with a change in organisational culture. In order for your company to compete in the digital space, you must have a culture that is predisposed to digital transformation. If you don’t have the right culture in place, your ability to compete in the online space will be severely limited.

Companies that have successfully digitally transformed have made a concerted effort to change their organisational culture, which has allowed them to make the necessary organisational adjustments to compete in the digital space successfully. In order to change your culture and open the door to digital transformation, you must be willing to change your hiring practices, your employee training methods, and the way that you reward employees. 

You must also be willing to make changes to your company’s mission statement, organisational structure and core values to suit the modern world’s requirements. When it comes to organisational culture, change is the only constant. The only way to minimise the impact of disruptive change is to be the catalyst for change.

  1. Digitally-Driven Product Innovation

Successful digital transformation hinges on innovation. If you want your company to remain relevant in today’s digital space, you must be willing to invest the necessary resources in product innovation. If you currently rely on traditional product development practices, you risk falling behind on the digital curve and losing key market share to more innovative competitors.

Product innovation is a continuous process that evolves as technology and consumer preferences do. The moment you stop investing in product innovation, you’ll start to fall behind your competitors, and you’ll most likely never catch up. For example, traditional offerings like RTA services are being digitally revolutionised.

You may have innovative ideas for new products or services, but if you don’t have the resources to bring them to market, then they’re not going to do your business much good. To successfully digitally transform your product innovation practices, you must commit to bringing innovation from idea to implementation as quickly as possible.

  1. Create a Unique Customer Experience

Customers expect your business to provide a consistent and seamless customer experience from the moment they first become aware of your company until the moment they make a purchase and beyond. In the past, customers could expect consistency across all channels, but in today’s digital world, customers expect consistency across all channels, devices and applications, especially when it comes to specialised services like the global fund investment and solutions.

Your primary goal as a digital transformation leader should be to create a unique customer experience that is tailored to the specific needs of your customers. You must bring together your various channels and digital assets so that they flow seamlessly and customers get the experience that they expect.

  1. Establish Confidence in Your Digital Platforms

If your company is not currently leveraging digital platforms, then you’re probably not providing a consistent customer experience across all channels. 

Now is the time to establish confidence in your digital platforms so that every customer receives that consistent experience. In addition to providing consistent customer experiences, digital platforms provide a variety of benefits for companies, including cost savings, access to new markets, and enhanced employee productivity. 

As a digital transformation leader, you must work to establish confidence in your digital platforms by leveraging a single sign-on solution that allows customers to authenticate one time across all of your digital channels.

  1. Consolidate and Streamline Core Processes

Digital transformation involves more than just leveraging new technologies and digital platforms; it also involves streamlining core business processes so that they can be completed quickly, accurately and efficiently. There are a number of ways that you can streamline your core business processes, including standardising and automating recurring tasks, leveraging AI-driven technologies and adopting a digital-first mentality.

When adopting a digital-first mentality, you must be willing to abandon processes that are too time-consuming or inefficient when there are more efficient solutions available. It can be challenging to abandon long-standing processes, especially when they’re handled manually. One way to get buy-ins from your employees for streamlining and consolidating core processes is to focus on the benefits that employees will see when the process changes.

  1. Hold a Digital Audit for Bottom-Up Feedback

If you want to implement an effective digital transformation strategy, then you must first understand how your customers currently experience your company. A digital audit will provide you with insights into your customers’ needs, expectations and pain points.

You can conduct a digital audit in a variety of ways and the best way to do so is to ask your customers directly. You can hold a digital audit through an online survey, or you can integrate a digital feedback tool into your company’s various platforms. Conducting a digital audit will help you to identify areas in your company that need to be improved so that your customers’ digital experience is consistent and personalised.

Conclusion

When it comes to digital transformation, the one result you can be sure of is change. To successfully implement a digital transformation strategy, you must be willing to change your company’s culture, adopt product innovation practices, have a 360° digitally aware customer experience, digitize core business processes, and build a digital-first organisational structure.