Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to redefine processes, rethink operating models, reimagine business and, through this process, meet evolving market requirements. While it touches upon all areas of a business, the ultimate goal of digital transformation is to improve the value of products and services provided to customers. In other words, digital transformation is about becoming more agile in responding to customers and enhancing their experience.

Is digital transformation for you?

Digital transformation is for all businesses – small, mid-sized, large – that have not yet adopted future-proof, modern, digital technologies. If your business is just starting out, think about putting in these processes at the beginning, and you won’t need to invest into a digital transformation later.

Digital transformation is not to be confused with digitization or digitalization. The former has to do with computerizing physical documents and data records, while the latter refers to methods that use these digitized data records to make processes simpler and more efficient. Both digitization and digitalization are fairly widespread today.

What makes digital transformation important is that it enables better decision-making, accelerates productivity, and improves efficiency. Most importantly, it adds value to customer interactions and fosters better customer relationships.

How do you get started with Digital Transformation?

Digital transformation is basically about looking at existing processes and going so far as to make changes even to the very fundamentals of the organization. For this reason, each organization’s digital transformation journey is different. What works for one may not work for another.

Moreover, digital transformation isn’t a task that you can take up and finish at one go. It is a process that will take months to plan and implement.

Here’s how you can get started:

Ask realistic questions

Ask questions related to the feasibility of the transformation you expect and why something might work while something else may not. A few questions include:

• What is the potential of the technologies you currently use?
• How can you adapt your business processes to new technology?
• Can you speed up an existing process with a certain change in technology?
• What is the real value of the change you are considering?
• What business outcomes do you want to achieve?
• How will it affect your customers?

Be willing to adapt

Digital transformation is going to reshape your organization and you need to be ready to adapt! By “you”, we don’t just mean every top-level employee and decision-maker – every executive who will be involved in the process of working with these changes in the future needs to buy into the decision.

It is necessary to plan and implement changes with a consensus, create awareness and provide training to existing staff, and possibly even hire new employees to fill gaps if required.

Shed outdated technologies

A number of organizations spend over 70% of their IT funds, simply in operating and maintaining their legacy systems. This poses a major challenge to digital transformation.

As much as you focus on bringing in more technologies, you must also be willing to let go of outdated processes and technologies that are consuming your resources without leaving much room for growth!

Embrace the cloud

A large number of organizations that have embarked on a digital transformation agree that the cloud has given them a significant advantage over organizations that don’t use cloud computing! A study revealed that having a digital transformation strategy in place also enables businesses to better leverage cloud benefits, and even save up to 26% on cloud computing costs. In other words, cloud computing is a major enabler of digital transformation and vice versa.

At the end of the day, success in digital transformation is measured by how well you deliver customer experience and, for this, a cloud-based environment is the most favorable.

Change the culture with DevOps

A working culture based on silos that is resistant to change can never truly be digitally transformed. That’s exactly why it is important to start with a transformation in the culture of the organization.

DevOps breaks down the walls between development and operations, shortens development cycles, and makes it possible to deploy up to 200 times faster. It can also lower failure rates by three times! If your organization is new to DevOps, you can first try it on non-critical applications and find the methods that suit you best as you go.

Is that all?

Cloud computing and DevOps – this is considered to be a truly transformative combination. A scalable development platform like the cloud is the best-suited environment for continuous production, testing, deployment, and delivery. However, it doesn’t mean that digital transformation can be achieved by just these. 

“Digital transformation is not just a thing that you can buy and plug into the organization,” the Harvard Business Review rightly warns. It is about rethinking every aspect of your business, including processes, teams, communication methods, and more. That is exactly why the journey to digital transformation can be much smoother with a reliable partner like CloudNow Technologies.

Interested in knowing more? Get in touch with us today!