How digital transformations are helping businesses scale?

“It’s never over. There is always change and always more to do.” Dr Koeing, the CEO of German Allianz Health affirms and stresses over to explain the vitality of transformative initiatives for firms. 

Along those lines, digital transformation has become crucial for all businesses. Every keynote, analytical study, panel discussion, or article based on survival businesses through the “new normal” reiterates the same conclusion. 

Given the current trends, largely affected by the pandemic, digital transformation has been a silver bullet for businesses of all sizes in effectively responding to work disruption and changing consumer preferences. According to Dell’s Digital Transformation Index of 2020 that surveyed more than 4000 business leaders in the world, every 8 out of 10 businesses fast-tracked their digital transformation programs. Moreover, 89% of them responded that the pandemic emphasised the growing need for a more adaptable and scalable IT environment. As the financial impact of lockdowns and restrictions on movement persisted, the need for businesses to shift their development strategies to virtualisation and digitalisation has drastically increased too. Before we delve into how digital transformations help businesses scale and become more competitive, let’s see what these transformations have been.

Digital Transformation – Not merely a Buzzword

Digital transformation dates back to as early as the 1940s. The father of modern digital communications and information theory, Claude Shannon explains digitization in his article “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”. Although, it wasn’t until the late 1990s and 2000s when businesses began to better understand digital transformation. That decade marked the rise of digital products, services and mediums. Nevertheless, there was no one agreed-upon definition of digital transformation. But, defining it is more important than ever today. 

Harvard Business Review highlights the words a senior executive from a global brand in this context: 

“We have a dozen committees on digital transformation, we have digital transformation initiatives, we are going full steam on digital transformation…but none can explain to me what it means.”

They highlight that digital transformation refers to adapting a business’ strategy and model to make the most of opportunities enabled by digital technology and innovation. To reiterate, digital transformation is the process of present and coming digital innovations to modify and create new business processes. Even though many organisations perceive this concept as a mere disruption, the current trends portray that they add value to the businesses indefinitely. 

Some of these digital transformations include mobile applications, websites, and online portals that enable customers to access your products or services and to experience your brand. Additionally, business-to-business e-commerce applications and videoconferencing applications have flourished in the consumer, business and not-for-profit worlds. And, making safe, secure and contactless payments have also gained importance. An article published by Deloitte reports that searches for terms like “contactless” increased by 7 times between November 2019 and April 2020. Simultaneously, the stocks of technology firms aligned with recent customer heath concerns rose tremendously. 

The key is to adopt an effective strategy. Back in 2015, Deloitte published papers on digital transformation that concluded that strategy drives it, not technology. This approach requires less risk-taking and greater importance is given to ensuring that employees remain happy while the transformation happens. Culture is integral. 

Multifaceted Benefits of Digital Transformation that help with Scalability

Amid the pandemic, research from the IBM Institute for Business Value reported a 59% of organisations they surveyed made the rapid digital transformation and 66% were able to see through initiatives that were previously met with resistance. 

The same review highlighted some of the digital transformations organisations undertook:

Digital transformation can radically enhance customer engagement, employee innovation and productivity, better access to accurate insights, enables increased collaboration within an organisation and among various organizations all of which can help the business scale efficiently in a post-pandemic world. 

1. Enhanced Customer Engagement: According to Forbes, about 70 per cent of business leaders have experienced significant value from digital transformation in terms of customer engagement and satisfaction. 
2. Accurate insights based on data: Data is a critical aspect of digital transformation since the digital world generates massive amounts of data. This data can help create goals and benchmarks for an individual organisation’s transformation journey whilst assessing progress in real-time.
3. Optimise workplace and employee productivity: “Technology today touches everything we do, at work and in our personal lives. Making the best use of it, making it work for us, is what matters,” says Jean-Philippe Courtois, the President of Global Sales, Marketing and Operations at Microsoft. Organisations can enable efficient management streamlined processes, automated reports and employee self-service that minimise executive tasks. This allows employees to have more time in their hands to focus on more meaningful, creative and challenging tasks. 
4. Greater Collaboration: Silos can cost businesses. Thus, digital transformation must not be siloed off between individual teams. The Mckinsey & Co survey shows that 8 in 10 people ensured involving their entire company in change management efforts. So, adopting new and improved technology to inter-communicate across departments is very important. 

Digital Transformation for the “New Normal” 

Moving forward, it is vital to tweak your business model to further your digital transformation journey. Increased productivity will allow businesses to thrive. A recent Accenture report explains that AI-based technologies will increase productivity by an astounding 40% by the year 2035. This quill certainly assists in developing a competitive advantage for the firm by enhancing the quality of products manufactured and services rendered. As mentioned earlier, the need to seize upon shifts in consumer preferences is more important than ever before. Hence, businesses that will deliver more personalized, contextual digital experiences will be better prepared. So the organisations that can adapt quickly to varying preferences will remain relevant in the market and grow their revenue exponentially. 

Finance is the foundation of the global economy and digital payments are the most competitive and relevant model for transactions. Due to continued digital transformation, the financial and digital payments system has undergone colossal alterations including data-driven consumer insights, optimised data collection and increased marginal profits. Using digital payments can work as your organisation’s competitive advantage. 

According to an Accenture report, more than 50 billion transactions, worth £484bn, are projected to move away from cash to digital payments. Hence, with COVID-19 accelerated digital transformation, payments will increase substantially as consumers will move away from cash for digital payment methods. 

To be future-ready with digital payments, ensure you partner with a trusted and cost-effective payment processing company to make the most of digital transformations.