A Framework for Digital Business Transformation

Changing your company culture to embrace a fully digital workplace takes time. Much like the rest of this process, you gradually work your way to the desired outcome.Your company uses several types of technology, but these investments often get added on an ad hoc basis. There's no overarching strategy guiding the digital business transformation process. This approach may generate some improvement over the short term, but you end up with a fragmented organization over the long term.A documented framework gives your company a strong foundation for the future and introduces new digital processes and systems at the optimal times. A carefully controlled roll out in four significant areas drives your business growth when compared to attempting an organization-wide digital transformation all at once.

Customer Experience

Consumers develop high expectations due to their interactions with fully digital companies. If you don't deliver a similar experience, you run the risk of losing their interest. Start with your audience data. What do you know about your customers, and how are you gathering this information?Here are a few means to do so:

• Integrated point-of-sale systems, customer relationship management tools, e-commerce software and countless other solutions give you deep insights into consumers on a micro and macro level.
• Track purchasing trends for a particular location, or predict the products a customer may be interested in. You gain a deeper understanding of what your audience likes, the factors influencing their behavior and how to optimize your funnels. You aren't limited to first-party data.
• Social media delivers many insights into customer purchase intent and brand sentiment.

Once you improve your customer analytics, you can focus on touch points. Typical consumers move from mobile to desktop, website to social media profile, and everywhere in between during their journey. Mapping our and understanding an omni channel approach to this these interactions will allow you to deliver the same brand promise and messaging at each interaction.

Operations

Your customers now have the digital experience they've come to expect in today's connected world. Now, it's time to take a step back and go behind the scenes. You don't want a mismatch between your customer-facing and back-end digital systems because you run the risk of operational inefficiencies negatively impacting the customer experience.Here are a few questions to ask yourself when optimizing digital operations:

• Do you have multiple disparate systems? Consolidating systems around systemized processes may be the answer.
• Are your department's siloed when it comes to acquiring digital platforms for its tasks? Your organization may need standardized departmental processes to increase efficiency.
• Are you employing automation to reduce tedious or repetitive tasks? This will free up employees' time for high-value tasks that require direct input.
• Have you consolidated similar applications to streamline your infrastructure and leverage economies of scale? You improve your organization's ability to react to market changes and reduce your overhead costs.
• Do you have a single set of systems and procedures necessary for training? Your new-hire on-boarding process becomes less complicated when it's not completely different for every team.

By taking a customer and employee centric approach to new technology investments, the efficiencies and opportunities created may help both monetarily and culturally.

Products and Services

The global marketplace gives consumers countless product options in nearly every industry. You can't rely on price or availability to be the primary factor driving sales these days. Instead, you look at the way your products fit into the consumer's life. How can you create a valuable experience with your products via connectivity or other digital technology?Fitness wearables provide a good example of how digitized products and services lead to an excellent experience. The base features show consumers their heart rates, sleep cycles, how much they exercised and other data points. The app keeps records of fitness over time, helps people track their goals and integrates into the consumers' lives.You also gain access to previously unavailable data sources. Market research surveys only get the information consumers are willing to share. With connected products and services, you get an unfiltered look at the way everyone uses your product. This data is invaluable for developing future services, personalizing the experience for a consumer or identifying unaddressed needs in your customer base.

Organization

You have all the digital transformation pieces in place, but you still have one thing missing: your organization-wide approach. Truly embracing this high-tech approach to business requires a massive shift in the way you do things at every level. You share department resources and data with the entire company, removing pre existing silos that made it difficult to collaborate. The business takes an end-to-end strategy, so consumers receive a full life-cycle experience without going to outside organizations.Changing your company culture to embrace a fully digital workplace takes time. Much like the rest of this process, you gradually work your way to the desired outcome. Employees learn to love the time-saving benefits of new procedures, you use your company resources in the most beneficial areas, no matter which department they belong to, and you future-proof your organization with the right mindset for a digital change.