- Digital transformation goes beyond reducing physical assets to virtual spaces
- Customer Experience — working to understand customers in more detail
- Operational Processes — improving internal processes by leveraging digitization
- Business Models — transforming the business by augmenting physical offerings with digital tools and services
Tomorrow is Here
“There is no alternative to digital transformation. Visionary companies will carve out new strategic options for themselves — those that don’t adapt, will fail.” — Jeff Bezos, Amazon
Today, digital transformation has become a part of our experiences and actions in daily life. From designing a customized pair of sneakers online and having them shipped to reviewing a product design with the team simultaneously located in three different states—who have never met in person—using video conferencing and several SaaS design platforms.
In a recent study by Bloomberg Media Studio, ‘Built for Change – Perspectives How Smarter Businesses Transform in an Uncertain World’, Twilio called COVID-19 “the digital accelerant of the decade.” In October 2019, industry analyst IDC forecasted the worldwide spending on digital transformation to be of around USD 2.3 trillion in 2023. But in December 2020, eight months into the pandemic, IDC nearly tripled that estimate to USD 6.8 trillion.
The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the digital progress made by organizations. Companies were forced to undergo years or decades worth of transformation in weeks or months which had a lasting impact. There is a noticeable increase in the pace at which physical and digital worlds are blending. A rapid change in digital spheres of commerce is outpacing the “real world” experiences enabling businesses to bring together in a secure way data, applications, and users — across distributed, complex, and expanding digital and hybrid spaces.
Re-inventing the Value Chain
Digital transformation enables us to leverage software to re-invent the entire business value chain. A successful transformation includes it being incremental, cost-effective, and sustainable. That means focusing on outcomes such as new products, improved processes, and other use cases which allow you to build capabilities, value, and get ready for the transformation.
Taking a customer-driven, digital-first approach, it uses AI, automation, hybrid cloud and various other digital technologies to leverage data and drive workflows, faster and smarter decision-making, and real-time response to market disruptions. Ultimately changing customer expectations and creating new business opportunities.
The transformation process begins when businesses start envisioning the experience, they want customers to have. To meet this objective they analyze their market, along with technological trends, to anticipate how customer needs or expectations may change and to spot opportunities for disruption. Businesses then determine how they must transform the infrastructure, product development, operations, and workflows to meet the requirements end to end. Ultimately, they bring the customer experience to life and improvise continuously in response to opportunity and change.
Disruptions in the New Era
In the digital age businesses are creating clever, effective, and disruptive ways of leveraging technology. Online streaming of live shows and concerts has become popular across the world. Several production companies have also been releasing their movies via Over the Top (OTT) platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, Netflix, Zee5, Voot Select, etc providing perennial additions of diverse content.
Another example that witnessed tremendous digital growth during the pandemic due to the soaring demand amongst consumers is the online grocery market. This change resulted in a significant increase of new users who are resorting to online apps for grocery deliveries such as Big Basket, Amazon Pantry, Jio mart, etc.
According to MIT Sloan Management Review, “Digital Transformation is better thought of as continual adaptation to a constantly changing environment.” Digital transformation is no longer something that businesses are adapting to, it is a promise of better living. It opens the door to new opportunities, more convenience and greater resilience to change. Advancement in technology is steadily progressing and will undoubtedly continue to grow exponentially. It’s we humans who have to adapt to changes in technology faster and continue to invest in building technology systems for a better tomorrow.