Many corporate leaders are still trying to understand what digital transformation means for their business and how it impacts their ability to remain competitive. Many companies are struggling to keep pace with the ever-changing digital landscape. Embracing digital practices is essential for companies of all sizes to stay competitive. So, where do you start? This white paper will explain what digital transformation is and how it can benefit your company.
What is Digital Transformation?
Popularly known as ‘digitization’, it is an ongoing process of connecting people, machines, and data for more effective work process and productivity. Digital transformation is a continuous approach to investing in new technologies to encourage innovation. Digital transformation is geared toward bringing advantages to companies in areas such as:
- Reduced costs
- Improved margins
- Increased productivity
- Improved revenue streams
- Increased speed to market
- Enhanced customer experience
Digital innovation provides new business opportunities and more streamlined processes that were not possible before. For example, autonomous cars and driving are now a reality. They require a digital infrastructure with wireless signal-based networks to operate safely. Many of today’s service-based companies are only possible because of digitization.
There would be no Netflix without the process of digitizing video and shipping it via broadband connections. We don’t realize that digitization is a large part of our personal daily interaction. The inability or disbelief that digital transformation is a necessary component to sustaining company growth and its existence is what put companies like Blockbuster out of business. Netflix believed and embraced digitization and had the vision to change how we view movies and other shows.
Digital transformation generally refers to two things: (1) the transformation of the entire workforce and (2) the transformation of specific parts of organizations. For companies that take the first step away from traditional models, digital transformation will usually mean using technology to address a problem or pain point. When a digital strategy is already developed, digital transformation refers to a constant, iterative approach to using new technologies. Be it an app or a new device; companies use technology to have a sustainable advantage over competitors. Digital transformation is broadly defined as a change to the way things are done due to new technologies.
