The concept of digital transformation is thrown around constantly in the corporate world and this has been a long time coming, gaining momentum over the past few years. The only way for companies to thrive in the digital age is by having a clear digital transformation roadmap.
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation (DX) is the process of automating and streamlining systems and operations to boost an organization's efficiency. To achieve a completely connected digital ecosystem, it is vital to incorporate new technology throughout and integrate it with all operations. It reevaluates how a business is managed, operated, and provides value to customers.
As these technologies change the way we do everything from business processes to customer engagement, it’s best to learn more about the role they’ll play in realizing business goals.
Role of Technologies in Digital Transformation
Technology has helped in doing away with old business processes and adopting new practices to ensure sustainable business continuity and promote digital growth. They allow organizations to do things quickly, affordably, and conveniently with a greater sense of accuracy than ever before.
These technologies help create a ‘digital business that is competitive, agile, creative, customer-centric, and a delight to work in. As stated [1] by Deloitte, digital technologies help to move a business from ‘doing digital’ to 'being digital'.
Here are some exciting statistics that re-emphasizes the importance of technology in digital transformation:
- 38% of businesses invest more in technology to make it their competitive advantage
- 40% of all technology spending is seen to go to digital transformations
- 60% of companies say that technology has boosted their digital transformation initiatives
- 54% of enterprises prioritize digital transformation initiatives regarding technology
- 49% of technological skill is needed to support digital transformation efforts
Essential Digital Transformation Technologies to Optimize your internal operations
As the scope of technology increases, the growth of digital transformation is strengthened along with it, allowing organizations to be holistically future-proof. When technologies are used effectively, businesses can make better decisions, optimize operational efficiency, and boost work productivity
Let’s look at the top 4 digital transformation technologies that can improve profitability, boost deployment speed, and turn customer satisfaction into loyalty.
1. Automation
In almost every organization, employees keep performing productivity-killing tasks that are critical in keeping the business running. Job monotony is one of the alarming causes leading to employee frustration. This indicates that automation is still an untapped resource for a lot of companies. With automation, repetitive tasks can be automated and streamlined, relieving employees from tedious, time-consuming tasks.
Automation uses rule-based logic to automate various types of manual work such as sending confirmation emails within your business processes. It can digitally transform a business by safely streamlining communication, boosting employees' productivity, and improving efficiency. Here are some of the areas where automation is helping businesses to digitally transform.
- Marketing & Sales - Automation has one of the most popular conjunctions with marketing. It helps marketers automate repetitive marketing activities involved in Search Engine Management, managing creative content requests, tracking campaign progress, etc.
- In sales, automation helps businesses track and manage the prospect leads throughout the customer journey and nurture them through the sales funnel. It creates a streamlined and uniform sales process to make sure that no lead gets left behind or falls through the cracks.
- Human resources - Critical HR processes such as payroll management, hiring, onboarding, insurance policies, leave requests, and expense reimbursements can be streamlined in minutes with automation. This saves time and drastically rescues the chance of error in the entry of sensitive information.
- Accounting - Automation fully unlocks the potential of finance teams by automating the grunt work and reducing as much data entry (like the bookkeeping) as possible. Automating accounting tasks saves time, especially during financial closing, improves data accuracy, and paves the way for faster data retrieval. It removes the difficulties in traditional complex methods in invoice reconciliation, write-down requests, etc, making the accounting process seamless.
2. Low-code and No-code
Low-code and no-code are probably one of the most talked about technology in digital transformation. This approach reduces technical barriers for business users by allowing them to build custom apps with minimal or no coding knowledge.
These DIY software development tools are used to create custom software without having to write it from scratch, which can be time-consuming and costly.
Low-code, no-code development tools allow anyone with a product or a specific objective to build scalable applications within a few hours or days. Basically, it’s a magic wand for businesses to innovate and cut down costs. It helps businesses do more with less: automates processes, streamlines operations across multiple locations or departments, and eliminates manual tasks.
By leveraging the power of visual design systems and drag-and-drop features of low-code, and no-code, businesses can,
- Easily develop new applications
- Shorten idea-to-market processes by speeding up project execution and delivery
- Strengthen collaboration and improve efficiency by linking non-tech business experts with simple tools
- Create upon the existing no-code, low-code infrastructure rather than developing new environments
3. Cloud
Cloud computing is the use of cloud technology, such as software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS), and other forms of remote access. The technology offers rapid innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale. It has been called "the next frontier" of digital transformation by Gartner Research Director Brian White.
So, cloud technology has become more than a business necessity as it is used for many functionalities such as application development, data management, etc. Cloud technology for digital transformation helps organizations become more agile, efficient, and flexible.
The cloud offers businesses a range of benefits beyond cost savings:
- Better collaboration - With cloud-based workflows, team members in an organization can collaborate with greater ease. For example, the request-and-approval processes that are standard in finance operations can be moved to the cloud and be performed more efficiently.
- Enable automation - Unlocking the power of automation is one of the greatest benefits of the cloud. For example, when teams move from manual processes (Excel Spreadsheets and paper) to cloud-based document management, the entire functions carried out by a department can take a giant leap forward.
- Greater accuracy and efficiency - Efficiency and compliance with internal controls can be increased by eliminating human errors. Since the operations are automated, the cloud gives almost zero room for data inaccuracy.
- Reduces IT spending and improves security - A company’s IT team is relieved from the burden of software upgrades and patches, and hence it need not be included in the budget. Cloud-based solutions include robust security features, such as data encryption, two-factor authentication, and in some cases more.
4. Analytics and Integration
Analytics and integration are the key elements of digital transformation. The ability to gain insight into data, analyze it, and make decisions based on that information is critical for any business.
- Analytics can help to understand your customer needs through advanced reporting capabilities that provide real-time insights. This allows businesses to forecast future operations based on what's happening right now.
- The integration allows different systems within your organization (such as marketing & sales) to access each other's data so they can work together more effectively than ever before.
Analytics and integration combined together allow employees to concentrate on their tasks without having to worry about remaining in sync.
Benefits of Digital Technology
Regardless of the industry and size, digital technology is an answer for every business that wants to remain competitive and profitable.
From systems, processes, workflow, and culture, technology-powered digital transformation changes the way an organization operates.
At the functional level, developing business apps is no longer an exclusive realm of the IT team. With innovative platforms like low-code and no-code, business users in HR, marketing, finance, and any other department can now build modern applications.
Digital technology has the power to re-invent business processes by automating repetitive internal workflows. This enables faster reporting and decision-making, thus empowering the workforce and organization as a whole.
Digital technologies also reduce costs by eliminating unnecessary expenses like printing paper documents or sending them via snail mail (which may take weeks). The pitfalls of excels and spreadsheets can be eliminated once in for all and be replaced with robust automated solutions.
Also Read: 15+ Banking Technologies to watch out for in 2023
How Does Kissflow Help You to Be On Top of your Digital Transformation Journey?
Digital transformation is an organization-wide priority. However, transforming the business process to align with the objectives still remains elusive. The majority of organizations are still in the early stages and many are confused about where to begin and which digital transformation technologies are right for their business.
To remove these difficulties and avoid technical debt, you need to switch to a digital transformation platform like Kissflow which speaks the language of both business and IT.
For a decade, Kissflow has been a catalyst for brands, guiding them toward digital excellence through a focus on data, customer-centricity, and maximizing ROI. Through our creative and scalable platform, we can empower your organization to remodel your IT and gain lasting business value.
Conquer IT complexities and build a better future for your business with Kissflow.
