Today I am going to talk about digital transformation and its importance to your business. First let me explain to you what it is.
According to 1min30: “Digital transformation, refers to the process of an organization’s full integration of digital technologies into all of its activities”.
Well that’s all very well so the digital transformation is simply go digital? That’s it, nothing complicated on paper, but all this brings a lot of change within the company.
Let’s do a short review of figures related to digital transformation in France according to a study by Google:
- 93 % estimates that the impact of digitalisation is important, very important for two thirds of respondants, in their secteur of activity.
- 99 % estimates that the digital has caused businesses to rethink their business model, create offers and services, change management methods and simplify organizational processes.
- 68 % of workers have a positive view on digital transformation
- 42 % companies say they want to merge the customer experience between physical and digital channels, but 25% actually do.
In addition, according to a BCG study, digital transformation generates positive outcomes.
The question that remains to be asked is : Why start? It’s very simple, there are a lot of advantages to digital transformation namely:
- Increased value creation
- Similar customer experience across the different channels of interaction
- Influence on social media
- New recruits with expertise able to boost your business
- Agility at the heart of your business
France and the world in a more global is evolving towards the digital. What I want to tell you is that if you do not evolve, your prospects evolve.
Nobody will wait until you have made efforts to digitize your business. Even worse, you probably do not want to see you force a late change due to new entrants in the market.
It is therefore important for you to think about how you will be able to sustainably change your way of acting and your processes to enter the digital world without problem and increasing your value creation.
Your business model
The business model is the keystone of your business, it is due to this element that you get to sell your products or services. But with the arrival of digital, everything is changing.
Changing a business model is complicated and time consuming, but it can become profitable quickly enough if you do it well.
DSI Relation and Marketing
All this change is a real job! Indeed, marketing will now go through many new technologies and collaborative softwares. All your troops must be ready to accept change together. As you are aware, the new digital projects are not only of a technicial or marketing nature, they require a merge between these two major domains to attain an objective: performance. You have to put your DSI and your Marketing Director in direct contact so that the results are mind-blowing!
Skills
The problem of companies is that usually there is no internal skills to mark a turning point and thus a change. It will be necessary to solve these difficulties of hiring skilled personel dedicated to the creation of digital projects. Give this power to your HR Director and the people in charge of recruitment. In itself, nothing is forcing you to recruit a pro for each task related to digital, as nowadays there is a whole digital ecosystem that is there to solve this kind of problem. Alternatives such as digital communication agencies, SEO agencies (SEO, SEA, SEM), digital marketing agencies … As you can see, whatever happens you can outsource certain tasks.
Be agile
There are too many companies developing numerous processes fixed and frozen in time. Start-ups for example are companies that have decided not to remain frozen and have chosen to test and experiment to internally validate new and agile processes. These companies have decided to test and learn from their mistakes (we call this empiricism), all this allows them to always be on the lookout and innovate and therefore not to be overtaken by time and old processes. The digital world is constantly evolving and that’s why agility has become the watchword. Start-ups adopt a test, learn and continue approach (A / B testing on their website for example). All this is inexpensive and will boost your efficiency.
Importance of social media
Your digital transformation involves your presence on social media. This step is important for your company. Most companies in the financial sector have understood this well: it conveys the image of their brand. If you are very popular on social media, you will have no trouble attracting customers. It will be more complicated if you aren’t. Do not think of it as an environment dedicated to young people and a waste of time. Social media significantly influences your business. It’s the way people see you. It is often through this that people decide to contact you or not, if you are not present enough people will turn to your competitor.
Want to Further see some tips on improving your presence on social media?
Improve my Social media presence at events
Mobile first !
Think mobile ! Today the smartphone has become the first place to look at for information. It will therefore be necessary to rethink your budget so that they are realistic! Adapt your content to mobile phones. Indeed mobile has become the pillar of conversion and loyalty for brands. Remember that your web content may not satisfy a part of your audience if it is not adapted for that particular device. Whatever happens, think mobile as your SEO is directly affected, and may cause you to miss out on opportunities. Think that the future of your business is in the hands of the youth, who will soon get tired of not finding what they are looking for.
Got your head in the clouds?
Save money, save time and be more productive, cloud computing is surely the best alternative today. Internally this will ease collaboration and communication. From an external point of view, your conversations will be optimized, it will above all stimulate innovation! Your IT tools must be up to your ambitions.
That’s why it’s urgent to change from Word to Google Docs, Excel to Google Sheets and all your other software to SaaS platforms. All these tools are sources of rigidity for security issues. Let your IT departments take care of that, security is as important as productivity.
Conclusion
Again do not forget that if you do not evolve, your prospects will evolve. Opt for collaboration and agility, these are the buzzwords for creating value and opportunities now.
We understand that you may be afraid, changing you business model for a disruptive business model may seem counter productive because they are no longer scalable.
We also understand that you may be afraid to enter a completely unknown process and that you understand today that your model no longer works.
We understand that to face this transformation, we will have to put aside the past.
Not all companies are ready for this transformation. At best, those who wish to stay on a old models can adapt by taking into account all the tips mentioned in previous emails.
To succeed in your digital transformation, all the above points are essential, but above all, you must make your employees understand the challenges of this transformation so that they understand why you are launching this procedure. Indeed the mentality is the first to change. To succeed, you must always put forward and think DI-GI-TAL.
