Digital Transformation has become more of a focus area for businesses, owing to it’s rising popularity for organisations looking towards technology as a core way to grow. In fact, according to the latest research by Statista, global spending on Digital Transformation technologies has gone up by almost 40% in the last 4 years, with projections forecasting this to double again in the coming 4 years.
Despite the growing focus and importance, for many businesses, it is still unclear exactly what “Digital Transformation” means and how can they drive it as part of their core strategies.
So what exactly is Digital Transformation? Well, simply put, it's the integration of digital technologies in all areas of a business in order to improve operations, delivering more value and better service to customers.
Digital Transformation shouldn't just sit with marketing or sales or operations, it transcends the entire business, using digital technology innovations to deliver efficiencies, better ways of working and most importantly, a better experience for your end users.
Transforming your business digitally can begin with something as simple as moving from printed worksheets to online spreadsheets, to going as far as integrating the latest AI technologies to deliver better automated, real-time service offerings to customers, and everything in-between.
Creating a transformative digital strategy could help secure your business success for the future.
The concept of using digital technologies to improve your business can sound fantastic in theory but unless you have properly assessed your needs and issues as a business, stumbling blocks can easily appear, especially if you start wildly integrating new technologies without having a robust technology strategy. For all the good that technology has to offer, it can cost a lot of money and time to integrate and without proper planning it can end up feeling like a step backwards.
To avoid this, the starting point for Digital Transformation should be understanding where the biggest potential improvements could be made; by looking at all areas of the business and drilling down into the current processes, costs and operating systems etc. you should be able to better plan out an effective transformation strategy.
A good starting point can be asking yourself simple questions such as; “What are the services that matter most to our business?”, “What are the biggest pain points with our internal systems?” and “What are our customers biggest frustrations with our service?”.
Being able to answer these questions can help focus your strategy on the areas that will have the biggest impact - but in order to answer these, you need data!
“The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data” - this is the view of The Economist and countless others in the modern digitally driven world. We know the importance that tech giants (Such as Google, Microsoft and AWS), put on data, and every business should have it at the heart of their strategy.
All businesses have the potential to collect so much rich, informative data, both from their internal workings and external customer interactions. This could be everything from employee time logging data for completing tasks, right through to website performance data or customer satisfaction survey data. Data is everywhere you look within your organisation!
All businesses have the potential to collect information on hundreds if not thousands of data points. This rich data can then be the driving force to answer those Digital Transformation questions, allowing you to focus your strategy based on data-driven decisions. This is where a Business Analyst can be key for reaching your technology goals.
With so much potential data to collect, analyse and interpret, Digital Transformation strategies can often fall down. The issue is, no one within the organisation has the time or knowledge to undertake these data-driven tasks and conduct detailed business analysis.
A Business Analyst is someone who can help analyse processes, internal systems and customer data etc. and a business’s current level of integration with technology. Their main aim is to help guide the organisation in improving all areas of the business through data analytics.
We would recommend using a Business Analyst to lead your Digital Transformation strategy. Not only can they objectively assess the business data, but they’ll also be able to assess competitor activity, the latest technology transformation solutions in the market and really help define the level of digital improvement that is needed.
Your BA should come in and as a starting point get to grips with understanding the entire business, top to bottom. They should be given access to all the available data within the business but also have the opportunity to collect more data if needed. Once they understand the business and the data, they should be able to help you identify areas that could be improved, and more importantly, help pick the digital technologies to do the job.
From there, it would be with them to help onboard, implement and review new technologies and report back on the successes and failures. Having this focal point within the business could be the key to getting the most out of your Digital Transformation strategy.
At 3Gi we understand how important Digital Transformation is for your business. If you would like to discuss how we could help you with your transformation needs or recruiting a Business Analyst, then get in touch with our expert team today.