The concept of companies undergoing some form of a digital transformation isn’t new. Even so, over the past few years, the digital business transformation trend has solidified into a full-fledged force that shows no signs of slowing down. If you offer software, or want to move from hardware to software, the transition can be a challenge to overcome.
Here are a few questions about digital business transformation that every company, including yours, should be asking:
What is a Digital Business Transformation?
A digital business transformation involves traditional industries and businesses leveraging digital technologies to enable the creation of new digital business models. It involves integrating unprecedented levels of data and connectivity into internal processes, products and more. Often, this is accomplished by automating previously manual processes.
Digital business transformations can have a wide-range of impacts across all areas of your organization, including for your revenue, scalability, operational efficiency, and more.
In fact, a recent study listed “growth” as the primary motivator of digital transformation, with “staying competitive” and “increasing operational efficiency” tied for second.
How Important Are Digital Strategies For Your Business?
Digital business transformation also helps companies improve their customer experience, which is a strong indicator of long-term business growth. “We strongly believe that we can make the customer experience easier and simpler while leading to better outcomes through digital technology, and that will continue to drive our market share,” says Neesha Hathi, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at Charles Schwab. “Digital transformation also helps us scale our services while driving down costs for our clients."
Every organization faces the challenge of transformation at some stage of their growth. For software and device vendors, digital business transformation is about driving change to survive the disruptive industry and remain relevant in today’s market, while maintaining a competitive edge and securing future growth opportunities.
Increasing revenue is crucial to any business. Companies who embrace digital transformations give themselves the best chance to hit their targets. Dell EMC’s 2018 survey, which polled 4,000 IT decision makers worldwide, found that companies who have made a successful digital transformation were twice as likely to exceed their revenue goals.
Digital business transformation also helps companies improve their customer experience, which is a strong indicator of long-term business growth. “We strongly believe that we can make the customer experience easier and simpler while leading to better outcomes through digital technology, and that will continue to drive our market share,” says Neesha Hathi, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer at Charles Schwab. “Digital transformation also helps us scale our services while driving down costs for our clients."
Are You Staying Ahead of Your Competition?
Nearly 80 percent of businesses are currently undergoing some form of digital transformation. That includes some of the world’s largest companies, across a wide-range of industries. Making sure that your business is keeping up with market demands and staying ahead of your competition, both current and future, is crucial to your business’ continuity.
Dell’s survey also found that companies who completed a successful digital business transformation were significantly more likely to gain a competitive edge in the market. In fact, companies surveyed were 22x more likely to beat their competition to market with new product releases and services.
“We are in the midst of an era of digital disruption, where customer demands and expectations are changing rapidly,” said Ilan Buganim, Chief Technology and Chief Data Officer, Bank Leumi.
If you aren’t able to anticipate or even keep pace with your competition and the market’s ever-changing demands, you will find yourself outpaced by your competition.
Are You Ready For What The Future Holds?
According to a survey, which interviewed more than 600 senior executives at large organizations worldwide, digital transformation is no longer something that companies can consider optional.
83% of executives surveyed said that they expect to increase their investment in digital technologies in the upcoming year. All survey participants belonged to companies with annual global revenue exceeding $500 million USD—even the biggest companies aren’t free of the pressure to evolve.
Investing in digital transformation is imperative for your success. If you do not embrace this fact, you could be left behind as your customers move to companies that offer the latest in technology. No one you know is using the original iPhone; why would they use software from when it was first released?
Has Your Transformation Already Begun?
This question is the most important one of all. Digital business transformation can require extensive resources and efforts across a company, from the C-suite, to IT, Product Management, and beyond. It requires innovation and the alignment of people, processes and technologies with an organization’s strategy and vision. Driving change requires leaders to focus on many different priorities and capabilities, and obtaining executive sponsorship and investment is key. While this is inevitably a demanding and complicated process, there is no other way to effectively drive change – and the outcome of a successful transformation is invaluable.
Digital Business Evolution:
Evolving your business by adapting digital strategies may not be a new concept, but it has become one of the key indicators of success, in the modern business world.
Many software and hardware vendors are already adopting this approach as they transform their businesses to succeed in today’s evolving digital world. Connecting all aspects of your business and automating as many of your processes as possible are important steps towards a successful digital business transformation.
Automating your software supply chain can lead to significant revenue increases and cost reductions.
We have developed a free Business Value Calculator which, using your actual data, can show you what sort of gains you could see by automating your software supply chain.
If you’re ready to see what you can gain by automating your software supply chain, try the Business Value Calculator now.