Businesses are constantly evolving, but what does it mean for one to transform? Within the evolving technological landscape, businesses are undergoing digital transformations to better their efficiency and competitiveness in the marketplace. Digital transformation refers to the leveraging of modern, cloud-based technologies to transform a company’s work and IT environments for the betterment of that business. And contrary to popular belief, these transformations do not end with the implementation of new technology. Rather, they provide continued opportunities for businesses to operate better, collaborate more, and expand.
Digital transformation changes the way your company conducts business. With the implementation of modern data insights platforms, comes improved data collection and centralized dashboards where business analytics can be easily consumed. Businesses can then utilize this data to improve and support various initiatives, including product development, marketing, and customer services. For IT leaders, there will be an increase in actionable, real-time analytics which can improve response effectiveness and increase end-user satisfaction. Through the application of analytics, IT professionals, marketing executives and other business leaders can efficiently drive business decisions, placing more powerful and intuitive tools into the hands of business owners.
With the ever-increasing rise of data breaches, data protection is of the utmost importance for many companies beginning the digital transformation process. While some may have reservations about the cloud, the top public cloud providers are held accountable to provide strong security, privacy, and governance features, making it an essential component of any digital transformation. At the end of the day, data security is ultimately the final responsibility of the business. With the modern technology safeguards that are available to protect both on-premises and cloud environments, organizations have no excuse when it comes to safeguarding their data. Increased security posture is often one of the most important outcomes of a successful digital transformation, allowing businesses to easily secure their devices and back up their data should any security disasters occur.
If your business is weighed-down with overly complicated procedures and processes, you’re far from alone. A major benefit of any digital transformation, is the streamlining of existing processes to support newer, more efficient business capabilities. For the sake of employee adaptability, it is also important to build these new processes around a defined purpose. Without which, new technology can appear superfluous or forced, and may not engage users effectively.
A primary focus of digital transformation is to invest in the technology that will better your business. Many organizations find themselves retiring or reinvesting in legacy applications, as new business demands arise. By trading legacy systems for scalable, cloud-based technological solutions, your business is supporting a modern workplace experience, more in line with the expectations of a technologically-driven workforce. Similarly, spending less capital on maintaining old hardware or outdated systems frees that portion of the budget to reinvest in customer-facing initiatives. Reinventing and reinvesting creates a modern workplace because it helps the business meet customer demands more efficiently, reduce time to market, and maintain better customer service standards.
New technology facilitates collaboration within a company’s workforce. This is often a central component of successful digital transformations: leveraging programs that enable and enrich employee collaboration from anywhere, on any secured device. Allowing employees to work in this manner, allows for collaboration beyond traditional face-to-face interaction and e-mail, and also reduces cumbersome tasks that impede productivity. New, dynamic experiences such as cloud-based file sharing, or internal team project sites, will create a productive and collaborative workforce.
Modern, cloud-based technology platforms improve an organization’s all-around efficiency and uptime. These platforms minimize disruptions of day-to-day productivity of all employees, but also free up IT staff to focus on high priority projects. Imagine if your IT leaders could spend less time responding to end user requests for password resets or email issues, and more time on initiatives that can help move your company forward? Employees also become more productive as they garner new competencies around modern application capabilities. The key to maximizing these digital transformation benefits is ensuring that all employees are properly trained on any new business applications and their full usage.
Whether your business is driven to digital transformation by inefficient technology, marketplace competition, or the drive to modernize, it is crucial to maximize your return on investment. From powerful business insights to increased productivity, there are many exciting opportunities awaiting your company, through digital transformation. For more information, reach out to iCorps for a free IT consultation.