We’ll discover why digital transformation matters, what digital transformation services and technologies are, and how to avoid common pitfalls.
Nowadays, almost every company faces the challenge of digital transformation. Digital transformation refers to reimagining how you run your business and how you engage with your customers.
This transformation represents one of the greatest risks and at the same time, the greatest opportunities companies face. While true digital transformation isn’t just about technology – it is also a change of mindset that may challenge the traditions on which the brand was built – a digital experience platform and related services are essential to successful transformation projects.
What Is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is a complete change in the forms, appearance, and way a company uses digital technology. This rethinking and re-creating business is digital transformation.
One example of digital transformation is automatic personalized product recommendations based on users’ interests, behavior, or purchase history. You probably interact with these every day. Amazon puts them all over, from your homepage to your shopping cart, and Spotify knows if you’re more likely to enjoy Tame Impala or The Doors.
Another example of the power of digital transformation is moving from manual to digitized movie production. Imagine how the company would be doing if they still used the pencil-and-paper process?
The digital transformation roadmap is unique in every company, but some common threads include:
- Data is the lifeblood of any company. It helps identify what’s working and make smart decisions about where to put the budget. The first step to any digital journey is to consolidate data and use it to make informed decisions that drive true change.
- Personalization generates new experiences that resonate with customers and underlie successful digital transformation strategies. The more relevant the better. Each company needs to decide how best to implement personalization for their unique circumstances. Blindly following a universal approach can lead to failure.
- Memorable experiences tailored to the audience’s needs require creating high-quality content on a regular basis. Marketing automation and artificial intelligence can help automate many of the time-consuming and repetitive tasks that machines are good at, freeing up more of marketers’ time to focus on the creative and strategic sides of their profession.
Successful Digital Transformation Examples
Take a quick look at how companies that mastered digital transformation approached the process and discover what their results are.
Domino’s Pizza
Combining survey feedback and leveraging digital technology has allowed Domino’s to become the largest pizza company in the world. So it is no surprise that today four-fifths of Domino’s sales come from digital channels.
To achieve what they are today, Domino’s completely redefined the entire spirit of the company, transforming it from a fast-food restaurant into a company filled with programmers, digital marketers, and other technical staff. The entire corporate structure was also overhauled and the focus has shifted towards digital sales and advertising.
Currently, pizza can be ordered from:
- Slack
- Facebook Messenger
- the Company’s mobile app
- on Twitter with the use of emojis
- Google Assistant & Alexa, Smart TVs.
These strategies allow the user experience to be more seamless and interactive.
Ikea
Conscious of the need to create new customer touchpoints as well as customize the old ones, Ikea has totally renovated and enhanced its mobile application. Launched in the U.S. in early 2021, this new universal app was intended to serve as a virtual assistant when working in a store. In addition to shopping at home for delivery and pick up, customers can use the app to “shop & go” – meaning they can scan and pay for goods while shopping, bypassing the checkout line.
Nike
Nike is responding to the Covid-19 by leveraging its digital resources to make the customer experience more seamless online and through apps, strengthen its digital ecosystem and increase sales. Besides that, the company deployed many digital contents and platforms for free. Their digital efforts resulted in significantly increased sales and a boost in revenue accordingly.
Step-By-Step Digital Transformation Process Instructions
To go digital or not to go digital is not a question anymore – digital transformation is essential for companies catering to maintain a competitive edge. The question is HOW. How to successfully transform your business, while also overcoming the challenges of digitization?
Here’s a step-by-step process instruction:
Analysis
Analysis helps you identify opportunities to enhance your digital workplace. Everything you need to do is focused on aligning your technology with your overarching business strategy and goals. This is a key to successful digital adoption.
Strategy Development
Get to know the “driving forces” behind digital transformation and check how applicable they are to your business. The next step is to develop and describe your new business model.
Implementation
That’s where you sort and prioritize the planned activities. Above all, you determine who will be the digitalization agent and who they will work with.
How To Avoid Common Pitfalls
Here are the most common digital transformation mistakes you need to avoid unlocking real digital value:
Unclear goals
Vague end-goals are one of the reasons why digital transformation fails. Digital transformation leaders must focus on SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Lack of expert assistance
Lack of experience can lead to initially displaced goals, lack of a clear strategy, risk management and adequate resources. Often, a large number of these mistakes lead to the failure of the entire process.
There is no need to be a guru in digitalization. But to make the digital transformation process successful, companies without any experience have to turn to third-party resources.
And while the co-workers carry out day-to-day tasks, the external partners can help with:
- Identifying opportunities
- Defining the solution
- Developing iteratively
- Automating and managing
It is worth partnering with strategists and innovators and hiring experienced professionals and technical experts. These people can work together with an internal team to ensure successful digital transformation.
Start Digitization Right Now
Digital transformation is about much more than technology. You are transforming your business: you enhance business processes, create new – or change existing – culture, and make customer experiences more seamless to stay competitive and listen to the voice of the consumer.
That’s where Grid Dynamics comes in. Digital Transformation services by Grid Dynamics take your business in the digital direction. From collecting data about business processes to implementing chosen technology – their experts can be of help. Along with that, the organization helps its customers achieve comprehensive agility using cloud services, continuous delivery, process automation, and decision sciences.
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