Digital transformation is about converting outworn and redundant processes into a technology driven stream of automation
What is Digital Transformation?
In the age of information, news ways of transferring data crop up on a daily basis. Tools that purport to ease your every day working life, with a promise of efficiency. Digital transformation is the generalised term to explain turning outworn and soon to be redundant manual processes combined with the sharing of knowledge, into a technology driven stream of automation.
When we look at digital transformation, the outlining thoughts behind those that are helping others achieve it are broad and sometimes confusing. What is important to remember is the bare bones, or basic structure of digital transformation, lies within the processing of data and the passing on of that data to those who need to see it. Where does the data need to go and to whom?
Paper Converted to Accessible Digital Files
Paper was and in some cases, still is the main channel people communicate with. Email has replaced the majority of cumbersome reporting and daily written interactions between people. With instant messaging and video calls slowly taking over from longer forms of communication.
It is now possible to send sound bites and give commands to your electronic devices, when you need to find something. Need to take a screen shot? Just ask Siri or Google and before you know it, it appears in front of you.
How Does Digital Transformation Work in the Grander Scheme of Things?
As mentioned by James Thurlow-Craig, the Managing Director of Create Designs, assessing the business need and evaluating if the digital processes being thought about are going to increase productivity in the long run, are questions that need to be asked. Many projects, often run over time and budget, due to people being unaware of the work required to transform a digital strategy into a reality. It can be simple things, like creating a CRM that isn’t going to end up in a mess of data, or transforming a current CRM into one that is usable across a business, where reporting on the lead funnel can be simplified.
Digital transformation can take on the role of transferring paper documentation into an internal intranet system, enabling the data to be read and found easily and with limited amount of distraction to the different departments effected. Employe engagement goes hand in hand with digital transformation in the sense of communicating in real-time, collaborating across departments and ensuring compliance within projects and internal systems.
How Can We Start Our Digital Transformation?
Apps abound these days that cover everything from accounting, employee spending, project management, time logging and collaboration between teams. And because you’re using an app on your phone, you can simply ask Siri or Google, as previously mentioned to find whatever it is you need. It does create some confusion though, when people are constantly speaking to their phones, asking for various tasks to be completed.
Artificial Intelligence isn’t going away anytime soon, Although the privacy of a keyboard and written communication that creates a proof of agreement, are still preferred by most. The legality of recording people is a grey area and the law could be broken in doing so, depending on which country you are in.
With All This Technology Surely it’s Easy to Undergo Digital Transformation?
It takes time and time is money, to transform your company into a fully functional digital machine. Many questions need to be asked in regards to privacy, how much AI you want to include in your solution and by the time you have implemented the new solution, it could already be redundant. That’s where scaling comes into play. Platforms that can be scaled should be your first port of call. Cloud based solutions can be expensive, but when they are well-planned out and all efficiencies, such as future proofing, well, as much as you can in this day and age, need to be considered.
Anything that doesn’t include a cloud based option, could be considered redundant. Although, cloud based solutions have their own problems. Namely, you need to be connected to the internet to access the data. A suggestion could be a dual, hybrid system, where your data is stored in the cloud and sensitive or paramount information is stored inside on-premise servers.
Cyber Security and Digital Transformation
Then there’s the question of cyber security, with sensitive information just begging to be hacked and distributed to whoever pays the most. Sometimes the data is leaked for fun, or to harm an organisation’s integrity. Cyber security is a given, when considering how your organisation will proceed with digital transformation, alongside how it will benefit employees in the long run.
Cyber crime is only increasing and the promise of storing sensitive data in the cloud and not having it reach those it shouldn’t, is mostly kept. People forget incidences quickly, moving on to the next piece of news or flicker of technology.
Digital transformation cannot be conducted without the assurance of data integrity. If the data is no good, it’s a waste of time moving it anywhere, let alone into a new, shiny, information system.
What Can We Use Digital Transformation For?
Tracking, logging, collaborating within teams, and the correlation of data, are ways you can transform your processes and gain valuable information. Digital transformation is a way to relay information to those who need to see it. On a larger scale it can be a way to push business to a new level of understanding. One that can drive change and adapt to the ever changing technological landscape.
Need to know why leads are not converting? If a system is transformed correctly, there should be a lovely graph and explanation of the user journey, sparkling on your screen. Human excuses or errors can be downgraded as the data shows the truth of the situation.
This in turn, can push employees to step up their game and transform themselves, into the world of digital. There’s a saying, data doesn’t lie. It does if the human who set up the system misunderstood what was needed, or the user journey turned out to be not as simple as first suspected.
Employee Well Being During Digital Transformation
On the other hand, it can cause stress on employees who are not up to date within the digital sphere, or have upper management requiring them to miraculously come up with x amount of leads per month, now this new system is in place. Moving further into digital is not a magic trick that will suddenly transform your sales into a screen of flashing green lights on a global scale.
Some might say it is humans that need to drive the digital transformation to close the deal and further the internal communication cause. I beg to differ. If a system is set up correctly, automation should ensure that humans aren’t necessary and can go and find another source of capitalism to live from, or step up their game and learn how the system works. It’s all numbers in the end and playing on emotion could be the only differentiating factor in whether your sales escalate to the sought after amount or if they dwindle under the weight of the over saturated digital market.
Historical Learnings Paving the Way for Future Digital Transformation
When we look to the past, we can see how technology has changed in ways our ancestors could never have imagined. From paper based corporations that include many government, logistics and aviation industries, to healthcare and education.
Moving beyond the paper trail into a world where information is available at the touch of a fingertip, we must remember the human element. Within digital transformation, the margin of human error is still apparent, but it is hopefully minimised by automated processes. Data is collected in systems designed for that very purpose, making tasks such as inputing reams of information redundant.
In conclusion, digital transformation could be described as the correlation of data into automated systems of collection. With the output being data sets that are easy to understand and can be transferred to the people who need it.