What does digital transformation mean?
Difference between digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation
What is a digital transformation strategy?
Digital transformation strategy framework
Business leaders of the 21st century have to integrate and leverage new technology – now and in the future – and understand the fundamental shift in how businesses operate, how value is delivered to consumers, and what needs to be done to stay relevant in an increasingly competitive digital world. If you are a professional who wants to learn about upcoming technologies and drive digital transformation projects, NUS Business School’s Digital Transformation: Rethink your Business for Growth programme, in collaboration with Great Learning, could be a good fit for you.
What does digital transformation mean?
Digital transformation refers to the adoption of digital technology in all aspects and functions of an organization. Employing digital technology to build new business processes, cultures, and customer experiences (or modify current ones) to satisfy shifting business and market requirements is known as digital transformation. Digital transformation refers to this reinvention of a company in the digital age, realigning business processes with technologically driven systems, in turn causing substantial changes to how companies run and provide value to customers. Check out the free digital transformation course.
Difference between digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation
Digitization refers to the creation of a digital representation of a physical thing or attribute. For example, paper documents have been replaced by pdfs and manual weighing scales with digital ones. The movement of workplaces from analog to digital, from paper-based processes to computer-based data, can be termed the digitization of these spaces.
Digitalization is the process of leveraging the digitalized data to drive results and perform actions like generating revenue, among others. Digitalization isn’t much about changing business models or creating new businesses; it is about getting the same business to work faster with better accessibility to data.
Now that we have firmly planted ourselves in the digital age, we can now talk about digital transformation. One way to look at it is that digital transformation is really just business transformation enabled by digitalization. In contrast with the rest, digital transformation alters how business is conducted and, in some situations, introduces completely new classes of businesses.
What is a digital transformation strategy?
A business’s plan of action or an outline of processes for utilizing emerging technologies to their fullest potential is called a digital transformation strategy. Adapting to changing consumer needs could involve modifying business models, developing new value chains, and innovating goods and services. The strategy employed for repositioning an organization in the digital economy is essentially a digital transformation strategy.
Organizations must be prepared for accelerating digital adoption, increasing business agility, and the growing importance of all types of data and information to benefit from new technologies. The ability to create a digital transformation strategy and create connections between several fields—including those connected to information, data, processes, technologies, human factors, and much more—is crucial.
Digital transformation strategy framework
There are many different frameworks that you can incorporate into your business. You can also take inspiration from frameworks that are already working wonders from companies like Microsoft, Disney, IKEA, and so on. Digital transformation for one organization may be very different from another’s due to its own unique set of challenges and demands. However, researching existing frameworks and organisations will provide unique insights and help you decide what works best for your organization.
There are, however, some common things you should look out for:
Culture
Every transformation comes with its set of challenges and changes. Resistance to such change can be anticipated. As these strategies are implemented, it is bound to affect your employees and the processes they follow to get tasks done. Clients and employees may be reluctant to go head-on into this cultural shift. Effective communication can play a great role in repositioning mindsets and preparing the workforce for this shift. It is also essential that enough time be given for this change.
Technology
Incorporating new technologies is expensive and time-consuming. The digital transformation framework should be drafted mindfully, keeping the end goals in consideration to avoid making mistakes. It is also important to understand the capabilities and threats posed by these technologies
Data
You can find business problems and pain points with the help of data integration and analysis. When developing transformation initiatives, people frequently choose their favored technology before examining their data. This is incorrect. Without data analysis, you may be aware of the loopholes that your internal team needs to close, but you might not be aware of the ones that regularly affect your customers.
Leadership
You may digitize or digitalize your business with the right tools and a simple strategy, but digital transformation calls for the right mindset and direction. Hence, the first and most important element of a successful digital transformation strategy is strategy linked with the appropriate leadership.
Process optimization
As you create your digital transformation strategy, keep business process optimization in mind. The plan must guarantee business process optimization while achieving the objectives established for both the internal team and the target audience. The digital transformation strategy must include every connected business process in order to maximize output.
Teams
Since digital transformation is such a big task, it is best to have a staff that is solely focused on it. The digital transformation team will help the business embrace new operating models and navigate the digitization process. The transformation team may be made up of internal staff members or external consultants. With this core team, the rest can be restructured and grouped as per the needs. Your research and methodologies will influence the team structure, and at the end of the day, digital transformation is not only about the tools but about people too.
