Digital Marketing Expert, Sravan Kumar V, tells us why a Digital Transformation is more important today than ever before.
Over the past two years, we all might have come across this meme at least once. It summed up the digital transformation that occurred across all industries and sectors alike pretty well.
A report by Siemens on the state of digitalisation in GCC business states that while business leaders are excited by digital transformation, they lag behind when it comes to implementation.
With things slowly going back to normal, let’s look at the reasons why a digital transformation is more important now than ever before to stay competitive.
Defining Digital Transformation
Before the pre-pandemic era, experts from the technology industry observed that many companies lack an accurate understanding of digital. However, the past two years have changed many notions in harnessing digitalisation, but still, many companies believe that the transformation is limited to the implementation of technology and improving the quality of customer service.
Though the ‘harnessing the power of technology’ part is true, digitalisation is not limited to solving problems and providing a quality customer experience, rather it is a process of integrating digital technology into different areas of a business which fundamentally changes how a business operates and delivers value to customers and employees alike.
WHY YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON A DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Change in Consumer Behaviour
The pandemic and the lockdown had a profound impact on how people lived, particularly impacting consumer buying behaviour with many switching to online purchases.
Research by Go Group Digital analysed that around 24 percent of consumers will increase their long-term use of Digital channels. Meanwhile, a report by Mckinsey states “the new consumer behaviours span all areas of life, from how we work to how we shop to how we entertain ourselves.”
These behavioural changes will reshape consumer decision journeys and companies will need to adapt fast to stay competitive.
Enhanced Customer Experience
As per the ‘Winners and losers in the digital economy’ Havard Business Review survey, 40 percent of respondents said that customer experience is the top priority for digital transformation. With customers gaining control over the way companies deliver experiences and since every customer experience impacts the overall perception of a brand, digital transformation that focuses on customer relationships and experiences is the key to a successful organisation.
Data-Driven Insights
Data is considered to be the new gold and going forward data collection and analysis will become the basis of all future service offerings and business models. Digital transformation will enable the use of both structured and unstructured data to generate highly personalised and relevant insights.
Most companies have experienced the advantages of data-driven decision-making already when it comes to marketing. The real-world data generated by digital ad campaigns enabled companies to optimise campaigns and achieve the set objectives and results.
Improve Employee Experience
In today’s world, an employee experience is as important as customer experience and the digital transformation can be spearheaded by an employee-first approach.
According to research from MIT’s Center for Information Systems Research, it has found that a good employee experience can achieve twice the customer satisfaction and innovation and generate 25 percent higher profits.
Overall, it’s time for companies to articulate a corporate strategy for the digital age - evaluate its positive affects and on how they want to implement and closely integrate digital ambitions with their overall business goals.
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Sravan Kumar.V is a Digital Marketing expert and a passionate marketer.
Find Sravan.V on LinkedIn
