New Gold Rush: How to Use Digital Transformation?

Why is digital transformation the most important opportunity of a decade that should not be missed?

The Great is created in times of Great Change. The convergence of the digital and physical worlds has created a new reality. But what is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is about changing business processes, reinventing products and creating new niches. Technology frees us from the limitations and allows us to do unprecedented things in a decentralized world: now we can reinvent taxis like Uber or tourism like booking.com did.

Why even far from IT people should consider digital transformation?

Reason #1. Your success story.

Information is the new oil. Unlike it, though, information is an inexhaustible resource. Entrance fee in the world of information technology has fallen dramatically.

For example, 40 years ago, an employee of a large company had to have access to huge computing engines for a cost of a cast iron bridge to solve a difficult task. With the advent of PCs, we have gained wide access to basic technologies. Only 10 years ago, nobody knew about AI, and now we have learned to build neural networks. Progress has made the technology available, but we still have to learn how to squeeze the maximum out of this “new oil”.

Our time is the beginning of a new “gold rush”. A few years ago, only businesses that processed large amounts of information were exposed to the transformational effect. Now digital technologies have become a driver for the development of the physical world and everyday life, and everyone has a unique opportunity to become not just a participant, but the initiator of these transformations. To be an object of change or a creator is up to you.

Reason #2. Robots will not replace you (probably).

AI, ML, neural networks, digital platforms, open API, blockchain, IoT and other elements of digital technologies appear and are being developed, replacing and, most importantly, improving our familiar things.

For example, the Internet of Things is an opportunity to make all devices intelligent. Whereas previously, in order to give the device intelligence, one had to invest hundreds and thousands of dollars, now it costs tens and hundreds of Russian rubles.

The driving force behind this transformation is customization, and the technology here provides an endless opportunity to adapt to personal needs. We can order original sneakers on the manufacturer’s website, produced completely by machinery. Reduction of costs and cycles is one of the attributes of the technological revolution.

Technologies replace not only things and industrial processes but also human labor. People are automated and replaced by robots, and it is no longer something beyond fiction – it happens today. To stay on board, we need to get updated now and always. So that robots do not take your job – learn to control them.

Reason #3. Practical tools for business development.

Digital transformation is not a sky-high technology or magic but a very specific and understandable tool that is a catalyst for business. Today you have a chance to enter the first wave of innovators – to learn how to implement digital technologies in your own business and scale it up, increase the opportunities of your company and, therefore, your value in it.

Your technology background isn’t important for that. Things are constantly evolving, and a lot of them don’t fit with what you’ve just learned in technology universities – you have to study again. Always. Transformation requires technological skills, as well as particularly valuable soft skills – skills of personal effectiveness – emotional intelligence, psychology, business process modeling. Classical IT education does not provide that.

Summary

The main goals of digital transformation are to increase the speed of decision-making, the variability of processes depending on the needs and preference of the clients, reduce the number of employees involved in the process.

Digitizing existing processes is an expensive and often quite useless task, as all existing problems, defects, and crutches, are automated. It is necessary to shift the center of gravity to the new opportunities that provide a competitive advantage for a company.

For example, instead of automating the work of employees responsible for working with clients, it is necessary to create self-service systems, minimizing the number of mediators between the client and the final service or product.

Creation of digital business processes is connected with fundamental re-engineering and revision of existing restrictions. At the initial stage of reconstruction, it is necessary to choose those areas of the process connected with client experience. For example, how to reduce the time to make credit decisions from a few days to a few minutes, how to reduce the number of employees involved from X to 0, etc.

Another advantage of digitizing business processes is the ability to collect information about customer experience and automatically adapt individual process scenarios to customer expectations.

Author’s Bio

Irina Volkhovskaya

Chief Marketing Officer at ITRate.co.

Skills acquired: brand analysis, social media campaigns, organic search rankings improvement, broad SEO and SMM knowledge, project management skills. Digital marketing guru and a tech geek.