Customer-Centric Digital Transformation: A Strategic Guide for Future-Ready Enterprises
The world is going digital, transforming how we work and play. Everything will change over the next few years — but it’s not just about technology. The pace of change in business today means that almost everything — from how we structure our organizations to how we engage with customers — has been transformed fundamentally by technology.
This transformation isn’t limited to the way companies operate internally. The fundamental aim of digital transformation is to deliver greater value for customers in a changing marketplace, where competition can come from anywhere around the world.
Organizations are increasingly using technology to respond faster and improve the customer experience, both in-person and online. This is being led by the expanding adoption of cloud-based systems that are providing a foundation for digital transformation.
Organizations are also exploring digital tools to transform their business and operating models, creating new ways to structure themselves and drive innovation. The modern enterprise’s future growth prospects and competitiveness are inextricably linked to its ability to identify and grab the opportunities emerging from digital transformation.
The adoption of digital technologies has sped up, with companies accelerating their efforts due to the fear of being outflanked by rivals. According to McKinsey, the pandemic has accelerated the pace of business. Businesses will need to incorporate technology capabilities in their COVID-19 exit strategies if they’re to stay competitive.
Deloitte research has found that greater digital maturity is directly linked to improved financial performance. Companies that will be slow to embrace digital transformation will struggle to survive. It is this instinct to survive and thrive that’s driving the uptake of digital transformation initiatives. In Canada, more companies are embracing digital transformation, with spending in this space growing at an annual rate of 7%.
Critical Areas of Digital Transformation
Using digital transformation to reimagine the art of doing business in the digital age gives organizations the tools they need to stay competitive and address changing market demands.
This sort of transformation goes well beyond traditional job titles and roles such as customer service, sales, and marketing. It focuses on how a business thinks about and interacts with its customers. If your organization is considering a digital transformation project, there are four major areas and success factors you should consider:
- Mindset — The spirit of a business is what makes digital transformation possible; therefore, your change management program must be successful as the rallying cry for your company.
- Current risk vs. future performance — The success of your digital transformation will be determined by your company’s capacity to build an execution strategy that balances risk against present performance while also anticipating future change. It entails carefully planning out how to demonstrate value incrementally while continuing with your current operations.
- Architecting for infinite business models — You should build your technology so that you may quickly pivot as the market evolves. If you design your digital transformation for an endless number of business models, you can protect your business against new competition and any market changes.
- Governance — You’ll need governance to ensure that your most important activities are delivering value. There is a natural inclination to complete thousands of activities, but you must resist — very strongly — the urge to do so. Instead, focus on the top levers that will have a notable impact on your business.
Digital Transformation Begins and Ends with the Customer
A business can’t be successful without customers. Today, more than ever, customers demand a seamless experience while engaging with your brand, no matter the channel or platform they engage on. To succeed in digital transformation, you must understand how each customer segment engages with your organization and what motivates them to purchase your products and services.
Different customer segments engage with a company in different ways depending on their wants and needs. With this insight into their behavior from digital channels, corporations can build strong relationships with customers, leading to higher retention rates and trust.
For businesses to thrive in today’s competitive market, they must deliver personalized experiences at every touchpoint of engagement throughout all stages of the customer lifecycle — both online and offline. Create a unique experience that can be leveraged across channels to build stronger relationships with existing, lapsed, and new customers alike.
Businesses must move away from physical products to embrace experiences that deliver value through activities rather than things. Digital transformation will help you create a more engaging experience that improves customer satisfaction and loyalty rates over time. Along the way, it will introduce new ways to attract and retain customers by leveraging data insights to build deeper connections with them based on their specific wants, needs, preferences, etc.
Digital Transformation Focuses on Goals Rather than Technologies
While it’s essential to have the best technology platform possible to achieve digital transformation success, choosing technologies isn’t setting goals for your organization. If you want to invest in the right digital transformation initiatives, focus on what these projects can accomplish rather than the technologies you plan to implement.
Digital transformation should focus on results rather than specific technologies, such as blockchain or machine learning. Organizations need to consider what they need out of these technologies before deciding whether or not they should align themselves with them. For example, an organization may use blockchain technology simply to improve internal operations since it helps remove the need for manual processes.
On the other hand, another company may use blockchain technology to create applications that it can share with its customers to provide an experience they will love. The main goal of digital transformation is to make everything you do more effective and efficient. Analyzing what problems each technology can solve within your organization could help you decide whether or not it’s worth investing in certain areas of digital transformation.
Simply put, businesses need to start thinking more like enterprises rather than like vendors because they need to focus on providing value for customers while embracing technology that enables them to do so.
Design Thinking for Collaborative Problem Solving
Digital transformation requires a holistic approach. Businesses need to look at everything from the perspective of the customer. To achieve digital transformation success, you need to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and envision what they need to succeed. Your company should invest in design thinking within its internal teams and strategic partnerships with other companies.
Businesses must think about how a partnership will impact their end-customer before entering into anything that could potentially slow down or harm that relationship. They must incorporate design thinking into how they price, build, and deploy lifecycle management, leveraging it to solve problems in more collaborative ways.
Digital transformation relies heavily on user experience because people will choose brands that consistently provide great experiences over time, even if those brands have higher prices. Striking a balance between understanding what your customers want and what your organization can provide is key to achieving digital transformation success.
Conclusion
While specific technologies can help your organization improve in various ways across different stages of your processes, you should begin focusing on the goals you want to achieve when it comes to digital transformation. This will make it easier for you to identify which technologies are best suited for your specific plan.
The goal should be to use intelligent engines to streamline internal business processes and improve customer experience. If you are willing to put yourself in the shoes of your customers, then you should also be willing to do whatever it takes to exceed their expectations across all touchpoints.
